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Cornel Wests third-party presidential campaign is stirring up unpleasant flashbacks to 2016 for members of the Democratic Party, some of whom are starting to grow anxious about the effect it could have on President Bidens reelection.

West, a philosopher, Ivy League academic and leftist, recently announced he is newly registered with the Green Party as he seeks to challenge Biden and the eventual Republican nominee for the White House.

Now, some prominent figures supporting Biden, from the head of the Democratic National Committee to veteran campaign hands, are already sounding the alarm about his quixotic White House run.

This is not the time in order to experiment. This is not the time to play around on the margins, warned DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison, a close Biden confidant, over the weekend.

Seven years ago, when Hillary Clinton lost to former President Donald Trump, many in her orbit blamed Green Party nominee Jill Stein as a factor that contributed to her defeat. Heading into 2024, Democrats worry West could emerge as a similar spoiler by earning just enough votes to fracture the coalition Biden needs to win.

In 2016, the Green Party played an outsized role in tipping the election to Donald Trump, wrote David Axelrod, who served as former President Obamas chief strategist, on Twitter last weekend. Now, with Cornel West as their likely nominee, they could easily do it again. Risky business.

The concerns come as Democrats stare down yet another possible race against Trump. After multiple indictments and other potentially consequential legal entanglements, hes polling well ahead of his rivals for the Republican nomination, and Democrats are already preparing for the third consecutive general election with him as their opponent.

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Bidens allies are warning publicly that theres little room for error. If the twice-impeached former president is again his partys nominee, they see a hard and unpredictable fight on the horizon and are calling for loyalty and focus. Wests bid complicates that path to victory, some suggest.

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What we see is a lot of folks who want to be relevant and try to be relevant in these elections and not looking at the big picture, Harrison said, adding, We got to reelect Joe Biden.

While Democrats continue to be haunted by what happened in 2016, there are some notable differences between then and now. Clinton was, in millions of voters minds, a highly flawed candidate with a family history and political track record that made many uncomfortable. Some of those voters in key battleground states found Stein, who ran twice on the Green Party ticket and is now advising West, an appealing alternative.

There was also a widespread assumption at the time that Clinton would beat Trump and that a third-party vote on principle would not make much of a difference.

In 2016, it was clear to me and other organizers that a significant number of voters were unwilling to vote for Hillary Clinton because of her record supporting disastrous wars and were willing to vote Green Party as a protest vote, under the assumption Clinton would win anyway, said Alexander McCoy, a progressive operative and organizer.

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Biden is different for a number of reasons, Democrats say, in part due to his policy considerations during his first term.

I dont think that will happen again to the same scale, McCoy said, because Joe Biden ended the war in Afghanistan and has kept U.S. troops out of new conflicts like Ukraine. A Donald Trump presidency also feels more real to people.

Democrats are just starting to express concerns about West after previously ignoring his newly formed campaign. So far, hes had some defenders. West, a surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2020 and a former Harvard scholar, has been praised by those who share the progressive senators worldview, mostly for the activist-minded spirit he brings and his commitment to leftist ideology.

His allies see his candidacy as a way to show policy distinctions with Biden and to introduce more progressive ideas to the voting public. Still, even some of his admirers acknowledge he could hurt the incumbent president in favor of the GOP.

They just hope that doesnt happen.

Dr. West and his supporters ideas and frustrations deserve to be heard, but hopefully, that doesnt come at the cost of the worst possible candidate winning again because of our antiquated electoral system, said Hassan Martini, executive director of No Dem Left Behind, a progressive group focused on rural voters.

Many of Wests ideas already have a home within our party, and our party winning enough elections is key to making those ideas a reality, he said.

Some progressives close to West want him to agitate Biden further. Theyd like to see him debate the president but concede theres a slim chance of that happening.

Biden risks the same thing that scared the hell out of neoliberals in 2016, said Nina Turner, a staunch progressive and former state senator from Ohio who worked with West on Sanderss last campaign.

The ideas of the progressive left are popular with the majority of the American people, she said, suggesting West has tapped into something Biden has not.

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Progressives indeed helped Biden attract a broad support base in 2020. That included many who werent overly enthusiastic about his candidacy but showed up out of fear or anger toward Trump. Now, some Democrats say they could entertain voting for other choices this time around, and that West could prove to be a dark horse.

One Democratic campaign strategist said Biden should include West in conversations about the direction of the party as a way to keep him and fellow progressives on board.

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Get them in a fing room and ask what they want and include it in the platform, the strategist said, adding progressives love Wests run. I think theyll be happy if he moves Biden[s] rhetoric left.

West did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Its still very early in the cycle, but a sizable number of voters 44 percent are willing to contemplate a third-party presidential candidate, according to an NBC Newspollreleased in late June.

Theres also a considerable lack of appetite for a redo of the last election. A CNN/SSRSsurveyalso taken last month found 31 percent of voters polled did not want either Trump or Biden to be their respective partys nominee.

We are confident that the Democratic Party best serves Dr. Wests agenda, said Martini, of No Dem Left Behind. Maybe not completely, but certainly far more than if Republicans can cement Supreme Court dominance for the next 30-40 years.

It would be terrible for his legacy and our country if his candidacy leads to the reelection of a man who seriously threatens to destroy our Democracy and the rule of law, he said.

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