AMAC Exclusive – By Aaron Flanigan
Conventional wisdom among the Washington, D.C. political class suggests that the 2024 Democratic nomination is Joe Biden’s for the taking, should he decide to mount a reelection bid. But amid consistently low poll numbers, repeated gaffes calling into question Biden’s mental fitness for office, and a growing list of policy failures, the troves of younger Democratic presidential wannabes may sense a political opportunity too enticing to resist even if the president does decide to run again.
In the modern world of cutthroat election politics, ambitious presidential hopefuls have shown that they will not hesitate if they sense weakness from an incumbent commander-in-chief. With Biden’s approval ratings now near the lowest of his presidency and polling from December showing that 70 percent of voters – including 57 percent of Democrats – don’t want Biden to run, there is reason to believe that the president is vulnerable in a primary contest. Additionally, according to a Gallup report, incumbent presidents with approval ratings much lower than 50% have consistently lost their reelection campaigns—another clear indicator that a primary challenge is fair game.
Repeated gaffes from the 80-year-old Biden have led to a growing perception, even among Democrats, that the president is both mentally unfit for office and will be unable to run a successful presidential campaign. In just the last few months, Biden has said that there are 54 states, forgotten the name of MLK’s daughter-in-law while singing “Happy Birthday” to her, and repeatedly looked lost and confused as he wandered off stage. White House staffers reportedly mute or turn off the TV whenever Biden speaks for fear that he will make a gaffe or veer off message.
Biden has also racked up a number of major policy failures that challengers could use to attack him in a primary contest. In addition to botching the COVID-19 response and the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden has also overseen record-high inflation, a humanitarian crisis at the southern border, shortages of everything from couches to baby formula, and a litany of other crises.
Biden has also faced mounting criticism for the ongoing classified documents scandal and his outrageous claim that he has “no regrets” for his actions. While these fiascos will undoubtedly be hammered by any potential Republican challenger to Biden, they are also potent ammunition for other Democrats to take down the incumbent president.
Each blow against Biden is an opportunity for a potential primary challenger, including Democrats like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and even Vice President Kamala Harris – whom Biden has repeatedly referred to as “President Harris.”
Especially if Biden looks unlikely to win a general election in 2024, ambitious Democrats could argue that any challenge to Biden is a necessary service to the party.
If history is any indication, a primary challenge could be a foreboding sign for the aging president. In the modern presidential primary era, roughly beginning following the end of World War II, every incumbent president who has faced a serious primary challenge has gone on to either drop out or lose in the general election.
During the 1968 primaries, incumbent Democrat Lyndon Johnson performed surprisingly poorly in the New Hampshire primary against Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy and faced dismal approval ratings, opening the door to an additional challenge from then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Johnson’s decision to halt bombing in North Vietnam early in 1968 instead of pursuing victory in the war, while popular with a small, far-left minority within the Democrat Party, was broadly unpopular with the public at large, and Johnson was eventually forced to exit the race.
“So low had Johnson’s popularity sunk,” according to a 1968 TIME report, “that last-minute surveys before the Wisconsin primary gave [Johnson] a humiliating 12% of the vote there”—an astonishingly low number for an incumbent commander-in-chief. The Democratic nomination was eventually won by Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who went on to lose the general election to Richard Nixon.
The next Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, also faced an intense primary battle in his reelection bid. Though he ultimately eked out a victory against then-U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Kennedy won an impressive 12 primary contests—including in the all-important states of California and New York. Kennedy did not concede the nomination until the Democratic National Convention that summer.
Republican presidents, too, have faced competitive primary challenges. The most notable was Gerald Ford, who barely won his primary contest against Ronald Reagan in what TIME magazine deemed as “the closest a sitting President has come to losing his party’s nomination in modern history.” Ford would go on to lose the general election to Jimmy Carter.
George H.W. Bush also survived a challenge from Pat Buchanan. Though Bush’s primary challenge was less significant than those faced by Johnson, Ford, and Carter, the 41st president was also weighed down by a strong third-party candidate in Ross Perot, who peeled off support from Bush in critical states.
Given Biden’s exceptionally turbulent first two years in office, it is not difficult to imagine that he, too, could face viable primary threats—and his would-be competitors almost certainly know this. And as Biden continues to face one setback after another for his administration, a primary challenge must look increasingly tempting to younger and more dynamic politicians in his own party.
Why, after all, should any young and politically talented Democrat presidential aspirant voluntarily sit out the 2024 race? The problems Biden faces are of his own making, and must seem disqualifying even to many Democrats.
Whether or not other potential candidates will have the courage to defy Biden and the national Democratic apparatus remains to be seen. But as presidential primary history suggests, these figures likely have little to lose from a primary challenge—and if they play their cards right, they could have everything to gain.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
