The Case for Biden Staying In

By Philip Klein

Sunday, July 07, 2024

 

Since the day after the debate, I’ve been consistently predicting that Democrats would dump President Biden as their nominee. All along, I have worked off the assumption that top Democrats could successfully pressure Biden into dropping out, as involuntarily ousting the guy who won 3,896 of 3,929 pledged delegates, per the AP, would be too bloody.

 

To this point, however, the pressure on Biden to step aside has had the reverse of its intended effect. That is, the more Democrats who have come out either publicly or privately for him to drop out, the more insistent Biden is that he is not going anywhere. While Biden claimed on ABC that only the Lord Almighty could get him to drop out, he was unwilling to entertain what he would do if top Democrats urged him to do so. This week, with Congress back in session, we may start to see the Democrats ratchet up the pressure, and we’ll see if Biden is persuadable. Democrats face a huge dilemma going public with their concerns. If they say something and Biden doesn’t end up dropping out, they end up weakening the Democratic nominee and earning the ire of the president. If they do not say anything, they have to spend the next four months answering questions about Biden’s fitness for office, which they cannot vouch for without making themselves look ridiculous.

 

While the argument for Biden to drop out is compelling, if you consider things from the perspective of Biden, his family, and his most loyal supporters, you can start to see why he feels he can stick this out.

 

A few points to consider:

 

·        Biden sounded delusional on ABC dismissing all polling data showing him behind as incorrect. But he has a point in the sense that he isn’t dramatically behind. The RealClearPolitics average has Trump up 3.3 percent, which is better than he has ever polled at this point in a presidential race, to be sure. But it isn’t as if Trump is consistently ahead ten to 15 points after the debate — or some other number that would indicate the bottom has fallen out and thus it necessitates the unprecedented step of having a sitting president drop out less than four months before the election.

 

·        Biden is losing, but he’s still running against Trump — who is also deeply unpopular. There’s a chance that if Biden rides out the storm and is confirmed as the nominee, the “drop out” talk will subside and the focus will turn to Trump’s liabilities.

 

·        It isn’t clear that the messy process of replacing Biden on the ticket would result in a stronger candidate. The idea of replacing him with anybody but Vice President Kamala Harris is a pipe dream. Now, I’ve been arguing since February that despite her vulnerabilities, she is now the stronger choice for Democrats. At the same time, she is still a historically unpopular vice president. So moving heaven and earth to place her at the top of the ticket when she isn’t polling better and could end up doing worse may be foolhardy.

 

·        It isn’t clear that Democratic voters actually want Biden to drop out. He ran for the nomination without a serious challenge and captured nearly every delegate that was up for grabs. According to at least one poll, Democrats by 66 percent to 32 percent (or a more than two-to-one margin) want him to stay in the race. So when Biden said it’s only the media that wants him out, and not actual voters, there’s data he can point to that bolsters his case.

 

Again, while I personally believe that the weight of evidence is in favor of him dropping out and that top Democrats will convince him to do so, it’s helpful to consider the reasons why he may dig in.