The Choice is Biden or Harris

Let's splash some cold water on the non-Trump options for 2024.

Photo by Samara Doole on Unsplash

In the wake of the most catastrophic debate performance I have witnessed in my lifetime, it would be safe to say that Democratic Party elites and the chattering class are freaking the f**k out about the 2024 election.

I can’t blame them! I am someone who had been pretty dismissive of Biden’s age as a serious issue — until Thursday’s debate. If I was Trump’s communications manager the only ad I would run for the entire summer would be the clip below¹ followed by the text, “Do you think Joe Biden is up to being president for four more years?”

The question, for those of us who do not want to see a second Trump term, is: “what now?” And this is where there some cold water is called for, because there are really only two viable choices:

1. Stick with Joe Biden; or

2. Have Biden resign the presidency sometime this summer, Kamala Harris sworn in as President, and have Harris be the Democratic Party nominee.

That’s it, those are your options. Everything else is nonsense.² Let me explain.

First, sticking with Biden remains a very viable option. Despite his disastrous debate performance, it should be noted that the post-debate news has not been all that bad for Democrats. Biden raked in $27 million in campaign donations the day after the debate. Morning Consult’s morning-after poll showed that Biden did not lose any ground to Trump even though a majority believed that Trump won the debate. Biden’s poor performance might be causing many observers to overlook Trump’s uneven performance, with some undecided focus groups switching to Biden because they could tell that Trump was lying.

Furthermore, despite his poor debate performance Biden did rather well on the stump the next day, artfully acknowledging his errors of the previous evening:

Joe Biden cruised through the Democratic primary and has been a pretty decent president. Biden stumbled early in the 2020 cycle, so this could just be a familiar reprise.³ Maybe the best response is to chalk Thursday up to a bad night and proceed with the horse that brought you. If the polling holds up it would be fun to watch the chattering classes pirouette to explain why American voters are not reacting the way they are!

This is the most likely outcome. But as I was reading Axios’ Alex Thompson earlier today, a few passages of his caught me short:

The past 36 hours showcased two Joe Bidens: the veteran president rallying voters in a swing state, and an 81-year-old man struggling to string thoughts together in a debate.

The public split screen isn't new to many inside the White House, where top aides have meticulously stage-managed minutiae such as Biden's sleep schedule, his orthopedic shoes, his walks to Marine One and his climb aboard Air Force One to try to blunt concerns about his age.

Internally, many aides have seen flashes of an absent-minded Biden, but typically brush them off as ordinary brain farts because they usually see him engaged, eight current and former Biden officials told Axios….

Beyond the politics of whether Biden can beat Trump again, the aides expressed new worries about whether the president can carry out his duties through another four-year term….

Biden's miscues and limitations are more familiar inside the White House.

The time of day is important as to which of the two Bidens will appear.

From 10am to 4pm, Biden is dependably engaged — and many of his public events in front of cameras are held within those hours.

Outside of that time range or while traveling abroad, Biden is more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued, aides told Axios.

Let’s put the 2024 campaign aside for a second. There is also the legitimate question of whether Joe Biden is capable of serving another term as president. Nothing in the excerpt above makes me feel good about that prospect. If Trump’s staffers constantly talk about him like he is a toddler, Biden’s staffers are now talking about him like he lives in a retirement community rather than the White House. That does not exactly inspire confidence given the challenges any president would face over the next four years.

In other words, I am not just concerned about whether Biden’s age will be a factor in the election this November. I am concerned about how Biden’s age will affect his ability to do the very taxing job he wants to keep until 2029. Remember, Biden’s age issues are just going to get worse from here. After Thursday’s debate performance, no one can feel very sanguine about an 86-year old Joe Biden being the leader of the free world.

So let’s say that Biden’s donors and congressional supporters and kitchen cabinet tell him that it is time to step aside, and he listens. What happens next? While I have heard a lot of “brokered convention” nonsense, I agree with Matthew Yglesias: “a political scheme that counts on Gretchen Whitmer walking through the door is a very unsound gamble. You shouldn’t try to shove the president out of the way unless you’re prepared to say the vice president would be better.”

The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie has been the most clear-eyed on thinking through this question:

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?

….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?)

Bouie and Yglesias are spot on: any scenario where Biden exits the stage has to wind up with either Harris taking his place or Harris acting like the most gracious person in human history and declining the nomination. And that second possibility ain’t happening.

The case for Harris is stronger than many think, especially if their perceptions of Harris are frozen in amber from 2021. After a rocky start Harris found her groove in the VP job, particularly after the Dobbs abortion ruling. Her four years as vice president gives her the experience to both run for president and do the job. Her name has been on the primary ballot this year along with Biden. She would be the obvious choice.

Here’s the thing, though: if Biden were to decide to step aside in the wake of a poor debate performance, the inevitable question would be whether he should step aside immediately. As previously noted, he is only going to keep aging, and the federal government cannot function well with a 10-4 presidency.

Biden resigning this summer would generate three political advantages. First, Kamala Harris being sworn in as the first lady president would be, to quote Biden, a big fucking deal. It would be a suitable final act in Biden’s distinguished political biography. Second, it would make the November election a choice between former president Trump and President Harris. The move would put Harris at Trump’s level and eliminate experience as a Trump argument during the campaign. Finally, Harris being president would remove the inherent awkwardness that sitting vice presidents have faced when running for the top job: being unable to disagree or disavow the sitting president’s policies. Anything that makes it easier for Kamala Harris to not resemble Al Gore is a good thing.

So, if you oppose Donald Trump’s re-election, your choice is sticking with Biden or opting for Harris in very short order. Everything else is stuff and nonsense. Discerning readers might be able to figure out which option I prefer. But Democrats need to decide pretty quickly with path they wish to follow — because with each passing day, the choice will only get more painful.

1. Coincidentally, these were the only sentences Trump said during the entire debate that contained any truth value whatsoever.

2. What about RFK Jr.?!—ed. As I said, every other choice is nonsense.

3. It is also worth remembering that when they ran for re-election both Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan stumbled badly in their first debates and still won.