Democratic voters desperate to move on from Biden share the candidates they’d rather vote for: ‘Can’t go through with this guy’
Following a disastrous debate performance, Joe Biden is hemorrhaging support — even among his former voters.
According to post-debate polling data, two-thirds of voters agree Biden is too old to be president, one in three Democrats say the president should step aside in the election and even long time supporter George Clooney has turned on him.
As the DNC convention, which will be held from August 19th to 22nd, nears, the pleas for the president to let another Democrat run against Trump are mounting, although he remains stubbornly committed to staying in the race.
The Post spoke to four Democrats who are desperate for an alternative blue candidate in 2024:
Getulio Gonzalez-Mulattieri: J.B Pritzker
Getulio Gonzalez-Mulattieri has voted Democrat in every presidential election since Obama in 2008. But he won’t be voting for Biden again this time around.
“I’ve slowly gotten to the point that I just can’t go through with this guy,” Gonzalez-Mulattieri, 36, told The Post.
“All this recent debate did was confirm for me what I already suspected… The guy is cognitively impaired. His mental acuity isn’t there. How is he supposed to have the most important job in government?”
The Air Force veteran from Florida is currently studying public policy at Cornell University. He says Democrats have misled the public on Biden’s mental state.
“Democrats keep pushing the narrative that he’s strong, he’s energetic — don’t give me that b******t,” he said. “Why would I trust you after you’ve given me this false narrative over the course of two years?”
Gonzalez-Mulattieri used to work as a community organizer in Florida, advocating for racial equity, environmental justice, and immigration reform. He formerly served as the co-Chair of the Social Justice & Equity Committee in the Democratic Progressive Caucus in Tampa Bay.
He’s hoping Biden will step down and is advocating a “unity ticket” with a moderate Democrat at the top and a progressive as a vice presidential candidate.
In an “ideal world,” Gonzalez-Mulattieri would envision a J.B. Pritzker and Rashida Tlaib run. More realistically, he’s willing to consider Kamala Harris if she steps up: “I would vote for her reluctantly, but I would probably do it.”
Given another Trump-Biden mashup, however, Gonzalez-Mulattieri will either leave the top of the ticket empty or go for a third party candidate, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Cornel West.
“It’s safe to say that I’ve gotten more jaded with the Democratic Party,” he said. “There’s always this rhetoric about helping the working class or helping American people, and usually they don’t deliver.”
Arie Brown: Gretchen Whitmer
Arie Brown says Biden has been a good president — but he would go down in history as a better one if he stepped down.
“Generally, I think the administration has done a great job,” Brown, 32, said. “If Biden was running for the ‘I Did a Good Job as President Award,’ I would be voting for him, but that’s not really what we’re doing right now.”
Although he supported Elizabeth Warren in the primary, Brown, who lives in Brooklyn and works as a data scientist, got behind Biden in the 2020 election.
“I certainly understood the move to Biden,” he said. “It was a very pragmatic view that Biden had a good chance of winning the election against Trump, and clearly it was a good choice.”
Brown — who describes himself as “a pragmatic leftist” — always envisioned Biden as a single-term president.
“He didn’t explicitly say he was only going to run for one term, but he was like 78 at the time,” Brown said. “I think there was an implicit understanding that he was a transition candidate to a future generation.”
He says the recent debate clarified for him that it’s time for Biden to step down.
“I mean it was awful,” he said. “Watching him was just depressing. Everybody knows what mental decline looks like. And it’s not like we’re talking about winning an election and then we’re done. It’s winning an election, and then serving four more years.”
Brown says he’d reluctantly get behind Kamala Harris if Biden stepped aside: “She’s the obvious choice, but I think that’s the easy way out.”
Overall, he prefers a blitz primary and would throw his support behind Gretchen Whitmer, who he thinks would be a good choice considering she’s a moderate Democrat from a swing state.
“I actually like a lot of the major democratic players, honestly — except for Gavin Newsom,” he said “I think he’s a snake.”
If it does ultimately come down to a Trump-Biden rematch, Brown is undecided.
“I live in New York, so I feel like, from a presidential standpoint, my vote is not particularly important,” he said. “I’m really undecided on whether or not I would vote for Biden, look at third party candidates, or just not vote at all.”
Eleanor Wachtel: Josh Shapiro
Columbia law student Eleanor Wachtel supported Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary — but feels unable to vote for him again.
“I’m really hoping that he’s replaced,” Wachtel, 26, told The Post. “It’s just completely clear that he’s not capable now, and that he’s not capable for the next four years.”
Wachtel says her primary concern as a voter is upholding democracy: “I supported Biden even in the primary in 2020 primarily because I felt he was committed to democratic liberal values and institutions, and I felt those core values were under attack from both the Trumpian right and the far left.”
Wachtel says she “could never vote for Trump,” but she also can’t see herself voting for Biden again either, now that his mental state has her questioning his ability to actually take charge.
“I don’t think I could vote for him, because, given his mental state, I don’t think he’s the one running the show,” she said. “I can’t see myself voting for someone who was not actually going to be the one in charge in a meaningful way.”
“My commitment is to democracy, and I don’t like the idea of voting for someone when everyone knows that it’s basically turning over the country to unelected officials, even if I happen to agree with them on most policy issues,” Wachtel added.
Now, she’s hoping that Biden will step down from the Democratic ticket and that voters will get input in who replaces him.
“I would really like for the process to be as close to some sort of mini primary as possible — something where there’s a chance for people to really see a few options and get a better sense,” she said.
“Just plucking someone at this point wouldn’t feel democratic.”
Wachtel’s favorite alternative is Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.
“I like some of the things he’s done as governor, like committing to abortion access and expanding jobs for people without college degrees,” she said. “He seems like an effective governor and a moderate, level-headed candidate.”
Brian Kisida: Pete Buttigieg
Brian Kisida, a lifelong Democratic voter, is hoping that Biden will step down and make room for another candidate: “I think that his chances of winning are slim and getting slimmer.”
“I wish that Biden would have some humility going into this,” Kisida, a professor of government and public affairs at the University of Missouri, told The Post. “I would like to see a level of concern about putting the country first from the Biden team.”
He voted for Biden in 2020 and would vote for him again if it comes down to Trump and Biden, but he strongly prefers another Democrat option.
“I do believe that Trump is a threat to democracy,” Kisida, 51, said. “If we’re going to take this threat seriously, we have to treat it with an all hands on deck type of mentality — and that means taking a really serious look at whether or not Biden is qualified to be the nominee. At this point, it’s not clear that he is.”
He says the debate was a serious wakeup call for him — and motivated him to consider alternatives.
“It was a shock,” he said. “It’s not like Biden has always been the best public speaker… But what I saw in the debate was far beyond that.”
He thinks Biden would be wise to step down and make space for a primary. “That seems to me like that would be a very democratic way of going about things,” he said.
Kisida describes himself as “data driven” and has scrutinized polls. He thinks that Gretchen Whitmer or Pete Buttigieg would have a good shot at winning against Trump.
He worked on the Buttigieg campaign in 2020 and says he would be highly motivated to get behind him again.
“I think that he has a great voice to deliver a message that not only speaks to the Democratic voters but works to bridge divides in the country, and I think that his message is something that voters would respond to,” Kisida said. “People are tired of the polarized tribal politics.”
