Ten days ago Joe Biden wrote to every Democrat in Congress saying it was time for debate about his re-election bid to end since his candidacy was settled.
So what? It wasn’t. It isn’t. In fact it may be over.
Ten days is an eternity in politics. In that time Biden has
- lost Hollywood’s big donors;
- lost the public support of about two dozen senior Democrats and the private support of many more;
- fluffed his lines in an interview designed to repair the damage done by his June debate fiasco; and
- appeared to forget the name of his defence secretary and call him “the Black man” instead.
Worse yet, Barack Obama, the incarnation of Democratic experience and wisdom, let it be known yesterday that Biden needed to “seriously consider” whether he can win. As the president nursed mild Covid symptoms in Delaware last night, two of Washington’s best-connected reporters wrote that he might quit the race this weekend.
In short: any reprieve Biden might have felt as a result of last weekend’s attempt on his opponent’s life is over.
The stakes. Donald Trump is riding high after surviving a sniper’s bullet and soaking up the adoration of a Republican party that has never been more solidly behind him. For the Democrats to switch candidates would be hazardous in the extreme – just not as hazardous as doing nothing.
Polls. Trump’s lead in national and swing state polls was narrow before Saturday’s assassination attempt. It has widened since to the point that Obama is now telling allies Biden’s path to victory is perilously narrow.
Even that is not as troubling to ex-supporters as his apparent blindness to reality, the bad advice he’s getting, or both:
- In an interview this week with NBC Biden claimed to be ahead in polls but couldn’t say which – because he isn’t.
- Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, called Biden to pursue the point. According to two accounts she gave up and asked the president to hand the phone to his chief of staff.
Donors. Biden’s war chest is draining without the replenishment it needs to stay competitive.
- George Clooney and Julia Roberts hosted a $30 million fundraiser for him in Hollywood last month before the 28 June debate. Biden’s distracted performance alarmed one attendee so much that he called on fellow-donors to stop giving until Biden quit the race.
- More donors closed their wallets after the debate.
- On 11 July a devastating oped by George Clooney in the New York Times effectively called time on the big West Coast donations on which Democrats can usually rely.
Democrats. Obama, Clooney and Pelosi are the biggest names to have urged Biden to reconsider, and they couldn’t be much bigger. In addition:
- Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, leaders of the Senate and House Democratic caucuses, have this week personally urged Biden to step aside, highlighting the risk to the party in Congress if he doesn’t.
- 21 Congressional Democrats have publicly called for him to end his campaign, but if Clooney is right they are the tip of an iceberg. “Every senator and Congress member and governor who I’ve spoken with in private” believes the Democrats will lose the Senate and fail to win the House if Biden runs, he writes. “Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”
Democracy. In the aftermath of the June debate the central theme of appeals for a new candidate was that American democracy required one to defeat Trump, whose contempt for the democratic process has been plain since the 2020 election. Now the subtext of these appeals is that Biden would not be fit to run in any circumstances.
Sad. George Applegate, an attendee at the Clooney-Roberts fundraiser, wrote afterwards that “the whole thing was just sad,” and that Biden advisors’ attempts to pretend otherwise mirrored the sycophancy of Trump’s.
Sadder. For want of a dedicated forum, much of the debate on Biden’s future has been held in the opinion pages of the NYT. Yesterday the paper published a “story for Jill Biden” – the First Lady – by Sally Quinn, widow of the legendary Washington Post editor, Ben Bradlee. It was the story of a vigorous, stubborn man succumbing gradually to dementia.
