Biden’s potential emergency replacements: Five political candidates and one popular option

Half a dozen renowned Democrats sound like possible replacements for President Joe Biden, if the intention of some within the party to force an honorable withdrawal comes to fruition. Although the party guidelines for now are to ignore the succession debate, the Democratic National Committee could theoretically support another candidate at the Chicago convention in August: the extent of damage control will determine whether the general panic over Biden’s cognitive failures in the debate against Donald Trump leads to a surprise or not. As a common denominator, almost all the names being mentioned as possible replacements for the 81-year-old candidate were already being heard in 2020, which underscores the party’s limited, or at least lazy, capacity for renewal.

There are the obvious candidates—Vice-President Kamala Harris first, but also Michelle Obama, more out of popular acclaim than any real probabilities of winning; the logical ones—governors like Gavin Newson, J.B. Pritzker or Gretchen Whitmer; and the “hidden” ones—including young mayors like the leader of Boston— who are still green. In any event, Biden’s eventual succession would also mean the beginning of the end of the era of gerontocracy, which is also consuming 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 on Friday that he remains in the running. If he did decide to resign, he would not be able to directly appoint his successor, which limits Harris’ chances, and the election would fall to the Democratic National Committee. The bets are on. A recent poll by the weekly Politico revealed that 21% of Democratic voters supported Harris as their candidate for 2028. Another 10% chose California Governor Gavin Newsom and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, while an overwhelming 41% stated that they did not know who would be the best option four years from now.

Vice-President Kamala Harris

Harris, 59, could be considered the most logical choice due to her proximity to Biden, but that would be the case if her approval ratings were not at rock bottom. According to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, the former California attorney general has a disapproval rating of 49.4%. Despite the aforementioned Politico survey, only 34% thought that a Harris candidacy would “very likely” or “somewhat probably” win the elections in 2028, while 57% said that a victory would be “not too likely” or “not at all likely.”

Four years into a 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’ options. One of her main critics, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, went so far as to ask earlier this month that Hillary Clinton replace her on the Democratic ticket due to the “competence, or lack thereof” of the vice-president. Putting Harris at the helm would not improve the candidacy much, if at all, published The Hill on Friday.

Harris has been the country’s first female vice-president, and also the first woman of South Asian descent and the second Black woman to be elected to the Senate. Like the rest of the possible substitutes, the fact that she looks good on TV plays in her favor, while working against her are several public errors at the beginning of her time in the White House, as well as what her detractors call her ultra-progressivism. Harris chose a white lie on Thursday 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

At age 56, Newsom has been one of Biden’s most faithful allies in the 2024 elections. He 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 survivor of a noisy impeachment attempt in 2021, told MSNBC that the “panic” over Biden’s performance was “unnecessary” and that “you don’t turn your back because of one performance.”

The former mayor of San Francisco, who is perhaps too liberal for the rest of the country — he firmly defends all cultural causes: abortion, LGTBI+ rights and gun control — has been trying for months to build a national profile with a view to 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 Newsom of running a “shadow” campaign that would allow him to enter the race if the president dropped out. Some Democrats quietly agreed.

During the Trump presidency, Newson declared California a leader of “the resistance.” His direct confrontation with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, at a heated debate on Fox News last year showed that he doesn’t mind getting muddy. His supporters 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 partially blame on the governor.

Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania

Josh Shapiro, 51, retained the governorship of the swing state of Pennsylvania in the 2022 midterm elections, surpassing Biden’s slim margins in 2020 in that state and defeating his Republican opponent, backed by Trump, by more than 14 points. More than 20 years in the state Capitol and six years as Pennsylvania Attorney General have earned him a reputation and significant support, most notably after winning a multimillion-dollar settlement from several pharmaceutical groups for their responsibility in the opioid crisis. He was re-elected in 2020 with more votes than any other politician in the history of Pennsylvania, a state over which Biden and Trump are openly fighting.

The shadow areas of his career are due, for environmental groups, to his support for the shale gas industry, vital in the state’s economy, and among the Democrats of the progressive faction, to his fervent support for Israel. Shapiro, a practicing Jew, has condemned growing antisemitism on campuses during the wave of protests in solidarity with Gaza. According to an April survey, he has 54% support in the State, including 29% of registered Republicans.

Michelle Obama, former first lady

The former first lady, now 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 refuses to 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 without luck to become president in 2016 against Trump). Hillary Clinton’s precedent makes Obama’s wife less likely to run. The former first lady, political pundits maintain, also does not want to publicly campaign for Biden because of how the 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 forefront has not prevented many Democrats from betting on her as a presidential candidate.

J.B. Pritzker, Governor of Illinois

Pritzker, 59, would probably be the easiest candidate to pick at this time because he has the necessary fortune to launch a campaign for the White House, since he is the heir to a family that owns a major hotel chain. “The host of the [Democratic National] Convention, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, is the obvious choice. He does not have the background of Vice-President Kamala Harris or that of the governor of California, but as a billionaire he could finance himself overnight and buy the nomination, thus avoiding a civil war in the middle of the convention,” explained Republican strategist Dennis Lennox on Friday. Unlike Pritzker, the rest of the names under consideration, 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 completely eliminated cash bail, leaving it up to judges to decide whether to release or jail a suspect before trial. His family has invested millions of dollars in transgender causes, while he signed education bills with a gender identity curriculum for five-year-olds, and showing eight-year-olds how hormone blockers prevent puberty in transgender-identifying preteens.

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 an interest in stepping forward at this time and has maintained her support for Biden after the debate.

In October 2020, she made headlines when the FBI discovered 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, at the 2022 midterm elections she helped offset the defeat of the Democrats by surpassing her Republican rival by 11 points. Her victory allowed her party to take back 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 SMEs. Whitmer has already hinted at her ambitions for the White House, inviting her voters to support her in 2028. According to The Hill, the ideal ticket in an emergency would be Whitmer and Shapiro, because Biden is currently trailing 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 Jamaal Bowman, a defender of the Palestinian cause, at the hands of a moderate Democrat financed by pro-Israel lobbies may represent the swan song of the most left-wing faction of the party. Greeted at the end of the last decade as green shoots in the face of the aging establishment, the members of the so-called Squad, with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the helm, no longer seem an option to regenerate and rejuvenate the game. 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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