For more than a year, a prominent subplot of the coming 2024 election has been the wide chasm in enthusiasm between many Democratic voters on the one hand, and party elites and donors on the other, for president Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Yet a spate of recent stories suggests that chasm may be slightly narrowing.

This isn’t because Democratic voters have come around en masse to Biden running again. Surveys continue to show that his own party’s voters would prefer someone else run in his place, that a large share of them don’t like his handling of the economy or think he’s too old to serve a second term, and that core parts of the Democratic base that put him over the line last year — Africans Americans, Latinos, young people — look like they won’t be turning out in the same numbers next year.

No, that gulf in attitudes is closing because it seems at least some establishment voices are starting to move closer to voters. The most eyebrow-raising example is a piece earlier this week from longtime Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, gently but urgently begging Biden to step aside. After a lengthy preamble heaping praise on the president, lauding his accomplishments, and assuring readers of his admiration for the man, Ignatius confesses that he thinks neither he nor vice president Kamala Harris should run for reelection.