Today, we’re excited to announce the relaunch of The Lever’s flagship podcast Lever Time. In this week’s episode, David Sirota and Senior Podcast Producer Arjun Singh discuss the 2024 presidential election and the Democratic Party’s efforts to prevent a real primary challenge to President Joe Biden.

Since 2008, the Democratic Party leadership has worked to suppress primary challengers and support incumbent politicians. That approach was on full display during the 2024 Democratic primaries, where the DNC worked with state affiliates to ensure that, in some cases, Biden’s two primary challengers didn’t even appear on the ballot.

Given Biden’s consistently low approval ratings and palpable anger over his handling of the war on Gaza, the matter raises troubling questions: Did the party prevent a proper primary because they were afraid of what it could do to Biden? And if so, could their plan to suppress a primary contest backfire and end up hurting Biden in November?

This week on Lever Time, David Sirota and Senior Podcast Producer Arjun Singh unpack Biden’s popularity and look to the 1980 Democratic primary, when Democratic senator Ted Kennedy challenged incumbent president Jimmy Carter.

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