Anyone expecting California Gov. Gavin Newsom or some other Democrat to take Joe Biden's place on the 2024 presidential ticket will likely be disappointed.
Despite renewed anxiety about the president's age, party officials and pollsters say changing him is a bad idea and nearly impossible without Biden's approval.
“No one who has done this at this level thinks that removing the current president of the United States, who is a Democrat, from the ballot is even remotely plausible,” said Cornell Belcher, one of former President Obama's pollsters. “It's completely absurd.”
A special prosecutor questioned Biden's mental acuity last week in a report explaining why criminal charges for possession of classified documents were not warranted, offering fresh ammunition to the president's critics and fueling concerns about his ability to serve four more. years in office.
The hosts of ABC's “The View” heated up the conversation Friday in an on-air debate about Biden's candidacy and whether Vice President Kamala Harris or Newsom would be better choices for the party. Republican Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and former presidential candidate, and other political experts have suggested that Democrats should switch from Biden to another candidate.
Here are five reasons why Biden, and not Newsom, will almost certainly remain the Democratic presidential nominee:
1) Gone are the days of smoky rooms
Biden, like most sitting presidents, is in control of the party, meaning that people who work for the Democratic National Committee and other party bodies are aligned with his campaign operation. The deadline to challenge him in the Democratic primary has expired in most states, including California, and he faces only scant opposition. He could be replaced if he decides to step aside and release delegates to him at the party's national convention in Chicago this August, the kind of scenario that hasn't happened in decades.
“I'm sure there are a lot of people who could consider themselves Plan B,” said David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist. “But Plan A seems pretty determined to stay in the race.”
Even in the remote scenario in which Biden withdraws and leaves a convention open, chaos would be more likely than consensus.
“There's this mythology that we live in the 1940s and a group of party leaders get together and say, 'That's our guy,'” Axelrod said. “That's not how it works anymore. There would be a number of people who would come to the surface. “I think the chances of that demand happening are very, very low.”
Another Democratic operative who has connections to major donors in California and major East Coast centers said there have been persistent rumors about a search for a replacement since last year, but no serious discussions. Most people recognize the need to move beyond the fantasy of replacement, said the agent, who requested anonymity to avoid antagonizing party officials.
Belcher said the loudest conversations within the party have been driven by progressives, the same people he said made a similar argument before Obama's second term.
But even some of the most liberal in the Democratic Party rejected the idea.
RL Miller, a Democratic National Committee delegate from California and founder of Climate Hawks Vote, described the possibility of Biden exiting the race as “an extraordinarily unlikely scenario” and the odds of the party turning to Newsom to replace him as even more remote. .
“You could also write about the possibility of asteroids crashing into the sky and wiping out all the light west of the Hudson, where 'The View' is filmed,” Miller said.
2) Time has passed
Hans Noel, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University, said that if Biden resigns today, Democrats seeking to replace him could struggle to run in a handful of states where primary election access deadlines have not yet passed. The decision to select a replacement would still be sent to the Democratic National Convention this summer.
Delegates would likely choose Biden on the first vote. Biden would have to reject it. Delegates would vote for a replacement in a second vote and so on until a candidate was chosen.
If Biden were to announce his plans in advance, the replacement candidates would have some time to campaign. If she decides to reject the nomination at the convention, it would be even more complicated.
“All the people who are delegates are now free to vote for whoever they think is the right candidate,” Noel said of that scenario.
The process could resemble the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which was also held in Chicago. Months before the convention, then-President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, and candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated after winning the Democratic primary in California.
Amid protests, violence, and an effort to nominate an actual pig, delegates chose Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's vice president, as the Democratic candidate.
Biden's withdrawal after the convention could trigger an even more uncertain and unprecedented process.
3) Newsom also remains on the Biden team
“A gazillion percent,” said Sean Clegg, Newsom’s senior political adviser. “If President Biden asks this guy to do something, he will do it and he will give everything he has to support his proposal.”
Clegg said Newsom's camp is not discussing the possibility of replacing Biden because it is not happening.
That might seem hard to believe for a governor who appears to enjoy national attention, is actively trying to raise his profile among voters across the country, and successfully pressured his Republican rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, to debated him on Fox News late last year. year.
At an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November, Biden praised Newsom's performance as governor and, perhaps inadvertently, stoked speculation.
“In fact, it could be anything I want,” Biden joked. “He might have the job I’m looking for.”
Newsom, who repeatedly denies having presidential ambitions, has been careful to answer questions about his candidacy with praise for Biden.
“I'll go to the end of the world for this guy,” Newsom said in an interview with MSNBC.
4) What about the sitting vice president?
Among Democratic politicians, Miller mentioned Harris, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Newsom as people he would expect to try for the job if Biden were to suffer a serious health issue.
“Of the four names I mentioned, I would put Newsom last,” he said.
Harris, he said, is best positioned for Biden's vice president job. Whitmer and Pritzker would have a chance to win the swing states.
However, Harris has problems of her own. Only 40% of voters view her favorably, compared to 55% who have a negative opinion, according to the Los Angeles Times poll tracker. That's about the same as Biden's polling average.
Her first campaign for the presidency in 2020 erupted before the primary and she has been relentlessly attacked by conservatives, who have tried to portray her as a dangerous heir apparent if Biden retires or falters during a second term.
5) Newsom symbolizes California liberalism
A recent Los Angeles Times-Leger poll found that 50% of American adults (including 30% of Democrats) believe the state is too liberal. The survey found stark differences between how Californians and people outside the state view issues such as climate, race and gender. Nearly half of Californians say abortion should be legal in all cases, compared to a quarter of adults nationwide.
The same poll found that Newsom was viewed positively by about a third of Americans, negatively by another third and unknown by everyone else. Those numbers are decent in a sharply polarized environment. But any Democrat who became a candidate would have to endure a new avalanche of criticism.
“If Joe Biden is elected over some mythical perfect Democrat, the mythical perfect Democrat wins,” said an agent with ties to the Democratic National Committee. “But there is no real Democrat that voters can agree on as an alternative.”
