Joe Biden’s poor performance in the debates has alarmed Democrats, with some looking for a replacement to replace the 81-year-old president as the party’s standard-bearer.
Biden has given no indication that he plans to withdraw from the race, and his campaign has flatly rejected the suggestion. But that hasn’t silenced critics, who have openly questioned whether Biden is the right person to confront Donald Trump, whom the president and his party view as a serious threat to American democracy.
In the unlikely event that Biden decides not to run, the most obvious choice to succeed him would be his 59-year-old vice president and running mate, Kamala Harris. But it won’t be automatic — other candidates could challenge Harris’ nomination, and Harris’s approval ratings are low.
Some Democrats are already considering other possible contenders for vice president — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
This shows that Democrats have not yet fully accepted Harris as Biden’s heir apparent.
Writer Tanzina Vega said on careful examination.
Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history and the first Black and Asian American to serve as vice president.
Democrats were traumatized by Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016, but in 2020 they united behind Biden among younger, more diverse and progressive candidates, including Harris. As a candidate, Biden promised to be a “bridge” to the next generation of Democratic leaders, which many interpreted as a promise to serve one term before passing the baton to Harris.
But when it comes time to make a decision, Biden argued that he remains the Democrat most likely to defeat Trump.
Harris’ barrier-breaking vice presidency has divided Democrats over the past three and a half years. Negative press, some of it self-inflicted, coupled with sexist and racist attacks and a challenging policy mix, have shaped the public’s perception of the former California senator. According to the 538 poll average, nearly 50% of voters have a negative view of Harris, while about 40% have a positive view of her, a number similar to Biden.
Although Harris’ tenure got off to a rocky start, she has slowly grown into the role, especially since becoming the administration’s leading voice on abortion rights. On Monday, Harris marked the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade with a strong warning that Trump would not hesitate to further restrict women’s reproductive rights during his second term.
The vice president acknowledged her background as a prosecutor, declaring: “Donald Trump is guilty of stealing the reproductive freedoms of American women.”
Harris’ unequivocal defense of abortion rights is by far the strongest issue for Democrats and stands in stark contrast to Biden. During Thursday’s debate, Biden fumbled and attacked Trump over the Republican ban on the procedure, oddly turning to immigration and raising the case of a young woman murdered in Georgia.
Harris first defended Biden in two interviews shortly after he concluded the debate. Harris reversed her performance on CNN and MSNBC and said voters must focus on the accomplishments of the past three and a half years, not just the 90 minutes of debate. Harris acknowledged Biden’s “slow start” but insisted he finished “strong.”
“I’m talking about November’s choices,” she said on CNN. “I’m talking about one of the most important elections in our collective lifetimes.”
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper went back and forth furiously to pressure Harris to step down.
“As I watch the performance of the last three and a half years, I’m not going to spend all night talking to you about the last 90 minutes,” she said, highlighting the legislative and executive achievements of his first term.
At a rally in Las Vegas the next day, Harris doubled down on her support.
“In the Oval Office, negotiating bipartisan deals, I see him in the Situation Room keeping our country safe,” she said, adding that the election would not be decided “on one night in June.”
The Atlanta debate is the first of the election cycle, with the second scheduled for September. The Biden campaign has agreed to a vice presidential debate between Harris and Trump’s eventual running mate, but the terms have not yet been determined.
Harris would have performed roughly as well as Biden in a hypothetical matchup with Trump, trailing the former president by six points in a February Times/Siena poll. In the same poll, Biden trailed Trump by five points. At the same time, the poll found that Harris’ support among black voters was stronger than Biden’s, but her support among Hispanic voters and male voters was weaker.
Biden’s age has long been an electoral challenge. But his erratic debate performance shocked even his staunchest supporters. At a rally on Friday, Biden acknowledged his mistakes but insisted he was still the best candidate to defeat Trump.
“Obviously, I know I’m not a young man,” he said at a post-debate rally in North Carolina. “I know I don’t walk as easily as I once did, I don’t speak as smoothly as I once did, and I don’t debate as well as I once did, but I know what I know. I know how to tell the truth.
But growing concerns about Biden’s mental acuity have drawn closer scrutiny of Harris, especially from the right. Republicans have tried to make Harris a bogeyman, with Nikki Haley warning during the Republican primaries that a vote for Biden was a vote for “President Harris.”
With the convention scheduled to take place in Chicago in mid-August and the formal nomination process actually set to take place sometime before that to meet Ohio’s voting deadline, many Democrats say there won’t be enough time to replace Biden. .
Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina congressman and Democratic commentator who supported Harris in the 2020 primary, said hoping for an alternative at this stage is futile.
“You’re not nominating Gretchen or Gavin or Wes over Kamala. Stop it,” he wrote on the X, adding: “The choice is Trump, Biden or Couch. I choose Joe.
