Barring a health emergency, Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee in November. And, as crazy as it might sound to say this about an 81-year-old presidential incumbent with an approval rating in the high 30s, that is probably the best option for Democrats.
Yet, ever since special counsel Robert Hur questioned Biden’s memory, media outlets have churned out stories about the president’s advanced age. Democrats are — as is their want — panicking. “We’re in a grim situation,” one House Democrat told NBC News. And some pundits are now loudly arguing that Biden to drop out.
“Democrats Should Pick a New Presidential Candidate Now,” blared Damon Linker in the Atlantic.
The president’s party is demonstrating a lack of “seriousness,” argued former 538.com editor Nate Silver, by “going through the motions to renominate an 81-year-old with a 38% approval rating who 75% of voters think is too old without giving anyone a choice.”
“The Question Is Not if Biden Should Step Aside,” read the headline of Ross Douthat’s Sunday column in the New York Times. “It’s How.”
There is no way to jettison Biden unless he wants to step down. And he quite clearly does not want to do that, nor do Democratic voters seem eager to push him out.
Even Republican candidates are entering the punditry business. Nikki Haley recently told supporters, “My bet is 30 days from now, I don’t think Joe Biden is going to be the nominee.” That is a wager I would happily take, because it won’t happen — and for the good of the Democratic Party and its hope of holding the White House for another four years, it shouldn’t.
It's true that Biden has lousy approval numbers and polls overwhelmingly indicate that the president’s age is a matter of serious concern to voters. The problem is there simply is no way to jettison Biden unless he wants to step down. And he quite clearly does not want to do that, nor do Democratic voters seem eager to push him out.
According to Silver, “academic studies of modern political parties” show that “party elites, which include e.g. elected officials, donors, WH staffers, labor and interest group leaders, and influential media members, have a lot of power.”
Yes and no. But what party elites definitely don’t have is the power to oust an incumbent president if he doesn’t want to be ousted. A century ago, in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms at national conventions, party bosses could push an unpopular incumbent by the wayside. But those days are long gone.
The tumultuous 1968 election led to reforms creating the open primary nominating system we know today. Since then, the choice for presidential nominee has been up to voters. Yes, party elites can still influence the outcome, but when people say, “Democrats should do this” or “Democrats should do that,” they are describing a world that no longer exists.
The only way to get rid of an incumbent president is via a primary challenge. Based on the early primary results in which Biden won 89% of the vote in Nevada and 96% in South Carolina, we can safely assume that won’t happen this year. Even in New Hampshire, the one state where he didn’t officially compete and where his closest thing to a credible challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips, campaigned relentlessly, Biden won easily.
There are so many problems with these arguments it’s hard to know where to begin.
This hasn’t stopped pundits from pie-in-the-sky wishcasting. Douthat argues that Biden should keep running in primaries and then withdraw from the race at the Democratic National Convention in August. He would “decline to issue any endorsement and invite the convention delegates to choose his replacement.” Linker says that Biden should do it sooner and announce that the “delegates he’s won up to that point in the primaries will be freed up at the August convention to throw in behind whichever candidate seems best positioned to beat Trump.”
There are so many problems with these arguments it’s hard to know where to begin.
First, the chances of Biden dropping out of the race and not endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, are somewhere between nada and zilch. Put aside the obvious and unimaginable disloyalty to his running mate, if Biden took this step, it could invite a competitive primary fight and encourage other Democrats to get into the race. But considering that the filing deadlines in 44 states have already passed, anyone who enters the primary now would have to do so almost entirely on a write-in basis. And in what scenario would it be a good look for Democrats to take the focus off Trump and his multiple criminal indictments by wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on a presidential primary that might not even produce a nominee until late August?
When Lyndon Johnson chose not to seek reelection in 1968, he didn’t endorse his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey. But there are several major differences between now and more than fifty years ago: a) Johnson was kind of a jerk, b) there was already a competitive primary race underway, and c) that election took place before primaries chose a party nominee. Once he entered the race, Humphrey was practically guaranteed to win the party nod, as he had the support of Democratic party bosses.
Calls for an open primary in 2024 ignore the fact that it’s incredibly unlikely that any Democrat other than Harris would take the plunge. It would be near impossible to raise the money, hire the staff, and build the campaign infrastructure necessary to defeat an incumbent vice president who would already have a huge head start.
Furthermore, if an ambitious Democratic politician like Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer does launch a presidential bid, victory would mean stepping over the country’s first female Black vice president. Why would any Democrat risk alienating the most dependable voting bloc in the Democratic Party: black women — and not just in 2024 but also in 2028 when Biden can’t run?
While they may not realize it, those suggesting that Biden should step down are asking Democrats to go into November with an unpopular, less-tested vice president, whose 2020 campaign didn’t even make it to a single caucus or primary. Indeed, in every poll that’s matched both Biden and Harris against Trump, Harris has performed worse.
The boldest pundits will suggest that Harris drop out too, even though she absolutely wouldn’t. That would leave Democrats anointing a presidential candidate in August — weeks before early voting begins in many states — who is untested, unvetted, and unknown by most of the country. Linker argues for choosing the candidate who “seems best positioned to beat Trump” as if such an answer is easily discernible. One can assume that those supporting Newsom, Whitmer and Harris would all think their candidate is most likely to defeat Trump.
Yes, Biden is unpopular. But he’s also an incumbent president — and as long as the country is not in a recession, fighting an unpopular war or in the midst of a global pandemic, incumbents usually win reelection. He’s relatively popular among Democrats, as evidenced by the lack of a serious candidate challenger. And if you look at the head-to-head polls between Trump and Biden (which, nine months before an election, are largely useless), the race is within the margin of error, which means it’s basically a coin flip.
Why would you take a 50/50 race — before Trump’s criminal trials and before the Biden campaign ramps up — and inject so much uncertainty into it with an untested candidate?
Perhaps a diverse and complex political party can quickly unite behind a consensus candidate with no skeletons in their closet, no clear liabilities, and extraordinary charisma that would appeal not just to Democrats but also to independents and Never Trump Republicans. Suffice it to say, the chances of that happening are a lot less than 50 percent.
None of this means that Biden is an ideal candidate or that he doesn’t have significant liabilities. He clearly does. But there is no such thing as a perfect presidential candidate — except, it seems, in the imaginations of political pundits. For all his flaws heading into the election campaign, Biden is the least risky choice for Democrats, which also means he’s the best choice for the party.
