Democrats feel doomed. What's the least risky move?

This episode delves into President Biden's potential reelection campaign amid calls for him to step aside following a disappointing debate performance, exploring alternatives like Vice President Kamala Harris and the broader implications for the Democratic Party.

1. President Biden's debate performance has significantly affected perceptions of his competence, leading to debates about his ability to lead the campaign effectively.
2. The possibility of substituting Biden with another candidate, such as Vice President Kamala Harris or Gretchen Whitmer, presents both risks and opportunities for the Democratic Party.
3. The discussion reflects broader concerns about democratic processes and the influence of party activists and delegates in potentially choosing a new candidate.
4. The urgency of the Democratic Party's decision-making is underscored by the upcoming election and the need to present a viable alternative to President Trump.
5. The episode highlights a deep divide within the party and among voters about the best path forward, emphasizing the strategic challenges facing Democrats.

1: Introduction and Context

Overview of the episode's focus on Biden's campaign challenges and alternatives. Key points include Biden's debate performance and the subsequent reactions within the party.

• Charles Lane: "Ever since his disastrous debate performance on June 27, there seem to have been incessant loud cries coming from people who demand that he should step aside."
• Karen Tumulty: "It's been mystifying how he's handled it."

2: Analyzing Biden's Campaign Strategy

Discussion on Biden's campaign strategy post-debate and its reception among the electorate and party insiders.

• Perry Bacon: "I don't think he's addressed those kind the full range of questions in the last few days."

3: The Role of Kamala Harris

Insights into Vice President Harris' role and her potential as a substitute candidate, highlighting her improved campaign skills.

• Karen Tumulty: "She's a lot better now than she was then. You know, she's had the four years of experience as vice president."

4: Potential Candidate Alternatives

Exploration of potential alternatives to Biden, such as Gretchen Whitmer and Pete Buttigieg, considering their capabilities and the logistical challenges of a new campaign.

• Perry Bacon: "I think there's a lot of people I talk to in the country who are like, why do I have to vote for these two guys who are so old again."

5: Concluding Thoughts

Final thoughts on the strategic decisions facing the Democratic Party, with emphasis on the need for a fresh approach.

• Charles Lane: "This is probably the toughest strategic decision any party has ever faced at such a point in their campaign."

1. Stay informed about the candidates and their platforms to make educated voting decisions.
2. Engage in political discussions to understand diverse perspectives within your community.
3. Participate in local party activities to influence the nomination process.
4. Advocate for transparency and inclusivity in party decisions to ensure democratic principles.
5. Monitor the media and fact-check information to avoid misinformation.

With falling poll numbers and President Biden's public appearances doing little to reassure voters he’s still got what it takes to win, Democrats are faced with a difficult decision about how to proceed. Biden has dug in, pledging to the public that he isn’t going anywhere. Charles Lane, Karen Tumulty and Perry Bacon Jr. talk through whether Biden can salvage his campaign, how possible it really is to change course now and who else could step up.

People

Charles Lane, Karen Tumulty, Perry Bacon

Companies

Washington Post

Content Warnings:

None

A
As journalists, the last ten days or so have been pretty riveting in terms of presidential politics. But anecdotally, do you find your friends and your family are following this as closely as we are?

B
Hey, I live in Washington. Yes, but fortunately, I get out of Washington, and I do find that at least the people I've talked to are puzzled, but they're not up to DEFcON status the way so many people in Washington are.

C
I live in Louisville, and the five year old birthday party I was yesterday did not feature a lot of focus on this. But, yeah, I'm getting a lot of text messages, and people are asking me about this and what I think about Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom, too. So not just about Biden, but people do sort of have a sense of what the names are and what they should be thinking about.

A
Yeah. So I've kind of gotten it both. I spent the last couple weeks on vacation in California, where I visited a relative who wanted to talk about nothing else. And then when I was at a hotel, I found three people who didn't even know who Jake Tapper was. And I thought, wow, okay, so there are some people who are not paying that close of attention. This is impromptu from Washington Post opinions. It's a show where we bring you conversations about the stories we can't stop thinking about. I'm Charles Lane, deputy opinion editor. And today we are talking about President Biden and the future of his reelection campaign. Ever since his disastrous debate performance on June 27, there seem to have been incessant loud cries coming from people who demand that he should step aside. But Biden himself has been resolute, doubling down on his commitment to stay in the race. How can he salvage his campaign, if at all? Are Democrats better off holding onto their nominee, or would they have a better chance in November with somebody else? I'm joined today by two of my colleagues from Washington Post opinion to help us think through these critical questions.

B
Hi, I'm Karen Tumulty. I am a columnist at the Washington Post. I write about politics.

C
And I'm Perry Bacon. I'm a columnist at the Washington Post as well. And I also write about politics.

A
Well, it's good we got two people who write about politics to talk about politics. A lot of people said over the weekend that just ended that it was critical for Biden to sort of prove he can still handle all of this. You know, his interview on Friday with George Stephanopoulos and the campaign events did not seem to have set the world on fire. Yet he came out of it declaring more emphatically than ever that he's staying in the race. Perry, do you think Biden has made good use of his time since the debate in terms of reassuring Democrats?

C
No, because I think the core question I think people left the debate with is not necessarily can he give a speech or can he do a short interview? I think what people left it is like some questions about, like, is he quick on his feet? What is his cognitive capacity? Can he, can he have a detailed discussion about policy with his staff? Because he sort of struggled with that with Trump and the CNN moderator. So I don't think he's addressed those kind the full range of questions in the last few days. But I do think he's been emphatic and made it clear that pushing him out will not be easy and he's not going to just sort of be set aside based on anonymous quotes and stories. I think he has shown one thing. He will only be pushed out if the party really stands up to him in a certain way.

B
Karen, until recently, it's been mystifying how he's handled it. Essentially, after the debate, he did a couple of events, but then he essentially went into the bunker and members of Congress that I was talking to last week were really shocked at the degree to which he hadn't been reaching out. You know, it took many days, for instance, before Nancy Pelosi heard from him. You were sort of wondering, where is the White House ledge affairs office here? Because you have a completely freaked out House of Representatives and nobody was talking to him.

A
Well, now, of course, they're not just freaking out about what could happen at the top of the ticket. They're also worried about the down ballot rates.

B
Well, in the house, they are all on the ticket with him.

A
Yeah, exactly. So, Karen, I want to take advantage of the fact that you've just been out on the campaign trail with the person everybody's talking about as a possible alternative, if it should come to that, Vice President Kamala Harris. I mean, this can't be an easy moment for her.

B
Yeah. As the interview with George Stephanopoulos was airing on Friday night, I was aboard Air Force two, where I made an absolutely shocking discovery. There is no Wifi on Air Force two.

A
So it's just like Delta.

B
Not in the rear camera.

A
No offense, Delta.

B
So Vice President Harris was flying down a long scheduled appearance at the Essence festival, which is an enormous black cultural festival. And right before she went on stage, there were members of the congressional black Caucus, and in particular, Maxine Waters of California just took the issue by the horns and was just saying, don't listen to people who tell you Biden's too old, that he is going to be the Democrat nominee. So get out there and vote. Harris went nowhere near that subject. But I've got to tell you, I covered her quite a bit during her brief presidential campaign in 2020, where hopes had been very high for her at the beginning. And she just collapsed pretty quickly before Iowa even. She's a lot better now than she was then. You know, she's had the four years of experience as vice president. She's sharper. She argues the case against Trump a lot better than Biden can at this point were they to substitute her for him on the ticket. I am skeptical that that would really be enough to get them over the finish line. But I do think that she is going to be a lot harder for the Republicans to caricature, to mock. Shes just not that person anymore.

A
I mean, it was striking to me at least that in his intervention on Morning Joe, Joe Biden didnt go near the Kamala Harris alternative either. In fact, the opposite. He challenged his opponents. If any of you want to run against me, go ahead and run against me, which im sure Kamala heard that with a special poignancy. Perry, obviously, on the surface, we know that this panic among the Democrats is about what happened on June 27. And, you know, the concerns that maybe has some cognitive issues. But I want to try and get beneath that a little bit. How much of this is really about Donald Trump from the democratic perspective?

C
I think it's almost entirely about Donald Trump, the threat he poses to, I would say, democracy to the country. And also the fact that if you look at the numbers Donald Trump is leading, and I think that's causing the panic is like, how does Joe Biden change this dynamic? And the debates are a big way. You know, he's run a lot of tv ads the last three months, many more than Trump in swing states. And that's not moving things. So I think this debate was a moment and he missed a moment. And that's what has made democrats really panicked. And they're worried another debate, he might.

A
Be even worse at the, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And that first impression from the beginning of the debate has stayed with him. Look, we've been talking about whether or not Biden can stay in or if he drops out. But I want to get into looking ahead and how he could salvage this campaign right after the break.

D
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A
Welcome back. You know, Joe Biden has been defiant, depicting himself as the sort of target of this elite and media campaign to force him out of the race, despite what the Democratic Party primary voters said. So if he stays as he emphatically says he will, what could he do concretely to recover and to counteract this feeling so many people seem to have that he's just not up for the job?

B
Karen well, I think it's obvious there's only one game plan here. He's got to be out there more. He's got to be showing day in and day out that he is not the person that people saw in that debate. Whether he has the capacity to do that, I do not know.

A
Perry.

C
What I would like to have seen was people are saying that I can't complete sentences. So Friday, Saturday, here's a press conference. I'll take any question and spend an hour answering questions about policy in detail because the debate was also a missed opportunity. When he was asked about abortion, a great issue for the Democrats, he used words, but I have no idea what he was really trying to say, and nobody else really did either. If you're a confident candidate, and more importantly, I think if you are a confident staff in your candidate, if everyone is going around saying your candidate is losing his mind, you would be like, we'll show you. And that's not what we're seeing at all. We're seeing a lot of teleprompter speeches. We're seeing a lot of, a lot of teleprompter fundraisers. We're seeing a lot of. We have a one appearance with Morning Joe, a show full of Joe Biden fans as anchors. The Stephanopoulos interview was a real interview. I don't want to dismiss that. But in general, you're seeing a fairly safe and risk averse approach, which suggests that either the candidate himself or the staff is not confident if he's asked a bunch of questions for an hour, that it will go well.

A
They're actually passing out questions ahead of time to radio hosts and telling them to ask these questions.

B
Look, I think, you know, Perry mentions the issue of abortion, which, of course, the Democrats think is a big one. Abortion is a word that Joe Biden rarely ever can bring himself to say, even when he is on top of his game. It was in the prepared remarks for the state of the union speech. And he, you know, he can talk about reproductive choice and use all the euphemisms. That is why they are sending Harris out so much.

A
Well, you just anticipated my next question, which is there are aspects of the Democratic Party's agenda and President Biden's agenda, that poll pretty well that are popular. I mean, his job approval and Harris job approval are not good, but some of their specific ideas seem to be popular. So the question arises, Perry just put a different messenger out there espousing the same message, and does that suddenly rekindle all the enthusiasm, that democratic base?

C
I'm not sure. I've read a lot of accounts that if you put Gretchen Whitmer on the ticket, you'll win by 1000 points. But we're a pretty divided country. Trump is going to get 47% or so, is my guess. No matter what. I think it's going to be a close election, no matter who the candidate is at this point. Biden is such a flawed messenger in terms of, like, can he do four rallies a day? If so, can he give long speeches? Can he be active? Can he do press conferences. You can imagine Harris, Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg, another person purely doing more events and campaigning more and being more articulate during debates. So all these things are true. So I don't know if a better messenger will work, but we can't find out with, and I think that's what the Democratic Party is saying is you cannot prosecute the case against Trump very effectively. And you've had three and a half years, you've had a campaign, you're not very popular. Can we try somebody else? I think the question is less can Whitmer do it or Ken Harris? I think the question is more Biden, it looks like can't.

B
So let me argue the, on the other hand, I think people who make the case that they need to put somebody else on the ticket underestimate the sheer difficulty of doing that and of having somebody. And in the case of, if its not Harris, who hasnt been tested on the national stage, who would have to put together a campaign from a standing start? Who would run it? What would the tactical and strategic decisions be? There would be advice and demands coming in from all directions. This would be such a difficult undertaking, you know, even if they should find that golden candidate somewhere. And I do think there is a lot of talent on the democratic bench. Its July.

A
Yeah. With each passing day, it seems to get harder. And meanwhile, I just want to put in a point about what the other side has been doing. I think on the whole, Trump has played this pretty cleverly. Hes just stood back for the most part and let the Democrats argue amongst themselves. And I think he is trying to moderate the republican platform a little bit on abortion. I mean, it's still way to the right of the democratic. But that was a clever move. And the other thing I think he has going for him, assuming Biden and Harris stay as a democratic ticket, he's the only one who gets to inject a new element into this campaign in the form of his vice presidential pick, which is coming up probably in the next few days. So he's going to have a whole new cycle on that. So, yeah, while the Democrats are busily carving each other up, the Republicans seem to be getting more unified. This is probably the toughest strategic decision any party has ever faced at such a point in their campaign. And it's all about raising the opportunity, the chance to win in November, their risks either way. What is the least risky course as we sit here today?

B
Oh, boy.

A
Kick him off. Go with somebody new.

C
I think that the two things I'm struggling with are, is Harris who can, who is, had not won the presidential election, did not run a good campaign in 2019, and bluntly is a black woman in a country that has never elected a woman president and has not elected black women to virtually did not even govern her before. So those are sort of things that are challenging for Harris. On the other hand, Biden, if he debates like he did the other night, again, this is a really hard campaign to win. And I think the odds of a debate like that again, are not zero and are fairly high. So both those to me seem equally risky, I would say. I think the bigger risk, obviously, with the biggest potential reward though, is Whitmer new ticket. I think the new ticket is risky. Contest a convention. It could explore all kinds of ways. You have an unvetted person. On the other hand, people like new faces in politics. I think there's a lot of people I talk to in the country who are like, why do I have to vote for these two guys who are so old again, I think a young, articulate person would interject some new energy. They might have a scandal that I don't know about. But I think if, like, if you're talking about Whitmer or Buttigieg or people have heard of, I do think there is a potentially high upside. So that's the riskiest one. But I think in some ways, if you think Biden is likely to lose anyway, and I think that's what a lot of people on the hill think, and I think that's what the numbers are showing right now, then you would want to take a higher risk. On the other hand, if you think Biden is 50 50 or likely to win, then you don't take that risk. And of course, ultimately we don't know.

A
I think, sorry, go ahead, Karen, and.

B
Let'S describe what changing now would involve. First and foremost, it would involve Biden voluntarily stepping aside and then the decision would be made by the roughly 4000 people who are democratic convention delegates who then would be. So we would have a very short, intense primary campaign where the electorate is essentially a bunch of party activists, union members, a lot of teachers union, local party officials, a lot of local elected officials that we don't have the storied smoke filled rooms of earlier erasitive, well.

A
It would be less transparent and small d democratic than the primary process, which since it was unopposed for Biden, is already kind of like not super democratic to begin with. Right.

B
And some states like Florida decided just not to have a primary.

A
Not to have a primary at all. Well, I continue to believe, somewhat in agreement with Perry, that the voters are screaming, I don't want this choice. You know, I don't want to have to pick between these two people. And therefore, if there is any way in the world to engineer just a brand new face, I think that, I think the upside of that is very, very high, notwithstanding how messy it might be to get there. Don't forget the other guy. If it's going to be Trump, as it looks like it will be, he's got a felony conviction on his, literally rap sheet.

B
And so that's thing that's happened lately, too, is fundraising.

F
But go ahead.

A
I know, but it's not like if the Democrats have, you know, pick somebody who, I don't know, got caught DUI 20 years ago, that's not gonna be a deal breaker. So I think novelty has a tremendous value to it. And yet we are staring in the face an extremely defiant, committed, embedded, and increasingly ain't going nowhere. Joe Biden.

C
Can I say one thing just briefly? I think in terms of this discourse, I find that these questions are related, should Biden run is very related to who should replace Biden. And so when I read these people who have, here's my list of 15 people that can read, instead, you're sort of avoiding the question. That's why I've said Whitmer 15 times in this conversation, very intentionally. Cause I'm trying to say, let's actually discuss. I think people are crying for, if you don't want Biden, can you name someone else? I think Biden is sort of benefiting from a certain way, is this sort of sense that it's either me or we're gonna have a contest of 97 people. And I think that's a hard thing. People get their arms around versus if it's like Whitmer, Biden, or Harris. And I think those are realistic, the realistic options here. That sort of narrows the conversation down a little bit. For the people who want Biden off the ticket, I would advise you to actually name who you actually want.

A
Karen, your final thoughts?

B
I think that the last time we had a fresh face burst on the scene and successfully win the presidency was Barack Obama. But he was tested in a very long, grueling primary against the brand name of the party, Hillary Clinton. He was a much better candidate at the end of that than he was at the beginning. I think it would really be lightning in a bottle if somebody could do it without that testing.

A
I guess my takeaway from all this is there's a whole laundry list of things tactically. People are calling on Biden to do. Have this press conference, answer these questions. I don't know, go take a bike ride. Show that you can walk on a treadmill for five minutes or whatever. The fact that they're not doing anything like that tells me he can't. He just can't. If this all goes sour and the election takes a very dangerous turn or whatever, Democrats are going to have to do a lot of soul searching about how they handled this over the last year. So I guess I just gave myself the last word. We're out of time. But thank you both, Perry Bacon and Karen Tumulty for being a part of this episode of Impromptu. Let's do it again soon.

C
Thanks, Chuck.

B
It's been great.

A
This episode was produced by Hadley Robinson, edited by Damir Marusic, Chris Solentrop and Alan Michaels, and mixed by Emma Munger. Chris Rukan designed our art. Special thanks to Millie Mitra, Nick Safin and Travis Meyer. Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget to follow impromptu wherever you get your podcast, and leave a review. If you're enjoying the show and we always love hearing from you, email a voice memo to impromptuashpost.com dot.

F
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