According to information from the New York Times, US President Joe Biden is considering whether to continue to participate in the race for the White House. But who could take his place if he does drop out? One name is emerging in the polls.
After his dismal performance in the televised debate against Donald Trump, the pressure on Joe Biden is growing. Some of his party colleagues are now publicly questioning the 81-year-old US President’s candidacy for a second term. And according to recent polls, voters also believe that the Democrats have a better chance of beating Trump on November 5 if Biden is not their candidate.
Biden is considering further steps, according to the New York Times
The pressure is apparently already having an effect on the president. According to a report in the New York Times, Biden has told a key ally that he knows his candidacy may not be salvaged if he cannot convince the public in the coming days that he is fit enough for the job. Although the White House denies this claim as “absolutely false”, the question remains: If Biden withdraws, who should take his place in the fight for the presidency?
The polls also have a possible answer to this: According to a survey by the US broadcaster CNN, 45 percent of registered voters would vote for Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris if she ran against Trump. This puts her within striking distance of the Republican, who would receive 47 percent of their vote.
If Trump and Biden were to run, the challenger would lead by as much as six percentage points (49 percent to 43 percent). This gap is identical to the results of a national CNN poll on the presidential race in April and is consistent with the numbers the network has collected since last fall.
Harris most promising Biden replacement according to polls
Harris’ better performance against Trump than Biden is surprising, as she has been considered notoriously unpopular. According to CNN, this is at least partly due to the broader support among women and independent voters. According to the survey, 50 percent of female voters prefer the Democrat to the Republican, while only 44 percent prefer Biden. The gap is even larger among independents, with 43 percent for Harris and 34 percent for Biden.
Harris is also ahead in comparison with other politicians who are currently being mentioned as possible Biden replacements – although they are also doing better than the president. California’s popular governor Gavin Newsom is five percentage points behind Trump in the CNN poll, as is Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, while Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is only four percentage points behind.
A survey by Yougov on behalf of Yahoo News paints a similar picture: In a hypothetical two-way race against Trump, Harris is also just behind the former president among registered voters, with 45 to 47 percent. The gap between the vice president and Trump is just as large in Yougov as that of Biden (43 to 45 percent), although her approval rating is slightly higher. The pollsters also cite the fact that Harris performs better among independents than her boss and is also more popular among voters between the ages of 30 and 44.
In a poll conducted by the Reuters news agency in cooperation with Ipsos, Harris is only one percentage point behind Trump, with 42 percent to 43 percent. The poll shows a stalemate between Biden and his challenger (both 40 percent). And the alternatives to the president discussed by the Democrats all fare worse.
Governors discuss further action with Biden
Despite all the unrest that Biden’s debate debacle has caused in the Democratic Party, the polls also show that, despite all the criticism, the US president has hardly lost any of his support in direct comparison with Trump. Or to put it another way: The Republicans have not managed to capitalize on Biden’s disastrous performance.
Harris herself, meanwhile, continues to support Biden. The 59-year-old assured that she is proud to be his candidate for the vice presidential post again. “Joe Biden is our candidate,” she told CBS News. “We beat Trump once and we will beat him again.”
It cannot be said at the moment that the rest of the party shares this optimism. According to US media, the governors of Democratic-governed states exchanged their fears and concerns about Biden’s candidacy in a conference call on Monday. They want to speak to the president directly at a meeting on Wednesday evening, which is expected to take place both in person and virtually. “At the moment, Joe Biden is our candidate and I support him 100 percent unless he makes a different decision,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker in advance. “We will discuss what the best way forward is.”
One way forward would be to put a candidate against Trump who has been mentioned as a possible US president for years: Michelle Obama. According to Ipsos, the former First Lady would beat the 78-year-old by a landslide with 50 to 39 percent. The only catch: the wife of former President Barack Obama has made it clear several times that she has no ambitions for political office.
Sources: Fivethirtyeight, CNN, Yahoo News, Reuters, Ipsos, Politico, New York Times
