Why Joe Biden Is Likely to Drop Out of the Race

As political insiders frantically wonder whether Donald Trump will again be the GOP White House nominee, most are neglecting to ask a more interesting question: Who will be the 2024 Democratic nominee? There is an increasing chance that President Biden will drop out of the race. Health and temperament concerns have cast doubts on the president’s ability to win the coming election, which could not come at a worse time for the 80-year-old chief executive, as Biden family scandals remain in the news and the sluggish economy continues to let down working Americans. 

Many Democrats now realize that running Biden again may be electoral suicide. 

The president makes an embarrassing mistake at most of his speaking engagements. During a trip last week to Lithuania to gin up support for Ukraine, the president confused Ukraine with Russia and, possibly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Russian President Vladimir Putin by mispronouncing Zelenskyy’s name during a speech at the NATO summit. An increasing number of those on the left, even staunch supporters of President Biden, recognize that Biden’s apparent physical and mental vulnerabilities could be a liability in 2024. Many of his 2020 voters do not want him as the Democratic nominee. Even prior to his recent errors, as of a few months ago, only about half of Democrats think he should be in the race.

Biden supporters find themselves on edge when the president speaks in public, meets with voters, or addresses the media. The president falls on stage, he falls up stairs, he ends speeches about gun control with “God save the queen, man.” It’s almost enough to cause one to feel sympathy for him — or to paraphrase a famous Nixon-era protest sign: “If Biden’s not well, let’s get him help — but first get him off the throne.”     

The situation apparently isn’t much better behind closed doors. Biden is reportedly verbally abusive and spews curses at staff in private. “Nobody is safe” from Biden’s wrath, one administration official told Axios.

Perhaps many of the issues are a natural result of aging. After all, the president would be 86 years old at the end of his second term. More than two-thirds of voters believe that Biden is too old to serve a second term as president. (Interestingly, less than half of Americans think that Donald Trump is too old for a second term, even though he’s only a few years younger than Biden.)

As concern about Biden’s age looms, voters realize that if he could not finish a second term, taking his place would be Vice President Kamala Harris — who recently set a record low in one survey for vice president net favorability. Unfortunately for Democrats, replacing Harris with another running mate before election day is likely not an option; critics would hit Biden with charges of “racism,” especially after he vowed in 2020 to choose a woman of color. 

Simultaneous to all of this, Biden is also being bogged down by Republican accusations of family scandals. Allegations that Hunter Biden earned millions of dollars by engaging in corrupt dealings with entities linked to foreign governments, while his father was vice president, appear to be gaining traction. Sixteen percent of Biden voters said if they had been aware of Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal in 2020, after big tech suppressed the story, they would have voted differently. Now, Biden is catching flak from some in the media — including the New York Times — for refusing to acknowledge his 4-year-old granddaughter, a child Hunter Biden had with a woman from Arkansas.

Perhaps the situation for Democrats would be more hopeful if Biden at least had a stellar track record from the past several years to run on. But a record number of Americans say they are worse off now than they were when Biden took office, as inflation continues to harm working families. Voters who chose Biden in 2020 may look fondly on the economic growth America had under Trump.    

Should Biden remain in the race, the Democrats’ best hope would be to focus the election narrative on Trump’s bombastic personality, making it a referendum on the former president rather than the current one. The anti-Trump shtick worked in 2020, but may have been a one-trick pony. Biden benefitted tremendously during the last election cycle from COVID, which allowed him to justify spending most of his campaign in his basement, and from widespread mail-in voting. With most of these advantages gone, the president risks losing votes from moderate Democrats and independents who have become disaffected. Most who have serious concerns about Biden likely won’t switch their votes to Trump, but they might stay home instead. The margin of victory in key states was so thin in 2020 that even a minor defection or abstention could mean four more years … of Donald Trump. 

As it stands, Trump holds a significant lead over Biden in several key swing states in one poll, although the president narrowly beats him overall. Thus, the Democrats would be smart to replace Biden as their anticipated nominee as soon as possible. 

It’s not unprecedented. After all, Lyndon Johnson announced in 1968 that he would not run for another full term. Some presidents who lost second-term bids, such as Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover, would have helped their legacies by seeing the writing on the wall before facing humiliating losses.     

Should Biden or the Democratic National Committee (DNC) realize that the president is not up for a grueling 2024 race, the Democrats appear to have precious few options. Some pragmatic “Blue Dog Democrats,” such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, would stand no chance in a primary. Any radical candidate such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) would be as popular in the Rust Belt as Bud Light is now. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been positioning himself for such an eventual run, but if Americans have to choose between the current homelessness, crime and expense of California or another four years of Trump, the race is probably decided.

Joe Biden brought Democrats back to the White House in 2020. If he drops out now, he may leave with a partially-salvaged legacy. Should he ride it out, the Democrats risk losing to Trump again. Even if Biden were to win in 2024, he may become unable to serve a full second term. The only thing certain, it seems, is that he is leading Democrats — and the nation — into uncharted territory.  

Kristin Tate (@KristinBTate) is a writer based in Texas focused on government spending, federal regulation and digital currencies. She is an on-air contributor for Sky News and routinely provides political commentary for U.S.-based cable networks. Her latest book is, “The Liberal Invasion of Red State America.”