Jul 13, 2024 09:14 PM IST
The decision on Biden’s future rests with the president himself, and it’s impossible to know for sure what he’ll do
With the 2024 presidential election less than four months away, the Democrats now face a perfect political storm. President Joe Biden’s startlingly unfocused debate performance against Donald Trump leaves party officials, and many of the Democrats’ likeliest voters, calling for a change at the top of the ticket.
A few weeks ago, backing Biden was thought to be the Democrats’ best hope. After all, it’s not easy to beat a president seeking re-election. Since 1932, only Jimmy Carter, the elder George Bush, and Donald Trump have failed. A Biden retirement or a credible primary challenge seemed needlessly dangerous.
The decisions of Democrats Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election powered Republicans Dwight Eisenhower (1952) and Richard Nixon (1968) respectively to victory. Senator Edward Kennedy’s primary challenge in 1980 helped cripple Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign and move Ronald Reagan into the White House. It was much safer, most Democrats believed, to stick with Biden, a man who has already beaten Donald Trump once — and no Democrat who wants to be president one day wants to be the one to hobble an already vulnerable incumbent.
But growing worries about Biden’s age — he is 81 now and would be 86 at the end of a second term — have become the central issue of the campaign, even as Trump faces sentencing on felony fraud charges. (There’s a good indicator of just how dysfunctional America’s politics has become.) Following Biden’s debate debacle, the editorial board of the New York Times, the centre-Left establishment paper of record, urged the president to drop out, and recent polls signal that about half of Democratic Party voters agree.
Unless Biden decides to leave the race, the odds of replacing him are virtually zero. Over the course of Biden’s sweep through the primary election season, he locked in the support of the delegates needed for his nomination at the party’s August convention in Chicago. These delegates are pledged to back Biden unless he releases them. Even if the party could easily replace him, who would be the Democrats’ new nominee? Poll after poll shows that Vice President Kamala Harris is no more popular than Biden, and pushing her aside for another contender risks alienating large numbers of women and minority voters.
In addition, other possible replacements — California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and others — are untested on the national stage. To understand how quickly an unproven candidate might flounder, look no further than Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his hotly anticipated and disastrous attempt to take down Trump in this year’s Republican primaries.
Biden has so far shown no indication that his plans are in doubt. He has publicly declared his intention to remain in the race. The public shows of support from former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton demonstrate a determination to move forward. And the president might still beat Donald Trump. In America’s hyper-polarised political environment, millions of people who tell pollsters that Biden is too old to serve a second term will still vote for him, if only to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. Both sides in this race believe the future of American democracy is at stake in this election, and voter turnout will likely be high for both parties.
But the hill Biden must climb will be made steeper in the coming weeks by a steady stream of anonymous Democratic officials warning in the media that Biden must go. At least until the party’s convention, that problem will weigh on the president’s ability to turn the page. Speculation that the Democrats might advance the date on which Biden is formally nominated will suggest he’s panicking, even if he isn’t. All this is happening at a time when the Biden campaign hoped to keep media attention on Trump’s many liabilities.
For now, the Democratic Party is paralysed. Ousting a sitting president would be an enormous political gamble; sticking with a stumbling incumbent might carry even more risk. Trump, meanwhile, has enjoyed a charmed few weeks of good news. Almost all his legal headaches have been postponed until after the election. Sentencing has been delayed in his conviction in New York in the so-called hush money case. Recent Supreme Court rulings have lessened fears that Trump faces jail time and reminded conservative voters that Trump made the court more conservative and might do it again if he wins in November. The media is more focused now on Trump’s choice of a vice-presidential running mate than on his own erratic behaviour.
The decision on Biden’s future rests with the president himself, and it’s impossible to know for sure what he’ll do. For now, he appears intent on staying the course and trying to change the subject. But with each passing day, the pressure for a change at the top of the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign is growing. An unprecedented environment for a uniquely dysfunctional United States presidential election.
Ian Bremmer is the founder and board president of Eurasia Group Foundation. The views expressed are personal
