I hope this is my last long post on the Democratic candidate for president.
I’m going to do something here that may surprise some of you. I’m going to make the best argument I can for why I think Biden should step down. And in doing so, I’m going to respond to some of the claims I made the other day against him doing so.
I’m doing this for a few reasons. One is that this is how I think. I always look at issues from a number of sides.
Another related one is that I’m still remain unsure about what the right path forward is and the only way I’m going to be sure is by making the best case on both sides.
And frankly, none of you who have been arguing with me the post has done a very good job of making that case or responding to my arguments.
So here is the best response.
Over the last few days I made a series of arguments that I summarized this way: those who want Biden to drop out made four claims that turned out not to be true, that Biden’s support would collapse after the debate, that other candidates would do better in the polls than Biden, that he would keep having performances like he did at the debate, and that there can be an open process to seek his replacement.
The fourth claim is still true. For all the reasons I have discussed it’s Biden or Harris. Only be nominating her can the Biden campaign team and finances be moved over to Harris intact. Only by nominating her due we avoid pissing off the base of the party.
The reason I was right about the other three argument is that I understand something about politics that many of you don’t seem to get. The extreme partisan division in the country today has come to mean that there are very few truly independent voters who are cross-pressured by arguments from both sides and are not sure of who to vote for. They are also very low information voters and have a low propensity to vote. (The notion that more than a few independent voters are genuinely thoughtful moderates or centrists is not true and from what we can tell from survey data has never been true. The only true centrists of that kind are highly informed people who think a lot and have contrarian personalities.)
So it was pretty easy for me to predict that the poor Biden performance wouldn’t change the polls much and that replacing Biden with Harris wouldn’t lead to a polling advantage. Most voters are far too locked into their partisan choice to be moved even by an awful debate performance or to change their minds with a different Democratic candidate. It was pretty telling that none of the people yelling at me that it was obvious we needed to replace Biden ever said they were considering not voting for him.
But here is the thing I recognized yesterday about my own argument. The reasons my predictions about the impact of the debate were true is also a reason to worry about the state of the race.
Biden is now about 2 points down in the national polls when, because of the electoral college, he needs to be at least 3 points up. (BTW, all of you who say we should be looking at battleground state rather than national polls are not quite right, for two reasons. One is that there are very few battleground state polls so there is less evidence. The second is that the relationship with between national poll numbers and battleground state results is pretty static. it’s easy to predict state results from national polls and there are far more of them.)
So Biden is down and, for reasons I’ve given, only a small percentage of people, maybe 3% are going to change their minds or move from undecided to Biden. The election is mostly going to be decided by those few voters and whether we can turn out our base.
That means we are in trouble. And that’s where the case for replacing Biden begins. For we badly need to shake up the race.
There is time to do it. I’ve pointed out that campaigns make a difference and that’s why we have seen in the past that candidates have been far up and then lost. But we have to understand that for the reasons I’ve been talking about there is going to be less movement in the polls than in the past. There might be some not just because undecideds and those unsure move in one direction or another but because polls, which are increasingly going to focus on likely voters begin to see some shifts in who is going to turn out.
(And keep in mind, it is really hard to poll LVs. That is the main reason polling is sometimes unreliable. We have been hurt by that in the past because Trump voters overturn out. But since Roes was overturned, we have been helped by it. Democrats have been outperforming their polls ever since by a few points.)
I continue to think that new messaging is more important than a new candidate in shaking up the race. But here is why choosing Harris might help at this point.
1. As I initially thought after the debate and some of you have pointed out (especially Karly Whitaker and Nathan Schrader) the excitement of a new, less known candidate and especially a Black / Asian woman, could do it. How big an impact this has is unclear. But at least it would force people are cross-pressured or undecided to think again.
2. It is pretty clear that our turnout problem is with younger people and people of color. Here is where a much younger candidate could make a difference. (Karly Whitaker has made this point with me.) Even if there are no substantial policy differences between Harris and Biden, a generational change which at least suggests that a new Democratic administration would be different in some ways would get them excited and more likely to turn out.
3. Harris is likely to be a more vigorous campaigner than Biden. To some of you that is obvious, but I actually think Biden has enough gas in the tank and the motivation and will to campaign vigorously. But Harris almost certainly could do more. (This is an argument that Alan Howe has been making.) Also her prosecutorial style–which she does manage to carry out without meaness most of the time–could put the Republicans on the defensive.
4. I continue to think that our messaging needs to change from just bragging about the economic recovery to recognizing the long-term simmering economic discontent especially of young people. I’ve posted in the comments my piece on this and urge you to read it. Biden has put forward many of policies that are necessary to address this distress. But as I’ve listened to him over the last few days, I’m not convinced he is capable of addressing this issue thematically. And that’s what he needs. The problem here is not his age. It’s that he’s never been someone who was willing to address and advance broad themes. I don’t know if Harris can do it. But at this point, it might be worth finding out.
On the other side, there are a few possible downsides to a Harris candidacy. I’ve advanced them before but as I’ve been thinking them through in the last day it’s possible I’ve overstated their impact.
One is the Bradley/ Obama-Clinton effect, that Black and female candidates underperform because of racism and sexism. This really worries me and I’m sure it will affect polling. But I’ve been thinking that the extreme partisan division I’ve been pointing to may mitigate the impact of racism and sexism, certainly in our base. (It doesn’t matter that Trump voters are racist and sexist. We aren’t trying to win their vote.) It won’t effect efforts to boost turnout. It may however effect efforts to convert undecided / cross-pressured voters to move to our side.
Another is the disappointed Biden supporter effect. I really worry about this. But given the partisan division, it may not effect vote choice and turnout although it could effect levels of volunteer activity.
The other concern is with Harris herself. She’s not a perfect campaigner. Indeed, she’s sometimes like Biden. I’ve seen her get into what I think of as a mental loop that she doesn’t quite know how to get out of. But she’s better than she used to be.
And she’s good with a teleprompter. And like it or not that’s what candidates do these days. (The criticisms of Biden for needing a teleprompter always stuck me as ridiculous. Do you all not realize that Obama almost NEVER spoke without a teleprompter?)
There is also the personality issue. I really like her and have for a long time, despite my disagreements with her on criminal justice policy. But for lots of reasons political and personal
I’m not the best judge. It’s clear from polling and conversations I’ve had that a lot of people don’t warm up to her. I suspect this is mostly the result of racism and sexism (including internalized racism and sexism). But it’s a factor. Again, perhaps our highly partisan times mitigates the impact of this factor.
Add all the pros and cons up and I don’t think the answer is obvious. Frankly, if you are totally certain that Biden can’t win and Harris can, I don’t think you have thought it through.Or you are engaging in wishful thinking about a new candidate turning things around. It might help. But it’s not going to be a panacea.
But given how politics operates today, I can see the case for rollig the dice— especially with a race in which we are behind, there is little room for maneuver and we must beat Trump.
I’m not sure I would recommend replacing Biden with Harris. But I lost Joe Biden’s cell phone number three or four years ago so it doesn’t really matter. Aside from my personal feelings about the sadness of Biden’s aging and having to step aside after being an extraordinarily good president, I can’t conclude it would be a terrible idea if it happens.