In the weeks since President Biden’s widely criticized debate performance, a lot has happened. The 81-year old President now faces calls from many in his party to drop out – at least one senator and nineteen House Democrats along with several donors and high-profile Democratic supporters have called on the President to call it quits. This article may very well be outdated as soon as it’s released, as momentum continues to mount on Biden to withdraw from the race. All of this chaos merits asking what the benefits and drawbacks of Biden pulling out of the race would be, which is what this article will cover.
Biden at the 2024 State of the Union
The Case for Biden’s Staying
Biden of course is the incumbent President, and incumbents usually get an advantage in running for the presidency. Indeed, most Presidents who have run for a second term (or in Franklin Roosevelt’s case, third and fourth term) have won re-election. Biden of course also has the advantage of having beaten Trump in a race before. He won the 2020 presidential election by a not-so-close popular vote margin of 4.5 percentage points, and it would make sense to renominate the person who defeated the same opponent especially one who won not an especially close election. Additionally, Biden has a solid legislative record to run on, including bipartisan bills on infrastructure and manufacturing and the sprawling Inflation Reduction Act. A lot of Biden’s proposals enjoy wide public support – his measures to reduce the cost of insulin, boost infrastructure spending, and allot funding for climate change mitigation have brought up overwhelming support in polls.
Of course, Biden won his party’s primaries and it would arguably be undemocratic to disregard the wills of millions of Democrats who voted for Biden in those primaries. Removing Biden as the nominee presents a fresh set of legal and procedural challenges – including possible ballot deadlines that may pass in the event Biden is removed. Additionally, removing the incumbent President just four months away from Election Day makes for bad optics – it signals to the American public that the Democratic Party is in chaos. A new candidate, especially someone who is not Vice President Kamala Harris, would have a hard time getting a new organization off the ground and running and would not benefit from the solid campaign that has been in place for more than a year at this point.
President Joe Biden pauses as he listens to a question about the bombings at the Kabul airport that killed at least 12 U.S. service members, from the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, in Washington. Source: AP
The Case for Biden’s Withdrawal
Of course, it must not be forgotten that Biden is one of the most unpopular incumbent Presidents we’ve had in the history of polling. Ever since August 2021, his approval rating has been steadily underwater at a rate comparable to that of Trump’s. He trailed Trump in many pre-debate polls and is likely to take a hit in post-debate polls due to his not-so-great performance. In fact, he is the first Democratic presidential candidate to be trailing at this stage of the race.
Public opinion has also been consistent; most voters think he is too old. A New York Times poll showed that 74% of respondents saw the Democrat as “too old to be an effective president”. Because Biden turns 82 in the fall and would be 86 at the end of a prospective second term, this may very well turn out to be true. Age will continue to persist as a problem in this campaign. Also not helpful is the fact that Biden and his team have not set out a winning strategy. Biden won the 2020 race by leveraging his years of experience and relying on the fact that Trump, the sitting President, was very unpopular amidst COVID-19 and the economic recession. Now, Biden can no longer solely rely on those attributes. The 2024 race, against what Democrats hoped for, will no longer be a referendum on Trump. Instead, it will set out to be a race between two unpopular candidates. Biden’s age and unpopularity make Trump and Republicans’ flaws less noticeable to the electorate. Indeed, Republicans have expressed their hopes that Biden remains on the Democratic ticket, cementing the belief that Biden’s remaining would sink the Democratic Party.
A potential Biden loss would not only lose the presidency but take down-ballot Democrats down. Presidential candidates tend to have coattail effects when running for office, as they help their fellow party members win elections in Congress and other lower-level races just by being at the top of the ticket. Biden’s presence on the ballot could serve to turn off voters from the Democratic Party as a whole. It would result in Democrats possibly losing control of Congress – a setback for any progressive agenda going forward. Additionally, polls show him running behind several of his fellow Democrats in key battleground states, meaning Democrats could still emerge victorious in November if they just select the right candidate to excite voters. Biden’s multi-million dollar investments in advertising in swing states also have not resulted in any form of surge in the polls, meaning the Democrats may want to rethink their strategy going forward.
The Point
In the end, it is up to Biden to say whether or not he will remain in the race. By all indications, unless something changes dramatically in the next few days, he intends to fully do so. This is regretful in my opinion, as it would serve Democrats well for him to withdraw from the race. His age and unpopularity have made it clear that despite Trump’s unpopularity, he is unmatched by the former President’s relative vigor in contrast. By continuing his campaign, Biden imposes the risk of dragging his party down with him – a not-so-fitting end to more than fifty years of dutiful service to the Democratic Party. A more youthful, energetic candidate would have an easier time defeating Trump, with previous polls showing this to be the case when Trump was put up against a generic Democrat not named Biden.
It is now up to Democrats to decide whether or not they allow Biden to stay or employ a last-minute coup at the Democratic National Convention. If I were in their position and truly wanted to win, I would use every bit of my power to get Biden out. It would be an embarrassment to the Democrats if they somehow managed to lose to the unpopular Donald Trump again – and a setback to whatever progressive agenda they had planned. If Democrats do manage to get Biden out, it is up to them to fix the mess they would create in doing so and somehow emerge unscathed and primed for victory in November.
Sources:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/poll-debate-biden-trump.html
Emil Ordonez, a rising college freshman, is the founder and editor-in-chief of Polinsights. He has been deeply passionate about politics and history since learning every U.S. President at the age of five. He was compelled to start this blog after meeting many people who were misinformed or had become apathetic about how society worked. He hopes to provide factual knowledge and insights that will encourage people, especially the young, to get more engaged in their respective communities. In his free time, he edits for Wikipedia and makes maps for elections. He aspires to work in Congress or even the White House in the future.
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