Half a dozen renowned Democrats sound like possible replacements for President Joe Biden if the intention of some in the party to force an honorable withdrawal of the candidate comes to fruition. Although the slogan for now is to bury the succession debate, the Democratic National Committee could theoretically support another candidate at the Chicago convention in August: the general panic over Biden’s cognitive failures in this period of time depends on damage control. The debate with Donald Trump either stagnates or leads to a surprise. As a common denominator, almost all the names that are cited as possible replacements for the 81-year-old re-election candidate were already being heard in 2020, which indicates the party’s limited, or at least lazy, capacity for renewal.
Among the obvious candidates—Vice President Kamala Harris first, but also Michelle Obama, more by popular acclaim than by real probabilities—, logical ones—governors like Gavin Newson, JB Pritzker or Gretchen Whitmer—and hidden ones—some young mayors, like Boston, still green—Biden’s eventual succession would also mean the beginning of the end of the gerontocracy, which also consumes the Republican Party (Donald Trump is 78 years old). All possible replacements are at least one generation younger than the president.
The process of electing another candidate would be extraordinarily arduous and the president assured this Friday that he remains in the gap. If he decided to resign, he would not be able to appoint his successor—which limits Harris’s chances—and the election would fall to the Democratic National Committee. The bets are smoking. A recent survey by the weekly Political The survey found that 21% of Democratic voters were backing Harris as their 2028 candidate. Another 10% were choosing California Gov. Newsom and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, while an overwhelming 41% said they didn’t know who would be the best choice four years from now.
Kamala Harris, vice president
Harris, 59, could be considered the most logical choice due to her proximity to Biden if her approval ratings were not already in the dumps. According to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, the former California attorney general has a disapproval rating of 49.4%. Despite the aforementioned poll, Politicalonly 34% thought that a Harris candidacy would be “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to win the election in 2028, while 57% said that a victory would be “not very likely” or “not at all likely.”
Four years in the vice presidency, dedicated to issues such as the defense of reproductive health, but with little visibility and impact – it is difficult to find a headline dedicated to her in the media – have burned Harris’s cartridge. One of her main critics, the columnist of the Washington Post Kathleen Parker even asked at the beginning of the month that Hillary Clinton replace her in the Democratic tandem due to the vice president’s “competence, or lack thereof.” “Putting Harris at the helm does not improve the candidacy much, if at all,” the portal wrote on Friday. The Hill.
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Harris has been the country’s first female vice president; She is also the first woman of South Asian descent and the second black woman to be elected to the Senate. Like the rest of her possible successors, she plays the card of telegenicity in her favor, and against her, several public mistakes at the beginning of her time in the White House and her detractors. They call it ultra-progressivism. Harris opted on Thursday for a white lie to define the president’s performance in the debate: speaking to CNN, she said that Biden had a “slow start” but a “strong finish.”
Gavin Newsom, Governor of California
56 years old, he has been one of Biden’s most faithful allies in the 2024 elections. Newsom was also Biden’s main shield in the press room after the debate on Thursday, amid a swarm of cameras. The controversial governor of California, loved and hated equally and who survived a noisy impeachment attempt in 2021, told MSNBC that the “panic” over Biden’s performance was “unnecessary” and that “you cannot turn your back on him.” by a [mala] performance”.
Former San Francisco mayor, perhaps too liberal for the rest of the country — strongly advocates for all causes cultural: abortion, LGTBI+ rights and gun control – has been trying for months to build a national profile for 2028, but the black hole created by the debate could encourage him to jump into the field much sooner. Last year, as concerns grew about Biden’s age, Republicans publicly accused him of running a “shadow” campaign that would allow him to enter the race if the president dropped out. Some Democrats quietly agreed.
During Trump’s presidency, Newson declared California the leader of “the resistance.” His direct confrontation with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a heated debate on Fox News last year showed he doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. His coreligionists believe his biggest obstacle is not his liberalism but California’s problems: a homelessness crisis, a multibillion-dollar deficit and a cost of living that voters blame partly on the governor.
Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania
Josh Shapiro, 51, retained the governorship of Pennsylvania’s swing state in the 2022 midterm elections, overcoming Biden’s slim 2020 margins there and defeating his Trump-backed Republican challenger by more than 14 points. More than 20 years in the state Capitol and six years as Pennsylvania’s attorney general have earned him fame and support, including winning a multimillion-dollar settlement from several pharmaceutical groups over their role in the opioid crisis. He was re-elected in 2020 with more votes than any other politician in the history of Pennsylvania, a state that Biden and Trump are openly fighting over.
The dark spots in his record are, among environmental groups, his support for the state’s economicly vital shale gas industry and, among progressive Democrats, his fervent support for Israel. Shapiro, a practicing Jew, has condemned what he sees as rising anti-Semitism on campus during the wave of protests in solidarity with Gaza. According to an April poll, he has 54 percent support in the state, including 29 percent of registered Republicans.
Michelle Obama, former first lady
The former first lady, 60, has stayed away from politics since Barack Obama handed over the presidency to Donald Trump in January 2017. For more personal than political reasons – the marriage is focused on her production company – Michelle Obama rejects make the leap into national politics despite her undoubted popularity, which she still retains (to a much greater extent than another former Democratic first lady, Hillary Clinton, who already tried to become president in 2016, without luck against Trump). Hillary Clinton’s precedent makes Obama’s wife less likely to run. The former first lady, political lies maintain, also does not want to publicly campaign for Biden because of how her family treated Kathleen Buhle, a close friend of hers, when she divorced Hunter Biden, the president’s troubled son. Her reluctance to return to the limelight has not stopped many Democrats from betting on her as a presidential candidate.
JB Pritzker, Governor of Illinois
Pritzker, 59, would probably be the easiest candidate at this time because he has the necessary fortune to launch a campaign for the White House, since he is the heir to the family that owns a major hotel chain. “The host of the Convention [Nacional Demócrata], Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, is the obvious choice. He doesn’t have the background of Vice President Kamala Harris or the governor of California, but as a billionaire he could finance himself overnight and buy the nomination, thus avoiding a civil war at the convention,” explained Republican strategist Dennis Lennox on Friday. Unlike Pritzker, the rest of the names being considered, from Newsom to Shapiro or even Maryland Governor Wes Moore, lack his financial capacity.
Pritzker is as controversial as Newsom. As governor, he signed a law last year that eliminated cash bail altogether, leaving it up to judges to decide whether to release or jail a suspect. His family has poured millions of dollars into transgender causes, while he signed education bills that mandated a gender identity curriculum for children as young as five and hormone blockers for children as young as eight.
Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan
The 52-year-old governor of another pivotal state — remembered for the closure of the State’s economy during the pandemic, in open defiance of the Trump Administration — has quickly risen through the ranks of well-known Democratic leaders. Last year she created a national political group to position herself for 2028. Like Harris, Newsom and Pritzker, Whitmer has not expressed interest in stepping forward and maintained her support for Biden after the debate.
In October 2020, she made headlines when the FBI uncovered a plot by a group of Trump supporters to kidnap her. The politician attributed the plan to the Republican’s incendiary rhetoric. A former senator, in the 2022 midterm elections she helped offset the Democrats’ defeat by beating her Republican rival by 11 points. Her victory allowed her party to regain the Michigan Congress for the first time in decades.
A progressive, she has passed laws on gun control and clean energy. She has also approved popular tax cuts for small businesses and the passive classes. Whitmer has already hinted at her ambitions for the White House, urging her voters to 2028. According to the website The Hillthe ideal ticket in an emergency would be Whitmer and Shapiro, because Biden is currently behind Trump in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the seven decisive swing states.
Progressive Democrats out of the game
The defeat this week in New York of the progressive Jamal Bowmaan, defender of the Palestinian cause, at the hands of a moderate Democrat financed by lobbies pro-Israelism may be the swan song of the party’s leftmost faction. Greeted at the end of the last decade as green shoots in front of the aged establishment, the members of the so-called Squad, with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the head, no longer seem to constitute a replacement to regenerate and rejuvenate the party. Bowman’s defeat is the first for a member of the Squad since the formation of this informal current against Trump in 2018. Other members of the group are Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, both of Arab origin and highly critical of Biden’s support for Israel. The division within the Democrats over the Gaza war has already claimed its first victim and sapped power from the progressives.
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