Replacing Joe Biden as the Nominee in an Open Convention Is Possible, But Messy
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/Getty Images
Update: On July 2, Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett became the first member of Congress to call on Biden to withdraw from the race, saying, “too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory.”
There’s no way to spin it, though plenty of people have tried: The first 2024 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was a complete disaster for Biden. Democratic lawmakers are (anonymously) floundering in their support and major newspapers have called for Biden to drop out, though the Biden family and campaign seem resolute in continuing forward. The nation is now faced with two important questions: How did the Democrats let this happen? And is Biden, whose fitness for office seems all the more tenuous post-debate, really the only choice we have?
At the July 27 debate in Atlanta, Biden looked and sounded every bit of his 81 years, and then some. He was pallid, slow, meandering, raspy, and occasionally outright incoherent. He lost his train of thought in the middle of responses. He made multiple gaffes. At some point he said that “we beat Medicare.” On abortion, the Democrats’ most winning issue, after Trump took full credit for installing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, Biden briefly pressed him on it before losing his train of thought and pivoting to a story about a young woman who was “murdered by an immigrant.”
This is no defense of 78-year-old Trump’s performance, which was pretty much a nonstop, rambling stream of outright lies and accusations, with no pushback or fact-checking from CNN moderators. He claimed, for instance, that “everybody” wanted abortion to go back to the states, that the Democrats support aborting babies “even after birth”; that Biden “allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails, and mental institutions to come into our country and destroy our country”; that migrants were taking “Black jobs”; and that Biden was a “bad Palestinian,” among other things. And, notably, he did not commit to accepting the results of the election if he loses. So it wasn’t as if Trump was cogent, but unlike Biden, you could at least understand the actual words Trump was saying.
This debate should be a game changer in a miserable 2020 rematch between two polarizing candidates that has felt like a slow-motion trainwreck for months. In Biden’s 2020 presidential run, he signaled that he would only seek one term as a post-Trump “bridge” candidate. Earlier in his term, there was plenty of chatter about a 2024 replacement — even in 2022, the majority of Democrats wanted another candidate to run in 2024. But when Biden announced his re-election bid last year, even amid already brewing concerns about his age and electability, the party rallied behind him, with little-to-no room for viable primary challengers to enter the race. Biden, the party kept saying, was the only Democrat who could beat Trump, based largely on the fact that he was the only person who did (although it’s worth noting that Hillary Clinton technically beat Trump via the popular vote).
And yet, despite impressive legislative successes like the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden is polling just below Trump nationally and lagging behind in key swing states. Age is just one piece of his baggage, with voter criticisms ranging from inflation to immigration to his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Young people are particularly critical of both Biden and Trump, as are some Black Americans; both groups were key to Biden’s winning 2020 coalition. Post-debate, the low hum around whether or not an octogenarian is up for another four-year term has amped up considerably.
Previously, Biden’s alleged “senility” was mostly dismissed as right-wing tabloid fodder, but in the last few days, more and more news stories have come out about how Biden’s aides have reportedly helped shield some of his age-related limitations from the White House staff and the general public. It’s not that Biden is losing it, necessarily, but he’s getting older and more inconsistent, as evidenced by the night-and-day comparison between last week’s debate and, say, his State of the Union speech in February — or even his post-debate rally the next day in North Carolina.
Voters are worried. Age advances. More “senior moments” will probably happen, more independents may question Biden’s ability to serve four more years, and the already limited confidence the nation has in him will likely wane.
Trump is a major threat. The country is significantly worse off as a result of his first term, in large part because of the conservative majority he was able to install on the Supreme Court, not to mention the hundreds of federal judges with lifetime tenure who have been able to push forward a dark conservative agenda. His second term — and potentially beyond, considering his stated lack of interest in preserving democracy — will most likely be even worse. We cannot afford a Trump re-election. And Biden continuing to run feels like a liability. So what are the options if Biden drops out?
First, the most obvious possibility: Vice President Kamala Harris runs in his stead. Harris polls about as well as Biden against Trump; when broken down by demographic, she does worse among men, though better among Black Americans. At 59, she’s much younger than Biden, but her 2020 primary campaign fizzled quickly, and as VP, her approval ratings among independents and non-Democrats trail Biden’s. This could pose a problem for her in a general election. That said, sidestepping Harris — the first woman and Black vice president — in favor of an outside option may alienate some voters.
But if Biden stepped aside and the Democrats did decide to look outside the current administration, there are options. (Last year, Biden himself said that there were “probably 50” Democrats who could beat Trump.) Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, California governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, and Georgia senator Raphael Warnock have all been floated as potential Biden replacements, among others. These candidates wouldn’t be able to run in a primary election, but they could vie for the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in August. This process is called an “open convention.”
Generally, in a primary election, each candidate wins a certain number of pledged delegates per state contest, and at the convention, those delegates vote for that candidate; the candidate with the most delegates wins the nomination, which is why the winner of the primary election is generally the nominee. In an open convention without Biden, the 4,000 or so delegates currently pledged to Biden would have the opportunity to throw their support behind a candidate of their choice. At the convention, each candidate would make their case for the nomination, the delegates would vote, likely in several rounds, and the eventual winner would be the party nominee.
The US has had a smattering of contested conventions throughout history, including the Democratic National Convention in 1968, which, eerily, was also in Chicago. That convention did not, however, go well for the Democrats, and there are concerns that another contested convention could showcase instability amid the party.
So we are at something of an impasse. Biden dropping out at this point in the race would not necessarily be a disaster, but it would make the election unpredictable, which feels frightening when the stakes are this high. For now it seems that top Democrats are backing him and his family is urging him to stay in the race. All that may change if poll and fundraising numbers tank. Stay tuned.
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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