Why Biden Won’t Be Primaried
Democratic politicians are lining up behind the octogenarian President.
Jonathan Martin reports for POLITICO Magazine “Newsom Told the White House He Won’t Challenge Biden.” After several paragraphs of the California governor repeating such assurances, we get to the larger story:
[W]alking through Sacramento back toward the mansion it was hard not to think of the difference between him and the last two California governors who chose to live in the three-story Victorian.
In 1976, Ronald Reagan challenged a sitting president, Gerald Ford, and four years later Jerry Brown did the same against Jimmy Carter. Both incumbents would lose the general election, as would George H.W. Bush in 1992, the last year a president would face a remotely serious primary.
This fear of wounding your own president and only ensuring his defeat in the fall is partly the reason why primaries against incumbents have faded, and it’s certainly top of mind for younger challengers who don’t want to hurt their future prospects within the party.
Yet there’s something else at work now that was lacking when Reagan and Brown mounted their challenges. Today’s intense polarization and the contempt the two parties have for one another has fostered an internal cohesion within the two coalitions that, far more than ideological unity, acts as a retardant against insurgencies.
Put another way, there’s a perceived penalty for confronting one’s own leaders because to weaken them would risk the unthinkable — helping the opposition.
Understandably, then, the only forcing mechanism that can alter this dynamic is if remaining loyal to a leader poses the greater risk of aiding and abetting the other party. That’s why some Republicans believe (or at least hope strongly) that their mediocre midterm performance may finally free them from the grip of Donald Trump — because while GOP voters are willing to tolerate a great deal from Trump they can’t abide him ensuring Democratic success.
It’s also Trump who explains why a Democratic Party that spans lapsed Bush Republicans to devout social democrats is now operationally closer to the House of Windsor than the pirate ship it once resembled. Look no further than the orderly succession by which, in a period of mere hours and with barely a whisper of dissent, they effectively swapped in three new House Democratic leaders to replace three Octogenarians — 50 years and a world away from George McGovern giving his acceptance speech in the middle of the nightafter the unraveling of the party’s 1972 convention.
Stopping Trump’s comeback is priority one for the party and anything else is a dangerous distraction, including any open discussion, at least for now, about whether it’s in the best interest of Democrats to renominate the oldest president in American history. (Trump is no spring chicken, either, one can already hear party activists yelling at their screen, as they read this.)
I fully expect that, if he remains healthy, Biden will run again. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, he’s already running.
Partly, that’s because he’s an ambitious politician who has spent his whole adult life wanting to be President. Nobody willingly gives that up after a single term if they think there’s any chance at all of winning re-election. Partly, it’s because he thinks he’s the Democratic Party’s best chance of keeping the White House away from Trump or a Trump-like figure.
But, yes, while I’m old enough to have vague memories of Reagan’s attempt to primary Ford (who, it must be remembered, was never elected President to begin with) and Kennedy’s attempt to replace Carter—and more clear memories of Buchanan’s run against Bush the Elder—the last of those was three decades ago. I just don’t see it happening in our current political climate.
I think it’s likely he will run, but I’m not as certain as you. In my mind, his words and actions are compatible both with running and also with attempting to stave off lame duck status as long as possible.
While I would never utter the dumb, self-evidently wrong slogan “Age is just a number,” I must say that I don’t see any basis behind the talk of replacing Biden for Democratic nominee in 2024, other than his age.
If we had a much younger incumbent in more or less the same spot, I’m sure you’d still see the occasional hack column predicting he or she wouldn’t be renominated (*cough*Doug Schoen), but it wouldn’t be anything close to the level of speculation we’ve gotten with Biden.
Yes, he’s unpopular right now. So were Reagan and Clinton and Obama at similar points in their presidencies. If anything, his withstanding the typical midterm thrashing, and his seeing big Democratic wins in all the key swing states that handed him his victory in 2020, has contributed to the perception that he’s a politician with a knack for being underestimated. And while you can definitely make a case that this is more a reflection of the GOP’s blunders than Biden’s strengths, he’s going to get some of the credit.
What you won’t see, however, is a wholesale cancellation of the primary/caucus process by the Democrats to protect Biden from challengers.
Had the Rs not done that in 2000, there’s a nonzero chance they would be in the White House today, albeit with a more moderate candidate.
@Tony W: While I guess, by definition, having a contested primary raises the odds from zero to nonzero, there was no plausible winner waiting in the wings. Trump was going to be the 2020 nominee. He was extraordinarily popular among Republican primary voters.
Granted my memories of 79-80 are sketchy, and I had little idea what was even happening at the time, I vividly recall Kennedy challenged Carter, but not even the name “Jerry Brown” in connection to that era.
@Kathy: Governor Moonbeam!!
@Kathy: I was 3 at the time, so naturally I have no direct memory. (I remember being 3, but nothing that was going on politically—the earliest president I have any recollection of is Reagan.) But I recently read Rick Perlstein’s Reaganland (highly recommended), and it goes into quite a bit of detail about Ted Kennedy’s run.
If not for Chappaquiddick, and the timing of the Iran hostage crisis, I think Kennedy stood a decent shot of beating Carter in the primaries. It’s really the last example of that situation—Buchanan in 1992 never really had much of a chance.
If the historical norms proceed, the economy should be humming by 2024. Assuming no huge foreign policy debacle, and given what happened in the 2022 midterms, if Trump runs and clears out the field of other GOP candidates, Biden will not only run, but possibly win with historic numbers.
But that’s just my early view from the left coast. I could be completely wrong. I just don’t see a path for Trump continuing to be THIS Trump and somehow growing his vote total. The ads will write themselves against Trump.
Trump can’t stop being Trump. He just can.’t.
So the fight will be for the VP spot. No one expects Biden will likely make it through 2028 given his demonstrated conditions now. No reason to think Kamala is secure in that spot. That should be interesting.
And the question is will the voters accept another basement campaign. If not, Trump or whoever is the Republican nominee, can set a pace that will wear down Biden. The media will try, but would be unlikely to cover for his visible decline.
And that brings in the career functionaries who are already feeling the influence slip as they try to bully with such an obvious weak US figurehead.
@JKB: If Biden runs again and becomes the nominee, then it’s highly unlikely there will even be serious consideration to replacing Kamala.
And I think the risk of Biden running a “basement campaign” in 2024 is a lot smaller than the risk of Republicans being unable to abandon stale talking points that stopped even being relevant after 2020.
@JKB:
Someone has been absorbing too much bullshit in the Conservative media alternate reality bubble, not to take time point going by point with your fantasies.
@EddieInCA:
He won’t keep on as this Trump, he will get worse. More and more decompensating and – I believe – increasing senility.
@JKB:
There was no “basement campaign.” That’s just another conservative lie. An unsurprising one, since modern conservatism is little more than false propaganda, science denial, conspiracy bunk, and other delusional nonsense that has fatally injured the right with youth, women, educated whites, and voters of color — hence why Republicans keep losing.
So the actual question is will Republicans emerge from their bizarre right wing fatasyland long enough address real issues that actually matter to voters who live in reality unlike the GQP base?
The answer to that question is “No,” as we can see from your unintentionally hilarious commentary. And from the Hunter Biden Laptop’s party determination to double down on the Trumpism, conspiracy theories, hate, extremism, dishonesty, and tedious fearmongering that has lost them past three elections.
OK, so I think the big battle in 2024 will be the Senate – there are only 2 (R) seats that are even plausibly competitive, but the (D) will defend something like 8 or 10 in purplish or reddish states. But, I am not much worried about the Presidency, I think GOP chances are slim.
GOP either runs Trump or someone else (likely DeSantis).
Looking at Trump:
A) Demographics. 4 years of old people dying, young people turning 18, young voters getting a bit older, more likely to vote, immigrants becoming naturalized.
Just looking at deaths and voters turning 18, I did some rough calcs that (D) should better their vote margins (averaged nationwide, so individual states would deviate) by 0.5%/year. In 4 years that’s 2% without immigration and aging of young people, a lot. (Yeah, I know, people have talked demographics before and GOP still elects people – past performance is no guarantee etc.)
B) As noted, Trump’s shtick is getting old, passing its sell-by date. And Trump is decompensating, etc. – getting worse.
C) The GOP politicians and donors want to dump Trump but the base will not let them. (He is the scapegoat blamed for 2022 not reaching expectations). So Trump will not get so many pols campaigning for him or wanting to be seen as close to him.
D) I know you all are getting impatient, but TFG will get indicted, tried, and that will distract him and dirty him up.
1) The documents investigation: https://terikanefield.com/all-new-doj-investigation-faqs/
2) Georgia/Fulton County: https://terikanefield.com/the-georgia-criminal-case-against-trump-and-his-pals/
With so many little people as targets, how can they not be coming for the big guy?
3) Several other criminal cases, Jan 6 etc.
I will save talking about DeSantis or whoever for another post.
@JKB:
What conditions would those be, pray tell?
A glance at the actuarial table tells me that an 80 year-old man is likely to live another 7.6 years. FYI, Trump at 76, is likely to live another 9.6 years. That would be if all other things were equal, but they aren’t. Trump is morbidly obese and does no exercise at all, while Biden is clearly at his fighting weight and exercises regularly They’re both likely to shuffle off around 2030.
I have a projected 14.6 years, so with a bit of luck, I’ll see Trump buried. In the prison graveyard.
@Kylopod: I don’t think Buchanan wasn’t running to win as much as to fix the GQP as the home for white supremacy.
@charon:
Because of this (and it will be further determined by the outcome of the current Georgia runoff—if Dems get 51 seats they can afford to lose one in 2024, assuming they win the presidency, otherwise they have to run the table), and because of the GOP’s razor-thin House majority, there is a serious chance we could see the two chambers swap places in 2024.
When I told this to someone recently, they acted like I was insane. I got a similar reaction back in 2017 when I told someone I thought that in the upcoming midterms Dems might simultaneously capture the House and lose seats in the Senate—which is exactly what ended up happening.
A lot of people fail to understand how anomalous Senate elections can be due simply to the coincidence of which seats happen to be up in a particular year.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I can’t know his intentions for sure, but there was a model for his path to the presidency, and it was Reagan in 1976. Reagan failed to topple Ford, but it was a strong and serious challenge (stronger than any since, in fact), and it set him on a path to winning in 1980. Buchanan didn’t really make a dent in the end, but it’s plausible he went in thinking he could.
I expect there to be a very weird, semi-secretive campaign to be the fallback should Biden’s health fail. A bunch of politicians heading out, campaigning for Biden and Democrats in general, not challenging the President, but trying to raise their profile with the party leaders and the voters.
It will be fascinating to watch.
(And will look like a campaign for VP to some, but there’s no way Biden is going to dump Harris — it would be all negatives, pissing off a chunk of the coalition, with no positives. “Will Biden switch VPs?” might be brought up by some Dems trying to undercut her position in case Biden’s health fails though… although if he just drops dead, then she’s the incumbent and the battle to be her VP starts)
@Gustopher: The entire “the president is going to dump the VP” narrative (which didn’t start with Biden; there were articles along those lines during Obama’s first term) reminds me of those predictions you see that a certain candidate is going to win 49 states (I’ve seen that from pundits on both sides of the aisle), or that there’s going to be a contested convention. Those sorts of claims are based on looking at historical examples and failing to understand how much has changed between then and now, and how much the present system and climate preclude those sorts of events.
@JKB: How’s that koolaid taste?
@Gustopher: I wouldn’t rule out Harris deciding to run for Feinstein’s seat in the Senate, assuming Feinstein doesn’t run. She is hardly covering herself with glory as VP and the Senate may give her a more visible platform.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Cyanastic!
I wonder what the deplorables even saw of Biden’s campaign. Or whether they know about such things as live streaming video. The way they talk, while Benito was crisscrossing the country in event after superspreader event, Biden was mumbling to himself all alone in an unfinished basement.
Not to mention Biden had a number of public events and campaign trips as well. Like that debate where he made Benito cry orange tears.
@Kylopod:
The one that made any sense was for Bush the elder to dump Quayle, as the latter was a scandal magnet, or what passed for one back in the day (today it seems tame, even with the burn Candice Bergen delivered on a very special episode of Murphy Brown).
@Kathy: Eisenhower did seriously consider replacing Nixon in 1956. But I think that was the last time it was ever even seriously considered. (Well, except for Ford and Rockefeller, but I think that’s really in its own category, given that neither was elected.)
@Kylopod:
On a Great Courses lecture series on the Supreme Court, it was mentioned that Eisenhower admitted to having made two major mistakes in his presidency, “And they’re both on the Supreme Court.”
Add one more.
@charon:
There is a concept of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This is why I feel it is not off-topic to discuss the weakness of the potential GOP nominees. If Biden is probably the winner against likely GOP challengers, there is little reason to change. If you think Biden is doing an OK job, there thus is no reason to change.
@Kathy: Well it’s no secret that he didn’t think very highly of Nixon.
One of the most enjoyably awkward moments of the 1960 debates came when the moderator brought up Ike’s dig at Nixon when he was asked for an example of a major idea Nixon came up with that he adopted, and he said “If you give me a week I might think of one.” Nixon’s response was basically that the president was kidding.
I saw a similarly awkward moment recently during the JD Vance-Tim Ryan debate when Vance tried to explain Trump’s basically calling Vance his bitch (they didn’t use those words at the debate) at a Vance event.
I was able to have some empathy for Nixon during that old debate moment. Vance, not so much. He made his bed….
@MarkedMan: Harris was pretty invisible when she was a Senator too, though. I never quite understood the appeal of Harris, although it’s possible that she has all sorts of accomplishments that are just not on my radar. She checks a lot of boxes, demographics and credentials, but hasn’t really been known for doing anything.
I do wish Biden gave her something to own that wasn’t the “Border Mess That’s Been around For Decades” — something that a reasonable person can accomplish and tout. She would either succeed or fail, and we would have a better idea of her strengths as heir apparent.
(And I would like similar high profile chances for Buttigieg, and anyone else in the cabinet we might consider. And, if we really want to, a state-federal response to the border, with a pivotal role for Gavin Newsom to help define the state response, although the border just seems like a trap).
I have no particular favorite for the 202x Democratic Primary, and think we should give as many potential candidates an opportunity to succeed or fail ahead of time as possible, so we can consolidate behind whoever didn’t blow up their special project.
(Also, Beto and Stacy Abrams are never going to get elected statewide in their states, so the administration should find a way to use them, either second term cabinet, or fertilizing the Rose Garden*, or something. Both very talented, but not quite talented enough to fight the headwinds of their states)
——
*: ok, don’t actually grind them up into fertilizer.
@JKB:
JFC…what a torrent of irrelevant right-wing gibberish.
The only thing missing was some red-wave/election denial.