A Former Biden Advisor’s Analysis of Why Joe Biden Shifted Left

I’ve read a lot of stories over the past few years explaining why Joe Biden shifted left during his campaign and presidency. These stories capture only part of the truth.

This post is my analysis of why Joe Biden shifted left, based on my experience serving as the national policy director for his winning 2020 presidential campaign (both the primary and the general) and as a senior White House policy advisor for all four years of his presidency. I conclude by offering some lessons learned for aspiring presidents and governors with a center-left agenda.

One note before I start: I don’t love talking about the left versus center of the Democratic party. That language is imperfect and often misused. For example, there are a lot of economic populist policies that people frame as left that are actually centrist. I also have significant worries about the factionalism within the Democratic party. As I’ve written previously, we cannot presume that one faction of the Democratic party holds a monopoly on winning ideas. This is a moment to put all creative ideas on the table and let the American people, not intraparty politics, decide what is common sense. But, lacking a more nuanced language, for the purpose of this post I’m going to talk about how Biden shifted left.

Did Biden actually shift left? Was the shift good or bad?

Before talking about why Biden shifted left, I want to briefly assess the premise of the question. To what extent did Biden shift left and when did the shift happen?

The stories I’ve read on this topic pinpoint two distinct periods when Biden shifted left: 1) during the general campaign, which is unusual because candidates normally shift from the extremes to the center when they move from the primary to the general; and 2) during his presidency.

As to how Biden shifted left, most critiques focus on the increased size (spending level) of the Biden agenda and/or shifts on specific policy issues. It is a fact that the size of the Biden agenda dramatically expanded from the primary to the general.

With respect to particular issues, I’ve seen commentators argue that the Biden Administration shifted left on issues such as racial equity, student debt, LGBTQ+ policies, climate, crime, education, immigration, and health care. In this post, I’m not going to dig into whether I agree that the Biden Administration shifted left on specific issues (if you are interested in me digging into a particular issue in a future post, please let me know in the comment section). For now, I’ll say this: the Biden Administration absolutely shifted left on some of these issues. On other issues, Republicans and conservative media spread misinformation and made it seem like the Biden Administration shifted further left than it did.

I’m not going to dive into the question of whether the shift was good or bad. You probably have a strongly held position on this question, and I don’t want to spend my time trying to convince you to change your mind. I’ll simply say this: the data clearly shows Democrats lost the 2024 election because we lost the voters in the center. I believe the social issues listed above were not decisive factors in the election, but they did have some marginal, negative impact.

Why did Biden shift left during the campaign?

The leading, but inaccurate, theory: the Biden-Sanders unity task force and other concessions to Sanders and Warren

The leading theory I hear regarding why Joe Biden shifted left from the primary to the general is the Biden-Sanders unity task force. This theory is not accurate.

There is a nugget of truth to the fact that Biden made concessions to secure Sanders’ withdrawal from the race. Biden made two substantive concessions to Sanders. First, Biden proposed to lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60. Second, Biden proposed to “forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities for debt-holders earning up to $125,000,” aligning Biden’s student debt plan with his already-proposed college tuition plan. You can read the Medium post announcing these concessions here. These are the only two policy changes Biden conceded to Sanders during the campaign.

As part of the deal around Sanders’s withdrawal from the race, the Biden team also set up the Biden-Sanders unity task force. This task force consisted of Biden and Sanders representatives who developed a set of recommendations for both Biden and the Democratic National Committee platform committee to consider. The Biden team was very clear that Biden had no obligation to accept any of the recommendations. I and others on the Biden team also worked to make sure there were no ideas in the recommendations that were political landmines.

However, the Biden-Sanders task force did not shift Biden or his Administration left. You should think of the Biden-Sanders unity task force documents in the same way you think of the Democratic National Committee platform – interesting insight into the coalition politics of the party, but not relevant to the campaign or governing policy. I was not in any campaign or governing policy conversations where we referred to the Biden-Sanders task force documents for ideas or guidance, just as we never referred to the party platform.

What really happened: new staff and COVID

At essentially the same time as the 2020 election pivoted from the Democratic primary to the general election campaign, the COVID pandemic hit the United States. This reality meant our campaign was simultaneously undergoing two changes. We were hiring staff from other campaigns to build out our team and we were grappling with the implications of a pandemic and economic crisis.

The realities of COVID

By far, the most significant cause of shifts in Biden’s policies from the primary to the general election was COVID – its public health and economic impacts.

The biggest constraint on Biden’s primary campaign policy agenda was Biden’s requirement that he stick to a budget for his proposals. He wanted a fiscally responsible agenda, so I worked with a team of economic advisors to develop a set of revenue-raising policies Biden approved. This list of revenue raisers was itself quite constrained by Biden’s decision to not propose any tax increases for people making less than $400,000 a year. All of Biden’s policy proposals during the primary could not cost more than the sum of the revenue raisers. This budget significantly limited the options for policymaking.

When COVID hit and crashed the economy, Biden suddenly found himself in a world in which he needed to propose economic stimulus. The budget went out the window. Biden proposed much more expansive investments in climate, childcare, elder care, and infrastructure, among other priorities. During this period, many of Biden’s conversations with me and the rest of the economic policy team focused on minimizing the risk of long-term unemployment, which can have a scarring effect that hurts individuals’ earning potential for decades. This focus on minimizing scarring, combined with Biden’s and the team’s excitement about the opportunity to spend more on Biden’s core priorities, led to a much bigger, costlier agenda in the general than Biden proposed in the primary.

New staff

As the Biden 2020 campaign entered the final stretch of the primary and then started the general election campaign, we hired additional staff from other Democratic presidential primary campaigns. During a transition from a primary to a general election, a campaign needs to increase its staff size. Any smart campaign should hire talent from the other campaigns.

On the policy side, we brought in some new staff and expanded our tent of volunteers. During the primary, most of my policy friends and former Obama Administration policy colleagues worked or volunteered for Warren (with a few working for Beto or Booker). When it became clear Biden was going to become the Democratic nominee, some of these individuals called me, apologized for picking another candidate (they didn’t need to apologize—its politics!), and asked if they could help Biden. When it made sense for Biden (smart folks who understood Biden and would let Biden be Biden), I eagerly welcomed them. Biden needed and wanted their talent and his agenda was stronger because of their contributions.

However, some individuals who joined other teams on the Biden campaign simply did not like Biden. I am not saying they did not want him to win. I am saying that they did not want Biden to run and win as Biden. They wanted him to be more like them and their preferred candidate.

During the general, I had some pretty serious substantive clashes with new political and digital strategies aides on the campaign, including at the most senior level. I am sure some of these individuals think I am a centrist hack. From my perspective, I was trying to keep the campaign aligned with Biden’s values and the values chosen by the Democratic primary voters, not my own values. I feel like I won most of these fights, but I did not win all of them.

I want to distinguish here between staff with different views than the candidate and staff who wanted the candidate to be different. I had (and have) some different views than Biden. I’m sure every political staffer does not fully agree with their boss. Staff should be empowered to freely present new evidence or arguments to a candidate to encourage him/her to revise their position to better align with the candidate’s values. But staff go too far when they relentlessly push back against the candidate’s fundamental values and try to unilaterally push policies and messaging that align with the staff’s views, not the candidate’s views.

I don’t mean this critique to be too harsh. The campaign staff who did not want Biden to be Biden were well-intentioned in that they wanted to make the country better. But they were wrong to believe that the Democratic electorate somehow chose incorrectly in the primary and that they – the staff – were wiser than the voters. I was regularly surprised by staff persistently advancing ideas and messaging that they knew did not align with Biden’s values or priorities. This type of advocacy should occur outside of the campaign.

Why did Biden shift left during his presidency?

New staff

The primary explanation for why Biden shifted left during his presidency is that some of the staff in the Biden Administration did not believe in the Biden agenda and wanted to govern on a more left-leaning agenda. They aimed to advance their own agendas, not Biden’s agenda. (The same commentary in the section above, distinguishing between staff with different views from the candidate/president and staff who want the candidate/president to be different, applies here.)

Below are the key factors driving the leftward tilt of the Biden Administration political appointees:

• There were fewer people who believed in the Biden approach than there were jobs in the Administration. On average, Democratic staffers are further left than the Democratic base (and Biden).

• The transition team and the personnel team in the Administration were staffed with many people further left than Biden and their networks were more progressive.

• Left-leaning advocacy organizations had better structures set up to recommend candidates for political appointments.

• Personnel diversity efforts focused on race, gender, and LGBTQ+ status (which are important!), but failed to also extend to demographic characteristics like socioeconomic status, first-generation college graduates, and first/second-generation Americans. These expanded diversity efforts would have brought additional important voices into the Administration.

• Powerful, left-leaning Members of Congress – including but not limited to Warren and Sanders – effectively advocated for their preferred candidates.

The impact of particular factors varied based on the seniority of the role. For junior and mid-level positions, factors one through four were key. For more senior roles, endorsements from Members of Congress (especially Senators) played the biggest role because of the Senate confirmation process and the fact that the White House had to work well with Democrats in Congress to accomplish our legislative ambitions.

A more left-leaning staff does not alone lead to a more left-leaning Administration. The next sections explain why the left-leaning staff had a significant influence in the Biden Administration.

Lack of Biden dogma

There was a bit of a cult of personality around Obama and Trump that just did not exist with Biden outside of the inner-most circle. I appreciated this dynamic, as it is dangerous when staff treat presidents like rock stars. However, the lack of a cult of personality did add to the leftward shift away from core Biden values.

The diffuse power of the executive branch

Thousands of political appointees in the federal government make thousands of decisions every day. The vast majority of these decisions do not reach the White House and even fewer of these decisions reach the president (this is not a Joe Biden quirk; it is the nature of the presidency). The delegation of responsibility means that a president needs political staff across all of the federal departments and agencies to generally understand the president’s agenda (harder when there is not a cult of personality) and view their role as implementing the president’s agenda. A president also needs to select Cabinet officials who have good political instincts and know when to stop bad ideas or elevate decisions to the White House.

Inner circle sometimes struggled to say “no”

When big decisions did come to the White House during the Biden Administration, senior advisors had to pick their battles. The Biden inner circle was, with two exceptions, made up of people who did not love tough conversations or having to say no to members of the Cabinet or other senior White House staff. I know they sometimes approved ideas because they did not want a confrontation. Sometimes they brought issues to Biden to make the final call, but senior advisors could not bring every decision to the President (again, this is not a Joe Biden quirk; it is the nature of the presidency).

Some members of the inner circle were also a bit radicalized during the Trump years and they instinctually were more inclined to support further-left ideas.

Biden’s legislative strategy

The final driver of the Biden Administration’s leftward shift was the extent of Biden’s legislative ambitions while Democrats held the narrowest of margins in both the U.S. House and Senate. With very few, if any, Republicans willing to break ranks and vote for Biden legislation, Biden had to maintain the support of the entire Democratic congressional caucus. Sometimes, maintaining the caucus’s support required policy or personnel concessions.

Conclusion: lessons for aspiring presidents and governors

This analysis provides a few lessons for aspiring governors and presidents who want to make sure their administrations advance their center-left agendas.

· Governors- and presidents-elect should invest some of their limited time in ensuring their transition teams and incoming administration teams understand their values and what motivates their values. These officials don’t need to turn their staff into cult members, but they do need to make sure their staff understand them.

• They should make clear that staff are welcome to bring new evidence and arguments to the table, but the executive makes the decisions. It is the staff’s job to carry out the executive’s agenda. No one voted for the staff.

• They should hire Cabinet members who understand them, have good political instincts, and are good at issue spotting so they know what issues to elevate to the executive.

• They should make sure they have enough people in their inner circle willing to say no and then have the backs of those people when staff complain.

• They should consider in hiring decisions additional factors such as whether someone is a first-generation college graduate or a first/second-generation immigrant. They should aim to hire some staff who have a working-class background in order to make sure the staff better represents the American electorate.

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