Will Biden withdraw? Debate commentary.

There’s a big debate going on in center-left political circles: Should Joe Biden continue to run for president in 2024 or should he drop out?

Biden skeptics argue that the president, already lagging behind Trump, demonstrated in last week’s debate that his age would compromise his standing as the nominee. They say Biden’s approval ratings have been poor for years and he has proven unable to reverse them, so Democrats should nominate someone else if they want to win — and thus stave off the danger of a second Trump term.

Biden defenders respond: “No, Biden may be behind, but he could still win,” they say. So replacing Biden with an unproven candidate in an elite-driven process with little recent precedent would be a total disaster, and would likely ensure a Trump victory that it should have prevented.

Of course, not everyone is making their decision for purely disinterested reasons: Career motives, personal loyalties, ambition, grudges, inertia or speculation over unrelated issues all help explain why some people support or oppose Biden.

For example, the loudest voices calling for Biden to be removed have been media commentators, who have very different career motivations than Democrats, almost all of whom have so far publicly supported Biden, while Biden’s aides and family are perceived to have concealed his illness, raising resentment and suspicions against them.

So this is not a lofty debate where everyone rationally weighs the arguments to determine the best course forward for the party and the country.

But if you’re wondering whether replacing Biden is a good idea, here are three questions that might help clarify your thinking.

Biden skeptics see the debate as a disaster, but believe the president’s political problems existed long before the debate and will continue after it.

They point out that Trump has held a slim lead in most national polls since last fall, plus an Electoral College advantage, and the polls will likely worsen after the debate, but it’s too early to tell (so far some have shown serious damage, while others have shown little change).

But Biden skeptics worry that the debates will solidify a perception among voters that the president is old, frail, shaky and incompetent that Biden will find it very difficult to overturn.

In contrast, Biden defenders believed that pre-debate polls had Biden not positioned too badly. He was trailing, but not by a large margin, and a win in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania was enough to give him a path to victory in the Electoral College. Election forecasting models varied in estimating Biden’s chances of winning as low as one in two or even one in three. They point to Democrats’ unexpectedly strong performances in the 2022 midterms and recent special elections, and argue that the polls may be missing something.

As for the debate itself, they argue it was a fluke — optimistically pointing to a bad night contrasted with Biden’s strong performance at a rally the next day — and that even if Biden’s ratings drop afterward, there are still months until the election, giving him plenty of time to turn things around, they hope.

But skeptics have responded with concerns that Biden is incapable of turning things around. They point out that the White House has long avoided putting the president in unscripted, adversarial situations, and now they suspect this reflects a belief that the president, too affected by age, would not be able to withstand the scrutiny of such situations. Why, they ask, has Biden not given any interviews or press conferences since the debate to allay the doubts?

Biden’s defenders have typically leaned heavily on the argument that whatever the president’s flaws, abandoning him would likely lead to worse outcomes.

They argue that Vice President Kamala Harris, the obvious choice to replace Biden, would be a weak candidate herself. Stories of Harris’ political struggles as vice president are legion. But ignoring Harris, a woman of color, and nominating someone else would be highly controversial, they say. Opening up the nomination process at the convention would invite confusion and intraparty fighting, miss one of the party’s best opportunities to make its case against Donald Trump, and anger Democrats rather than unite them. It’s better to stick to the plan, stay united, and make the case for Biden.

The Biden campaign argues that these concerns are overblown. Recent polls have shown Harris performing better than Biden. Unelected and ambitious Democrats will eventually unite around the larger goal of stopping Trump. A public convention might cause chaos, but it would bring attention and excitement to the party. A new candidate might appeal to voters who dislike both Biden and Trump. In any case, even if the fears of chaos are well-founded, it may be better than supporting Biden, given his diminished chances of victory.

Polling evidence on how Biden’s potential successors would fare against Trump has generally shown only slight differences. In my view, such polls are not worth much. Their prospects will depend on many things that have yet to happen, including how the nomination process plays out and how well they withstand attacks from Trump and the right.

But there’s an interesting unspoken divide here: Biden skeptics believe the Democratic Party is politically strong, that the problem is the president, and that replacing him with someone else would likely work. Biden defenders, by contrast, seem to think that the president alone holds the party together.

All of this was built around the premise that the most important thing was to defeat Trump, which is roughly in line with how the debate has unfolded within the Democratic Party.

But is there reason to worry about Biden’s own second term? Would replacing him with another Democrat not only be politically wise, but also morally right for the country?

Many Democrats have long thought Biden’s “age problem” was overblown, but if they had any concerns, they were about perceptions and politics, not governing. They believed Biden would have been a good, competent president. Sure, he wasn’t the best communicator, but he passed important new legislation, rallied the defense of Ukraine, and put the country on the path to economic recovery.

There was even an implicit assumption among some that Joe Biden was appointing good people so his condition might not be such a big deal. Essentially, the Democratic coalition and the foreign policy establishment are in charge and things are under control, so how bad could things get?

But this debate might prompt a reexamination of those assumptions. Would the candidate on that stage hold the presidency for another four and a half years? Would he have limited ability to manage a crisis at home and abroad? How would foreign leaders view him? Isn’t communication part of the president’s job? Would the country be better off with another Democrat in power?