If you’re a Democrat, you’re supposed to back a Biden–Harris 2024 ticket all the way and, as Axios deftly put it this week: “clam up and chill out.” The trouble is, Joe Biden’s only selling point in the 2024 presidential race is that he somehow managed to beat Donald Trump three years ago — although how exactly that happened is up for debate.
The incumbent president is not popular (according to a recent Reuters poll, 52 percent of Americans think he’s doing a bad job), and while few people can maintain a silver tongue all of the time, Biden’s frequent slip-ups are downright dangerous on an international stage; his “I’m going to go to bed” press conference in Vietnam last week was particularly egregious — the jazz music wasn’t even that good. Most Democrat voters have admitted that they think that Biden should trade the Oval Office for his porch swing in Delaware. (READ MORE: Dems Rebut 2020 Rigging Accusations by Rigging 2024)
Beyond his geriatric antics, the current president allegedly peddled influence in foreign countries while he was vice president — which he has repeatedly denied doing despite the evidence piling up on the other side. Republicans in the House have opened a formal impeachment investigation, which is the kind of action they tend to take when elections are looming.
It’s possible the Democrat elites are beginning to see the writing on the wall. Last week, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius — usually a hardcore Biden shill — suggested that the president might want to let someone younger take the reins. At the New York Times, Peter Baker responded by defending Biden’s “bad week,” but he may have accidentally said the quiet part out loud. He wrote that Ignatius’ column had resonated with “many Democrats deeply anxious about his [Biden’s] prospects but reluctant to say so out loud for fear of undermining him.”
If Democrats are going to field another candidate in 2024, the closet conversations they are having are going to have to come out in the open. The South Carolina Democratic primary is in early February, and at this point, time is running out to qualify to make it on the ballot. In the unlikely event that the party decides someone besides Biden should carry the nomination, here are a few of their options:
While a Harris nomination may seem laughable to the rest of the country, she is the Democrat Party’s natural choice should Biden drop out. Her more popular colleagues, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have signaled that they would back her nomination in that case.
And Harris would accept the nomination. When the question of Biden’s age came up recently on CBS News, Harris initially dodged it, but eventually admitted — a little too eagerly — that she is prepared to take his place “if necessary.” (READ MORE: ‘Bidenomics’ Gaslighting Reveals POTUS’s Impotence in Lead-Up to 2024)
The only problem, as far as Democrats are concerned, is that Harris isn’t going to win a general election as a presidential candidate — her approval rating is atrocious. A mere 39 percent of U.S. adults view her favorably compared to the 54 percent who disapprove of her; that’s a difference of 15 points in the wrong direction.
Newsom’s performance in California has been abysmal — so bad in fact that Californians are fleeing in droves — but he’s a good speaker, has an impressive hairdo, and somehow has an approval rating above 50 percent. His natural archenemy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has openly speculated that Newsom is “waiting in the wings” to announce his own presidential campaign.
That being said, Newsom has repeatedly indicated that he has no plans of running in 2024. In a recent interview with NBC News, the governor said of Biden, “I think we need to move past this notion that he’s not going to run…. I think there’s been so much wallowing in the last few months and handwringing in this respect. But we’re gearing up for the campaign. We’re looking forward to it.”
It should be pointed out that Newsom did not say in that interview: “I’m not running for president in 2024.” If that seems like reading into it a bit too closely, consider the fact that Newsom is absolutely trying to increase his visibility both within the United States (the “gun control amendment” is absolutely a publicity stunt) and internationally (he gave a talk at the U.N. Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday).
If he doesn’t run in 2024, he will in 2028.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could be a great option — if the Democrat Party is looking for a far-left politician who disguises herself as a “centrist.” Unlike the current vice president, she can appear pleasant in front of a camera and is decently popular. She currently ranks as the country’s 24th-most-popular governor — which isn’t bad considering her authoritarian COVID response.
However, like Newsom, Whitmer has spent all summer obediently toeing the party line on 100 percent supporting Biden and Kamala. When Mark Leibovich interviewed her for the Atlantic, she was willing to say openly that she would not run for president in 2024, unlike Newsom. (READ MORE: Was Last Week the Beginning of the End for Biden?)
But she’s also made national headlines by allegedly being targeted by a group of far-right kidnappers (who, as it turned out, were goaded on by the FBI), which means she may have the necessary name recognition. The last three men charged with the “kidnapping conspiracy” were acquitted last week, but there is no doubt that Whitmer could play the victim card effectively if she needed to.
Most Americans were probably hoping that Biden would be the Obama administration’s last hurrah — but there’s always the possibility that Democrats would nominate their favorite president’s wife. Like her husband, Michelle has the charisma Democrats love so much, and she shares his penchant for autobiographies.
Joe Rogan pitched the idea of a Michelle campaign on his podcast late last year — and the former first lady vehemently denied that such a thing would ever happen. She has repeatedly said that she would never even consider a presidential run, and there’s no reason to believe she’s lying. But given their opinion of Michelle — and the fact that she is black and female — Democrats and the media could try and convince her otherwise.
Douglas Schoen, a Democratic political consultant, wrote in the Orange County Register in January that Michelle Obama is the only tenable candidate and suggested that “if it becomes clear that democracy and civil rights are at risk, whether because of Trump or DeSantis, she could feel compelled to change her mind.”
If Michelle does reverse her position, she will certainly be an interesting candidate. Like Trump, she has no problem winning the popularity contest. When she left the White House, 68 percent of Americans viewed her favorably. A Gallup survey last taken in 2020 found that Michelle was the most “admired” woman in the United States in 2018–2020. Ironically enough, Trump made the list in 2019 and 2020 as the “Most Admired Man.”
Obviously, running a political campaign is very different from winning a Gallup poll, but in the absence of any real campaign data, it will have to do.
All of this, of course, is just speculation. Biden’s White House has shown no indication that it has any plans of backing away from the campaign trail, and Democrats are supposed to stay in lockstep with the Biden–Harris ticket for now. Despite the conversations they are apparently having behind closed doors, they seem to have every intention of doing just that.
