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President Biden’s public stumbling, bumbling and low approval ratings have Democratic Party officials privately wringing their hands about the 2024 presidential race, but predictions that he will drop out of the contest are becoming increasingly far-fetched as his reelection campaign gears up slowly.
Still, political watchers are speculating.
Fundraisers and former aides have anonymously complained that the Biden campaign is not ramping up quickly enough and will not be ready to take on likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Mr. Biden’s public gaffes and physical stumbles on camera have also raised alarm that he is too old for the rigors of a presidential campaign, let alone another full term. After his last year in office, he would be 86.
He has even been accused of “quiet quitting,” a term for those who do the bare minimum at work rather than leaving the job entirely.
Mr. Biden’s team is now fretting about a planned debate between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, an up-and-coming Democrat who has pledged to stay on the sidelines and not challenge Mr. Biden for now.
“California Gov. Gavin Newsom is increasingly being viewed as a nuisance to some of President Joe Biden’s political advisers,” NBC News reported, citing four people familiar with the matter.
Fox Business Network reporter Charlie Gasparino said even Wall Street advisers are gaming out scenarios that substitute Mr. Biden on the 2024 ticket for Mr. Newsom or Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, bypassing unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris.
Mr. Biden would drop out after winning the nomination, the investment banking company Piper Sandler speculated in a secret report.
“The scenario as crazy as all this sounds is making the rounds on Wall Street. You hear it in private dinners with top execs and I’m privy to. And increasingly in research reports floating around among financial advisers,” Mr. Gasparino wrote in the New York Post.
Public polling has strongly warned the Democratic Party that Mr. Biden is not in a good position to win reelection.
An Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released this week found that more than three-quarters of adults surveyed, or 77%, say Mr. Biden, 80, is too old to run for reelection.
Another AP poll found that only one-third of Americans approve of how the president has handed the economy, a top concern among voters. An Economist/YouGov poll showed that nearly half of independents, a critical voter bloc, say Mr. Biden’s age “severely limits his ability to do the job.”
Responding to the drumbeat about Mr. Biden’s age, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recited a list of legislation the president has achieved, including multibillion-dollar measures to address climate change and infrastructure.
“That’s what we will happily … discuss as we — as it relates to age, what the president has been able to do and how he’s been able to deliver,” she said.
Reporters asked Monday why Mr. Biden was walking into the Oval Office with his personal physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, after coughing repeatedly during a visit to a junior high school in the District of Columbia. Ms. Jean-Pierre said she had no information.
Political observers predict that Mr. Biden isn’t going anywhere.
“The idea that anybody would give up being the most powerful person in the world is a far-fetched one,” Democratic political strategist Hank Sheinkopf told The Washington Times. “It doesn’t happen.”
The president launched his reelection bid in April. Although some worried that his fundraising was off to a slow start, he easily topped Mr. Trump’s campaign in the most recent quarter by bringing in a combined $72 million with the Democratic National Committee. That was more than double the $35 million that Mr. Trump raised.
Mr. Trump has been forced to divert critical campaign cash toward his mounting legal bills as he defends himself against 91 criminal charges in four indictments. The upcoming trials threaten to sideline Mr. Trump from the presidential primary and general election campaigns.
Although Mr. Trump leads the Republican primary field by double digits, he does not beat Mr. Biden in many polls and trails him slightly in most of them.
Some Republicans are calling on Mr. Trump to drop out of the race. Among them are Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
“He will lose to Joe Biden if you look at the current polls,” Mr. Cassidy said on CNN.
Mr. Biden has been under increasing criticism over his handling of the economy, border security and, most recently, the devastating wildfire in Maui that left hundreds dead or missing.
Mr. Biden waited two weeks to travel to the wildfire site and was criticized for tone-deaf remarks. He compared the devastation in Maui to a small house fire he experienced years ago that he said almost cost him his cat and vintage Corvette.
The president is also facing scrutiny over suspected involvement in his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals while he was vice president.
House investigators are now threatening an impeachment inquiry. They cite bank records that show the Biden family pocketed millions of dollars from foreign business deals and witness testimony that Mr. Biden phoned into his son’s business meetings and even appeared in person at several of them.
Democrats will unlikely push Mr. Biden to the side, especially without a better substitute.
Pollsters say it would be political suicide to sideline Ms. Harris, the nation’s first female vice president and first vice president of color.
Although unilaterally substituting Mr. Newsom or Mr. Pritzker on the 2024 ballot may seem politically savvy to party leaders, shoving aside Ms. Harris would almost certainly cost Democrats the support of many minority voters, particularly Black women, who make up a sizable chunk of the critical base turnout.
Ms. Harris’ poll numbers are worse than Mr. Biden’s, and her problems with incoherent messaging make her less palatable as a 2024 candidate despite Mr. Biden’s stumbles.
The latest Economist/YouGov poll in mid-August shows Ms. Harris with an unfavorable rating of 55%.
Democrats still have plenty of time to stage a competitive primary race if Mr. Biden drops out for serious health reasons.
Mr. Biden is three years past the average life expectancy in the U.S. and is by far the oldest person ever to serve as president.
The Democrats’ first primary in South Carolina is scheduled for Feb. 3, nearly five months away.
If Mr. Biden quits the race, Democrats likely would have a solid field of primary candidates, including Mr. Newsom, Ms. Harris, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Marianne Williamson and some of the candidates who competed in the 2020 presidential race, such as Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Williamson are already competing for the Democratic primary nomination and are polling at 13% and 6%, respectively. They trail Mr. Biden by at least 50 percentage points.
Mr. Sheinkopf said a 2024 Democratic primary battle is a fantasy because Mr. Biden will not quit the race.
“It’s wishful thinking on the part of Republicans, who would like to see chaos, and it’s wishful thinking on the part of Democrats, who think they would have a better shot at beating Donald Trump or any other Republican, for that matter,” he said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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