President Joe Biden, age 81, an old man is nothing new.
But Thursday night’s first presidential debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump pushed the question of Biden’s age to the top of the public consciousness. His verbal stumbling, weak voice (adv said (that he was dealing with a cold) and Trump’s flustered responses to jabs and moderators’ questions likely beg one question: Is there any way to replace Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee?
The short answer is, practically, probably not. All 50 states have already held their primaries and Biden has won the vast majority of their delegates. Only Biden himself can instruct those delegates to vote for someone else, as they have promised to vote for him unless they drop out before the Democratic convention this August.
This is where the practical and political challenges converge: Biden is the only one who can decide whether he wants to drop out before a floor vote. No secret party or individual can instruct him to do so.
And unless Biden has a serious change of heart after Thursday night, there are many reasons that won’t happen.
Real world challenges
First hurdle: The president is elected by election among candidates selected through a specific, organized party process.
The Democratic presidential nominee is chosen at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, where a candidate must win the support of a majority of Democratic delegates. These delegates are allocated proportionally based on a state’s primary vote total (for any candidate who wins more than 15 percent of the vote) and then “Committed” or “bound” to that candidate In the first round of voting at the Democratic convention. Under this system, any other candidate must win more delegates than Biden to be nominated.
But Biden not only has all the delegates he needs, but basically all the delegates, period. So practically, there is no one to swap at this point.
And by DNC rules, those delegates are obligated to back Biden during the DNC’s first floor vote.
Beyond the limits set by that process are real financial hurdles: Only Biden has the fundraising and money machines necessary to run ads, hold events, hire staff and effectively run a campaign on the Democratic side. No other democrat, elected or unelected, has that practical apparatus.
The political challenges remain formidable
At this point, it’s also politically risky for anyone to try to publicly force Biden.
The Democratic establishment has already rallied around Biden — endorsing him, stumping for him and leading the party’s actions not just because he’s the incumbent, But because it’s specifically him. They have a deep bond with him and are loyal to him.
Here, too, it’s important to dispel the notion that anyone can force Biden to drop.
The DNC is not some all-powerful, shadowy operation that has the power, influence, or ability to crown another party leader. Who do you think you are? The DNC has chosen a chair and vice-chair? Biden! There isn’t a council of decision-makers who can ask Biden to drop or drop him.
Party elites have power Often overstated, and primaries so far show voter influence As unpopular as Biden may seem to some, he still won the 2020 primary handily, and when given the option of protest-voting in New Hampshire or choosing “any of these candidates” in Nevada this year, Democrats still favored Biden. .
And all the leading figures who could replace him — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, even Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (let alone Vice President Kamala Harris) are all major public surrogates and supporters of Biden. They will not launch him publicly now. And it’s not clear that they would personally try to force him out. Even at the most selfish level, none of them have the incentive to let the other strongman capitulate to Biden.
So only Biden can decide to drop out. He doesn’t want to (not least because he sees himself as the key to it Stopping Trump’s re-election) and even if he chooses, the only option that won’t cause a huge rift among the Democratic base is his choice of Vice President Kamala Harris. The vice president has his own political flaws: he vote bad More than Biden against Trump, has never run a successful national campaign and, unfortunately, faces prejudice from various voters because she is a woman of color.
Other polls show similarly negative results for Whitmer, Shapiro and Newsom. they have There have been worse polls than Biden, or taking their time. And bypassing Harris for one of them opens up the potential anger of black voters, without whom Democrats can’t win.
If another Democrat savior emerges, with the vocal support of someone like Barack Obama and the core support of Biden-critical strategists and politicians, and if First Lady Jill Biden and other Biden confidants approach Biden and convince him to drop out, we’ll probably get heads. Towards a broker conference with multiple rounds of voting. It also opens the door for more chaos and disunity among Democrats. Does it seem valuable to anyone in democratic politics now?
At least until Thursday night, the answer was simple: no. It’s too late.
