Opinion: Biden Should Drop Out - Here’s Why

Top DNC and Biden officials continue to praise and align themselves with the President, but the arguments to keep him as the nominee are incredibly flawed.

This article was originally published on July 2nd, 2024.

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"09/06/2022 Encontro com o Presidente dos Estados Unidos da América, Senhor Joe Biden" by Palácio do Planalto is licensed under CC BY 2.0 .

Update: Of the post-debate polls that we have received, the vast majority have had a pro-Trump margin change. Additionally, new CNN/SSRS polling (which has Biden down six points already) shows that other Democrats DO perform better than Biden, with VP Harris only down two points in a head-to-head, so that misleading narrative by the Biden camp is debunked. Also, I state in the conclusion of this piece that Trump is set to be sentenced on July 11th, but that is not the case any longer, and he will be sentenced in September due to the recent SCOTUS immunity ruling.

A foreword

For starters, it must be disclosed that this is purely my opinion, and while I will use some data and analysis in this article, it’s through a subjective lens, unlike most articles that you will see on this site. With that, let’s get right into it.

I like Joe Biden. I firmly believe that he has been a good President and that he has done much more good than harm for the United States and the world since taking office in 2021. I know that the President is committed to stopping Donald Trump from taking office once again, which could have harmful implications for democracy, the climate, our economy, reproductive rights, and freedom and stability around the world. But it’s for those reasons that President Biden must end his bid for re-election. At this point, to protect his legacy and to give Democrats the best chance of stopping Trump, it’s the only option left.

What the hell happened at the debate?

Let's first establish something that must be recognized when talking about the debate and Biden’s future. This was not a normal debate. It was the first President vs. President debate ever, one of the candidates is a convicted felon, and it was effectively “unofficial” since the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has been operating traditional debates for decades, was not involved in any way. But what really differentiates this from past cycles is the timing. This was the earliest presidential debate in American history, in late June. That’s not normal, as debates typically don’t take place until the fall, around September/October. But the timing was intentional on the part of the Biden camp, who called for this specific debate in the first place. Why? Because it was a chance to test their guy in a head-to-head setting before the Democratic National Convention in August. In doing so, the Biden team knew that this was a chance to re-evaluate their strategy and potentially make a change. It’s clear that this was a smart move, and that change is needed. But so far, no one is actually taking advantage of this strategy, due to either arrogance, incompetence, or pure stubbornness.

Regarding how the debate went overall, Trump was the clear winner. Yes, he lied at a seemingly impossible rate, saying that Democrats are killing babies after birth, that Biden wants to raise taxes by 400%, that Nancy Pelosi was responsible for January 6th, and more. Yes, he made insensitive comments about so-called “Black jobs” and immigrants. Yes, he had no real policy points. And yet he still won. Because Biden let him. There was no point in the debate at which the President actually hit back in a convincing manner on any of Trump’s falsehoods or had clearly conveyed rebuttals. Within the first 90 seconds of the debate, President Biden had a major stumble, leading him to ultimately proclaim that “we beat Medicare.” Biden somehow switched from talking about abortion to potentially referencing Laken Riley, who was killed by an undocumented immigrant, and saying that he was taking “total action on asylum,” but in a severely incoherent way. Trump responded with, “I’m not sure what he said, and I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Biden had one job with the debate: to beat the rhetoric surrounding his age and mental fitness to serve as President by appearing coherent, strong, and convincing. He failed. Trump, to his credit, was (relatively) calm, composed, and stuck to his main talking points throughout the duration of the debate. I personally believe that the change in debate rules (muting the mics) actually helped Trump, as it forced him to behave. Ultimately, it was a colossal failure for Biden and his campaign.

During the debate, it was reported by the Biden campaign that the President had a cold. The decision to only share this after he began to bomb is incredibly confusing to me. If you knew he really had a cold, why on earth would you not make that clear before he began, therefore lowering expectations? Regardless of the cause, his voice was hoarse and quiet throughout the entirety of the debate, whereas Trump was confident, smooth, and audible. Moving away from the auditory side of things, Biden simply looked bad. When he wasn’t speaking, he stood, mouth agape, appearing completely out of it. He made perplexed facial expressions and was essentially escorted off the stage by the First Lady after the debate concluded. It was a stark contrast to his State of the Union speech, where he seemed in command and engaged. This time around, with 50 million Americans watching, he looked frail, unwell, and tired.

Why dropping out is the smart play

First off, a decision to step aside would be monumental. But it wouldn’t be entirely unprecedented. Lyndon Johnson decided against running for a second term after performing badly in the Democratic primaries. Yes, Democrats then lost to Richard Nixon, but there wasn’t mass chaos as a result of the change. Now, LBJ withdrew on March 31st. Two months makes all the difference in terms of conventions, ballot access, and more complex aspects of nominating a candidate. And top Democrats are saying that a switch would create so much chaos and division that it would only help Trump. But that’s nonsense. The only scenario where Biden drops out is if he himself decides to, and then he can effectively pick the nominee. A vast majority of Democratic delegates are hand-picked by the Biden campaign and will be loyal to whomever he supports because they are aware of the cost of a contested open convention. So the “stability argument” carries little weight.

Biden ending his campaign would be good for his party, himself, and the country. Let’s discuss the electoral impacts. Right now, Biden is trailing by somewhere around one to two points nationally in the polls, which would be a five-point swing from 2020 in favor of Donald Trump. This is where I’m going to point out that Democrats have not lost the popular vote in twenty years. Biden’s on track to perform at a historically bad level for a Democratic nominee.

And the news only gets worse in the Electoral College, which actually matters. Biden is trailing in our state averages in every swing state, especially so in the Sun Belt. To make matters worse, he’s even behind in some polls of blue states like Minnesota, Virginia, and even New Jersey. He is in trouble. His approval rating is lower than Trump’s was at the end of his term, which, by the way, was after his supporters stormed the Capitol. Basically, if you look at it from a sports standpoint, Biden is currently expected to do far worse than a generic or “replacement” Democrat. When running our forecast using only fundamentals, thus taking out all Biden-specific data with state polls, Democrats would have a 57% chance of winning on November 5th with around 277 electoral votes and a two-point popular vote win, with a generic Democrat expected to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, whereas Biden trails in all three.

Biden’s currently at just a 33.3% chance of winning the election with around 250 electoral votes expected and a one-point popular vote loss, and this number will only get worse unless polls shift pretty drastically. So far, that hasn’t happened. So Biden is performing about 27 electoral votes and three percentage points in the popular vote below replacement expectations and is about 25% less likely to defeat Donald Trump than a Democrat should be. This is why the biggest benefit in swapping out the President is having a younger candidate. New polling from YouGov/CBS News found that an overwhelming 72% of voters nationally think Biden is not fit to serve as President, with nearly half of Democrats holding that view. If age, not policy, is one of the biggest issues, then the problem is Biden, not his party’s platform. Even if Democrats still lose to Trump, they probably have a better chance with a younger nominee who can effectively counter Donald Trump, convince voters they are able to lead the country, and appear coherent and coordinated.

Stepping aside is also good for Biden personally. Recent reporting from the New York Times claims that Biden will only decide to withdraw if “he could be afforded a dignified way out in which he could claim credit for ousting Mr. Trump in 2020, restoring the country and serving as a transition to the next generation.” I’m sorry, but what the hell? Mr. President, you A) already beat Trump in 2020, so I don’t know what more you need to do to establish that, and stepping aside and choosing a younger nominee is literally the definition of A) a dignified way out, and B) transitioning to the next generation. Biden ran on being a transition candidate in 2020. That doesn’t mean he committed to serving one term, but this is an easy way to directly provide for that transition to someone younger, and it's within his power to do so. Biden wants his legacy to be intact when he ends his political career. If he stays in the race and loses to Trump, he will forever be blamed for and go down as the guy who allowed Trump to return to power. If he steps aside, he can either take credit for stopping Trump by ensuring Democratic success, or if Trump still wins, he can say “I told you so,” and the blame is no longer placed upon him. But right now, Biden and his family are allowing his image and legacy to decline, as his obvious deterioration and refusal to step aside only make him look power-hungry and not actually concerned about democracy.

The campaign and party are being incredibly arrogant - have they forgotten 2016?

Biden allies and top Democrats have maintained that Biden will, and should, run. But all of their arguments on why that’s the case are really, really flawed. Campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said that post-debate polls showed “what we expected: The debate did not change the horse race.” This is simply misleading and untrue. First of all, major events typically take at least a week or two to show up in polling, and we’ve only had three or four lower-quality polls show up anyway. And, one pollster that actually has a high rating from FiveThirtyEight & Nate Silver, and who nailed the final popular vote margin in 2020, has Trump up an astounding six points nationally. Only part of that poll was conducted after the debate. If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know, I don’t know what will. Plus, even if polls don’t change, that’s still bad for Biden!

The entire point of the debate was to be that game-changing moment and turn the tide of the race. Not having a negative impact isn’t enough when you are already losing, which Biden was before the debate and still will be after it. O’Malley Dillon also said that “If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls.” Yeah sure, but last I checked, the debate clearly reinforced a legitimate concern over Biden’s age and stability, which isn’t really a media narrative anymore. Stop trying to gaslight voters and telling them that they didn’t see what they just saw. President Biden always says “watch me” in response to concerns over his fitness. Well, Mr. President, we did watch you, and it wasn’t pretty. Everyone saw how bad of a performance that was, and no one gives a damn if you perform well at a pre-scripted rally with a supportive audience, because this was your one moment to change things, and you screwed it up big time. Some keep making comparisons to other incumbents who did poorly in their first debate, including Barack Obama himself. But it wasn’t just that it was a “bad debate.” It’s that Biden confirmed that his mental state and age are causes for concern, and that he truly can’t perform under pressure. If he can’t effectively debate Donald Trump at 9 PM, how the hell is he expected to handle a crisis with world leaders at three in the morning?

DNC officials also keep pointing out the fact that they raised over $30 million following the debate, and arguing that this grassroots support shows Biden is electable. Are they forgetting that their opponent raised nearly the same amount after being convicted of 34 felonies? Are they forgetting that Hillary Clinton out-raised Trump 2:1 in nearly every battleground state and then some, and still lost? It seems like they think Biden is this invincible candidate who will absolutely beat Trump. That kind of arrogance and unjustified overconfidence is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place, electing Trump in 2016.

And then there’s this foolish point about hypothetical polling with other Democrats against Trump. There’s this one chart that has several Democrats doing only a point or two better than Biden, or about the same, and supporters of the President are arguing that showing a replacement isn’t going to make a difference. But this is fundamentally misguided, and the simple fact is that other Democrats have lower name recognition right now. Which means that if one of them becomes the nominee (and is publicized at this major event watched by millions, in I don’t know, a convention-type setting?) they will likely see increased support. It’s 2024, not 1954, and it doesn’t take long for voters to get new information or learn about a candidate. It also shows just how badly Biden is doing, because if he is performing on par with or worse than these unknown Democrats, that’s not exactly inspiring confidence in him as the nominee.

Many also keep saying that it simply shouldn’t matter how well he did in the debate, and that we should focus on his record and substance instead. I have two responses to this: 1) It doesn’t matter what you want people to think or consider when voting for President, because we know what they actually consider is performative politics and age. You don’t get to shift the Overton window and tell voters what criteria they get to vote on, and it’s clear that this is a voting issue for many. 2) Even if Joe Biden is capable enough to finish four more years of the job, which I guess maybe he is if he relies on advisors, he has to actually get re-hired for the job first. Right now, it’s clear that although he may be qualified to serve, he clearly isn’t a capable candidate, and if he doesn’t win, it won’t matter if he can handle the job anyway.

What could - and should - happen

Let’s say Biden announces in a few days that he is bowing out of the race. By the way, I think this is a good time to point out that July 4th is right around the corner, and nothing would be more patriotic than respecting the concerns of voters and protecting democracy by dropping out, so maybe something will happen on Thursday. (Although Rishi Sunak kinda stole our thunder by holding his doomed election on the same day.)

What is most likely to happen, and what I personally think should happen, is that Biden immediately endorses his Vice President, Kamala Harris, for the nomination. If he drops out, his pledged delegates are technically released to vote for whomever they see fit, but most of them are loyal enough that they would just vote for Harris. It would look pretty bad for the party if they skipped over Harris because she’s the Vice President who you’d expect to be picked. And the optics of not picking a Black woman who clearly is next in line would be terrible for the party as well. Harris provides a unique chance to energize key demographics that have so far shown resistance to coming out to vote for Biden: younger voters (Harris is only 59), Black voters, and suburban women, all of which are decisive voting blocs.

Harris brings a lot to the table. She is over twenty years younger, is a passionate speaker, and an effective debater who can prosecute (literally, she was a prosecutor in California) the case against Trump much more effectively. She has been extremely strong on the issue of abortion, something that Biden faltered on in the debate. Voters could be energized by the notion that they could elect a younger woman of color to the presidency, instead of having to choose between two old white guys, a choice a majority of voters don’t want to face. But who would be her running mate? My ideal pick would be Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. He’s a swing state governor who was overwhelmingly elected in 2022, is young, intelligent, and could be an influential voice on the campaign trail. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.

Ultimately, the next week or two will be incredibly decisive for this election. Trump is to be sentenced on July 11th, potentially landing him in prison before the Republican convention on the 14th, and Biden may be replaced in a matter of weeks as well. Whatever happens, we are witnessing truly unprecedented and historical times.