Joe Biden’s political standing is rapidly diminishing over concerns that he is not fit enough to run for a second term as president.
With only a few months to salvage the campaign, here are the four plausible scenarios that have emerged as the party debates Biden’s political future.
Biden refuses to drop out and is the nominee
Biden has already said that only the “Lord Almighty” could force him from the race. In his defiant press conference on Thursday night, he reaffirmed his determination to lead the Democratic ticket in November, insisting that his advisers would have to prove to him that he was condemning the party to certain defeat.
“No one’s saying that,” Biden said, leaning into the microphone. “No poll says that.”
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But many senior Democrats are concerned about recent polling that shows Donald Trump has extended his lead in the fortnight since Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
Barack Obama, the former president, and the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi — among the only voices outside his family that Biden is said to listen to — are understood to have privately expressed fears that their friend cannot beat Trump.
He refuses to drop out, and faces a convention revolt
Some Democrats have voiced the hope that a revolt on the floor of next month’s convention, to be held in Chicago, could force the president’s hand if he refuses to step aside.
The party will, however, be reflecting upon the 1968 convention in Chicago, when protests inside and outside the hall laid bare party divisions over the war in Vietnam and paved the way for defeat by Richard Nixon in that year’s election.
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Facing no real opposition Biden easily won the Democratic primary race, and with it the delegates who will select the nominee for president. But as the internal rift widens, some delegates pledged to Biden are said to have urged the party to allow a secret ballot, freeing them to vote with their conscience. Aides are understood to have been prompted to telephone delegates to reaffirm their loyalty.
Another Chicago revolt looks the least likely scenario, however. The Democrats want the convention to be a platform for party unity and a springboard for the final weeks of the campaign. Turmoil on the convention floor threatens their chances in tight congressional races in November and risks a Republican landslide.
He quits and endorses Kamala Harris
If Biden does drop out, he could endorse a successor, freeing his pledged delegates to vote for his chosen candidate. The obvious choice would be Kamala Harris, the vice-president.
Despite confusing her with Trump in Thursday’s press conference, Biden insisted that he would not have picked Harris, 59, as his running mate in 2020 “if she was not qualified to be president”.
Many Democrats see an endorsement of Harris as the best solution. The vice-president has impressed party leaders and grassroots supporters with her forceful attacks on Trump in recent weeks. That has raised hopes that the former district attorney could prosecute the case against the former president — now a convicted criminal — with a vigour that Biden can no longer muster.
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Harris would command strong support among key Democratic voting blocs, but faces lingering doubts about her own political weaknesses and could usher in a repeat of Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Trump in 2016. Many fear that America is simply not ready to elect a black woman to the highest office.
He drops out and causes an open convention
If Biden quits the race but declines to throw his weight behind a chosen successor, it could trigger an open convention in Chicago.
In this scenario, several contenders could make their case for the leadership and delegates would be free to cast their ballots as they wish. Some within the party hope that a dynamic new ticket of younger leaders such as Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, or Gavin Newsom, governor of California, might emerge.
But just as likely, it could disintegrate into factional infighting in front of the world’s media just weeks from polling day, dividing the party, not uniting it. Harris and her allies, including influential black leaders, would be outraged over the prospect of the first black woman to be elected as vice-president being passed over for a white challenger.
