Democratic bigwigs are starting to call for Joe Biden to step aside
Some fires are hard to snuff out. The one that started after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27th, through which he stammered only semi-lucidly, is developing into a blaze. For a few days it was only the media—albeit including the columnists and commentators closest to the president—who were calling for him to abandon his bid for re-election. But on July 2nd the president’s support within the Democratic Party started to crack. Lloyd Doggett, a representative from Texas, became the first sitting Democratic congressman to call for him to stand aside. The following day another, Raúl Grijalva, joined him. Reed Hastings, a big donor, also said Mr Biden should make way for another candidate. Betting markets, which had put the odds of the president leaving the race at 20% on the morning of the debate, raised them above 60% on July 3rd.
Other grandees have been hinting at similar views, or at least refusing to excuse Mr Biden’s doddering inarticulacy. Sheldon Whitehouse, a senator from Rhode Island, told a local TV station, “Like a lot of people, I was pretty horrified by the debate.” Jim Clyburn, a representative from South Carolina and close ally of Mr Biden, said he still supported the president, but would back Kamala Harris, the vice-president, to replace him were he to drop out of the race. Perhaps most important, Nancy Pelosi, a former speaker of the House of Representatives who had initially pooh-poohed concerns about Mr Biden’s fitness, seemed to open the door to doubters by telling an interviewer, “I think it’s a legitimate question to say, ‘Is this an episode—or is this a condition?’”
These public utterances are the palest shadows of the misgivings Democrats express in private. Leaks are proliferating of meetings in which Democratic congressmen and governors cast doubt on Mr Biden’s ability to continue his campaign. The muttering comes despite the energetic efforts of Mr Biden’s surrogates to quell the anxieties of donors reluctant to throw good money after bad and of down-ballot candidates frightened that a faltering president might wreck their chances as well. The apologists have come up with a remarkable number of explanations for Mr Biden’s feeble display: he had a cold; he had prepared too much; he had jetlag; he had the stronger arguments, even if he struggled to be understood. A senior moment—even 90 senior minutes—is far from disqualifying, they insist.
A rally on June 28th at which Mr Biden successfully delivered a speech, aided by a teleprompter, was greeted by his supporters with the jubilation of a kidnap victim’s family receiving a proof-of-life video. Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr Biden’s campaign chair, called donors to instruct them to disbelieve their lying eyes and ears. “He’s probably in better health than most of us,” she said, according to CNN.
Heads below the parapet
As unconvincing as this bluster is, Democrats have been paralysed by a collective-action problem. Individual members face severe consequences for declaring publicly that their emperor has no clothes. They may be ostracised by their party, lose funding or face a primary challenge in future. What is more, because the president has already captured all the delegates needed to secure his party’s nomination, he will become the Democrats’ official candidate at the party’s convention in Chicago in August unless he personally decides to step aside. The president is famously stubborn. If he refuses to change course, the only effect of attacking him will be to provide aid and comfort to his enemy, Donald Trump. And there are always the uncertain political consequences to consider. In a parliamentary system, MPs can depose a prime minister without consulting voters. But Democrats know that a sitting president has been induced to renounce a bid for re-election only twice since the second world war: Harry Truman in 1952 and Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Both were Democrats and both their replacements went on to lose.
Recent surveys of public opinion may be clarifying the likely consequences somewhat for Democrats. A poll released on Sunday by CBS News and YouGov found that only 27% of voters think that Mr Biden has the cognitive health needed to be president; 45% of registered Democratic voters said the president should step aside. This week’s iteration of The Economist’s regular poll, also conducted by YouGov, found a shift of two percentage points away from Mr Biden compared with the week before.
Political operatives and donors are anxiously trading (and selectively leaking) private polling, which is usually of higher quality than the publicly available stuff. Mr Biden was already trailing Mr Trump in the presidential race. The debate, arranged by his campaign at a far earlier date than is usual, was supposed to be the president’s chance to reset the race in his favour. Instead, his implosion has left all Democrats wondering what could possibly re-float an apparently foundering campaign.
Mr Biden’s aides are hastily scheduling meetings, calls and public appearances in the hope of reassuring doubting Democrats. The president met Democratic governors on July 3rd. He is supposed to speak to skittish Democrats in Congress later this week. He has scheduled an unscripted television interview to air on July 5th and has booked himself a rehabilitation tour of swing states over the weekend. His staff have also announced that he will hold a news conference at the NATO summit in Washington next week.
There is also a chance that the Biden team tries to call time on the insurrection by bringing forward the date at which Mr Biden officially becomes his party’s nominee for president. There had long been a plan to hold a vote of delegates in advance of the convention in Chicago, to get around a quirk of the election laws in the state of Ohio, which required candidates to be named before the convention began. But Ohio has since changed its law to accommodate the dates of the convention (August 19th-22nd), obviating the need for a telephone vote. Going ahead with one now would be seen as a sign of desperation, but it would raise the cost of dethroning Mr Biden considerably. The process for replacing an already nominated candidate is only hazily described in the party’s rules. A new candidate would have even less time to mount a campaign and to raise money. They would also face considerable logistical difficulty getting placed on state ballots on such short notice.
The president’s campaign is focusing on surviving the four months until the election in November, rather than sketching a vision for the next four years. His campaign’s website is a policy-free shell for soliciting donations. But if Democrats do rally behind their creaking mascot, as Mr Biden’s campaign hopes, they will not just increase the risk of Mr Trump returning to the White House, they will also increase the chances that the Democrats lose control of the Senate and fail to win the House. That would give Mr Trump the power to govern as he sees fit, including appointing more conservative justices to the already ideologically unbalanced Supreme Court.
That grim scenario makes replacing the president look more appealing. If he stood aside, the delegates to the convention who were pledged to him would become unbound, able to vote for anyone they liked.
Although Ms Harris, the vice-president, would normally be the natural successor, she is not much more popular than her boss. Assorted governors and senators are also waiting in the wings. A new candidate, whoever it might be, could bask in the booming economy while sloughing off responsibility for all Mr Biden’s failings. Mr Biden, meanwhile, could claim the mantle of George Washington or Cincinnatus, gracefully surrendering authority for the greater good—before the American people seize it from him. ■