When it comes down to it, many Democrats wish President Biden wouldn’t run this fall. Only 28 percent of Democrats in a new survey by The New York Times and Siena College expressed enthusiasm for his candidacy, and 38 percent said unequivocally that Mr. Biden should not be their nominee.
But even as many Democrats both in Washington and across the country want to take on former President Donald J. Trump, who leads the poll nationally by 5 percentage points, no one who matters seems willing to say so to Mr. Biden himself. Or if he is, he doesn’t seem to be listening.
Surrounded by a loyal and devoted inner circle, Mr. Biden has given no indication that he would consider stepping aside to let someone else lead the party. Indeed, he and those close to him go crazy at the idea. For all the applause, the president’s advisers note, no serious challenge has emerged and Mr. Biden dominated the first Democratic primary even more decisively than Mr. Trump won his own party’s nominating contests.
The Biden team considers the question itself absurd. The president in their view has an impressive record of accomplishments to go on. There is no obvious alternative. It’s too late in the cycle to cave in without significant disruption. If he were ever to opt against a second term, it would be a year ago when there would have been time to emerge a successor. And other than someone with Biden to their name, it’s hard to imagine who would have enough clout to even discuss the idea with him, much less influence him.
“There’s no council of elders, and I’m not sure if there was that a sitting president, no matter who he was, would listen to them,” said David Plouffe, an architect of President Barack Obama’s campaigns and one of the strategists who helped pick him. Mr. Biden as his running mate in 2008. “He’s thinking, ‘Hey, I won and I beat the guy who’s running against me and I can do it again.’
Members of Mr. Biden’s team insist they feel little concern. The president’s closest aides are surprisingly pushing back against those questioning his decision to run again and dismissing polls as meaningless long before the vote. They argue that challengers have consistently underestimated Mr. Biden and that Democrats won or beat expectations in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and even a special House election this year.
“The actual behavior of voters tells us a lot more than any poll, and it tells a very clear story: Joe Biden and the Democrats continue to outperform, while Donald Trump and the party he leads are weak, cash-strapped and deeply divided. Michael Tyler said. , the Biden campaign’s communications director said Saturday. “Our campaign is ignoring the noise and running a strong campaign to win — just like we did in 2020.”
Outside the White House, however, many Democrats want a panic-free White House to show some urgency. Mr. Biden’s failure in polls, especially those that show him trailing in all half of the states necessary to garner a majority in the Electoral College, have caused widespread concern in the party. Some privately say Georgia and Arizona may be out of reach, requiring Mr. Biden to sweep Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The discontent is not necessarily a judgment on the merits of Mr. Biden’s presidency. Many Democrats say he has done a good job on many fronts — eradicating the pandemic, rebuilding the economy, managing wars in Europe and the Middle East, and passing landmark legislation on infrastructure, climate change, health care, industrial policy, care veterans and other issues.
But his support has been eroded by concern about his age, his support for Israel’s war on Hamas, a record influx of migrants at the southwest border and the lingering effects of inflation, even as it has receded. More than 100,000 Democrats in Michigan, or 13 percent of the total, just cast protest votes in favor of “non-aligned” to express their displeasure, mostly over Gaza.
Mr. Biden, 81, is slightly older than Mr. Trump, 77, and both have shown moments of confusion and memory lapses. After his annual physical last week, Mr. Biden’s doctor declared him “fit for duty.” However, polls show that more people are upset by Mr. Biden’s years than Mr. Trump.
“Would I rather Joe Biden was 65? Sure, that would be great,” said Elaine Kamarck, director of the Center for Effective Public Administration at the Brookings Institution and a member of the Democratic National Committee. “But it is not. And that’s why I think we’re in the stupid age where everybody’s looking for some alternative scenario.”
Alternative scenarios remain far-fetched. Long-shot challenger Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota hasn’t gained any traction, and with Super Tuesday coming up this week, it’s almost certainly too late for a more heavyweight candidate to enter the contest, even if one were willing to confront the president. , which no one seems ready to do.
Much table talk in Washington these days centers on what would happen if Mr. Biden changed his mind at the last minute as President Lyndon B. Johnson did in 1968 or faced a health condition that prompted him to drop out. If that were to happen before the Democratic National Convention in August, it would set the stage for the first open convention contest in decades. After the convention, any vacancy at the top of the ticket will be filled by the Democratic National Committee.
All the talk, though, is just that. Mr. Biden is helped by the fact that none of the next generation of Democrats waiting in the wings, such as Vice President Kamala Harris or Governors Gavin Newsom of California or Gretchen Whitmore of Michigan, have a proven national following or track record of primary success. party.
“You could name five or six alternatives to Biden, but they haven’t gone through the system,” said Ms. Kamarck, one of the nation’s leading experts on the nomination process who just released the fourth edition of her four-year guide. Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know About How America Appoints Its Presidents.”
“We don’t know enough about them to give them a nomination,” he continued. “It’s crazy. The whole thing is so crazy. There’s no alternative.”
Ms. Kamarck said more and more Democrats are accepting it. “Democrats are getting very, very high on the defense of Biden,” he said. “The guy is a good guy. He is not senile. He has made good choices. The economy is the best economy in the world. I mean, shut up. Let’s get behind this guy.”
The idea that someone outside his own family could make Mr. Biden quit was always fanciful. There are few Democrats with the kind of gravitas that might mean anything to Mr. Biden. He still feels pain that Mr. Obama gently nudged him not to run in 2016, deferring to Hillary Clinton, who lost to Mr. Trump in the fall. Mr. Biden is old enough to have no mentors and few peers from his Senate days. And Jill Biden and other family members are strongly supporting this final campaign.
“There were only two people who could have stopped Joe Biden from running — Joe Biden if he decided not to run, or someone serious who would challenge him,” Mr. Plouffe said. And no matter how attractive a younger Democrat might seem in theory, he added, nothing is certain until one actually goes down and wins. “The political graveyard is full of people who look good on paper,” he said.
Mr. Plouffe agreed that “concerns about his age are more pronounced than people thought” a year ago. “The only thing you can do is normalize it and ultimately take the fight to Trump.” He said he was happy to see Mr Biden going out more, going on late-night TV and using Tik Tok. The more voters see him, Mr. Plouffe reasoned, the less any particular mistake might matter.
A key moment to vindicate the president will come Thursday night, when he delivers his State of the Union address to what should historically be his largest televised audience of the year. He will talk about his record and what he wants to do in the next four years. But as important as any policy statement will be how it is presented.
The president’s advisers are confident that when the decision comes, most voters will again prefer Mr. Biden, whatever his faults, to Mr. Trump, a twice-impeached defeated former president, who faces 91 felony charges, has been held civilly liable. sweeping business fraud and sexual assault trials and talk of a ‘dictator’ for a day.
“Where most Democrats are,” Mr. Plouffe said, “is, ‘OK, this is going to be very difficult, a great deal of difficulty, but ultimately there’s probably enough of the country that doesn’t want to sign up for a second Trump term that we can make this work.”
