US President Joe Biden had a bad day on the presidential campaign. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t afford one.
The US presidential debate has proved to be a nightmare for the Democratic party, with party insiders reportedly panicking about the consequences of President Biden’s terrible debate performance. But there was also a worry for Republicans: Trump proved to be Trump, lying throughout and illustrating his questionable morals, even stating at one point that he did not have sex with a porn star, a truly abysmal depth in US presidential politics.
Trump was definitely much more energetic than Biden. The essential difference between the two shone through clearly, but the problem is that it did not resolve the fundamental problem that American voters face: whether to stick with an old man so well past his prime or hold their noses and vote for a yucky hustler. The vast majority of Americans have already decided and the small but important group of undecideds will probably find they are no closer to making a decision.
The trouble for the Democrats is that their choices are bad. Even Biden’s Vice President, Kamala Harris, admitted that he had a slow start. The calls for Biden to step aside will only grow. But a few thoughts need to be kept in mind. First, neither party will ask its own presidential candidate to step aside because of doubts about winnability. Democrats have painted this election in dire terms, as potentially existential for the republic, but that does not mean that it’s easy even for party notables to tell Biden to step aside. The only time that a sitting president has stepped aside in the recent past was when President Lyndon Johnson decided to step back after facing a tough nomination fight at the height of the Vietnam War. But Biden has already won the nomination, making the issue somewhat different. Moreover, Johnson withdrew at the end of March. Now, the presidential election is just four months away.
Second, it is not even clear that there is another candidate available. Vice President Harris is not very popular, but on the other hand, it will not be easy to overlook her either. With the nomination primaries already over, the only way to decide on another candidate is by having an open convention, where delegates can pick an alternative nominee. But with just about six weeks to go for the Democratic party convention, to be held in Chicago in mid-August, there is simply no time for such political gymnastics. It will likely divide the Democratic party even more; and it is already facing divisions with the progressive, far-Left wing pulling away already on issues like gender and the war in Gaza. Thus the likelihood that Democrats will change their nominee is highly unlikely, short of Biden himself deciding that he’s had enough.
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Will the needle move?
Democrats will want to wait another couple of weeks to see what the effect of the debate has been on public opinion across the country before deciding on such a drastic step. It is worth noting that President Biden had a good State of the Union speech earlier this year. It dispelled some concerns about his age but did not move the needle on public opinion much. It is quite possible that for all the handwringing among Democrats, the first debate may not move the needle much either. Of course, opinion polls show that Trump is leading, even if marginally. But if the needle does not dramatically move towards Trump in the next two weeks, the argument for changing the party nominee will not gain much traction.
The Republicans, on the other hand, appear upbeat about Trump’s performance, but it is unclear how this will translate into electoral support. Though Trump leads in opinion polls, especially in critical battleground states, many of which Biden has to win, his leads are not very comfortable ones.
The US presidential elections are, of course, not a national popularity contest but fought state by state. With many states solidly Republican (like those in the American South), and others solidly Democrat (New York and California), the election boils down to a few states mostly in the mid-west which can swing one way or the other. Biden has been steadily losing ground in these states, which is why Democrats are worried. Many states that were once considered ‘battleground’ states are now solidly Republican, such as Ohio. The number of battleground states has declined to seven, from thirteen in the last election. Even among these, Arizona and North Carolina are difficult to consider as battleground states because both appear clearly in the Republican camp, going by these polls. But unless Biden can win the so-called ‘blue-wall’ states, none of which he is leading at the moment, he will lose. Indeed, Biden’s lead even in solidly Democrat states such as New York is in the single digits, much lower than what it has to be.
Biden’s difficulties are the result of a number of factors. One is perceptions about the state of the US economy. Though the US economy is doing relatively well in the aggregate, American perceptions about the US economy are negative, driven by both inflation and high interest rates. Similarly, the illegal immigration issue is another problem that Biden has not been able to overcome, though Trump’s rhetoric does not always match reality.
But without question, the single most important issue is the question of whether Biden is up to the job, considering his age. This was the question that Biden absolutely had to address at the debate. Unfortunately for him, his halting performance probably made the problem worse. Whether he and the Democrats can dig out from under is open to question.
Rajesh Rajagopalan is a professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He tweets @RRajagopalanJNU. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
Is President Biden upto another four and a half years in the job when, during the debate, he clearly seemed not up to it even now.
Great article! I think Biden will likely lose this election and it will be mostly his fault. Although logically, he should win but just as the author puts it, Americans perception can offer differ wildly from the reality and Trump, for all his flaws, seems to have unlimited credibility with at least a third of Americans.