This memo was intended as a way for me to organize my thoughts on the Presidential nomination process in the wake of the June 27 Presidential debate. Quite a few people and organizations are calling for an alternative Democratic Party nominee, but there are a lot of complexities involved in that decision.
First, it’s worth noting that presidential candidates necessarily have some degree of narcissistic delusion. Simply to arrive at the conclusion that one is actually capable of becoming the leader of the Unites States of America and to do so effectively, requires a great deal of arrogance (whether warranted or not). As such, presidential candidates are likely to be reticent to accept arguments that that are incapable of becoming president absent major catastrophic events.
Despite Biden’s poor performance in the debate, nothing has actually changed in his candidacy or his capability to be president. He is the same candidate with the same mental capacity today as he was on June 26. Republicans have pointed out other poor public appearances for months. The only thing that changed on June 27 was that the performance was clearly broadcast nationwide.
Biden, the Presumptive Nominee
Biden won the Democratic primary and holds exclusive control of nearly all of the convention delegates. They are pledged to vote for him as the nominee. As such, absent a major (and largely unprecedented) shake-up, Biden will be the nominee. Prior to the debate, he was roughly a 60-40 underdog to win the Presidency (per Nate Silver’s electoral analysis). It will be a few more days before polling captures the debate and succeeding analysis, but betting markets now give Biden roughly 25% odds of retaining the Presidency.
So what would it take to select a different Democratic Party nominee? Biden would have to step down, either voluntarily or involuntarily. The latter option would involve some sort of appeal to Section 4 of the 25th amendment, allowing the Vice President and a majority of the Presidential cabinet to declare him unfit for office. Under a scenario where Biden is not voluntarily stepping down from the campaign, this approach is likely to result in a massive division of the party and the fallout is probably catastrophic.
In reality, the only viable route to select a different nominee is for Biden to voluntarily suspend his campaign. As noted in the previous section, considering the delusional aspect common to all Presidential candidates and the fact that no recent change in his health or mental capacity has occurred, convincing him to step down is probably a very tall order. Additionally, his rebound performance at campaign events and public declarations in the wake of the debate make it seem more likely that he remains the nominee.
However, let’s assume that the polling over the next week takes a major downturn and that key Democratic figures are somehow able to convince Biden to step aside. Even in that case, there are major considerations, including timing, money, narrative, and candidate selection.
Nominee Selection Timing
The optimal time for selecting a different candidate was at the beginning of Presidential Primary Season. Unfortunately, we’re now at the beginning of July, with all primary contests fully completed, and the Democratic National Convention (DNC) is only 7 weeks away. That doesn’t leave much time for support to coalesce around a single candidate. Ultimately, at the conclusion of the convention, a Democratic presidential nominee will be named, whether it is Biden or someone else, so we have a clear timeline.
However, there is an additional confounding factor to consider. States have deadlines for certification of candidates on ballots. Most of those deadlines are shortly after the convention, so no changes can realistically occur after that time. In addition, Ohio’s deadline to certify names for ballots is August 7 (2 weeks prior to the convention!). Alabama had a deadline prior to the convention but passed legislation to move the deadline to after the convention. Washington State also has an earlier deadline but offered a provisional certification for Biden. Ohio considered a bill to change the ballot deadline, but Republicans insisted on attaching provisions restricting foreign donations for state and local ballot-issue campaigns, and Democrats wanted a clean bill.
What this means is that if a nominee other than Biden is selected at the DNC, that candidate will not be listed on the ballots in Ohio. It is also possible that he could not be on the ballots in Washington, but as that state legislature is controlled by Democrats, it is likely that some allowances will be made. Replacing Biden will either require the change to happen a full two weeks before the start of the DNC, or that candidate will not be listed on the ballots in Ohio. It is difficult to see a scenario where Biden would agree to resign and for support to coalesce around a single candidate via virtual meetings only in the next 5 weeks.
As such, it may be necessary to simply write off Ohio altogether. Ohio is not listed as a swing state at this point. Trump won the state by 8 points in 2020, and he is polling better this year, so it is not likely to be in play anyway. On the other hand, nearly 3 million people in Ohio voted for Biden in 2020, and those votes would not be applied to the new Democratic nominee. A write-in campaign could probably reclaim a portion of those votes, but it’s doubtful that more than a third of voters would comply. So the Democratic nominee would be writing off Ohio’s 17 electoral votes, as well as around 2 million popular votes. While the popular vote is not used to decide the election, Democratic candidates have repeatedly pointed to it over the last few elections, as the electoral college tends to lean slightly more Republican than the popular vote. Losing the popular vote because votes in Ohio are not included in the Democratic candidate’s count would be tough to swallow if the election is tightly contested and involves legal challenges.
Money
The Biden campaign has raised more than $230M and has $84M cash on hand as of the May 21 FEC report, and quite a bit more was raised through the month of June. There is a lot of additional money donated to various PACs, but the money given to the Biden campaign cannot be transferred to another candidate. Only a few minor candidates even have a campaign account already created, and they would likely not be seriously considered to replace Biden anyway. A replacement candidate will be starting with zero cash. It would take a major well-respected candidate to gain the support of donors and start to overcome a huge funding deficit compared to Trump.
While this issue can surely be overcome, it must be a consideration when it comes to candidate selection. To have any hope of waging a competitive campaign, the candidate must be capable of quickly provoking excitement and enthusiasm.
Narrative
While Biden’s energy and capacity to lead the country dominates the political narrative right now, it is worth considering if the narrative surrounding a replacement candidate would actually be an improvement. How will the average Democratic voter respond to having donated to Biden and voted for him in the primary, only to see the party leaders suddenly replace him with a candidate the voters never considered?
One of the major narratives against Trump is that he is a threat to democracy. Swapping out the Democratic nominee on the basis of 2000-3000 party delegates and ignoring the primary votes of 10s of millions of voters will give the Republicans the opportunity to spin the narrative and claim that Democrats are actively opposing the democratic process. One could easily conceive of Trump refusing to debate the replacement candidate and start claiming at rallies that the new person is an illegitimate candidate and that the Democratic party is “trying to steal another election but doing do much more obviously this time.”
While the reality can be explained, replacing Biden will have narrative challenges. It is unclear if the downside from this narrative is actually better than the narratives surrounding Biden.
Candidate Selection
Even if the above issues can be overcome, it is not necessarily clear who could function as a good replacement for Biden on the ballot. This is compounded by the fact that DEI considerations have factored into choices by the Democratic Party in recent years.
The most obvious choice to replace Biden is his Vice President, Harris. However, there seems little upside for her to actually replace Biden on the ticket. She is already the constitutional replacement for Biden should he be unable to complete his official duties, so she can remain a loyal supporter and take a more active role in the campaign to give voters confidence that a Biden administration will be in good hands regardless of Biden’s long-term health.
Unfortunately, until recently, her approval rating has been even lower than Biden’s. A better succession plan would have had her much more publicly visible over the past 2-3 years and would have involved her taking on larger roles in the Biden administration so that a transfer of power to her would be obvious and seamless. This has not happened though, and it raises the question on how effectively she could take on the role of President, especially in a high-pressure situation where she needs to quickly excite voters and donors across the spectrum.
But selecting a candidate other than Harris introduces additional pitfalls. She has been a loyal supporter of the administration and is the presumptive successor. If the party chooses to bypass her in favor of another candidate, there is a risk of splitting the party. This is especially true if the party opts for a white male candidate. After encouraging serious consideration of DEI initiatives (including Biden’s decision to only consider women for his running mate and his promise to nominate a Black woman to the supreme court), to pass over a woman of color in favor of what might be perceived as a “white male savior” would having some extreme messaging challenges (and would likely hand Republicans some wedge issues).
Apart from Harris, one of the major names being raised is Gavin Newsom. He is at least a fairly well-known figure nationally, and he had a major televised debate Ron DeSantis earlier this year (though the results of the debate are questionable). It is not clear that he has enough national support to overcome both the fundamental challenges of replacing Biden as well as the narrative issues of being selected over Harris. I think the only way he could realistically gain widespread support from the party is for Harris to enthusiastically and publicly endorse him, but she can’t really do that until Biden commits to stepping down. On the other hand, it is doubtful he could be convinced to step down if there is not an obvious successor ready to take over.
Moving beyond Harris and Newsom, the options are far less clear. Gretchen Whitmer has been mentioned. As a woman, she helps blunt the poor optics of bypassing Harris, and she was considered for the VP role four years ago. If she had run a competitive primary campaign either in 2020 or in 2024, she would have raised her national profile enough to be a serious contender here, but it’s not clear that she has a sufficient national profile to excite voters and donors and quickly take over the campaign from Biden.
Pete Buttigieg is another option, and he has good name recognition. While he is a member of the LQBTQ+ community, he is still a white male and will have to make a clear case for why he was the better choice than Harris. The various transportation crises over the last couple years will also be prime targets for Republican attacks.
I’m not aware of any other current Democratic politician that has sufficient national name recognition to be an effective candidate. Hillary Clinton has been mentioned, and she has both sufficient experience and name recognition. However, for a voting public already annoyed at the prospect of repeating the 2020 election, swapping out Biden to create a repeat of 2016 (when Trump won) seems unlikely to promote the needed excitement.
The one wild card name that could overcome many of the issues from these other options is Michelle Obama. She is well-known and fairly well respected across the political spectrum. Of all of these options, she is probably the most likely to quickly obtain the embrace of the Democratic Party and run an effective campaign. However, she has stated on multiple occasions that she would not be running for president and has even encouraged her daughters to stay away from politics. Even if she were seriously considering a run for President, there seems very little upside to doing so this year, as opposed to waiting until 2028 when she would not have to contend with Trump and his rhetorical approach, and when she would have time to develop campaign infrastructure and a political network.
In fact, this very consideration may keep any serious candidate from stepping in. Neither Biden nor Trump will be on the ballot in 2028 regardless of the outcome of this election. There will be no incumbent candidate (apart from the sitting Vice President), and none of the major challenges raised in this document would apply. Further, if Trump wins, there is some likelihood that the political conditions will be more favorable for a Democratic candidate. (This memo does not take serious consideration of the claim that this country cannot survive another Trump term in office.) As a result, a potential replacement candidate seriously weighing the political calculus would likely conclude that it is only worth jumping into the campaign now if there is a high likelihood of success against Trump. However, the polls won’t reflect major enthusiasm for a hypothetical candidate when Biden is still in the race, so no obvious signal for success will be available.
Conclusion and Prediction
Based on this analysis, I think it is unlikely Biden will be replaced on the ballot. There are no obvious choices to step in and replace him, and the fundamental challenges of trying to replace Biden at this late stage, as opposed to running a full campaign in four years, will likely dissuade any real alternative candidates from taking on that role.
I predict that the Democratic Party will retain Biden as the nominee. The messaging strategy will try to move past the debate except to call out Trump for lying and failing to answer questions. Harris will take on a more prominent role, specifically to try to show a more youthful and robust side of the ticket.
