U.S. President Joe Biden departs after speaking to the media at the White House on July 1, in Washington.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
President Joe Biden and his staff are conducting two campaigns at the same time. One is against former president Donald Trump. The other is against members of his own party.
He appears to be losing both.
The result is that both his chances of winning re-election and even of claiming the Democratic presidential nomination are diminishing. This is occurring as a clutch of House Democrats are consulting about how to rally behind Vice-President Kamala Harris as a replacement nominee – an effort that may face opposition from others who covet the position and who could mount a campaign themselves should Mr. Biden withdraw.
A campaign that began as an effort for a second presidential term has suddenly, but ineluctably, been transformed into two subsidiary drives, one for survival and, as calls for his withdrawal from the race have grown, another for the President’s dignity and his adamantine sense of pride.
For nearly a week the Biden campaign against former president Donald Trump has been a subtheme. He is taking on his predecessor, to be sure, often in unsparing language, representing him as a threat to the nation’s democratic values and traditions. That has been heightened after the Supreme Court ruling giving presidents broad immunity.
But the focus of Mr. Biden’s greatest effort has been to convince his closest colleagues, many of whom have been with him for years and some for multiple decades, that he is fit enough to continue as president, that he is the party’s best gladiator in the drive to deny a second term to Mr. Trump, and that his disastrous late-June debate performance was an aberration.
This counteroffensive may have run its course – and there are signs that it has failed. The doubts about his mental acuity, once spoken in hushed terms, have been aired prominently. Major news organizations have published reports questioning Mr. Biden’s capacity, both mental and physical, to conduct business on a global scale.
Presidential campaigns often have two targets, first against multiple rivals for the party nomination and then, with a dramatic shift in focus, against the nominee of the other party. In 2020, for example, Mr. Biden campaigned against a set of Democrats for the nomination – senators Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders, mayor Pete Buttigieg and others – and, after he prevailed, trained his criticisms on then-president Trump.
This time, as he seeks a second term, he has been forced to undertake another campaign against a series of Democrats, the difference being that he is conducting the effort from the White House – and that some of his long-time supporters believe he should abandon his re-election bid. While Jimmy Carter as president was forced to run against senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who challenged him for the 1980 nomination, Mr. Biden is running against an opponent that has no single identity.
His opponent is the growing mass of Democrats who fear that he is too feeble to run again, that he will lose to Mr. Trump, that he will drag Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives and Senate to defeat with him, and that even if he is elected, he lacks the focus, judgment and stamina to serve as president – perhaps even for the remainder of his term, which ends in January.
For the first few days after the debate his opponents were a largely faceless vanguard, with many of the Biden skeptics clinging to anonymity so as not to offend the President, either because of their loyalty or affection for him – both huge factors – or because they fear retribution if he does prevail. Presidents have many means of punishment, ranging from endorsing challengers in congressional or gubernatorial primaries to withholding favours (and infrastructure and other projects) from lawmakers’ districts.
That changed by Tuesday. Until then, the call for withdrawal came from commentators and from former aides. Now it is beginning to come from political figures who are going on the record. One is Representative Lloyd Doggett, who said the President has in essence disqualified himself for a second time with his debate performance. The Texas lawmaker issued a statement saying, “Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s lies.”
Presidents have drawn back from re-election campaigns in the past. Harry Truman did it in 1952, and the convention was thrown open, resulting in the nomination of governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. Lyndon Johnson gave every indication of running for re-election in 1968, but made a dramatic withdrawal, arguing that he wanted to devote the remainder of his term to working for peace in Vietnam but also leaving the race as senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy were building support as anti-Johnson candidates.
“A withdrawal this late has its own challenges,” said William Mayer, a Northeastern University political scientist. “The delegates are planning to go to the Chicago convention with the intention of voting for Biden. This is unusual – and dangerous – and that’s before we even consider the question of who will replace him as nominee.”