In the wake of last Thursday’s debate debacle, President Joe Biden and his defenders are pushing back against calls for him to abandon his reelection bid by claiming that he can still beat Trump.
But that assertion is deeply questionable and ignores a much bigger problem: how dire things could get for downballot politicians if Biden stays in the race.
On Saturday night, two days after the debate, I helped my son cater a Democratic Party fundraiser in Durango, Colorado, for Adam Frisch, the Democratic candidate for Congress in the state’s 3rd District, Lauren Boebert’s current district.
CD-3 is massive. It takes up almost half the state and is bigger than Pennsylvania. It is mostly rural, though its largest city is Pueblo, a traditional manufacturing town. Outside Pueblo, the economy is a mix of farming, ranching, oil and gas, mining, education, and outdoor recreation. The district contains the headwaters of the Colorado River system that provides water for six states.
Republicans enjoy a 5 percent registration advantage over Democrats, but 42 percent of voters are independents. Hispanic Coloradans make up 26 percent of the population; virtually all the rest of the population is white.
CD-3’s rural character and whiteness, as well as the increasing conservatism of Western Hispanics, make it a tough district for Democrats. But it is winnable. Frisch nearly beat Boebert in 2022, losing by only 546 votes. The prospect of a rematch with him scared her so badly that she decamped to the other side of the state to run in a district with a 20 percent Republican registration advantage.
What makes Frisch formidable in this swing district is that, although he has the disadvantage of being a rich former finance guy who lives in Aspen, he is, by disposition, a political moderate. In fact, Biden’s kind of guy. And he has done the work. He has learned the issues that matter here: water, energy, land use. For three years, he has traveled constantly to every town and hamlet. He meets regularly with groups Democrats tend to ignore—the Cattlemen’s Association, mining and energy interests, business groups.
But now that Boebert has fled, Frisch has a much tougher race. Republicans have nominated an unremarkable Grand Junction lawyer who is conservative and Trump-supporting but not insane. In short, a great fit for R+5 CD-3. Frisch can still win, but he needs big turnout from Democrats and from persuadable independents.
Which brings us back to Biden and the Frisch fundraiser.
At the end of the Q&A session, one bold soul raised the question on everyone’s mind: What did Frisch think about the debate and its effect on Biden’s prospects and his own?
Carefully, respectfully, Frisch told the crowd of Democratic loyalists that although he admired the president’s governing accomplishments, he had been concerned about Biden’s age for years. Then, sometimes elliptically, but in the end unmistakably, Frisch confessed to thinking that the debate collapse made Biden’s reelection unlikely. As he put it, governance is important, but in order to govern, you have to be elected.
When pressed further, Frisch grudgingly admitted that Biden’s age and now-undeniable frailty made his own election in Colorado tougher too. And, though he carefully avoided saying so directly, the candidate made it clear that he hoped Democratic Party elders would have serious conversations with the president about withdrawing from the race. (A few days later, Frisch issued a video statement and an op-ed unequivocally calling for Biden to withdraw.)
When Frisch finished speaking, a remarkable and telling thing happened. No one in that crowd of lifelong Democrats raised so much as a murmur of dissent.
I have since been told that, unsurprisingly, there are local Democrats who disagree—some quite strongly—with Frisch’s position on the viability of Biden’s candidacy. Nonetheless, my own assessment is that the vast majority of attendees at the gathering understood two things that Biden’s inner circle must accept.
First, Biden’s collapse at the debate was not merely a slight wobble, an off day that anyone might have and recover from. It was, at the least, powerful evidence that the president is, sadly, too old to serve four more years. The committed Democrats in that Colorado barn on Saturday—not one of them a Biden hater or member of the coastal elite media—saw what the world saw during the debate. None of them tried to deny the obvious. And none of them raised a voice to deny the obvious consequence: If this aged and diminished Biden remains in the race, the risk that he will lose to Donald Trump is very high indeed, and certainly far higher than it was before the debate.
Second, if Biden stays in the race, he is likely to drag swing-district Democrats like Adam Frisch down with him. In a presidential year, turnout is driven by voters’ reactions to the presidential race. Hardcore Democrats and Republicans will come out and vote for their party’s presidential and congressional nominees regardless of individual merit. But many independents and lukewarm Democrats—the people that both Biden and congressional Democrats like Frisch need to win—could be more likely to stay home in disgust or despair.
If they do, they will not be voting in downballot races at all. Not only could Biden lose, but lots of other Democrats across the country could lose too. And if that happens, Trump could enter the presidency without even the check of one or more houses of Congress in Democratic control.
I admire Biden immensely. He has long been an exemplary public servant. He has accomplished great things in his first term. Perhaps, despite last week’s debate, he can somehow pull off an electoral miracle. But I doubt it. Replacing him would be awkward, to be sure. But I think that a Democrat, almost any Democrat, younger, more vigorous, and free of the baggage with which years of disingenuous Republican attacks have saddled Biden, now has a better chance of beating Trump.
Biden needs to do one last agonizing, soul-searing service for the country he loves. Step aside. Let a new generation take up the fight. If he will not do that, then the Trumpian darkness he rightly fears is more likely to fall. And if it does, that catastrophe will properly be laid, at least in part, to his charge.