Dump Biden is back on
Why the prospect should excite you
I was on CNBC today in part to discuss my post ‘Why Vance is a dumb VP pick’ from this newsletter. I guess you can always watch CNBC, but if you want these takes hot out of the oven then please subscribe. As I’m ramping up into election mode there’s going to be more paywalled content along with the regular stream of free stuff, so please consider throwing me fifty bucks a year to make sure you never miss a post and support the continued existence of the newsletter.
In the period between the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the last day of the RNC, it seemed possible that the Dump Biden campaign might falter. For weeks, the push had been kept alive by a drip-drip of daily revelations. With the news cycle shifting elsewhere, it looked like Biden might still try to hang on.
But the two forces which are driving Democratic attempts to get rid of Biden have only got stronger in recent days. The first is that many in the party no longer believe that he can win the election. The polling is getting dire, so much so that pundits are starting to talk about this election having not just six but seven or even eight swing states. The second factor is Democratic fears of what Trump would do if he won - and the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, followed by Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate, have made it clear the stakes could not be higher.
Faced with these two forces and the apparent failure of Dump Biden, some anonymous Democrats started giving some truly disgraceful quotes to the media, essentially saying that they were throwing up their hands and resigning themselves to a second Trump presidency. The slightly odd attempt by the party’s left to bolster Biden (which I unpacked here) picked up steam too, with AOC going on a nearly hour-long Instagram monologue which I’m afraid to say Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are not going to watch.
Then, the clouds parted, and the sunlight shone through. Dump Biden was back on. In the past 24 hours or so, there have been a number of developments which seem to make Biden’s position - dare I say it - untenable:
The first is that most of the party’s senior figures have not just told Biden he should exit the race, but also told the media that they’ve told him. This is vital, because it piles pressure on publicly and gives other Democrats an excuse to do the same thing. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have now all put themselves against Biden, albeit through media leaks rather than direct public statements. But they could escalate to the latter if they feel the need to;
Two more senators, Jon Tester of Montana and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, have joined the ranks of those making direct public statements to the effect that Biden should drop out, joining Senator Peter Welch from Vermont. Notably, Tester is facing a tough re-election battle and his campaign is vital for Democrats to maintain control of the Senate. Heinrich is facing an unexpectedly competitive race and has been warning that even though his state is usually considered reliably blue in the presidential contest, Biden’s troubles were putting it in play too;
Big Democratic Party donors are withholding funds, with their contributions in July set to be about half of what they were last month unless Biden leaves the race (per the Times).
But probably the biggest thing that’s happened is that Biden has begun to acknowledge privately that he may have to drop out. This, to me, essentially signals that his candidacy is over. Biden’s bluster that only “god almighty” could make him drop out was always fake, a stance designed to show strength and try to stem the growing tide of defections. As soon as you signal that you’re open to going, you do the opposite - signal that the end is probably near and encourage others to pile on (as I’m writing this, four more prominent House Democrats - including one who held a rally with Biden since the debate - have called on him to go; and then more; and then some more). Now we’re just talking about the timing and the modalities - something that, according to the Times, the campaign is now actively doing.
We’re still dealing with the decision-making process of one elderly man - who now also has covid - so there will remain an element of unpredictability right up to the end. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see some big movement this weekend.
The big matter that the Biden camp will now be discussing is whether they can engineer the swift succession of Kamala Harris, or whether the party is headed for some sort of open convention or mini-primary. I’m not sure what they want in their heart of hearts, but I think they’ll probably try to do the former - it’s the best option at this point in my view, although I know other people disagree about this.
But one thing I think a lot of people are underestimating about this whole situation is just how good they might feel once Biden leaves and the Democratic ticket is headed by someone young and energetic. As I’ve watched Harris’ campaign events over the last few days, I’ve felt the dawning of things I haven’t felt in a long time. Hope. Inspiration. The feeling that I was getting a glimpse of the America I love. A memory of what campaigning used to be like when at least one of the candidates was capable of forming complete sentences. Truly, it has been a revelation.
By contrast, this battle between two very old men (who, I want to stress, are not morally or otherwise equivalent in any way) has been slow, depressing, repetitive. But it could be something better. A large slice of the electorate have been crying out for a change, and they might just reward the people who make it.
And I think it’s also worth remembering that even though a change of candidate will throw Democrats into chaos, it will also badly hobble the Republicans. So far they’ve been strategizing and organizing to run against Biden, whose own flaws provide a lot of cover for Trump’s. Trump, too, is old, not particularly energetic, and prone to misspeaking. A lot of the obvious lines of attack against him were made impossible because Biden was all of these things as well. Take Biden out of the equation and sub in someone who doesn’t have these flaws, and you’ve got a whole new race.1
In other words, it would be all to play for, all over again. 2024 is just getting started, folks - maybe as soon as this weekend.
And yes, this would still apply if the person you sub in is not Harris.