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Tangier – Soon after President Biden’s disastrous debate showing last month, the focus shifted from Donald Trump’s trials — him being the first former president and presidential candidate to be convicted — to Biden’s health and ability to win the 2024 election and fulfill the duties of the U.S. presidency.
Indeed, concerns were fueled by Biden’s poor performance at the debate. We all saw how he appeared hoarse and confused, losing his train of thoughts from time to time. But, in fact, these concerns were just a stark realization of what has been obvious in recent years, ever since Biden started his first campaign for the 2020 presidential election.
Since then, Biden has had multiple public gaffes that have put his mental abilities to perform the responsibilities of the presidency into question. Doubts about the president’s abilities have only grown since he announced his second bid for the White House. In other words, the elephant has already been in the room for years, and the debate just brought it back to attention.
Still, what marks the backlash in the aftermath of the debate is that it is not only coming from Republicans or Independents, but from Democrats, too.
Biden’s abysmal debate performance raised alarms among Democrats across all ranks, with some voicing their concerns publicly, while others privately urging Biden to step aside and pass the torch to a fresh candidate — one whom they believe will have a better chance to defeat Trump.
So far, it seems that the Democrats’ calls for Biden to step aside are only growing. Still, I think such calls are coming a bit late – I don’t see them succeeding in ending Biden’s White House bid.
And here are the four reasons why:
The first reason why the Democratic Party can’t drop Biden from the presidential ticket is because of Biden himself. Any attempt, or at least any successful attempt, to remove Biden from the Democratic ticket needs his support. In other words, Biden needs to step aside willingly and throw his full support behind another candidate.
So far, this is not happening.
On the contrary, Biden has vigorously refused calls to step down, stating in his ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos that only “Lord Almighty” came down to push him out of the race, continuing to say “but the Lord Almighty’s not coming down.”
Following his post-debate comments, it is clear that Biden thinks — rightly or not — that what everyone saw as a disastrous debate performance was, in fact, just a “bad night.” Call it deceiving public statements or a detachment from the real political world, but one thing is clear: Biden is not going anywhere.
Secondly, who would replace Biden? There is no other potential candidate with a robust political standing in the Democratic Party, let alone on the national stage, who can pick up the torch, unite the Democratic Party and boost their candidacy in the national scene within less than four months before the general election.
At this point, I don’t see any Democratic candidate who will be a “game-changing” replacement.
Some would suggest Kamala Harris, especially given the fact she would inherit Biden’s campaign funds — currently at $240 million. Still, while she may be more popular than Biden, she still stand as the least popular U.S. Vice President in the country’s history.
As for other candidates, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom or Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, aside from struggling to build their national political presence to appeal to moderate Republican and independent voters in less than four months, they would face technical challenges in accessing Biden’s $240 million campaign funds.
More importantly, neither Harris nor any other candidate would risk their political future by challenging President Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination.
So, this brings us to the third reason: the political ramifications of challenging Biden’s nomination. Such a move, without his support, would be deemed an internal political coup within the Democratic Party. It would not only divide the party in the 2024 election between those who want Biden to stay and those who want him out, but it would also stain the political careers of those who orchestrated it.
Having said that, few will risk their own political future, even if they are confident that Biden will not win the next election. These wishful candidates will still support the current president, or at least they won’t challenge him publicly. From a political standpoint, any potential contender for Biden has many reasons to stay out of any political troubles and look ahead to their chances in the next primaries four years from now.
Fourthly, the push against Biden, while significant, does not represent the whole Democratic party – Biden still has the support of a large portion of Democrats. I am not saying that the majority of the Democrats are happy with Biden’s age, no. But they are not totally against him either. So far the public statement for Biden to step down has come from only a small number of Democratic officials.
This also applies to donors. While big Democratic donors, such as Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, have publicly called for Biden to step down, there are still substantial portions of the donor base who support Biden. And of course, even if some campaign donation suspensions can disrupt Biden’s campaign activities, their influence is far from being significant enough to end Biden’s presidential bid.
With all of this in mind, Biden only needs five weeks to secure his party nomination. The coming days are, of course, crucial for him to clear doubts on his abilities, but this has more to do with the American public and the upcoming general election, than with his fellow Democrats, whose pressure, while substantial, is very unlikely to force him out of the race.
It is becoming clear that Biden was right when he said only the “Lord Almighty” would put him out of the race; and this is probably why a House Democrat, who wants him to step aside, told the New York Times off the record that he hoped that the “Lord Almighty” would come down to talk to Biden soon.
