Biden Close To Clinching Democratic Nomination He’s Already Won
OK, Democrats might be a little bit in disarray.
Democrats are revolting. No, this isn’t suddenly a MAGA newsletter (although if the worst happens in the election, I might take tap dancing lessons from Tim Scott; I have a family to protect).
According to a new AP poll, sixty-five percent of Democratic voters believe President Joe Biden should withdraw from the race so the party can choose another nominee. The Democratic National Convention is less than a month away, so that process might lack the careful deliberation of a last-call bar pickup.
Most of the survey was completed prior to Donald Trump’s attempted assassination, which has thrilled Republicans anxious to regain power and crush their enemies. (They’re a pleasant bunch.) Only three out of 10 Democrats polled “are extremely or very confident that [Biden] has the mental capability to serve effectively as president.” I’ve written about politics for a while, so I can break through all the noise and technical jargon and tell you plainly that number isn’t good.
The survey does find that more voters consider Biden honest compared to Trump, who is a lying sack of garbage, but more voters somehow believe Trump is better equipped to handle a crisis because they apparently all have amnesia. Americans endured the single greatest crisis of our lifetimes during 2020 — I’m referring to COVID-19, not Sarah Palin’s performance on Masked Singer — and Trump bungled the response, resulting in needless misery and death.
Black Democrats remain loyal to Biden but just barely — 50 percent say he should remain the nominee, compared to 32 percent of white Democrats and 33 percent of Hispanic Democrats. The latter data point does not bode well for the Sunbelt.
Biden isn’t leaving
It seems very unlikely that Biden — or really anyone with ego sufficient to achieve the highest office in the land — would prematurely accept defeat and hand over the election to someone else, but stranger things have happened. People think The Bear is a comedy.
Still, let’s just walk this through: Biden stepping down would mean that he concedes his presidency failed in its core objective. He didn’t run for president just to pass bipartisan infrastructure legislation or forgive student loans. He’s repeatedly stated that he was inspired to run after seeing Trump’s horrible response to racially motivated political violence that occurred on his watch. He told NBC News anchor Lester Holt:
“I got in this race early on in 2020 — for the 2020 race. I wasn’t gonna run again because I’d lost my son. I didn’t — you know? And — until I watched what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Those folks coming out of the woods with torches, carrying swastikas, singing the same Nazi bile that was accompanied by this Ku Klux Klan and a young woman was killed. And — and it was a bystander. And — the president — then president was asked, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘The very fine people on both sides.’ Not fine people on both sides. No excuse. Zero.”
Biden defeated Trump in 2020, but — to quote one of my favorite Dark Shadows lines — that time of terror only temporarily ended. “Those folks coming out of the woods with torches” have fully replaced the GOP Biden once knew. MAGA has only grown in strength since 2020, when Marjorie Taylor Green was first elected. Now, she sits in the VIP section at the Republican National Convention. A coup-plotting theocrat is speaker of the House, and Rick Scott might replace Biden’s bro Mitch McConnell as Republican Senate leader.
If John McCain had quit in 2008, that was understandable: Barack Obama was a dynamic, transformative politician who was also not a convicted felon. It’s not likely another Republican would’ve fared any better against him. However, Biden stepping down would mean admitting that he specifically can’t beat the rapist felon. If King Charles abdicated, he’d only surrender to time, not a hostile power he’d sworn to vanquish.
During an interview with BET, Biden said, “When I originally ran, I said I was gonna be a transitional candidate, and I thought that I’d be able to move from this just pass it on to someone else.”
This stood out to me, as it seems like he’s admitting his initial plan was to serve a single term, which I’ve always doubted. Others suggest that he’s describing his entire presidency as “transitional,” but that doesn’t make sense. By that logic, every two-term president (Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton, etc) is “transitional,” but that’s just how the presidency works. You only get two terms (for now).
“But I didn’t anticipate things getting so … divided and quite frankly, I think the only thing age brings a little bit of wisdom,” Biden added. “And I think I’ve demonstrated that I know how to get things done for the country, in spite of the fact that we couldn’t get it done. But there’s more to do, and I’m reluctant to walk away from that.”
Biden claimed back in 2019 that Republicans would have an “epiphany” after Trump’s loss. I argued at the time that this was incredibly naive and evidence that Biden’s personal nostalgia had blinded him to the GOP’s post-Tea Party reality. However, if Biden didn’t anticipate the First Order emerging after Trump’s tumble down the reactor shaft, many of his rivals in the Democratic primary did, including Elizabeth Warren.
I also wonder if Biden is facing backlash from his own version of George H.W. Bush’s “read my lips, no new taxes!” pledge. Biden’s 2020 campaign argued that Trump was the outlier, and many Democrats backed him with the hope that his election would make Trump go away for good. Yet, Trump remains an existential threat, perhaps more dangerous than ever. It’s not that Biden outright lied but his vision of the American people and its institutions was less reflective of reality than Trump’s twisted fun house mirror. I’m reminded of a famous line from a historical figure morally superior to Trump: “Who, in their right mind, could possibly deny the [21st Century] was entirely mine? All of it!”
Biden won’t accept defeat
I won’t get into the weeds on the disturbing swing state polls. What’s relevant to this discussion is that Biden doesn’t believe he’s in trouble or that he can’t win, even as more and more Democrats confront him about his prospects.
Saturday, shortly before Trump was shot in Pennsylvania, Biden had a Zoom call with the New Democrat Coalition, a group of mostly moderate House members. Biden responded to their concerns about his campaign with a rambling monologue about NATO, which is certainly important but I doubt will move a single swing vote in a battleground state.
“You saw what happened recently in terms of the meeting we had with NATO. I put NATO together.
Name me a foreign leader who thinks I'm not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy. Tell me! Tell me who the hell that is! Tell me who put NATO back together!
Tell me who enlarged NATO, tell me who did the Pacific basin! Tell me who did something that you've never done with your Bronze Star like my son --- and I'm proud of your leadership, but guess what, what's happening, we’ve got Korea and Japan working together, I put Aukus together, anyway!
Things are in chaos, and I'm bringing some order to it. And again, find me a world leader who's an ally of ours who doesn't think I'm the most respected person they've ever —
When Rep. Jason Crow from Colorado told the president this message wasn’t “breaking through to our voters,” Biden exclaimed, “You oughta talk about it! On national security, nobody has been a better president than I’ve been. Name me one. Name me one! So I don’t want to hear that crap.”
An anonymous Democratic lawmaker told Puck’s Julia Ioffe, “The president was rambling, dismissive of concerns, [and] unable or unprepared to present a campaign strategy.”
“The call was even worse than the debate,” another House member said. “He was rambling; he’d start an answer then lose his train of thought, then would just say ‘whatever.’ I lost a ton of respect for him.”
Once again, allow me to simplify complex political dialogues and plainly state that this call didn’t go well.
Prominent Democrats think Biden should go
Rep. Adam Schiff, who’s running for Senate in California, announced Wednesday that he doesn’t think Biden has enough in the tank to beat Trump again. “While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch,” he said in a statement.
There are reports that Nancy Pelosi is working behind the scenes to convince Biden to step aside. Like Schiff, she’s apparently heard from Democrats who fear that Biden will drag down the ticket.
The clock is ticking, though, so there’s not really time for “3-D chess” machinations. Democrats who want a change might as well collectively come forward now rather than plunging the knife a little more each day. The Ides of March was a quick, in-and-out deal.
Political scientist and strategist Rachel Bitecofer warns that “replacing Biden creates more problems than it solves AND introduces opportunity for Republicans to interfere with the election.” She’s referring to the likely inevitable GOP efforts to keep a non-Biden nominee’s name off the ballot in key swing states. That’s a valid concern. Unfortunately, based on the current polling, worrying about Republicans trying to steal the 2024 election is like teenage me worrying, “Man, if I take Cindy Crawford to prom, all the other guys will hit on her!” (Cindy Crawford was a very popular supermodel 30 years ago.)
Democrats who publicly back Biden have pointed to the sunny 538 forecast, which shows Biden narrowly winning the Electoral College with 277 votes. However, that forecast is based on both polls and “fundamentals,” which include economic conditions, state partisanship, and incumbency.
It’s true that based on the fundamentals, Biden should cruise to victory. The economy is steadily improving. The unemployment rate is lower now (4.1 percent) than in 2004 (5.5 percent) and 2012 (8.2 percent!) when the incumbent president won re-election. Democrats have performed extremely well in the big three Rust Belt states. Governors Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan and Tony Evers from Wisconsin handily won re-election during the 2022 midterms, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro crushed his election-denying MAGA opponent by 15 points that same year. Democratic Senators Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock prevailed in Arizona and Georgia, and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs dispatched Kari Lake.
That’s what makes this discussion so difficult. Democrats have performed consistent with the fundamentals and Senate Democrats in swing states are polling better than Biden, including non-incumbents in open races. There’s compelling evidence that Biden is struggling not because he’s anchored with a bad economy or unpopular legislation but because he’s Joe Biden, the 81-year-old sitting president who a majority of voters, including Democrats, don’t believe can serve another term. (Please don’t yell at me or unsubscribe. I need money for my tap-dancing lessons, and Tim Scott won’t take American Express.)
The polls have been clear on this point for years now, but the Biden campaign believed it could ride the fundamentals, especially after Democrats performed better than expected during the midterms.
Biden has tried goosing voter support with some ambitious proposals, such as Supreme Court reform, an assault weapons ban, and unlimited rice pudding. Cynics might argue that Biden knows he can’t deliver on these promises, but realists understand that making big promises is basic politics. The problem is that most Democrats have moved past policy and are laser-focused on our continued survival. We just want to stop Trump … again. We’ve pretty much given up on our crazy liberal dreams, like a planet that’s hospitable to human life. The 2024 DNC platform might as well be: “We have no more dreams. We just want to sleep through the night.”
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I voted for Biden in the primary, so the ONLY candidate that I will accept, other than Biden, is VP Harris. If so many Dems think that Biden should drop out, I blame Congressional Democratic "leaders" for not backing the guy that we all voted for, and I am pissed that they think that our votes don't count. In addition, as has been mentioned - what is the plan if he does drop out? And why are they doing this? Some have suggested that Biden is too progressive, others that blackmail may be involved, but it most likely is just good, old fashioned Democratic spinelessness. We are facing a real threat with the entire republican party (it ain't just trump) and some Dems are playing a stupid game, for what purpose I can't fathom.
thank you Stephen, best breakdown of what's happened I've seen yet.
I've been resolutely committed to keeping Biden on the ticket, if we could. didn't care that he couldn't serve out his term, just felt as you said the fundamentals would come into play, a lot of voters would come home after Labor Day when these shifts occur, and the contrast with the Project 25 gang and general odium of Trump would do the rest. beating Trump is the whole game right now, so if Biden couldn't serve his term and we got President Harris, I'm fine with that. she's far more prepared and experienced than any other candidate, as talented as our up-and-comers are.
my beef with the Dump Joe crowd is largely that they were acting out of panic after the debate, and that in their narrative the only problem was replacing Joe, after that it would be smooth sailing. no worries about our diverse, fractious coalition, of which we need every single vote, coming apart over who we choose and how we do it. there was the issue of disenfranchising the 14 million of us who voted for Biden in primaries, and the question of who would choose the new nominee.
and a lot of the musing about possible replacements seemed more like an internet poll over which movie or star was best, a kind of idle shopping for someone younger and better who would (they think) never disappoint them...that seemed barely tethered to the reality that we gotta play the game we're in, not cast a TV show hypothetically.
and last, it's been jarring and outraging to see how members of the Fourth Estate who have helped normalize Trump relentlessly, who when challenged on their compromised access journalism shrugged and rolled their eyes at the dumb subscribers who clearly don't get what a great job they're doing...suddenly becoming wild-eyed activists screaming for the head of the Democratic candidate. all these years they've insisted they can't accurately portray Trump's threat bc "we don't work for the Biden campaign" or somesuch, now they emerge as zealous advocates of a step that should only be taken when absolutely necessary, and with careful thinking, planning, organizing, and politicking to avoid the schisms the GOP and Putin and God knows who else are so eager to create.
so now we're going to do this. do you have confidence the Dems are on top of the potential pitfalls and can do as much as is humanly / politically possible to avoid them? I do not, and the fact that the most vehement Dump Joe folks have never bothered to engage or even acknowledge that these issues exist, makes me fear for the outcome.
but again, gotta play the game we're in. I would vote for a ham sandwich this November. have voted straight Dem ticket my whole life. depending on how this matter is handled, I may change my affiliation to independent after the election.
sorry this got so long, like a lot of us I've been thinking a lot about it with obviously a lot of strong feelings and concerns...