President Joe Biden’s performance in last week’s debate has sent the Democratic Party into a tailspin, pushing some party members to debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris would be a better replacement for a “comatose” or “dead” Biden.
This week has seen a series of calls between donors, party members, and consultants on how to push Biden out of the 2024 race as support for the incumbent president dramatically wanes in light of his age and frailty.
In a conference call featuring dozens of Democratic SuperPAC American Bridge donors held early Wednesday, former Clinton aide James Carville urged donors to consider an alternative to Biden, and said that donors who want Biden to exit the race should consider cutting off their funds from lawmakers who don’t agree with them, reported Semafor.
“Seventy-two percent of people want something different. Why not give it to them?” Carville said, according to a recording of the call obtained by Semafor. “They’re just asking for a different choice.”
In another call on Tuesday, panic rose among a bevy of Democratic donors, several of whom emphasized that keeping Biden at the top of the ticket would only encourage more Americans to vote for Donald Trump.
“What can we as donors do to encourage the change in the ticket?” asked one donor.
“If you wake Joe Biden at three o’ clock in the morning and ask him who’s president, does he get it right?” worried another.
But not everyone on the call was in agreement. Dmitri Mehlhorn, an adviser to entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, told donors to stick with Biden, since, despite his health issues, he’s still the more popular choice compared to the next obvious option.
“Kamala Harris is more threatening to those swing voters than a dead Joe Biden or a comatose Joe Biden,” Mehlhorn said. “So if Joe has to go, it’s gonna be Kamala, and if it’s Kamala, it’s gonna be harder.”
If there’s one silver lining to Biden’s devastating performance, per Carville, it’s that the symptom was caught early.
“Maybe we look back on this thing and say, ‘This is the best thing that ever happened to us,’” Carville said, according to Semafor. “If this would have happened to us on October fifth, we’d be more than bruised, screwed, and tattooed. Maybe this will set it into motion something different.”
“And maybe the people on the Zoom call, or maybe we’ll reconvene and I told November tenth and say, ‘God damn man, this thing came together a lot better than we ever thought we would back on July the second,” he added.
