When Chaos is the Best Available Option - 7/22/24

What Joe Biden did on Sunday afternoon was unprecedented in American history. A president actively seeking re-election chose to withdraw from the race, only a few short weeks before his party will gather to select their nominee and barely 100 days before the election itself. Never before has the nation’s chief executive made such a drastic and dramatic decision on such an unforgiving timeline.

Ever since last month’s debate, in which Biden’s disastrous performance triggered a wrenching argument among his supporters about his physical and cognitive abilities, the Democratic Party has been divided into two camps: those who recognize their leader’s diminished state but still believed he would be their strongest standard-bearer in the fall, against those who had come to believe that he was no longer capable of leading them forward. Both groups believed that the stakes could not be higher—for their party, their country and their democracy—and both employed every political tool at their disposal to finalize the Democratic ticket before it was too late.

That was the easy part. 

While the decision to line up with or against Biden was emotionally fraught, it was a fairly straightforward one. Now that the president has bowed to the wishes of those urging him to the exit door, the next decisions are much more complicated and much more difficult. The choices ahead begin with his replacement as the party nominee. More specifically, Kamala Harris or someone else?

Harris, who was endorsed by Biden upon stepping down, has been an object of controversy within the Democratic Party since her own candidacy for president four years ago. Her uncertain performance in the early stages of her vice presidency raised considerable doubts about her suitability for either her current position or a possible promotion. While her increased confidence and her aggressive engagement over abortion policy have earned her higher marks among many voters, reservations about her overall skill level persist, and her poll numbers are not significantly different from Biden’s.

That said, Harris also has the potential to motivate the Democratic base in a way that Biden has not. Young people, voters from minority communities, and other progressives may be galvanized by her candidacy, giving her the opportunity to match the level of enthusiasm that Trump has engendered among his loyalists. But the biggest incentive to convince Democratic leaders to rally around Harris may have more to do with timing and logistics. There are less than four weeks before the party convention is scheduled to begin, and many party strategists are concerned that a protracted fight for the nomination could make it even more difficult to effectively organize for a fall campaign. 

But they also don’t want to look as if they are undermining a democratic selection process to anoint their preferred nominee. So the biggest question going forward is whether the Democrats want an open and competitive nomination process or whether they would rather have a nomination process that appeared to be open—but isn’t. Those who are confident in Harris’ ability to beat Trump want to have this set up for her without looking like a coronation. But Democrats who are worried about her ability to win in November are looking for ways to set up a legitimate contest that would allow the most well-prepared and skilled candidate to emerge as the nominee. That might be Harris, or it might not. But the point would be for her to prove herself, rather than having the nomination handed to her. 

Harris and her team are already working furiously to nail down enough support to discourage any opponents from stepping forward. We’ll see in the next few days whether she can accomplish that task. But the outcome will be a direct result of the level of confidence that party leaders have in Harris, or whether she still has some convincing to do.

The Democrats clearly want to send the most capable and battle-tested candidate into the fray against Trump this fall. They can either guess who that candidate might be and hope that their prediction turns out to be right. Or they could require several of the party’s most promising leaders to participate in debates, speeches and other aspects of a competition for the nomination and see for themselves who is the most effective.

That would potentially lead to a messier and more chaotic few weeks ahead. But such a testing ground could also leave the Democrats far better prepared for the general election ahead.