As Joe Biden’s poll numbers continue to tank, speculation about his possible replacement continues to increase.
His polling numbers are dismal, bordering on becoming laughable. Not only are the national polls showing him losing to Donald Trump if the vote for president were held today, but Biden would lose in every critical swing state, sealing his loss.
His job performance among his core constituencies — blacks, young voters, suburban housewives, Latinos, and college educated (i.e., liberal) whites — continues its downward trajectory. Democrats such as David Axelrod have had the temerity to state publicly what many are thinking: “[Biden] thinks he can cheat [mother] nature, and it’s really risky.”
Polls are showing dissatisfaction with his policies, which have reduced the purchasing power of the currency by nearly 20 percent in just the last three years. They are also showing unhappiness with his increasing decrepitude: The Washington Post’s poll revealed that three quarters of those polled say he is simply too old (age 81 and counting) to run for a second term.
Who then? Biden could just bow out gracefully (à la Lyndon Johnson) or be told by his physicians (who presently think he’s in great shape) that they recommend that he step aside. He could stumble and fall (again) but this time causing serious damage to his already feeble and failing mental capacity.
Or Democrats, smelling defeat in the political winds, could find a nice way of ridding themselves of their leader and replacing him with someone who has a chance of winning against the former Teflon President, Donald Trump. Jim Messina, who managed former President Obama’s reelection campaign, said that Trump could “very well defeat” Biden even if he were in prison.
At present, Biden leads the two who are campaigning against him: far-left Representative Dean Phillips (D-Wisc.), and Marianne Williamson, the “spiritual leader” who endorsed Bernie Sanders after her previous campaign for president failed to gain traction in 2020.
Williamson is scarcely doing any better this time around, showing eight percent approval among Democrat voters. And Phillips comes in a dismal and distant third, at just three percent. Biden, at present, has 70 percent of Democrat votes.
Who else is there?
There’s Vice President Kamala Harris, whose approval rating of 29 percent falls below that of Biden at 36 percent. And in an NBC News poll taken in November, she would lose to Trump by 12 full percentage points, 52-40.
There’s Hillary Clinton, whom Trump beat in 2016. Now age 76, she can’t use Trump’s age (77) against him, but has an aging but loyal following who likely would pony up the funds to make it a race. However, polling indicates that she would likely lose once again to The Donald.
There’s former First Lady Michelle Obama, who has been silent on the issue, raising the question of whether she doesn’t want to run or is just waiting in the wings for Biden to falter and then leaping into the breach. She left office with a 72 percent favorability rating and remains very popular among blacks and traditional Democrat voters. She also leads Trump in a hypothetical matchup, according to The Center Square, 46 percent to 45 percent.
However, there’s another who isn’t running — at least not formally: California Governor Gavin Newsom. He has emerged from political obscurity to prominence thanks to his debate with Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis last month. As Fox News noted, “Newsom accomplished in one hour what no national Democrat has been able to thus far: offer a full-throated defense of Democrat policies in an otherwise unfavorable environment.”
Fox News added:
While national polling on Newsom is scant, the data there is indicates that he would be a formidable candidate. A Fox News poll conducted prior to the debate shows him trailing Trump by only four points, the same margin as Biden, which is within the margin of error.
That Newsom polls this well, despite having barely entered the national arena and having never been president or vice president, is telling.
The problem Democrats have, of course, is how to get rid of Biden without it appearing to be a coup d’etat. When asked, Biden says he’s running, claiming that he’s fighting the “battle for the soul of America.” Ironically, in his announcement video back April, he said the real question is “whether, in the years ahead, we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer.”
Perhaps Trump might pick up the slogan and run with it. For that is, after all, the real question facing Americans in the runup to November.
Related articles:
