Next in line: the likely contenders should Joe Biden quit the race
Buoyed by support from his family it appears Joe Biden has no intention of standing aside. Should he change his mind, here are the most likely candidates | WATCH HOW THEY COMPARE
Joe Biden’s embarrassing performance in last week’s debate against Donald Trump has triggered speculation he might be replaced at the Democratic Party’s August convention in Chicago, where the US President was expected to be official nominated to be the party’s 2024 presidential candidate.
Convincing a stubborn 81-year-old President to stand aside won’t be easy, especially given his family has encouraged him to stay in the race despite growing calls from left-wing media outlets and some top Democratic Party donors for him to move on.
It’s ultimately Mr Biden’s decision: all the delegates he has won during the Democratic Party’s primary process, which recently wound up, are obliged to vote for him at the convention unless he releases them to vote for someone else.
But public pronouncements of support can’t be taken entirely seriously given the conversations that must be occurring in private. Polls since Thursday’s debate reveal a double-digit drop in the President’s support, even among registered Democrat voters.
Should the President’s closest advisers dissuade him from seeking re-election, these are the obvious alternatives:
Kamala Harris
The Vice-President, 60, is the most logical alternative and practically the first in line should Joe Biden decide to move on. Perhaps most critically, she is the only alternative candidate who could legally access the $US200m ($300m) already raised for Biden’s campaign. Any other candidate would start hundreds of millions of dollars behind Donald Trump’s campaign war chest.
Politically, it would be hard for the party to jettison her in favour of a white candidate, especially a man, given her status as the first African-American woman to hold the office of vice-president, which bestows significant status in the Democratic Party.
The former senator and attorney-general of California has supported the President since Thursday’s debacle, conceding only that he had a ‘slow start’. It’s unclear whether her interests are best served by hoping to become president after a future resignation of Biden in any hypothetical second term, or the lower probability of defeating Trump herself in November. She polls worse than Trump in almost all national polls.
Gavin Newsom
After Harris, California’s second-term Governor is the potential candidate most widely considered a possibility to replace the President. The suave 56-year-old has been a fixture of the politics of the biggest and richest US state for years, being elected mayor of San Francisco in 2004. He’s distantly related to former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was also once the city’s mayor.
Newsom is popular in his home state, winning his second term in 2022 with about 60 per cent of the primary vote, but he’s term-limited, so would be looking for something else after his term ends in 2027.
Like Harris, Newsom polls poorly against Trump: about 10 percentage points behind the former president (46 to 36) according to an Emmerson College poll from February.
Michelle Obama
The popular former first lady, 60, has been spoken about as an alternative for months, even though she has at least twice explicitly ruled out a push to move back into the White House.
Trump supporters such as Steve Bannon and Roger Stone have repeatedly predicated the party would make a play to entice her back into the fold.
‘She would be the most competitive, because it would go back to the nostalgia they have for the Obama administration. And clearly Barack Obama, President Obama, would be very involved in that campaign,” Bannon said after the debate.
Gretchen Whitmer
Michigan’s popular Governor, a relative baby in US politics at 52, rose to prominence nationally during the pandemic for imposing some of the toughest and longest restrictions. She polls worse than Newsom against Trump, 45 per cent to 33 per cent according to the same Emmerson College poll. Ambassador Kevin Rudd met her last month, a potential sign the Australian embassy thinks she has a shot.
In Lansing today for lunch with Governor Gretchen Whitmer, or “Big Gretch†to Michiganders! Her Great Lakes state and Australia work closely on autos, batteries, hydrogen and so much more. Also met the first dog of Michigan, whose name is…Kevin. He’s an Australian labradoodle!†pic.twitter.com/v3bkq0dX7E
— Kevin Rudd AC (@AmboRudd) May 17, 2024
She is extremely disliked by Trump supporters for her alleged role in what’s known in some Republican circles as the Whitmer Kidnapping Hoax, in which the FBI paid various informants to infiltrate and monitor a group of men in Michigan who were allegedly plotting to kidnap the Governor. About a dozen were arrested and charged, some incarcerated, but some were also later released because of entrapment by FBI sources, who had encouraged the men to commit the crime, allegedly for political reasons.
JB Pritzker and others
The reason Illinois’s second-term Governor, JB Pritzker, 59, is considered a candidate is perhaps because of his significant wealth – about $US3.5bn according to some estimates, making him among the richest handful of politicians in America. Little polling exists on how he would fare against Trump but almost certainly not well given his relative lack of name recognition.
Other remote possibilities including Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg or senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who have both run campaigns before.
It’s far from clear any of these individuals would agree to run at so late in the campaign, given they poll worse than Trump and wouldn’t have access to the Biden campaign contributions, and might have to give up their existing jobs.
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