President Biden faces a problem without a solution. No interview or speech can convince a skeptical public that he is still fit for the presidency. It will take years for perceptions to solidify. In June 2020, 36% of voters said Biden was too old to run for office. By 2024, that number will nearly double. In a Times/Siena poll conducted in February, 73% said Biden was “too old to be a good president.” In an April poll, 69% said the same thing. In a June poll, it was 70%, and after the debate, it was 74%.
The debate did not change what voters believe about Biden, it made it impossible for Democrats to continue to ignore what voters already believe about Biden.
Don’t get me wrong. They ignored it. After I called on Biden to step down in February, I had numerous discussions with leading Democrats about Biden’s age. Without exception, they understood it was a serious, perhaps fatal, political issue. So why did they do nothing? They thought the criticism was unfair to Biden, who had been a good president. They thought the problem couldn’t be solved because Biden wouldn’t step down. They thought there was no other option. And, above all, they thought Donald Trump’s malignant tumor would overwhelm any concern about Biden’s frailty.
Now they know that won’t be the case: In a post-debate Data for Progress poll asking voters whether they were more worried about Biden’s age and mental and physical health, or Trump’s criminal indictments and threats to democracy, 53 percent chose Biden’s age and 42 percent chose Biden’s age.
Democrats know they have to act. But how? If Biden leaves office, they have two options: a coronation or a campaign. In a coronation, Biden would nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor and appeal to delegates to support her. For some Democrats, this is the safest path. My newsroom colleagues Adam Nagorny and Jim Rutenberg report that “despite the risks, several Democrats said a new nomination could bring a lot of benefits to the party if Biden makes an effort to nominate a successor to ensure a smooth transition and minimize intraparty fighting.”
But a coronation would repeat the mistakes that plunged the party into crisis in the first place. What Democrats have denied themselves over the past few years is information. If Biden had run in a fierce primary that included debates, Democrats would have known sooner how he would fare. If Biden had regularly given long, tough interviews and held press conferences, his shortcomings would have been more apparent. In February, following a special counsel report that questioned Biden’s memory and cognitive abilities, Biden held an unusual evening press conference, confusing Mexico with Egypt, deepening the very doubts he was trying to dispel.
But that press conference was an exception. Biden was so infuriated by the special counsel’s report that he demanded to speak out, and I suspect he and his team quickly regretted the decision. Not that they started scheduling more press conferences after that. By June 30, 2012, Barack Obama had given 570 press conferences and interviews. At that same point in his presidency, Trump had given 468 and Biden had given 164.
The Democrats, or at least the Biden campaign, thought they were playing it safe. A primary would only weaken Biden. A difficult interview could generate talking points that would damage Biden. A press conference could expose Biden by surprise. But the Democrats missed the risk they were running. They didn’t know how Biden would perform in the reelection campaign until it was too late. Maybe Biden himself didn’t know how he would perform either.
Refusing to provide information is not a mistake Democrats should make again. That’s why the most significant statement I saw from a Democrat last week came from South Carolina Sen. Jim Clyburn, who saved the Biden campaign in 2020 and will be one of its co-chairs in 2024. In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Clyburn said the party should hold a “mini-primary” if Biden drops out of the race.
“We could turn the process that’s already in place into a mini-primary, and I fully support that,” Clyburn said. “We can’t close it down, and we should open it all up for the general election. I think Kamala Harris would do very well in that kind of process, and it would be fair for everybody.”
If Democrats need to choose another candidate, they need to make the process as competitive and open as possible. There is a good argument to be made that Harris is the front-runner and underrated. But she needs to prove herself. Nominating her for the sake of minimizing conflict would be insanity. Imagine the internal infighting if Democrats foolishly endorsed Biden, then endorsed Harris, and lost to Trump.
The cliché used to be that Democrats fall in love and Republicans follow. In recent years, Republicans have split and Democrats follow. But the fear of chaos can become a pathology in itself. Some problems can only be solved by exposing yourself to uncertainty. Some information only comes to the surface with some chaos and conflict. We’ve all been through periods in our lives when we lost control, and from that we discovered new strengths and possibilities. This is true for political parties, just as it is for people.
A coronation would also rob Democrats of the campaign advantage of constant media coverage from here to the convention. Imagine how infuriating it would be if Trump spent the next few months barely in the news. In an interview with Politico, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from South Carolina voiced what many Democrats have told me privately: “I think it would be great for the party. Think about it. People would watch. The ratings would go up. There would be drama that people would tune in to. And if there were multiple candidates vying for the nomination, you’d have a week of full-on coverage in primetime of our best rising stars, delivering the party’s message that, frankly, Joe Biden failed to deliver against Donald Trump.”
Democrats have spent so much time imagining what would happen if Biden were to leave office that they’re having a hard time imagining what would work. But this party is full of talent. It’s a party that knows how to win where it counts. Consider the seven states that will almost certainly decide this election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats control the governor’s mansion in five of those states. Democrats won 11 of the 14 Senate seats in those states.
And the party is facing a weak opponent. Another way to look at the poll above is that about 70% of voters think Biden is too old to be president, while Trump generally leads by just a few points. What would happen to this lead if voters were actually excited about the Democratic presidential candidate?
But to find a nominee, Democrats need to fight a real battle. They need to watch the candidates give interviews, debates, press conferences, town halls, and speeches. Candidates should look for forums where the people they interview and the voters disagree with their views. Pete Buttigieg, for example, never looks as good as he does when he’s on Fox News.
Democrats tried to play it safe and failed. Now is the time to take risks. The next candidate is not always the best choice. Leaders who seem perfect on paper don’t always perform on the campaign trail. But campaigns aren’t only characterized by disappointments. They reveal who is ready to rise to the occasion. Democrats should give themselves and the country a chance to find out.
