Biden adviser-turned-ambassador opens up on ‘scary’ 2024 polling

OTTAWA, Ont. — President Joe Biden’s envoy in Ottawa confided to a crowd of Canadians that fresh polling in key swing states is "sobering and scary."

A New York Times/Siena survey published Sunday gave former President Donald Trump an edge in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Biden led only in Wisconsin. Combining the data from all six states, Trump led Biden 48 percent to 44 percent.

“For people in Canada or the United States who are concerned or troubled by a prospective second term for Donald Trump, those polling results are sobering and scary,” U.S. Ambassador David Cohen told a conference of manufacturers and exporters in Canada’s capital on Tuesday.

The comments represented an unusual swerve into domestic U.S. politics by a sitting ambassador and a striking admission of Biden’s vulnerability by one of his most loyal political allies. The White House and Biden campaign have spent much of the past few days working to calm the nerves of Democrats after the latest wave of grim polling on the 2024 election.

“I am certainly not looking at the current state of play and saying, ‘Oh, my God, it's all over. There's no way Joe Biden can get re-elected,’” Cohen added. “Anyone who has that attitude is probably making a big mistake.”

At least 60 percent of the voters in each state polled in the Times/Siena survey said the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Cohen said he was worried to see voters’ views on “issues of concern” in the poll, which “strongly favor” a potential Trump candidacy.

Cohen, a “wonk rock star” in Washington and a key Democratic fundraiser, is a long-time friend of the president. He hosted a fundraiser for Biden on his first official day as a presidential candidate in April 2019.

He has been Biden’s point person in Ottawa since December 2021.

Cohen acknowledged Tuesday that his embassy team reminds him constantly that he’s no longer in the political business.

“I’m the U.S. ambassador, I’m not a political consultant,” he told the business crowd.

But when asked a political question, he said, “I sort of can’t control myself … Since you've opened the door by asking me a question, I figure it'd be rude of me not to say something.”

Cohen’s message for Democrats: Don't freak out.

“I’ve known the president for more than 30 years. He's not capable of panicking,” Cohen said.

“For me, it is more laying out a roadmap of the work that needs to be done over the next year, than causing anyone to push the panic button,” he said.

Off-year elections in nearly 40 states on Tuesday offered Democrats reason to celebrate, though it's unclear how much credit Biden himself deserves.

Speaking before those results were known, Cohen told listeners not to underestimate Biden.

“He has been declared dead or irrelevant more times than any elected official just in his presidency,” Cohen said.

The ambassador told Canadians that a year in U.S. politics “is longer than an eternity.” He said Biden wasn't a favorite to win the Democratic nomination at the same point in the 2020 election cycle.

Cohen also pointed to an "unprecedented time of disruption in politics," name-checking the U.S., Western Europe and Argentina, though not Canada.

"A variety of countries are facing tremendous disruptions with significant outsized influence by populist, usually very conservative movements — they're movements more than they are parties — that are very disruptive to the political process," he said.

During his first year on the job, Cohen told POLITICO he considered it his top priority to repair the Canada-U.S. relationship after four years of Trump.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked the question, on or off the record, of — just where does Canada stand with the United States?” he said in an interview.

“There’s a thirst for a restoration of the full friendship and full partnership and full ally-ship. … And I’ve sort of grafted that onto my job.”

The ambassador took time Tuesday to affirm Biden’s commitment to organized labor in the aftermath of a spate of high-profile strikes on both sides of the border.

“Unions mean there is democracy. The United States is committed to getting the conversation on unions right,” he said.

The ambassador credited Canada's labor minister, Seamus O'Regan, for his work in resolving a railway strike in 2022, a British Columbia ports strike this past summer and a St. Lawrence Seaway strike in October. He also credited Detroit's big three automakers with inking new collective agreements with separate unions — Unifor and the UAW — in both countries.

Cohen insisted a continental commitment to reliable supply chains should never threaten workers' collective bargaining rights.

This reporting first appeared in POLITICO’s Ottawa Playbook. Subscribe here.