Biden or not? Democrats consumed in party squabble

By Kevin RectorStaff Writer

July 20, 2024 1:28 PM PT

Cornell Belcher, a prominent pollster who worked for the Democratic National Committee and both Obama campaigns, wishes the party’s leaders would shut up about President Biden’s poll numbers.

“There’s too much talk about polling right now,” Belcher said. “As a pollster, it’s driving me out of my ... mind that people are trying to drive whatever narrative they want by using polling.”

In recent days, Biden has faced mounting calls to drop out of the race from members of his party. Many have pointed to worsening poll numbers for the 81-year-old incumbent since a disastrous debate performance last month. Some fear that questions about the president’s mental acuity will doom down-ballot candidates too.

But with Biden repeatedly insisting that he is not stepping aside, Belcher said, Democrats harping on his slipping support were hurting, not helping, their cause.

Cornell Belcher, in a suit, speaks while sitting

“Over the last three weeks, Democrats have done more damage to our ability to win in November than what Donald Trump and Republicans have been able to do,” Belcher said. “They have to stop [the] circular firing squad that they’re currently in, because it’s a death spiral.”

While calls from Congress members and major donors for Biden to step aside have dominated headlines in recent days, plenty of other Democratic loyalists have stood by the president and dismissed those calls as damaging and dangerous — posing challenging questions for the party.

How much longer should leaders push Biden to go? Will it be possible to refocus voters on the party’s accomplishments and core message — that former President Trump represents an existential threat to democracy? Is Vice President Kamala Harris a better candidate? Or anyone else?

Perhaps most important: What is the party’s plan for right now?

“That,” said one senior House Democratic aide, “is what we’re all trying to figure out.”

‘A test of how strong the party is’

During an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign chair, said Biden was “absolutely” running.

O’Malley Dillon said the campaign is “looking at polling” and acknowledged “some slippage in support” since the debate. But she said it was only “a small movement” in a “hardened” race where many Americans are already decided — meaning many were committed to Biden.

O’Malley Dillon said that internal data from door-knocking and other efforts in battleground states have shown that Biden is still a contender.

Many leading Democrats were making the opposite case.

“Simply put,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San José) wrote in a letter to Biden released Friday, “your candidacy is on a trajectory to lose the White House and potentially impact crucial House and Senate races down ballot.”

A man sits in the House of Representatives while flanked by two women.

Earlier in the week, a polling memo by the Democratic firm BlueLabs Analytics found that alternative candidates outperformed Biden in a theoretical matchup with Trump in battleground states. An Associated Press poll found nearly two-thirds of Democrats thought Biden should withdraw.

Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University history professor and author of “What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party,” said the divide between Biden loyalists and dissenters presented a unique challenge.

“It’s a test of how strong the party is in many ways,” he said. “And not just how strong it is, but how united it is in believing that defeating Trump is really critical.”

Kazin said there is no doubt Democratic leaders can shift their support to a new candidate. They just need to decide if that’s what they are going to do — and before the party’s convention next month in Chicago.

A contested convention, Kazin said, would be “fraught with lots of perils” — stirring fresh divisions when the party can least afford them.

“They have to have a successful convention, one way or the other,” Kazin said. “Otherwise, they’re doomed.”

If it’s Biden

Whether Biden will drop out of the race is ultimately up to one person: Joe Biden. And if he stays the course, party officials would have no choice but to get on board, political analysts said.

Kerry L. Haynie, a political science professor at Duke University, said a Biden win in November will require all of the dissenters to swiftly offer “a full-throated endorsement of the campaign,” and then to “work in lockstep” to turn out the vote and reframe the race once more as a choice between “competent, honest Joe” and a dangerous Donald Trump.

Democrats will have to articulate well the idea that Biden “has lost a step” with age, but is “still capable, he’s still doing the job,” Haynie said.

Democratic leaders also could emphasize that voting for Biden ensures a Democratic administration — one that will protect access to abortion, take a humane stance on immigration, appoint liberal judges and defend organized labor, LGBTQ+ people and other groups.

But Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, said Democrats have to be careful with that message given today’s political atmosphere and distrust in bureaucrats.

“There are some people who hear that and they think ‘deep state,’” she said. “It is compelling to some, but it is repelling to others.”

Belcher, the pollster, said that if poor poll numbers this early in a race were an acceptable reason for ousting a candidate, “most of the greatest candidates in history” would never have been elected — including the Black one-term senator “with a Muslim-sounding name” he once worked for.

Democrats need to drive home the idea that Biden has made people’s lives better in ordinary ways, he said. They have to contrast Biden’s plan with Project 2025, the ultraconservative playbook devised for Trump’s second term by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups, he said, and “lean back into America’s fear and anxiety about the chaos and dangers of four more years of Donald Trump.”

Most of all, Belcher said, Democrats need to get behind Biden as surrogates and champion his campaign message in as many places as possible.

“The best arguments for Biden that I have heard in the last two weeks haven’t been from anyone on CNN or MSNBC,” Belcher said. “It’s been on TikTok and Instagram, from people doing it in their cars.”

If Biden steps aside

If Biden steps aside, the party could coalesce around another candidate, or hold a contested convention where candidates vie for delegates.

Several experts said early, unwavering support for Harris was clearly the best option.

Gillespie said if Harris were “somehow overlooked” without convincing evidence that her candidacy would fare dramatically worse than another candidate’s, the party would “risk alienating the most loyal Democratic constituency in Black women.”

Vice President Kamala Harris stands with children across a counter from Tyra Banks

Haynie said Harris would bring new energy and important strengths to the ticket as a younger woman of color who has already been leading the Biden campaign’s message on abortion rights, and as the daughter of immigrants, given Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

But she also would have to defend the Biden administration’s record even as party insiders try to pull her in new policy directions, including on U.S. support of Israel in its war with Hamas. She would have to rebuff legitimate criticisms about her clumsy 2020 presidential campaign and how she’s performed as vice president.

Harris also would face racist, sexist challenges that other candidates, especially white men, would not.

“She is going to face unique challenges as a woman of color in terms of the tenor of the attacks,” Gillespie said. “She is going to have to be able to anticipate those attacks, and have a ready response to them.”

Amy K. Dacey, executive director of the Sine Institute of Policy & Politics at American University, was formerly CEO of the Democratic National Committee, and before that of Emily’s List, a national group that works to elect Democratic women.

Dacey said that despite Harris’ hurdles, she is a known entity to voters who has been tested on the national stage — unlike some other names that have been floated for the ticket.

Dacey said the party process is playing out as intended, and Democrats still have time to land on a final ticket. But the sooner they can do that — and refocus the race on policies over people — the better.