Let’s get this out of the way at the outset: No matter how many pundits speculate and pen scorching hot takes floating the idea, Joe Biden is not dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. He’s not dumping the vice president, Kamala Harris, from his ticket. And above all, he remains the best-positioned Democrat to defeat Donald Trump next year.
Yet somehow, views to the contrary persist. So let’s elaborate on these points one by one.
Biden announced his candidacy for re-election earlier this year. He’s already raised $77 million as of July, and has no serious primary challenge. He remains broadly popular among Democratic voters, even if he clearly has work to do in order to reassure wayward party members. When Lyndon Johnson abandoned re-election in March 1968, he had spent months dragging his feet on launching a campaign. When he almost lost the New Hampshire Democratic primary to Sen. Eugene McCarthy, his name wasn’t even on the ballot (voters had to write it in). None of that is happening with Biden. He has given every imaginable signal that he is running and that his heart is in it. Barring some unforeseen health event, he’s not dropping out. It simply isn’t going to happen.
Biden is the incumbent president, and incumbent presidents usually get re-elected.
Nor will Biden jettison Harris from the presidential ticket. While it’s true that Harris is not terribly popular, dropping her from the ticket would be a slap in the face to the most consistently loyal constituency in the Democratic Party — Black women. There’s a reason that Biden’s announcement video this past June was brimming with images of Harris, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (who was nominated by Biden) and dozens of women of color. They are the bedrock of the party, and in an election that will rely heavily on mobilizing Democratic partisans, motivating Black women will be crucial for victory. Anyone suggesting that Biden should drop a Black woman from the presidential ticket to help his re-election chances simply doesn’t understand how Democratic politics works.
In fact, they don’t understand much about how presidential politics works either. Running mates generally have little to no impact on a presidential race and almost no direct effect on voter decision-making. Where they can make a slight difference is in voter perceptions of the presidential candidate — and from that perspective booting Harris would be the ultimate self-inflicted wound. Joe Biden’s brand — one of the keys to his 2020 victory — is that he is a no-drama politician (in stark contrast to Donald Trump). There’d be no better way to shatter that image than for Biden to make a panicked move like dumping his loyal vice president a year before the election.
And if that happened, who would take the job? Some pundits have floated the idea of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. I’d wager that Whitmer would rather crawl over broken glass than step over Harris’ political carcass to the No. 2 spot on the 2024 ticket. If Whitmer did, she would so alienate Black voters that the closest she’d likely ever get to the White House would be waiting in line for a tour.
Replacing Harris with another candidate would alienate a key Democratic constituency, do little to sway persuadable voters, erode Biden’s brand and create chaos within the Democratic Party. Other than that — great idea.
Lastly, and this is the crucial point: Biden is better positioned than any other Democrat to beat Trump next year. Not only has he already done it, but he is the incumbent president, and incumbent presidents usually get re-elected.
Any other Democratic candidate, whether it’s California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Whitmer, would be untested on the national stage and, perhaps even more important, unvetted. Why anyone thinks it would be a good idea to cast aside an incumbent president with a record of accomplishments and all the advantages of incumbency, for a candidate who most Americans don’t know, is difficult to fathom at any time.
Seemingly every time an incumbent runs for re-election, there are pundits who suggest the president should drop out or dump his vice president.
It makes particularly little sense this far into the campaign cycle. If Biden dropped out of the race tomorrow, Harris, as vice president, would be weaker than the incumbent president. But she would almost certainly have access to Biden’s donors, his campaign infrastructure and a likely endorsement. If Biden and Harris both dropped out, as The Washington Post’s David Ignatius called for this week, potential Democratic candidates would need to feverishly raise money, hire staff and put a campaign structure in place just months before voters go to the polls. The Democratic nomination race would be an ugly protracted food fight with no front-runner and a reasonable chance that no candidate would win enough delegates to capture the nomination before the Democratic National Convention.
The main beneficiary of that unpleasantness would likely be Donald Trump. Throwing the Democratic Party into complete disarray 14 months before a presidential election in which the future of American democracy is legitimately on the ballot is a less-than-optimal idea. That it would help Democrats keep the White House for four more years is absurd.
None of this is to suggest that Biden is a perfect candidate. His approval ratings are lousy; two-thirds of Democrats would prefer a different candidate, and he would be the oldest incumbent president to ever appear on a presidential ballot. His flaws are real, and if he was facing off against a candidate less toxic and unpopular than Trump, he might be in real political trouble.
But no candidate and no president is perfect. That’s why, seemingly every time an incumbent runs for re-election, there are pundits who suggest the president should drop out or dump his vice president. But that never happens because, generally speaking, it’s a terrible idea and, warts and all, an incumbent president is the party’s best option for victory. A president refusing to seek a second term or dumping a vice president would be momentous political events that would reverberate across the political landscape in ways that are impossible to predict. Those advocating for such moves are simply failing to consider the consequences of a political “cure” for an ailing president. It has the potential to be far worse than the disease.
Still, I have no doubt that pundits will keep writing pieces floating the idea, and some Democrats will pine for a savior to ride up on a white horse and save the party. But make no mistake: Democrats came to this dance with Joe Biden — and that’s who they are leaving with.
