President Joe Biden announced that he was “strongly committed” to running for president in 2024. Letter to House Democrats Released Monday morning.
And in addition to maintaining that he believes he was the best person to defeat former President Donald Trump, Biden’s letter relied heavily on one particular argument: that he was the choice of Democratic primary voters and that it would be wrong to overturn their decision.
“Democratic Party voters voted. They chose me as the party’s nominee. Do we now say that this process does not matter? That voters have no say? Biden wrote.
“I feel a deep obligation to the faith and trust that the voters of the Democratic Party have placed in me to elect them this year,” he continued. “It was their decision. Not the press, not the pundits, not the big donors, not any select group of people, no matter how well-intentioned. Voters — and voters alone — determine the Democratic Party’s nominee.”
In another development, Biden said he sees being on the ticket as important to his broader stance in defense of American democracy: “How can we stand up for democracy in our country if we ignore it in our own party? I can’t do that. I can’t do that.”
Viewed through a certain lens, that argument is ludicrous. Biden ran against no serious opposition in a low-turnout, low-interest primary season. Democrats worked to prevent any credible alternative from running, and if one did run, they would face intense criticism for being loyal to the president and damaging his chances against Trump. And because Biden avoided a debate, primary voters arguably lacked crucial information about how he would fare in one.
And yet Biden’s characterization is not entirely off-base. Just as he says, the effort to push him off the ticket is an elite-driven initiative, with support strongest in the (unelected) media, while rank-and-file Democratic voters have mixed feelings about it. Any process to select a new nominee at this late date would not really have widespread popular participation. And if someone credible had run against Biden in the primary, they probably would have lost.
But should the 15 million people who voted in the Democratic primaries earlier this year end up representing “democracy”? Perhaps the group that deliberates and chooses a different option is its own form of democracy in action. And what about the 150 million or so people who could vote in the fall — most of whom, polling suggests, have concerns about Biden’s age and would prefer a different Democratic nominee? Do their opinions matter?
Biden won the 2024 primary before voting began
Due to his low approval ratings and age, there was occasional speculation that Biden would not be able to run for re-election in 2024. Some votes in 2022 and 2023 showed A majority of Democratic voters said he should not run again. But he never seems to have seriously considered bowing down. After taking charge, he said Consistently said He intended to run again, and in April 2023 he did That made it official. (Perhaps the Democrats’ better-than-expected performance in the midterms will put some pressure on Biden not to run for re-election.)
Once Biden arrived, Democratic officials were firmly behind him. That’s pretty normal for a sitting president — the last president to face a serious primary challenge was Jimmy Carter in 1980, and credible primaries against incumbents at any level are relatively rare. Parties often try to fend off such challenges, viewing primaries as messy, expensive, divisive, and potentially damaging to the party’s general election chances (Carter lost).
In the end, neither of the party’s aspiring gubernatorial or senatorial rising stars wanted to roll the dice to challenge Biden — believing they would likely lose and then be blamed if Trump won the general. A little-known member of Congress, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), was the only elected official who jumped into the race. Author Marian Williamson was not a serious contender, and activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the primary to run as an independent in the general election instead.
Some polling suggested that Democratic voters weren’t exactly thrilled with their lack of reasonable alternatives. In September, a CNN poll Only 33 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents said they wanted Biden as the nominee, and 67 percent wanted someone else. The problem is: who else? A hypothetical ideological alternative poll is better than a real one, and no polling has shown a certain potential candidate anywhere near Biden.
Could it have been different if Govt. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), or did someone else jump into the race? We’ll never know for sure, but I’m skeptical. One could spin an optimistic scenario in which such a candidate suddenly catches fire or a messy one in which something like Biden’s poor debate performance drags him down. But challenging an incumbent president in a primary is a very difficult task.
The reality is that Biden won the 2024 primary well before the voting began, winning the “inside game.” By doing so, he prevented disaffected Democrats from getting a realistic alternative to him on the ballot. So it’s a bit rich that he’s now arguing that the process represents a sacred judgment of the people. Still, it seems very likely to me that he would have won had a stronger opponent jumped in.
Are primary voters more important than the party or the general public?
A question going forward is whether the preliminary results are still valid in describing the “will of the democratic electorate” in the context of the debate; The survey found widely differing results.
- Reuters/Ipsos It found that 66 percent of Democratic voters said they wanted Biden to stay in the race.
- The The Wall Street Journal The poll found the exact opposite — that 66 percent of Democratic voters said they wanted to replace Biden as the nominee.
- The New York Times/Siena College The poll landed in the middle, with 48 percent of Democrats wanting Biden to stay and 47 percent wanting a different nominee.
Polls are just votes, and since we can’t redo a six-month primary process on short notice, there’s no reasonable way to have a nationwide vote on this issue.
Another question, though, is whether the “desire of Democratic primary voters” will really trump all other concerns in determining whether Biden remains the nominee.
The modern presidential primary process Created in 1970 More telling is the choice of nominees as an effort to give voters not party insiders (who were often criticized as corrupt backroom dealers). But in recent decades, the system has come under fire from two fronts.
A group of critics basically, Pro-Party. They believe that party deliberation is a form of democracy, even if it is not the kind of mass participatory democracy expressed in elections. They don’t shudder at the prospect of “party insiders” having more of a say in choosing nominees—that’s how parties in many other democracies work, and that’s how American political parties worked for the last half century. They feel that parties should be able to react to the situation, deliberate on the best way forward and present candidates of their choice to the electorate. So they would argue that Democrats would be well within their rights to replace Biden.
Another group of critics is opposition polarization. They believe that, in practice, party primaries are low-vote affairs that often reward extremists and ideologues — such as Trump — and fail to produce candidates who appeal to larger voters. Some argue that party primaries and two-party systems are tearing America apart, and want voting reform to shake up the system. But basically, they think our political system is too responsive to primary voters and not responsive enough to general voters.
They may point out that a large majority of voters over the years, said Biden was very old to serve another term — but the primary process failed to present voters with a viable alternative option, and now the country is stuck choosing between Biden or Trump. Why should a country where more than 150 million people can vote be hostage to their choice? 15 million Democrats Who barely even has a choice?
There’s no sugarcoating it: any process to replace Biden at this late date will inevitably be driven and dominated by party elites and may not reflect public participation at the level of the primaries.
But the 2024 primaries weren’t exactly a stellar testament to the wonders of democracy either. It’s entirely possible — though not guaranteed — that a process to replace Biden could produce a more popular nominee connected to more voter preferences overall.
