“Sleepy” Joe Biden just gave the Democratic Party a wake-up call. The concerns about the incumbent president’s age and mental fitness are not going away.
So what can his party do about it, if anything?
Thursday’s debate in Altanta, Georgia was the president’s shot to bat away concerns about whether he can effectively serve a second term, one that would end well into his 80s. Instead, battling a cold, Biden appeared raspy and hoarse onstage while appearing to forget words at times and at other points seemingly losing track of his point altogether.
Democratic sources who spoke to The Independent and a wide range of other media outlets after the debate were in panic mode. Some openly fretted about whether it was possible for their party to do the unthinkable: replace a sitting, incumbent president on the ticket after he breezed through primary season virtually uncontested.
“Horrible,” one Democratic strategist told The Independent. “Need to have Harris take over. Cleanest option.”
So is it possible? And who would replace Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ballot?
The short answer is yes, it is possible. But it would be messy.
Joe Biden is not technically the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. Not yet. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is set to hold its nominating convention from August 19 to 22 — thousands of delegates, elected officials, union leaders, activists, party bigwigs, lobbyists and others will descend on Chicago for a four-day convention wherein Biden (or somebody else) will officially be nominated on the floor. The president (or his replacement) will then accept the nomination and deliver a keynote speech on the final night of the convention.
Here’s the catch: the outcome of that nominating process is already Biden’s unless he refuses it. The president won all 50 states and all US territories in the Democratic Party primary contest season this spring, netting him all but a few of the delegates whose votes are needed to secure the nomination. They’re bound to vote for him on the first ballot in the nominating process — the same round in which unbound “superdelegates”, who can cast their votes as they please, are prohibited from participating.
So, unless Biden himself drops out, the incumbent president will very much be his party’s nominee come August. If he does exit the race, however, that would lead to the prospect of an open convention — all those delegates bound to vote for Biden would spend the weeks leading up to the convention being courted by whichever Democrats jumped into the race to replace the president. Voters, who actually participated in the primary process this year, would have no say at all — the outcome would be decided in a series of ballots at the August convention, with each candidate working to consolidate the required total.
If that happens, there are a few prominent members of the president’s party who could throw their hats in the ring:
The single most likely replacement for Biden is clearly his vice president, Kamala Harris, whose constitutional duties include stepping in if the president is unable to continue serving in office.
She’s only one out of two of the likely suspects who has actually run a presidential campaign (albeit an unsuccessful one) and has the most national name recognition of any Democrat who could convincingly join the presidential race.
Biden’s secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg is the other former 2020 contender (along with Harris) who could make a bid for the White House if Biden were to bow out.
The former South Bend mayor is naturally charismatic and has military service on his resume which would put him apart from his fellows, as well as Donald Trump.
The Michigan governor is widely popular in her state and is seen as one of the leaders of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party in the post-Biden era.
She won re-election in 2022 by a wide margin buoyed by support for reproductive rights and her management of the Covid pandemic in her state.
One of the most obvious choices is the governor of California, whose personal wealth and prolific fundraising abilities would make him a fearsome adversary on the money front.
Newsom is in the middle of a second term as governor of his state — therein lies a problem, however, as he pledged during his 2022 re-election campaign that he would serve a full four years in office if sent back to the office.
The governor of Maryland would be a long shot for the nomination against others with more national recognition, but the first-term Maryland governor makes up for his relative political obscurity with an unmistakeable talent for being in front of the cameras and a positive track record in his short time in office.
Already, he has secured the future of the Baltimore Orioles in the state, and he has also been the public face of Maryland’s rebuilding efforts following a disaster which destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge, an iconic Baltimore landmark and essential part of the city’s port infrastructure.