Christian Datoc writes for the Washington Examiner about the latest twist in the president’s quest for re-election.

Progressives helped lift President Joe Biden to the presidency in 2020, and he’s going for broke in recent days trying to shore up his support among that segment of the Democratic Party in the final months of the 2024 election.

The president has spent all of July working to reassure Democrats he remains fit enough to perform the duties of office, including after testing positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, but those outreach efforts have coincided with a number of official policy decisions catered directly to progressives.

Multiple veteran Democratic operatives and the Biden campaign itself disputed the idea that the president is extending olive branches to progressives, arguing instead that Biden has remained constant on these issues since the 2020 campaign.

“Politically, President Biden isn’t the same man he was during his time in the Senate or vice presidency,” one Democratic strategist with insight into Biden’s campaign told the Washington Examiner. “What you’re describing to me is someone who listens to what his voters want, someone who, because of MAGA Republican obstruction, is outlining his plan for accomplishing things he couldn’t get done in his first term. That’s Joe Biden.”

On Tuesday, the White House announced proposed 5% rent caps for corporate landlords with at least 50 properties in their portfolios, lest they lose out on lucrative federal tax breaks. Progressives have repeatedly called on Biden to do more to address skyrocketing rent prices in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and recent polling shows that housing costs have grown into an increasingly important election issue for voters of all stripes.

Later that day, news broke that Biden is contemplating two major reforms to the Supreme Court: establishing term limits for all justices and installing a new, enforceable code of ethics. Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has spent most of his time in the White House resisting calls from progressives to reform the nation’s highest court.