Biden debate sparks discussion of Democratic nominee replacement | Wilnesh News

President Joe Biden’s gruff, distracted, often inarticulate and widely criticized debate performance has stoked deep anxiety among Democrats — and led some commentators and fundraisers to publicly call for a new nominee to confront former President Donald Trump.

But with less than five months until Election Day, replacing Biden as the party’s pick would carry huge political risks and would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

Currently, the only possible way Biden can be replaced is if he voluntarily ends his campaign.

Biden aides and senior Democratic officials say the 81-year-old incumbent has no plans to do so.

If he does drop out, Democrats have yet to find a clear replacement candidate to take his place.

But donors and party officials panicked after Biden faltered during a debate with Trump on Thursday night, leading some of them to take steps to remove Biden from the race.

Democratic fundraisers are already discussing trying to persuade congressional leaders — particularly Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — to urge Biden to announce his withdrawal, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Schumer, D-N.Y., is a top target for donors because he has privately expressed concerns about Biden’s ranking in presidential election polls, these people said.

Schumer was concerned before the debate that Biden and Trump were statistically tied nationally, despite the Republican challenger’s conviction in a criminal hush-money trial in New York.

A spokesman for Schumer declined to comment to CNBC but pointed to the majority leader’s social media posts after the debate.

“Tonight’s debate made the choice clear: four more years of progress, or four more years of attacks on our fundamental rights and democracy,” Schumer wrote in the X post.

“We must vote for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Democratic Senate and House of Representatives!” the post said.

The shift did little to ease post-debate anxiety among some of the president’s top fundraisers.

Some of these wealthy donors have lost trust in Biden’s team and believe they were given false assurances about his ability to stand up to Trump.

Some donors who had planned to attend Saturday’s high-dollar fundraiser in the Hamptons, Long Island, said they would attend the event to judge for themselves whether Biden can remain a viable candidate.

“Democrats are in a very difficult position because it’s too late for the movement for change,” Mina Boss, director of the Peter S. Kallikov Center for the Study of the American President at Hofstra University, told CNBC.

The only way Boss can do that is for Biden to throw his weight behind Vice President Kamala Harris as the new nominee.

Otherwise, she said, Democrats will engage in an open battle for the nomination months before the Nov. 5 election.

Bose called this a “catastrophic” prospect.

“Vice President Harris is a risky choice, but certainly has the name recognition and is a logical choice,” Boss said.

“It’s hard to see now how to open up the Democratic presidential nomination and achieve a unified victory in November,” she added.

However, even if Biden endorses Harris to replace him ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August, there’s no guarantee that the delegates he’s won so far will switch their support to her.

Biden wins almost every election 4,000 Democratic sworn delegatesfar exceeding the threshold for him to become the party’s candidate.

If Biden refuses to withdraw before August, the only chance for him to become the nominee would be that month’s Democratic National Convention.

Technically, Biden’s delegates could ditch him en masse and nominate another candidate at the convention.

Some Democrats who want to replace Biden but are concerned about Harris’ relatively low polling and inconsistent campaign history have listed California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pooley Tsik and others are considered as possible contenders.

But blocking Biden from the nomination is highly unlikely because delegates tend to be staunch supporters of their chosen candidates.

“This is probably the worst-case scenario,” Boss said. “If Democrats are going to make a change on the ballot, President Biden has to support it and, frankly, probably initiate it.”

this Democratic National Committee Rules The party is allowed to choose another presidential candidate, but only if “death, resignation or disability” leaves the position vacant.

Biden acknowledged his poor debate performance at a rally in North Carolina on Friday afternoon but defended his ability to win and serve as president.

“Obviously, I know I’m not a young man,” Biden told the cheering crowd. “I don’t walk as easily as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, and I don’t debate as well as I used to.”

“But I know what I know: I know how to tell the truth, I know right from wrong, I know how to do this job, I know how to get things done,” he said.

“I know, as millions of Americans know, that when you get knocked down, you get back up.”

“As a Biden, I promise you, if I don’t believe wholeheartedly that I can do this job, I will not run again because, frankly, the stakes are too high,” he said.