President Biden

He's running

I’m watching the State of the Union address, in part because certain other members of my household wanted to. While listening to the President lay out a pretty impressive list of accomplishments over the previous two years, I’m writing this to say that, barring an unforeseen health event, President Biden is going to run for reelection in 2024. And yes, he will be the Democratic nominee. Many Democrats say they wish he wouldn’t, according to a fresh set of polls. He will be just shy of 82 years old on election day, 2024. Recent polls show a neck and neck race in a hypothetical rematch with Donald Trump. According to 538, at this moment, Biden’s approval rating sits at minus nine.

While acknowledging the advantages of incumbency and Biden’s positive record, Michelle Goldberg made the case yesterday that Biden’s age was a potentially devastating liability, especially if he’s facing the 46-year old Ron DeSantis, not the 76-year old Trump:

“it’s hard to ignore the toll of Biden’s years, no matter how hard elected Democrats try. In some ways, the more sympathetic you are to Biden, the harder it can be to watch him stumble over his words, a tendency that can’t be entirely explained by his stutter. [Democrats in…focus group[s] have talked] about holding their breath every time he speaks. And while Biden was able to campaign virtually in 2020, in 2024 we will almost certainly be back to a grueling real-world campaign schedule, which he would have to power through while running the country. It’s a herculean task for a 60-year-old and a near impossible one for an octogenarian.”

Biden’s staunchest defenders should take this seriously. It will be grueling, and there is no precedent for a person Biden’s age running for President. For that, and other reasons, including the fact that many find him uninspiring, Biden is not an ideal candidate. But the question is whether another Democrat has a better chance of winning the presidency next year than Biden. I think the answer is no. Goldberg referred to a “deep bench” of Democrats like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock who could step up in Biden’s place. What would follow, however, if Biden stepped aside could be a bruising primary fight among Democrats. There’s no guarantee that your favorite candidate - the one you’re certain could beat Trump or DeSantis - would emerge from such a fight the winner. Indeed, a prolonged battle among Democrats will introduce more uncertainty into an already fractious and unnerving political environment. Such an environment better suits the GOP’s appetite for chaos than it does Democrats’ desire to actually govern. Indeed, the Biden persona that many regard as low key to the point of blah also might be an underrated strength in this tumultuous political era, especially among risk-averse voters. People may not be head over heels for Biden, but he’s a known quantity.

Relatedly, while Biden isn’t especially popular, many of his accomplishments are. He has a real record to run on, though his communications strategy needs to do a better job of highlighting it (tonight’s State of the Union was a good effort overall, to that end). That record is the sort of thing that can’t easily be passed off to another candidate, as if a baton in a relay race. Those achievements are, in a fundamental political sense, Biden’s. Insofar as partisanship is the key animating motivation for most voters, antipathy toward the other party more than love of one’s own that moves the needle. But among swingy voters, who are both less loyal to any political party and more wary of political and social experimentation, Biden’s penchant for pragmatic legislating could be the affirmative reason they need to vote for him. Another way of saying this is that any Democrat will begin a general election campaign with the enormous liability of being presumptively hated by a significant swath of the country. But none will have the same positive *tangible* bona fides that Biden does.

All of this is hypothetical. I could be wrong about Biden’s relative chances, of course. In any event, we’ll never know. Regardless, to return to my original assertion, Democrats (including lots of my friends) are free to lament the prospect of running it back with Biden in 2024. But barring the unforeseen, like it or not, we’re not getting a different nominee. Biden’s the guy, for better or worse. As it happens, on the question of who is most likely to beat whichever horror show Republicans nominate next year, I think Biden’s candidacy leans to the better.