Patrick Healy: I’ve been deluged with texts and emails from senior Democrats in a panic over President Biden’s debate performance and describing scenarios in which he might get out of the race, Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the nominee, or the Democratic National Convention in August becomes an open competition for the nomination. Biden addressed his debate problem briefly at a rally Friday afternoon: “I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he said, “but I know how to tell the truth.” So there are intense but also mixed emotions among Democrats right now. What do they do about their candidate for president, and their campaign to beat Donald Trump? Michelle?
Michelle Goldberg: I think Biden has to get out. As you know, I’ve been arguing since 2022 that he’s too old to run for re-election. But recently, when people have asked me about it, I’ve wondered, is it too late? While it would have been much better if Biden had stepped aside earlier and allowed a normal process for picking a successor, the debate demonstrated that the status quo is untenable. And I think that’s rapidly becoming the consensus not just among panicky pundits, but among senior Democrats.
I was very struck by this statement that Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, gave to an Associated Press reporter Friday morning about Biden: “Until he articulates a way forward in terms of his vision for America at this moment, I’m going to reserve comment about anything relative to where we are at this moment, other than to say I stand behind the ticket.” That is not something you say if you think everyone is overreacting.
Healy: Bret, you had a column back in 2021 with the headline, “Biden Should Not Run Again — and He Should Say He Won’t,” arguing it would not be good for the country to have a president who is 86 at the end of his second term. But the last two years, the Democratic leadership all but buried their heads in the sand over Biden’s age. It’s now three months until early voting for president in September. What should Democrats do?
Bret Stephens: Michelle is right: Biden needs to get out. Now. But Democrats need to ask hard questions of themselves. Why did they ignore, or obfuscate, or deny, the plain evidence of the president’s decline?
Healy: I have wondered the same. Biden is good on a teleprompter, but we now have insight into what he’s like in private conversations and meetings. I realize this is based on just one debate, but Biden seems to have aged significantly in just the last nine months.
Stephens: Did he age significantly — or did too many Democrats just pretend not to notice, because it seemed uncouth to say the quiet part out loud and they felt that they had to support him as the nominee or else risk disuniting the party? And even if this aging is a more recent phenomenon, why did nobody in the party — a party elder like Chuck Schumer or Biden’s confidant Ted Kaufman — quietly urge him to make way for a younger candidate? Part of the answer, I’m sure, is that it takes a lot of nerve to say that to somebody as ornery and proud as Joe Biden. Another part, I think, is that they were afraid that Biden stepping aside inevitably meant Kamala Harris stepping up — and she may be an even worse bet for Democrats than her boss.
Jamelle Bouie: I’ll be the fly in the ointment of this emerging consensus that Biden should drop out. I don’t think one has to excuse or apologize for the president’s poor debate performance to also observe that the hyperventilating panic obscures the extent to which there are serious, perhaps fatal downsides to Biden leaving the race at this stage.
Healy: The fear of the unknown — Democratic chaos, a fractured party over a new nominee — may do more than anything else to keep a lot of Democratic leaders on Biden’s side. What do you see as those downsides, Jamelle?
Bouie: First, in the same way that George McGovern’s decision to replace Thomas Eagleton vindicated Richard Nixon’s argument that the Democrats were in too much disarray to trust with the presidency, a Biden decision to leave the race at this late stage vindicates the Republican argument, deployed during the debate, that the United States under Biden is unstable and insecure. Consider, as well, the pressure for Biden not just to leave the race but to leave the presidency as well. It does not make sense to say, “Joe Biden is not so enfeebled that he cannot be president but is enfeebled enough that he cannot run for re-election.” There will be calls for him to retire outright.
Stephens: I think McGovern had bigger political liabilities in 1972 than just the question of Eagleton’s fitness to serve. Sorry, go on.
Bouie: In addition, there is a real risk that the process of choosing a new nominee could tear open the visible seams in the Democratic Party. I have noticed that only a handful of calls for Biden to leave are followed by “and Vice President Harris should take his place.” More often, there is a call for a contested convention. But why, exactly, should Harris step aside? Why should Harris not be considered the presumptive nominee on account of her service as vice president and her presence on the 2020 ticket? And should Harris be muscled out, how does this affect a new nominee’s relationship with key parts of the Democratic base, specifically those Black voters for whom Harris’s presence on the ticket was an affirmation of Biden’s political commitment to their communities?
Stephens: Harris’s approval rating is 39 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight average of polls. Her disapproval rating is 49 percent. Not good. The argument against a Harris nomination begins with the fact that she’s unlikely to win. Why is that not dispositive at this point?
Bouie: There are two arguments made about Harris that are in tension with each other. The first is that she is a nonentity. The second is that she is unpopular. If she is a nonentity, then her unpopularity is malleable. If her unpopularity is set in stone, then she is very much not a nonentity and that provides an opportunity to define herself.
Here is the thing: I think Harris’s unpopularity is largely a function of the fact that she is a high-ranking and visible member of the unpopular Biden administration. And so the argument I am skeptical of is that choosing a different person to be the standard-bearer of the Biden administration would produce a notably different outcome. So under that scenario, you have the downside of the status quo plus the tail risk of someone who may not actually have the chops to compete on the national stage. (Everyone remember the hype behind Ron DeSantis?)
Again, people can run with this, but much like a fast food hamburger, it may look better in your imagination than it does on the plate.
Goldberg: You’re right about all the dangers of an open convention, even though that’s the path I’d prefer. But while I’m not bullish on Kamala Harris, if the party’s leadership decided that she is the natural and obvious successor, fine. In a lot of ways she’s underrated — to get to where she is, especially as a Black woman, she needed intelligence, savvy and charisma. If she became the nominee, there would be a lot of trepidation but also a burst of excitement, and she has stamina and communication skills to be ubiquitous in a way that Biden is not. So many people would just be relieved that this dreaded rematch isn’t happening that I think she’d start with a lot of good will.
Where I really disagree with you is this: “The argument I am skeptical of is that choosing a different person to be the standard-bearer of the Biden administration would produce a notably different outcome.” It just seems so overwhelmingly obvious to me that the problem is Biden’s obvious decline, not the record of his administration.
Bouie: There is a tremendous amount of unfounded confidence that Democrats could find and nominate a more capable candidate than either Biden or Harris. Remember, this would be an unprecedented, emergency event. It would require Democrats to completely reconfigure the convention process for a task it has not done since (ominously) 1968. It may well create terrible divisions within the Democratic coalition. If you are an ambitious, presidential-minded Democrat, do you step into the ring for this possibly damaged prize, or do you wait until 2028 for a clean shot? It is possible that the candidates we get are those who could not win the nomination under normal circumstances.
A final point on this: Any new nominee will not only be vulnerable to many of the same attacks that Biden has experienced, and which would be levied against any Democrat, but may well have to deal with division and backbiting within the party itself.
None of this is to say that people who think Biden should step down should not try to make it so, but the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
Goldberg: Jamelle, I completely agree with you about the downsides of Biden leaving the race right now, but I think when you’re staring down near-certain defeat, there’s a greater justification for trying something risky and untested. You’re obviously right that if Biden steps aside at this moment, it will make it look as if the Democrats are in disarray. But I don’t see any scenario in which chaos can be avoided. I’ve been very sanguine about how Biden is governing, but I don’t see how anyone who is not overwhelmingly predisposed to give him the benefit of the doubt could watch the debate last night and feel that the country is in good hands.
I think Biden could say something like: “I love this country, and care about nothing more than saving our democracy from Donald Trump. I did it in 2020, and until recently was confident that I was the one best positioned to do it again. But” — and you can insert some excuse here, like Hunter Biden’s conviction or some random health event — “it’s now clear that’s no longer the case. And unlike my opponent, I know this election isn’t all about me.”
Healy: That would be a powerful statement, Michelle, and I think a lot of voters, including independents and undecided voters, would be impressed with that candor and humility. At the same time, the election is in four months. Who do you think could step in and win in November if Biden were to give such a speech?
Goldberg: Jamelle is right that a candidate can be great on paper but flounder on the national stage, so it’s possible that someone like Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor who seems like such an ideal nominee in theory, would prove underwhelming in practice. But to me, that’s all the more reason to have an open convention, because you’d have a lot of campaigning in the run-up, so could get some sense of the candidate’s capabilities on a bigger — albeit improvised — stage.
That said, the Democrats’ bench is very deep. Whitmer could potentially be very strong, as could several other Democratic governors: Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Jared Polis of Colorado, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and of course Gavin Newsom of California. Among the senators who could be serious contenders are Chris Murphy, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown and Raphael Warnock, though it would probably be nuts for Democrats to give up a Georgia Senate seat. And as I said above, I think Kamala Harris would, at this point, be stronger than Biden.
Healy: Jamelle, Bret, do you think any members of the bench Michelle lays out could definitely beat Trump in November? Or have pretty good odds?
Bouie: I think the only way to answer this question is by making suppositions that ignore the reality of contingency. If we can somehow keep every single condition the same and simply swap Biden for Gretchen Whitmer or Andy Beshear or Wes Moore, then sure, they could win. But that’s not how this works. The process will raise problems. The challenge of jump-starting a national campaign will raise problems. Critically, none of these people are a Generic Democrat. They will have unforeseen challenges. The question is whether those unforeseen challenges are less challenging than the ones we have in front of us. And I’m simply not confident or certain enough in my powers of prediction to say, definitively, that they will be.
Stephens: I think nearly all of them stand a much stronger chance of beating Trump than Biden or Harris. And that’s the only thing that matters at this point.
Healy: Whether it’s Harris or another Democrat, Biden would have to bow out first. I’ll go on record and say I don’t think that will happen. His campaign and family still see “Biden’s not Trump” as a winning message and strategy in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and they know that a June debate will be just one data point among many by the time voting starts. They also know that it could send a signal of defeat and capitulation to withdraw at this late hour, and no party ever wants to do that. So: How do you convince someone to give up an office he now holds? Especially when, in this case, Biden, sees himself as a success and wants to build on and protect his legacy?
Stephens: Republican leaders, led by Barry Goldwater, had that conversation with Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974. On a more pedestrian level, adult children have that conversation with their elderly parents all the time — when it’s time to take away Dad’s car keys, or move Mom into an assisted-living community. It’s a conversation you have because the alternative is to watch the parents you love harm themselves and damage their dignity — as Biden damaged his own dignity on Thursday night.
To your second point: I’ve met too many Democrats telling themselves that they have no bench. What are they talking about? Whitmer would have wiped the floor with Trump at the debate — calling him out on his lies and evasions and bluster. Ditto for Shapiro, Moore, Beshear and many others. And I don’t think that Biden stepping aside entails an inevitable Harris ascendancy. She’s an unpopular vice president and the goal in this election, as in any other, is to nominate the candidate who is most likely to win.
Bouie: Bret, suppose Harris is muscled aside in favor of Andy Beshear. How do you suppose that plays with members of the Democratic coalition who feel that their votes are taken for granted? I can very easily imagine the response from, say, loyal Black Democrats in states such as Georgia: “We stood behind Biden because he stood behind Barack Obama. Why won’t you stand behind Harris when she stood behind Biden?”
If we all agree that this election is a game of inches, how can we be so certain that what is lost in the attempt to find a new nominee will be less than what is lost with the status quo?
Stephens: There are no certainties in life, football or politics. But the likelihood of Harris defeating Trump is low, in part because of the disapproval ratings I cited earlier, in part because she proved to be a poor campaigner when she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, in part because she has not had an especially distinguished tenure as veep, and in part because the one job she was given — dealing with the immigration crisis — is the one Americans feel especially sour about.
The two more plausible options for Democrats, it seems to me, is that either (a) she stays on as the vice-presidential nominee, with someone else at the top of the ticket, or (b) Democrats nominate Wes Moore or Georgia’s Raphael Warnock in her place. I’d be happy to see Moore at the top of the ticket, but he probably hasn’t been in office as governor long enough to be the presidential nominee.
Bouie: The argument for muscling Harris aside in favor of a nationally untested governor without deep and proven ties to key constituencies is much weaker than it looks. And that the downside risks of fracturing the Democratic Party should be considered as much as the upside chance of finding a Goldilocks candidate who offends no one, unifies the party, escapes the burden of Biden’s unpopularity, runs a competent campaign on the fly, and goes toe-to-toe with Trump.
Stephens: I don’t know what “muscling Harris aside” means, exactly.
Bouie: I’m not sure how else one describes the spectacle of party elites coordinating to keep the sitting vice president from getting the nomination after the president unexpectedly declines to continue his campaign. There is an implicit vision here of the Democratic Party as essentially a mid-20th-century machine. But as we continue to witness with dissatisfaction of supporters of Bernie Sanders with the conduct of the 2016 and 2020 primaries, the currency of the Democratic nomination process is democratic legitimacy. If this were an open nomination, yes, let the chips fall where they may. But this would be an unusual, highly contingent situation, and barring a democratic process, rank-and-file Democrats — like those who gave Biden the nomination — would have real, reasonable and legitimate questions to ask about the sidelining of Harris.
Stephens: Biden was muscled aside in 2016 to make way for Hillary Clinton. George H.W. Bush wasn’t simply handed the nomination in 1988. Nelson Rockefeller was pushed off the ticket in 1976 (and Gerald Ford nearly won). Going back further, vice presidents were repeatedly cast out whenever they didn’t suit the needs of the ticket — from Henry Wallace to Hannibal Hamlin and so on. The party should choose the candidate it believes has the best shot at defeating Donald Trump. That’s the only relevant criterion, whether it’s the “party elites” who are making the decision (an elite that includes many minority voices in the party) or the rank-and-file.
Bouie: The question isn’t “Can vice presidents be pushed aside in open nomination contests?” That was the situation in 1976, 1988, 2000 and 2016. And the obvious answer is, of course they can. But this situation involves an incumbent president actively running for re-election and then abruptly dropping his campaign months before the election itself, on the basis of fears of defeat. I think that if Ronald Reagan had announced in the fall of 1984 that he was leaving the campaign after his poor debate performance against Walter Mondale, the assumption would have been that Pappy Bush was the nominee. I think the same is true for Bill Clinton in ’96, had he had a catastrophic exchange with Bob Dole.
Goldberg: Maybe Sonia Sotomayor can retire and Biden can nominate Kamala Harris to the Supreme Court. (Kidding! Mostly!)
Stephens: I suggested something like this back in 2022, after Stephen Breyer announced he was stepping down from the court. A senior White House official told me, “Not a chance.” Too bad.
My great fear is that the White House will spend the next few days basically stomping on doubting Democrats. They’ll say: It’s just one debate. Or: Reagan also performed poorly in his first debate with Mondale. Or: Wait till people get their heads around all of Trump’s lies. Or: Dividing the party now is certain suicide. Or: It doesn’t change the fundamental dynamics of the race, and Americans will come around to recognizing that Trump is just too dangerous.
This is just total delusion, in my view. Americans will not re-elect an unpopular president, with an unpopular vice president, who is so visibly frail. They know — sorry to be blunt, but I must — that senility is a one-way ticket. And they know they don’t want four aimless years when they remain dissatisfied with the state of the country. It was understandable for Democrats to imagine in 2016 that Trump couldn’t possibly win. It’s incomprehensible to me that they should harbor that delusion now.
Goldberg: I’m sure they’ll try this. But I don’t think it’s going to work. Democrats have been quietly panicking for months, and now the dam has broken.
Healy: Bret, Michelle, you think Biden should bow out. Jamelle, you see it differently. I wanted to wrap up by asking all three of you to look ahead — what do you think will happen in terms of Biden continuing to run and his chances, as they stand today, in the fall election? These are the questions I’m hearing the most from our readers today.
Goldberg: I think Biden drops out. He is a loyal Democrat, and I can’t think of an instance in which he has bucked the overwhelming sentiment of his party. After that, it’s hard to say, because we’re in such uncharted waters.
Bouie: If I had to bet actual money, I think Biden stays in and a month from now the race is largely unchanged from where it was on Wednesday.
Stephens: I’m going to split the difference between Michelle and Jamelle. I think, alas, that Biden stays in — because his family will circle the proverbial wagons and even now no plausible Democrat will openly challenge the president for nomination. And I’ll bet Jamelle a beer that, by November, Democrats from Portland, Ore., to Portland, Maine, will be looking at the polls — at the same time they are checking out real estate listings and work visas from Costa Rica to the Costa del Sol.
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