The Democratic Party is … fine with Harris replacing Biden

On Jul 19, 2024

[ad_1]

For those just tuning in, the state of the Democratic presidential nomination is as follows.

Long-standing concerns among Democrats about President Biden’s age became panic after last month’s presidential debate. Rank-and-file Democrats have told pollsters for months that they’d rather have someone else at the top of the ticket. Until the debate, though, that was just idle wishing. After the debate, a segment of the party and its allies began agitating for Biden to be replaced.

Biden has not publicly indicated interest in doing so. He points to polling showing that he’s still very much within striking distance of victory. Those seeking to oust him point to polling showing that other candidates are, too, and point out that other candidates might be able to prosecute the case against Donald Trump as Election Day nears.

The race remains a referendum on Trump as new polling from CBS News, conducted by YouGov, shows. Only about a quarter of those who plan to vote for Biden say that they are doing so because they like him, compared to about two-thirds of Trump voters who like Trump. Half of Biden voters simply oppose Trump — which presumably would mean that their votes would transfer over to another non-Trump Democrat.

The challenge for those seeking to dump Biden — or, more practically, get him to withdraw from the race — is that it’s not clear who might replace him who 1) obviously would fare better on Election Day and 2) wouldn’t turn off part of that quarter of his support who really likes him. Countless Democrats are arguing that “another candidate could beat Biden,” but many of them already have a candidate in mind. If Biden does step aside, the mess simply moves into a new realm, with party infighting not about whether Biden should run but who should run in his stead.

The cleanest transition, then, would be for Biden to step aside and endorse Vice President Harris. Polling conducted by YouGov for the Economist shows that such a move would meet with his party’s approval — not his party’s exultation, certainly, but neither would Democrats recoil from it.

Three-quarters of Democrats say they’d approve of Harris replacing Biden should the president stand down. Just under half say they’d strongly approve.

But notice how unsupportive independents are. Republicans are unsupportive, too, but that’s mostly knee-jerk opposition, as we’ll see in a second. The chart above shows the difference between Biden being replaced in the abstract and his being replaced by someone specific. About half of independents told YouGov in the same poll that they thought Biden should definitely or probably step aside. Only 3 in 10 said they’d approve of Harris replacing him.

As that poll suggests, that poll doesn’t bring the Democrats any substantial gain in enthusiasm, at least at the moment. YouGov asked respondents to indicate how favorably they viewed Biden, Harris and Trump. Biden and Harris had similar numbers from Democrats, with less than half saying they viewed either Democrat very favorably. Among Republicans, by contrast, more than two-thirds viewed Trump very favorably.

Part of Trump’s support is certainly rooted in his…