When President Joe Biden ran in the 2020 presidential election, I wrote that he was the only Democratic candidate who could beat Donald Trump. I still believe that was the case.
I’ve been a Biden fan and have outlined his efforts to help ordinary Americans in this column. I continue to believe that Biden is the most honorable and capable man running for president, even with his age-related difficulties. In the November election, however, Biden is heading toward a significant defeat.
Remember, Biden was behind in key swing states before last month’s debate. In fact, the reason why Biden challenged Trump to an early debate was to change the direction of the campaign. Biden was losing, he knew it and his campaign was hoping a good debate performance would turn things around.
Clearly, the debate made things worse for Biden. He confirmed people’s belief, fairly or unfairly, that he was too old for the job. Instead of swinging voters toward him, Biden scared more people away, especially independents and swing voters.
Now, his chances of beating Trump are less than before the debate and, if Biden stays on the ticket, Trump will return to the White House.
I don’t see anything happening between now and November to turn things around for Biden. Yes, there will be another debate. Yes, there will be the Democratic Party convention. And, yes, Biden will continue to look like an old man with significant mental and physical limitations.
After the convention, however, replacing him will be impossible and Trump will walk into the Oval Office.
Sure, Democrats will vote for Biden if he remains on the ballot against Trump, even if he continues to falter. They will vote for anyone other than Trump because they love America, they love democracy and they fear the damage Trump will do to our nation and the future of our children and our grandchildren.
Voting for Biden over Trump, for Democrats, is an effort to keep Trump away from the powers of the White House, which he will surely abuse.
Democratic voters, however, will not be enough to secure a victory for Biden. He needs independent and swing voters in large numbers. He does not have them now, and it is unlikely he will have them in November.
He needs Black and young voters as much as he did during the 2020 presidential campaign. He does not have their support in sufficient numbers now, and he is unlikely to have those numbers in November.
If Biden stays on the ballot, Trump will win. As good a job as Biden has done the last four years, he needs to do one more thing for America: Step away and allow Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket. In my estimation, it is the best hope of keeping Trump out of the White House.
Are there others in the Democratic Party who would be terrific candidates? Definitely, yes. But Harris is our nation’s vice president and the first Black candidate to win that office.
She is the natural replacement for Biden and would inspire many Black voters to show up at the polls in numbers the Democratic ticket will need for victory. As Jennifer Rubin argued in the Washington Post, “The prospect of the first female Black president could inject the sort of energy needed to turn out the vote in what is likely to be a mobilization rather than a persuasion election (i.e., most everyone has already made up their mind).”
Picking someone else to replace Biden would ensure that many Black voters stay home in November.
Harris is also more popular than Biden among young voters. As Rubin pointed out, Harris is a popular speaker on college campuses. Those groups alone — Black and young voters — might be enough to put a Harris ticket over the top.
Rubin cites a CNN-SSRS poll that found Harris “would swing Biden’s three-point deficit among women voters to a seven-point lead, while also making gains among independents.” These are two critical blocs of voters for the Democratic ticket.
Of the four voting groups mentioned above — Blacks, young voters, women, and independents — Biden is polling poorly. If Harris can bring these voters to the polls for her, she will win in November.
Harris also brings to the ticket additional attention to one of the primary issues of the campaign: women’s reproductive rights. It would be difficult to find any Democrat today who has been more outspoken on this issue than Harris. She has been Biden’s point person on reproductive rights and Harris has done well speaking on these issues on the campaign trail.
Harris can address reproductive rights, birth control, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) issues much more effectively, and more personally, than Biden. It is a winning issue for Democrats, and Harris would bring it front and center for the campaign.
The thought of Biden dropping out scares the heck out of Trump and other Republicans. That alone should tell us something about the current direction of the race and the potential for changing this if Biden hands off to Harris.
Harris’ relative youth would turn the tables on Trump regarding the issue of age and focus more attention on Trump’s verbal stumbles and mental lapses currently overshadowed by Biden’s difficulties. Also, as a prosecutor, Harris is well positioned to go on the offense against Trump’s lawlessness in a way that Biden has not been able to.
As Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina predicted on CBS News, if Harris “becomes the nominee, this is a dramatically different race than it is right now today.” And that is exactly what Democrats need — a dramatically different race than it is today.
Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.
