June 28, 2024 - 9:29pm
Democratic backchannels are reportedly plotting to replace Joe Biden on the party’s November ballot. In the hours following the debate, five names emerged as the rumoured top contenders for an emergency replacement.
These individuals are popular in Democratic circles, carrying progressive bonafides and past support for Left-wing social and fiscal priorities. But to win the presidency, they’ll need to appeal to a much broader and politically more moderate audience, for whom their past successes may prove to be liabilities. In addition, they’ll face a unique challenge in Donald Trump.
1. Gavin Newsom
Rumours of Gavin Newsom making a last-minute run at the White House long predate Biden’s disastrous debate performance. A slick and effective communicator, the charismatic Democrat checks all of the superficial presidential boxes, though his reputation as a wealthy coastal elite could pose an image problem.
Newsom has reigned over a period of decline in America’s most populous state, with homelessness and crime contributing to a mass exodus of California residents to other states. Fairly or not, voters are sure to blame him for the public disorder that’s come to define cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco.
He was also widely lampooned for attending an extravagant birthday dinner at the French Laundry in 2020 while he was publicly urging Californians from gathering with their families for the holidays, perhaps the most infamous case of lockdown hypocrisy. RCP polls have Trump beating Newsom in a head-to-head contest by double-digit margins.
2. Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris is the only person who could directly inherit Biden’s campaign funds if he exits the race, which could solve a significant problem for the party. Her time as California’s top prosecutor — once a liability that earned her a “cop” nickname — is now an asset as Americans become increasingly concerned about crime.
Yet even as the current sitting vice president, Harris is not considered a shoo-in to replace Biden. She is one of the least popular vice presidents of all time, and Trump has consistently beaten her in the polls, according to an RCP aggregation.
Harris would naturally find herself subject to the same critiques as Biden, namely, inflation and immigration during their time in office. And as the nation learns the extent of Biden’s cognitive decline following this week’s debate, questions may arise about why Harris has been downplaying those concerns. In a contest against Trump, RCP has Harris losing by 6.6 percentage points.
3. Gretchen Whitmer
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer made a name for herself in Democratic circles by taking strong stances on culture war issues. She imposed strict lockdown measures in 2020 and has been a vocal advocate for legal abortion, especially since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The latter could be an asset for the rising Democratic star, given popular support for Roe.
But the tide of public opinion has turned against lockdowns and other strict covid measures, and Whitmer herself has said the measures she imposed “[didn’t] make a lot of sense”. Centrist voters will likely take issue with those decisions too.
An RCP aggregation shows Trump beating Whitmer handily in a head-to-head contest, with the most recent poll finding a 12 percentage point lead for Trump in February. Nonetheless, she has a strong chance of winning the key swing state of Michigan in a race against Trump — a stronger chance than Joe Biden does.
4. Pete Buttigieg
Pete Buttigieg, 42, is one of the youngest names being floated, creating a useful foil against Biden. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, performed surprisingly well in the 2020 primary race considering his relative lack of experience, and his military service in Afghanistan helped cement him as a crowd favourite in American politics.
His embrace of social justice issues may hurt him with the average voter. For instance, he launched a $1 billion government programme to promote racial equity in the nation’s roadways.
Further, his term as secretary of transportation has suffered a number of setbacks. He was subject to criticism from the Right for taking lengthy family leave during a maritime transportation crisis in 2021, as well as for his later handling of a train derailment in Ohio which resulted in a massive chemical spill. His odds against Trump haven’t been polled since 2020, when Buttigieg beat Trump by two to four percentage points, though Trump has seen a surge in popularity in the years since.
5. J.B. Pritzker
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker may have the weakest name recognition of the group, to the extent that pollsters haven’t even been gauging his strength in a prospective matchup against Trump. He’s one of America’s least popular governors, pulling in only 44% support in his home state.
Yet his name appears in nearly every report on potential Biden replacements. Pritzker is also worth $3.5 billion, meaning he could bankroll his own campaign and skirt the technical issues that would make it difficult or impossible for a candidate besides Kamala Harris to access Biden’s campaign funds. His past expansion of legal abortion in his state and raising of the minimum wage would likely prove popular with voters, as would his breaking with his party on the immigration issue as migrants poured into Chicago last year.
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SubscribeIf these losers are the best the Dems have to offer, the election is already over. The best candidate for President of the United States was on the stage last night. During his four year term virtually everyone in the United States was better off, especially minorities. The enemies were cautious, Nato countries started paying their fair share, and no wars were started. Unlike milquetoast Republicans Bush 1, Bush 2, Mccain, and Romney President Trump refused to roll over and pushed back. Anyone who thinks personality is more important than competence is a fool. I will take a competent asshole every day over an incompetent nice guy. We need someone to restore our country, stop the illegal invasion, get the military off DEI and back to DIE, kick the butts of China, Russia and Iran and get our economy back on track. One person did that before, in spite of all effects to sabotage him. That person can do it again, and all Americans would be better for it.
You seem confused. First you say that no new wars were started by Trump. Then you say that we need to get the military in shape to kick the bums of Iran, Russia and China. Do you think those countries will allow those assaults? Sounds like you want a couple of wars.
If the US is capable of kicking the butts of Iran, Russia, and China, and.Iran, Russia, and China are aware of that fact, then it will not be necessary to kick their butts.
Richard Nixon was a competent asshole. Trump is an erratic, uncontrolled egomaniac, totally unpredictable. There is nothing competent about toddler tantrums.
Richard Nixon for all his foibles was a very smart and honorable man.
Honorable people do not speak to their inner circles the way that President Nixon (and before that perpetual California Red Baiting candidate Nixon) did disparaging entire communities and groups of people. Look up and listen to the tapes of Nixon discussing “Blacks,” “Jews,” “Young Anti-War activists before, during and after NixonKissinger’s mad bomber strategy in Southeast Asia targeting non-involved nation states bordering Vietnam and of course Vietnam that bore the brunt of death for generations via chemical warfare from the air,” etc
This is not to say Richard Nixon’s merits as a President, and I’ve found many in my decades of research don’t complicate and madden anyone trying to reduce that complex human being, loaded as we all are with enough internal contradictions to make for the volatility hisherstory has found within his career.
Start with his lower working class childhood in Whittier in a Quaker family and the death of his brother in high school from causes pertaining to the family’s poverty. Or Nixon’s early local Whittier, California (the Inland Empire) store-front law practice. Then look at his calculated and vicious Red Baiting back in California state politics and then Wiki Nixon to find his early military career involved his first major political job in a bureau I’d hardly even heard of. As close to a Socialist government agency as those sharply socio-economically Cold War propagandistic and blackwhite Red Paranoia contrasted times could conceive. From a Red Baiting free marketeer-financed poor kid going to work for the Office of Price Administration (a New Deal holdover) during Nixon’s idealistic phase of youth is something to ponder during these wealth concentrating decades of Wage Stag and Food Stamp Nation that finds our Duopoly political parties equally culpable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Price_Administration
Mitch RitterParadigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion ListLooksee
Nixon was a great president. His human failings are far less than most of his successors. He lost when he replaced his shield Agnew with Ford. Ford was acceptable to both parties so Nixon could be replaced. Trump needs an impeachment shield like Agnew. A VP do objectionable to the Democrats that the CIA will cancel plots to kill or impeach him. Steve Bannon qualifies.
Tulsi Gabbard would be the best shield of all. She would terrify the deep state bureaucracy!
“During his four year term virtually everyone in the United States was better off, especially minorities. ”
In what way? Provide proof?
There are better choices that the party bosses and big donors will never approve of. RFK Jr. comes to mind. He had planned to run in the Democratic primary but was pressured by his family and the party not to run. This becomes a lot more interesting in hindsight. The fact he’s still in the race as an independent adds another level of complication here. Many Democrats might defect to Kennedy if they don’t approve of Biden’s replacement. Biden really was the best candidate in 2020. While his age is obviously a curse, it’s also a blessing. Biden is from an earlier, more optimistic time, and that ameliorates a lot of older voters who are staunchly anti-woke and far more conservative on average. He simply doesn’t generate the negative reaction that the newer Democrats who speak the languages of identity politics, microaggressions, and social justice do with older voters. The Democrats can’t afford to lose many votes against Trump’s seemingly rock solid and unassailable 40-45% core support.
Sad as it is, he may still be the best candidate even in his present state. The fact that Newsom and Harris are even under consideration speaks to how out of touch the party’s base is from the vast majority of Americans. They’re both California politicians cultivated in a one-party state where winning a primary dominated by party leaders and big donors may as well be winning the election. They haven’t faced an election where they don’t already have a nigh insurmountable advantage. California has a reputation and it isn’t good. It’s almost a running joke at this point. Just being a California politician is a liability in most places outside California. Illinois is almost as bad as California and Pritzker isn’t popular in his own state. How his name even came up is beyond me. Whitmer is probably the best choice of those named but the situation is still bad given whoever the candidate is will be thrust into the race at the last minute without a primary process to establish the mood and preference of the party base, and enthusiasm of the base is a critical factor. Oh by the way, there are three other candidates in the race. Two of them are clearly far left politicians, and the other one is RFK Jr., so picking a nominee the voters never got to vote on is nigh certain to drive some voters into these other camps.
The Democrats do have one obvious out here. IF they can get Biden to step aside gracefully, they can reconcile with RFK Jr. Given current polling, if RFK inherited even 2/3 of Biden’s support added to his own, he’d be tied with Trump. If he inherited all of it, he’d be up by double digits. Moreover, there’s a chance this would generate more enthusiasm from voters. Kennedy would probably have to shift his platform to some extent, but rallying behind RFK would create a big tent narrative and shatter the perception of the Democrats as the ‘establishment’ party, which is frankly their biggest weakness. I don’t think Trump has any chance to beat RFK Jr. running as a Democrat. The question is will the party bosses and big money donor class be able to stomach the fact that they’re basically conceding defeat to the populist movement. RFK might win in a huge landslide and he might recenter politics around the common themes of populism of the left and right, a synthesis of the Trump/Sanders movements. It would be the most interesting and positive thing that could come out of this scenario. I doubt it happens.
I thought this was a very insightful comment. I think you’re wrong about RFK. The Dems are the defacto establishment party and there’s no way they cede control to RFK – zero chance. The Dem establishment would rather lose the election. The Dems and the regime media have trashed RFK relentlessly as a conspiracy wing nut. They can’t suddenly reverse course and say this is our guy.
Oh I don’t think it will happen for the reasons you stated. I was just pointing out how an almost certain election win is sitting right there if they can just accept the fact that the globalist era where corporate interests and international finance run everything is over and take what they can get. They won’t do it and they may regret that down the line. Kennedy is still with the Democrats on most issues. He represents what the Democrats used to be, the party of the people. They could be again, but they don’t really want that. They are a party of elite interests, big money, academia, and racial politics. At this point, nobody should doubt that.
RFK has not got a shot in hell. That’s just making Trump the president. Sanders, Nader, Perot, RFK. His voice alone makes him unelectable. Plus his rich family egotism and the fact that his VP is just a money bank. A boring governor from midwest, a senator from Ohio like Sherrod Brown -competent centrist from the center. Like what Biden was supposed to be. In the mold of LBJ, Carter, Clinton, Obama -all non-coastal elites. Trump has already got the populist vote cornered. Socialist Sanders was east coast elite too dumb to run as a democrat. Must go the other way to hold center.
RFK is an idiot on the vaccine issue. He plays to the worst anti vax instinct of Republicans. Trump initiated Warp Speed to stop Covid. The only reason that the Democrats got the pro vax side of that issue was that Biden was for it so Republicans took the no side.
I agree. RFK was a little unhinged about vaccines. They did have value and they saved lives – of old people and those with health issues. The problem with vaccines were the mandates, forcing young and healthy people to get them.
I used to think the same thing about RFK, but not any longer. He is on neither the “all vacs are bad” nor the “all vacs are good” side. As for the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s hard to imagine even a single decision made then would be repeated in the future. We lost our minds.
Dear Steve Jolly, I agree wholeheartedly with the central issue you raise, namely the way political party elites and not the constituencies determine the range of candidate choices. Having said that, I would not include RFK, Jr as I disagree with too many core policy planks in his campaign platform.
Beyond that, it is hard to paint him a Washington DC outsider given his political family pedigree. If not for that pedigree, I don’t think any candidate running on the issues RFK, Jr has prioritized and his positions on those issues would get even the diminishing corporate-captured mass media coverage he has received or the financial backing necessary to build a new political constituency (or Third Party for that matter. Ask Independent candidate and an activist Public Interest hero of mine Cornel West or even our Consumer Protection Hero of Public Service Ralph Nader who has held forth and received some alt media coverage you can search online via U. of Tube or Community Radio archives such as the Pacifica Radio dot org archives).
Based on pure political performance in office the most accomplished and potentially rousing candidates are hidden away by the Duopoly Party elites as they often pose a threat to Bid-Net As Usual and especially Wall Street and investor class interests. For example, when those politicians and standard corporate-captured media issues that Noam Chomsky terms Weapons of Mass Distraction even get onto the corporate captured U.S. Broadcast System, as in the summer of 2016 televised Senate Banking Committee Hearings where Senator Elizabeth Warren and her bright young Jr Senator staff such as Oregon’s Jeff Merkley came as prepared as we rarely get to see on U.S. Public AffairsNews broadcasting. Watch any of the clips posted to U. of Tube and tell me your citizen’s heart doesn’t begin to race and feel a sudden can-do attitude of rectitude:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Elizabeth+Warren+grills+Wells+Fargo+Board+Chair+CEO+
Most of the U.S. body politic feels utterly helpless and subject to the whims of the wealth-concentrating corporate dictated policies and squashed under the veto of those who’ve done the wealth-concentrating and impoverishing policy-making that has driven down electoral voter turn-out also for decades now. This bi-coastal tag team of Senator Warren and Senator Merkley would restore some faith in politics representing the voiceless. Here is how no allowable candidate speaks to a Board Chair and CEO of a Fortune 500 company caught in criminally prosecutable wealth-concentration. Disclosure: Senator Warren with Senator Merkley at her side is grilling my former boss of nearly 11 years when I worked as a Case Worker investigating regulatory complaints lodged against Wells Fargo Card Services’ Executive Office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJhkX74D10M&t=905s
Mitch RitterParadigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion ListLooksee
Why not a popular red-state governor such as Andy Beshear of Kentucky or Roy Cooper of North Carolina? It used to be standard operating procedure to pick a presidential candidate with crossover appeal, not someone who just appeals to the base. It was also standard operating procedure to choose a governor, someone with executive experience who was not associated with the Washington establishment. It may be that the insider-outside divide has become more salient to voters than the left-right divide in this election cycle.
Beshear, Polis…or maybe just allow Kennedy to run…since “The Party” believes so strongly in “Democracy.”
Because Kennedy is not an alternative to Trump. It’s nice that so many people overlook his voice condition but its also highly unpragmatic to pretend that most of America will vote for a rich heir with a voice like that. Alot of Trumps popularity is that he is a good orator. He really is. Kennedy sounds like shit and its only his rich guy arrogance that keeps him running. His VP choice of a rich donor is also disqualifying to most of country.
Appropriately stated and well played, sir.
I suspect the Democrats win by putting Trump in prison. After all, all bets are off for US democracy.
Don’t be naive. The DNC knew Biden cannot stand but they insisted on early debates so they would have time to get a replacement sorted and, hopefully for them, ride a wave of relief and gratitude into power.
It was the only way to pretend his time in office was not a disaster, not have to replace him before and give the next sock puppet time to learn their lines.
I like the conspiratorial tone of this post.
In 2017, the Davos Forum created the Coalition for Pandemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI), funded by governments and Bill Gates (yes, yes, he was there!).
In October 2019 (two months before Wuhan), the WEF and CEPI jointly sponsored the Event 201 exercise, which simulated “an outbreak of a new zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs and then to humans. This virus then begins to spread from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic” (link below).
.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I sometimes feel that they have motives to be one.
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https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exercises/event-201-pandemic-tabletop-exercise
I’m surprised this is the first time I’ve read this. It seemed the obvious and only motive for the Democrats lobbying for an early debate.
Despite media obfuscation surely his decline has long been obvious. The Dems had to do something and have now created a burning platform to facilitate the rule bending required.
Really? This information has been available from the beginning, despite government efforts to keep it hidden. I read about Event 201 back in April 2020 when I suspected something weird was going on with the pumped up Covid hysteria.
I was a kid during the Legionnaire’s Disease incident and a few Swine Flu outbreaks afterward (my daughter had a bout in 2015), and we just went about our lives. That the entire globe responded with shrieking panic, lock downs, closings, and censorship was an enormous tell.
This thing was cooked up.
Indeed. I tend to disbelieve conspiracy theories because it’s difficult to keep big secrets. The Soviets infiltrated the Manhattan Project. There are always leaks and there are always people like Julian Assange to publicize them for fame and profit. Practically the only useful function of media is to dig for government secrets and occasionally find some and reveal them to the public. Nevertheless, it becomes difficult to ignore such convenient coincidences. There can be quite a lot of what might be termed circumstantial evidence, and we regularly send people to prison for long periods on mostly or purely circumstantial evidence. Some theories become hard to dismiss as the rubbish probably 99% of them are.
Newsom has run California into the ground. Harris supports forced busing… In the 21st century and further more seems to take nothing seriously. Whitmer and Pritzker are hopeless and the tiny mayor is only in the picture because he ticks a box.
…should that be a “T” or an “L” ?
Both?
There is no such thing as “forced bussing”.
Oh no? Tell that to the kids at Hartford High in Connecticut who were bussed to my high school in a nearby suburb. They resented the hell out of it, and rightly so.
I agree. The candidates above aren’t viable. My favorite candidate is Sherrod Brown, senator of Ohio. But he is running for senate. He would have won in 2020 but all the unelectable progressives blocked him out from even running. He is someone on left who can win in a red state, a bit like Joe Manchin, but Brown is actually liked by both moderates and progressives in his state.
Michele Obama not on the list. I know she says she won’t run but I think she’s their golden ticket.
Michelle Obama says she won’t run because she won’t run. She doesn’t want the presidency. She has no experience for it. She would be terrible at it. And perhaps most important of all, she wouldn’t win.
Whenever people put her up as a candidate, or Hilary or Bernie you know they dont much.
She would beat Trump by a country mile!
You’re adorable CS!
In a revolting sort of way.
I’ve been thinking that.
What about Mike’s genital problem?
Any of them could win I suppose, but they’re all awful. Newsom looks like the creepy serial killer from American Psycho and he’s run California into the ground. Whitmer is a climate change loon who is even more woke than the rest of them. What can you say about the others. Ugh.
Good grief, the woman made stores close their seed sections during the Covid panic. Seeds! I’m sure she was in on the
FBI schemeplot to kidnap her.A gay man the the name Buttigieg will never become president of the US.
Only because he can’t do his job as Transportation Secretary.
He did. 8 EV Charging Stations for $7.5 Billion. Job done!
I want to see Pete Buttigieg as the new President of the United States.
We’ve seen an African American in this position, now it’s time to show the world what a member of LGBTQIA+ community is capable of!
Could he transition first so we can have woman president as well? Nobel prize before nomination?
He could probably do better than the two geriatric straight white men who’ve been screwing things up for the past 8 years.
He sure got that derailment predicament in East Palestine squared away.
Pritzker is a major supporter of radical trans ideology, increasingly a political liability.
Please, please, pleeeeese let it be Newsom (with AOC also on the ticket). Then, and I’m hoping against hope, Trump picks Tulsi Gabbard as his VP.
The fireworks would be delicious (and Gabbard as VP would be superb justice).
It might sound amusing but imagine if Newsome / AOC won?
End of the world as we know it, literally.
Not amusing. Absolutely hilarious 🙂 (+ Gabbard is a star).
Newsom and AOC would not have a snowballs chance in hell of winning – call their bluff yada yada yada
Gabbard is a crackpot. Her and Trump would make an excellent ticket. Newsom and AOC would win all 50 states.
No….with all respect…Gabbard is a “competent”…one of the few around…
Mark Cuban is an interesting choice
Katie Porter is the fiery female version of Bernie Sanders, the best president they’ve never had, give her a chance Murca?
3 months ago, millions of voters voted for Biden to be the Candidate in California alone.
Now, to save democracy, their votes have to be cancelled.
How can the Democrats get rid of Biden without even a diagnosis that he is ill?
And if Biden is not fit to be President in November, how is he fit to be President today?
Kama Harris’s optimum move would be a 25th amendment move to assume the presidency and run as the incumbent president. Is a 2-month term in office long enough to overcome the problem of Biden delegates at the convention feeling that she stabbed her boss in the back.
Any of them will destroy Trump just like Biden annihilated him in 2020.
Trump destroyed the US economy and made America a laughing stock. His ludicrous sucking up to Putin, Xi and Kim Jong Un were an embarrassment for everyone. His support for racists and bigots alone is enough to disqualify him.
Trust me kids, Trump ain’t coming back!
Why don’t you run for POTUS CS?
The man is institutionalized with access to the internet only one hour a day.
Switching from champagne to plonk has cost you brain cells.
In a word: No.
Anyone who sees Pete Buttigieg as a presidential contender should have his head examined for rocks.
They are all all, without exception, complete idiots.