CNN
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Donald Trump and his allies have speculated for much of the past year that Joe Biden would not be the Democratic presidential nominee and have suggested, without evidence, that he would step down before the party convention and be replaced by another candidate.
Now, with Biden’s political future increasingly uncertain in the aftermath of his shaky debate performance, Republicans are trying to gauge what the departure of the Democratic incumbent would actually mean for the Trump campaign, with some believing Biden’s place at the top would ease his path back to the White House.
Trump and his supporters have welcomed the extended spotlight on Biden this week, with the former president making the unusual decision to keep a low profile at his New Jersey club and focus on Biden. Trump has no public events scheduled, and his campaign surprised aides and advisers by telling them to enjoy the Fourth of July holiday.
“Chaos is on our side,” said a person close to Trump.
Meanwhile, campaign advisers and key allies are calling reporters and friendly Democrats, searching for clues about what might happen next if Biden ultimately gives up on reelection.
So far, the Biden campaign and its allies have largely ignored Vice President Kamala Harris as they wage their attacks on the Biden administration. But there are signs that attitude is changing. On Wednesday, MAGA Inc., a Trump-aligned super PAC, launched its first attack on Harris in an email attack on her oversight of Biden’s border policy. The group asked whether Harris is “the best they’ve got?”
The Trump campaign maintains that the calculations remain unchanged regardless of whether Biden comes out on top among the Democratic candidates.
“President Trump has a proven track record and a platform to Make America Great Again, so he will beat any Democrat on November 5th,” co-campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Suzie Wiles said in a statement.
The Trump camp believes that even if Biden were not the Democratic nominee, the issues that could determine the election outcome would remain the same.
“The issue is the issue, and that’s what people care about,” one adviser told CNN.
But the reality may not be so clear-cut. Polls show a lack of enthusiasm for the presidential candidates of both major parties, and it’s unclear how the change will affect Democratic turnout or swing voter opinion. Democrats face a time crunch to make a decision before their convention in August, but Republicans, who have spent months building a meticulously orchestrated data operation, are also attacking ads specifically focused on defeating Biden, and his campaign infrastructure in general.
As one Republican pollster put it, Trump would “choose the devil he knows over the devil he doesn’t know.”
Behind the scenes, the Republican National Committee already had an “ongoing book of research” outlining opposition research on prominent Democrats who could succeed Biden in 2028, Trump advisers including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and California Gov. Gavin Newsom told CNN.
“They’re perpetual candidates, they’re always running for something, so their dossiers are constantly being updated,” one senior Trump adviser told CNN.
Still, two Trump advisers said he won’t change strategy or alter his research or plans until the situation with Biden is resolved.
“We don’t know what the end game is going to be,” one of the advisers said. “We’re not going to change anything until we know.”
Some Republicans had publicly hinted, if not expected, that Biden would drop out of the race as the president’s declining health became clear. During the Republican presidential primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley made it a focal point of their campaigns, arguing that Democrats would replace Biden and that Republicans could not risk pitting Trump against a younger, more energetic challenger.
Trump himself has touched on this prospect, repeatedly saying he doesn’t think Biden will “make it.” In an interview about a year ago, Trump and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson offered their views on what would happen if Biden dropped out of the race.
When Carlson suggested that Harris would replace Biden as the Democratic nominee, Trump predicted, “Not likely. I mean, there’s probably going to be a blast. A lot of people are going to say that for some reason Harris has to stay. I don’t actually think that’s the case. … I don’t think other people would support that.”
But in the debate’s aftermath, the Trump campaign did not expect Democrats to panic for so long about Biden’s chances of remaining the party’s presidential nominee, with one Trump campaign adviser telling CNN that Democratic anxiety was expected to subside within a week.
Now the Trump campaign is scrambling to prepare for all outcomes, including whether it will need to launch a new campaign focused on a different opponent.
“Every Democrat calling for the unscrupulous Joe Biden to resign once supported Biden and his failed policies that have led to excessive inflation, open borders, and chaos at home and abroad,” LaCivita and Wiles said in a statement. “There is no doubt that Democrats, the mainstream media, and Swamp have conspired to hide the truth from the American people.”
Republicans are now planning how to attack Harris, with early arguments focusing on her past comments defending Biden’s ability to do his job.
“She will always be forced to answer the very simple question of why she hid Joe Biden’s lack of intellectual acuity from the American people,” one person close to Trump said.
Many close to Trump see a replacement as unlikely, citing the relatively low name recognition of Biden’s potential successor and the legal difficulties of transferring the president’s campaign funds to a new candidate. Biden, too, continues to insist he has no plans to step down. On a campaign call on Wednesday, Biden told staff “nobody’s trying to get rid of me” and vowed to continue campaigning.
“I have no plans to quit,” he said, a source familiar with the call told CNN.
Efforts to keep Biden on the ballot could also come from the right. The Heritage Foundation, a pro-Trump conservative group, has been preparing for this moment since the spring, recently unveiling a playbook for fighting Democratic attempts to remove Biden from the ballot in some states that have legal deadlines for nominations.
In a memo released last month with the somewhat prescient title, “If Biden Stuck in the Debate, Can He Be Replaced?”, the group specifically singled out three battleground states – Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin – where Republicans could file lawsuits to challenge Democratic attempts to change course.
Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Election Monitoring Project, acknowledged that a win would depend heavily on Biden’s withdrawal.
“Timing is very important,” Howell said.
Rick Hazen, an election law expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, dismissed the idea that Democrats would face legal problems if they proposed a new name before Biden is formally nominated.
“I do not believe that assertion at all,” Hasen wrote on his website. “Joe Biden is not currently the party’s nominee, and states generally consider the candidate who appears on the ballot to be the major party’s nominee.”
CNN’s Betsy Klein and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.
