Democrats Are in Chaos: ‘You Can’t Win an Election This Way’

For years, President Biden has deployed a self-deprecating line when confronting a challenging political environment: “Don’t compare me to the Almighty,” he urges. “Compare me to the alternative.”

Democrats are doing just that — and when it comes to winning the election, a growing number of them believe that Mr. Biden is no longer measuring up.

At the White House and on the Biden campaign, senior staff members are increasingly worried that Mr. Biden could lose Virginia, a state that last backed a Republican for president two decades ago and is typically not regarded as a presidential battleground, according to a senior Biden aide who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly about internal assessments.

In Michigan, some Democrats worry that Mr. Biden would not only lose the state in November to former President Donald J. Trump, but could sink candidates down the ballot, from Congress to state legislatures.

And from Connecticut to Colorado to California, long-simmering doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to win are bursting open, revealing a Democratic Party in utter chaos roughly one month before its convention in Chicago is set to begin.

“I’ve never seen a more despondent environment for my party,” former Representative Steve Israel of New York, who served as chair of the House Democratic campaign arm and has been a Biden donor, said on Thursday morning.