US presidential polls: Joe Biden says he will stay in the fight
News reports suggested that Biden’s last week debate performance wasn’t an aberration and there have been many moments recently where he has been incoherent.
President Joe Biden continued to resist calls to make way for a younger Democratic candidate, even as two new polls showed Biden losing voters and more voices, both from within his party and liberal civil society, asked the 81-year-old incumbent to end his campaign after his debate performance last week.
In response to the increasing speculation about his candidacy, Biden joined a call with his campaign staff, reached out to Congressional leadership and met with Democratic governors on Wednesday, a day before America closed down for a long holiday weekend. Although while reports have suggested he is aware that the viability of his candidacy is under strain, Biden told his campaign staff, “Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can and as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running. I am the nominee of the Democratic Party. No one is pushing me out. I am not leaving.”
Biden’s refusal to relent came on a day when a New York Times-Siena poll, conducted after the debate, showed 49% of likely voters supporting the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, while only 43% backed Biden, the largest lead Trump has enjoyed in the poll. An overwhelming 74% found Biden too old for the job. A Wall Street Journal poll found 48% of voters backing Trump and 42% backing Biden, with 80% of voters saying Biden was too old to run. Trump also enjoys a comfortable lead over Biden in key swing states that will determine the outcome.
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The polls confirm what an increasing number of Democrats have felt since last Thursday’s debate, when Biden’s age-related vulnerabilities, including the inability to complete thoughts, construct sentences, defend his record, or attack his opponent, were apparent. In private, fearful of a second Trump administration, convinced that Biden can no longer beat him, and terrified that Biden’s unpopularity will drag down all other Democrats on the ballot in Congressional and state races this year, party leaders have begun pushing the party to think of an alternative to Biden.
A Democratic state office bearer from a swing state told HT, “If Biden is our candidate, this election is over. There is no coming back from that debate. It has confirmed the worst fears of voters about his health. We may not win with a new candidate, but we definitely won’t win with Biden as the candidate.”
There is also a view within the party that the crisis can be turned into opportunity. A new and younger panel of candidates can bring energy to the campaign and base, get rid of Biden’s baggage with younger progressives and minorities on issues such as the war in Gaza, and force Trump to change his current narrative that relies on attacking Biden’s age and record.
In public too, increasingly, Democratic representatives have categorically begun asking Biden to either quit or reassure American citizens about his health even though the senior most governors and party leaders have rallied behind the President.
Biden’s campaign has struggled to respond to the criticism. In the hours after the debate, they framed it as “one bad night” that cannot offset three and a half years of his record. The day after the debate, Biden acknowledged that he wasn’t young anymore and he couldn’t speak and walk as well, but contrasted what he framed as his truthfulness with Trump’s lies.
This week, Biden blamed the performance on fatigue. But news reports have also suggested that Biden’s performance wasn’t an aberration and there have been many moments in recent months where he has been incoherent. His staff has put in several measures to protect him from public exposure, and other world leaders have been startled at his decline.
The challenge for Democrats is that never before has a candidate dropped out of the race this late in the electoral process. To start afresh, Biden will have to announce he was quitting and free up his delegates who will congregate at the party convention in mid-August in Chicago to pick a new candidate. Strikingly, in perhaps the closest analogy to the current moment, it was in Chicago in 1968 when Democrats picked a candidate in turbulent circumstances at a convention after the incumbent, President Lyndon Johnson, chose not to contest and the party faced the wrath of young voters who were then protesting against the Vietnam war.
If Biden does choose to quit, as the vice-president, Kamala Harris — the first woman, the first Black, and the first person of Indian-origin to hold the office — will be a top contender to replace him. Harris has stoutly defended Biden in recent days, including on Wednesday when she told the campaign staff that she was “all in” and will follow the President’s lead.
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She also will have access to the campaign’s funds, and her presence has the potential to energise people of colour as well as younger liberals. But many Democrats are concerned about her winnability. For most part, Harris’s favourability ratings have been lower than that of Biden though after the debate, she polled better than the president in a direct face-off with Trump.
There are also questions on whether she can draw in White voters in swing states. And given that Harris was in charge of border and immigration issues — which is Trump’s key campaign critique of the Biden administration — the Republicans will have a clear line of attack against her. The fact that no woman has ever become president, and Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, also remains embedded in the minds of Democratic operatives.
Washington DC is abuzz with speculation about other contenders. Among those who may seek the nomination are California governor Gavin Newsom (who is seen as a charismatic leader with the ability to raise funds in quick time), Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer (under whom Democrats won the governor, state Senate and state House race in the crucial swing state), Maryland governor Wes Moore (a Rhodes scholar, a combat veteran and only the third Black governor in US history), and Illinois governor JB Pritzker (who belongs to one of America’s wealthiest business families and will have a fundraising advantage).
But all of this will eventually boil down to Biden and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, both of whom have expressed their determination to continue in the fight. Over the next few days, whether Biden, his family and advisers prevail, or whether the mood among the Democratic rank and file and voters in general prevails, will determine the contours of the 2024 race.