WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden is not on the ballot this fall.
But at least three prominent members of his administration will be, representing the Democratic Party in a trio of governor's races that may test the resilience of the Biden brand two years after he left the White House under a cloud of disapproval.
Two Biden Cabinet members — former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland of New Mexico and former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier
Becerra of California — advanced to the general election ballot for governor in their states this week. They joined Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former senior adviser, who secured the Democratic nomination in Georgia's governor's race last month.
Their rise comes as a bitter feud erupts among Biden's allies, including some who worked in the White House, about the Biden family's reemergence in the public spotlight just five months before the high-stakes midterm elections. Hunter Biden is mixing it up with admirers and critics on social media, while Jill Biden is rehashing the tortured saga of the last presidential race in a new memoir. Biden himself has his own book coming out later this year.
As candidates shift toward the general election phase of the midterms, it's unclear whether the Biden connections will help or hurt the Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls come November.
“I will put my experience to work for the people of our state,” Haaland told cheering supporters this week as she accepted her party's nomination.
She did not, however, mention Biden’s name as she ticked through her experience as a single mother, her time in Congress and her leadership of the Interior Department.
One former Biden White House aide, Rodericka Applewhaite, suggested that some Democrats on the ballot this fall were intentionally avoiding asking the former president to help with their campaigns.
Applewhaite is among the Democratic operatives publicly criticizing the Biden's public reemergence in recent days — especially Jill Biden's book tour.
“The Bidens are burning a lot of good will that they built up over a very long time in what seems to be days," she said, offering the former president and his family a pointed suggestion. "Step aside and let us have the battles that we need to have today.”
On the ground in California, Georgia and New Mexico, Biden alumni are navigating their Biden connection in different ways.
Haaland and Becerra are eager to focus on President Donald Trump in their campaign materials, but neither referenced Biden in their primary night speeches to supporters. Nor does either cite Biden’s name in the biographies listed on their official campaign websites.
Biden did not issue a public endorsement in the New Mexico or California contests ahead of Tuesday’s contests either. Democrats have focused on hammering Republicans over Trump's time in office.
“It’s laughable that Republicans have become so desperate to avoid talking about Donald Trump that they are now trying to go after our candidates for advocating for their states and getting results when they served in the executive branch," said Kevin Donohue, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association. Democrats, he said, “are focused on affordability” while “Republicans are all in on Trump’s cost-raising agenda.”
That hasn't stopped Republicans from highlighting both candidates' old boss.
In fact, Republicans are actively planning to highlight Democrats' ties to the Biden administration as a weakness in the weeks ahead, according to Kollin Crompton of the Republican Governors Association.
“Deb Haaland turned her back on New Mexico to push Biden’s failed policies and the Green New Scam. New Mexico deserves a leader, not a career politician who forgot where she came from,” Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, who chairs the campaign organization, said in a statement.
Georgia is another story.
Lance Bottoms points to her work with Biden on her campaign website. She asked for, and received, Biden's formal endorsement just ahead of Georgia's primary, which she shared widely on her campaign's social media platforms. She also said she'd invite the former president to campaign with her this fall. “As I am moving around this state, people are missing Joe Biden more and more each day," she told CNN.
Bottoms was the first of two candidates Biden endorsed since leaving office, and he called her with congratulations after her primary victory on May 19.
But even Bottoms has not highlighted her time in the administration on the campaign trail. Her stump speech regularly mentions her time serving as Atlanta's mayor and career as a prosecutor but quickly pivots to issues like affordability and the Trump administration's agenda.
“I spoke with him this morning, so he called to congratulate me,” Bottoms said of Biden after her primary win. But then she immediately pivoted. “At the end of the day, we all want the same things. We want to live in great neighborhoods, we want great schools, we want access to health care.”
Americans had a dimmer view of Biden's presidency when he left office than they did at the end of Trump’s first term or Barack Obama’s second, according to The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Around one-quarter of U.S. adults at the time said Biden was a “good” or “great” president, with less than 1 in 10 saying he was “great."
It was a stark illustration of how tarnished Biden’s legacy has become, with many members of his own party seeing his Democratic presidency as merely mediocre.
Americans were similarly likely to describe both Biden and Trump as “poor” or “terrible” — about half said this characterized each president’s time in office — but about 3 in 10 said Biden was “average,” while less than 2 in 10 said this about Trump.
The Biden family has faced fresh scrutiny in recent weeks, sometimes even from former aides.
The former president's son, Hunter Biden, drew criticism for recently appearing on the podcast of far-right conspiracy theorist Candace Owens. He has garnered attention by posting online about his experience with addiction and criticisms of the media.
Former first lady Jill Biden has shocked some Democrats for comments she made as part of a book tour for her memoir, “View from the East Wing," which was released Tuesday. The former first lady said in an interview with CBS News that she was “frightened” by her husband's performance during the infamous debate against Trump. The fallout eventually prompted Biden to drop out.
In the memoir, she writes that Biden’s senior aides “insisted he needed to run” for reelection. Her memoir includes a retelling of her husband’s decision to end his candidacy and the family’s reaction to the former president’s cancer diagnosis last year.
Throughout her book tour, she has faced tough questions about the former president's health and cognitive abilities while in office, as well as her role in pushing him to seek reelection despite widespread public concerns.
The former first lady described it as “heartbreaking” that the Democratic Party abandoned her husband during an interview on ABC’s “The View.”
“That’s why Joe had to decide to get out, because he had lost the support of the Democratic Party,” she said.
Such comments have sparked a fight among allies, especially after former Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates questioned to the New York Post "why that painful conversation for the party needed to be publicly re-opened now."
Jill Biden shot back, “I want to say to Andrew, call me up and say it to my face.”
