The Democrats Praying for an Open Convention Peter Savodnik on whether Joe Biden will really be the nominee.
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In the fever dreams of some hard-core Democrats, Joe Biden will, some time in the next six months, announce he is not running for reelection. At that point, Michelle Obama will ride across the horizon, her horse rearing as she holds her sword high, a warrior queen ready to vanquish Donald Trump and save the republic.
Like I said, fever dreams. Last week the former First Lady, for the umpteenth time, ruled out running for president.
But less crazy versions of this fantasy have seized the minds of many Democratic insiders. Even after Biden’s reasonably competent State of the Union speech on Thursday, politicians, strategists, and donors are worried about the president’s declining faculties.
They are searching for a parachute—desperate to get off what looks like it might be the doomed final flight of Air Biden. But is there a way off the plane? Or is it too late?
In The Free Press today, Peter Savodnik speaks to Democrats in the know and asks them the important question: But will it actually happen?
Here’s Peter:
This is the fantasy:
It’s late July. The Republicans have just wrapped up their convention in Milwaukee. Donald Trump leads Joe Biden in every poll, in every battleground state, and Republicans are poised to hold on to the House and maybe take over the Senate.
In an address from the Oval Office, Biden announces that he will not seek reelection in November, that it is time for a new generation of Democrats to take the helm—throwing his party’s nomination battle to the four-day Democratic convention in Chicago, starting August 19.
I contacted 10 Democrats who have advised presidential candidates, written speeches, raised money—people who ostensibly know something about the political game—and none of them wanted to speak on the record, because they want to keep working in Democratic politics and going to Democratic dinner parties. But they pretty much agreed on two things:
This is the fantasy:
It’s late July. The Republicans have just wrapped up their convention in Milwaukee. Donald Trump leads Joe Biden in every poll, in every battleground state, and Republicans are poised to hold on to the House and maybe take over the Senate.
In an address from the Oval Office, Biden announces that he will not seek reelection in November, that it is time for a new generation of Democrats to take the helm—throwing his party’s nomination battle to the four-day Democratic convention in Chicago, starting August 19.
I contacted 10 Democrats who have advised presidential candidates, written speeches, raised money—people who ostensibly know something about the political game—and none of them wanted to speak on the record, because they want to keep working in Democratic politics and going to Democratic dinner parties. But they pretty much agreed on two things:
Biden is doomed. (In the wake of Super Tuesday, the 77-year-old Donald Trump led the 81-year-old Biden in an average of RealClearPolitics polls and was up more than four points in battleground states.)
There is one way we can avoid catastrophe—for the Democratic Party and the country: an open Democratic National Convention this summer, giving rise to a younger, more viable, more vital nominee. “Fingers crossed. Hoping for a Deus Ex Machina!” a Democratic adviser and fundraiser in Los Angeles texted me. One Democratic bundler said: “I frankly hope that both Trump and Biden have some sort of medical incident that won’t kill them but will make them reevaluate the race.”
One Democratic activist, who has advised presidential candidates, told me Biden should follow the model of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who stepped aside for new leadership after Democrats lost the House in 2022. “She created a situation where the top three leaders—her and James Clyburn and Steny Hoyer—the three of them, all in their eighties, stepped aside for three younger people: Hakeem Jeffries, Pete Aguilar, Katherine Clark,” he told me. “It was a generational shift that Nancy initiated brilliantly.”
In this presidential fantasy scenario, Biden would arrive at the United Center in Chicago for the open Democratic convention in August, having declared his decision to withdraw from the race—and the delegates go berserk. There are nearly 24,000 seats in the arena, and they’re packed, and everyone is cheering Joe! Joe! Joe! Joe! They. Love. Him.
He gives a short speech on night one of the convention: “My fellow Democrats, 56 years ago, we convened in this city under very different circumstances. We were fractured, and for that we were cast into the wilderness. I am here to tell you what you already know—that there is a growing roster of talented young Democrats eager to run on our record, eager to tackle the most pressing issues facing us: the border, the decline of rural America, the decline of blue-collar jobs, the explosion in fentanyl, the rise of violent crime, the lack of affordable housing.
We want to solve these problems, and that starts with nominating our next president.”
Over the course of the next three days, the convention, far from being the corporatized coronation we’ve come to expect, is more like an audition, with the Big Five governors—Illinois’s J.B. Pritzker, Colorado’s Jared Polis, California’s Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer—dominating the headlines.
One Democratic speechwriter who knows Whitmer well told me: “Gretchen Whitmer’s team is absolutely getting ready in case Biden steps down before the convention.”
“Gretchen’s the whole package—woman, Upper Midwest, attractive-ish,” another Democratic speechwriter told me.
Few, if any, Democratic influencers believe Newsom—who debated Republican former presidential contender Ron DeSantis in November in what was widely viewed as a test run for 2028, or maybe 2024—can win.
“I don’t see Gavin Newsom or J.B. Pritzker resonating in the heartland of America—do you?” a Democratic adviser close to Barack Obama told me.
A Democratic strategist in Washington, D.C., voiced enthusiasm for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at the top of the ticket and Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger for veep. “He’s a movie star at the Arnold Schwarzenegger level,” the strategist said, “and a person of color, and he’s part of the immigrant story, and also sort of a Republican, but not a dick. She’s tall, strong, charismatic, feminine, but not movie-star looks, which is important—you can’t be too hot.”
One Democratic adviser heaped praise on Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. But Republican strategist David Kochel was skeptical. “He’s Jewish, and young Dems are so anti-Israel,” Kochel texted me. (A Democratic screenwriter agreed with Kochel. When I asked whether a Jew could win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024, he replied flatly: “No.”)
Also vying for the nomination would likely be Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, maybe North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, maybe House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, probably Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, and definitely Vice President Kamala Harris, about whom most Democrats say the same thing off the record.
“She’s probably tired of being fucking hated,” the speechwriter I interviewed told me, referring to Harris.
The Democratic adviser in Los Angeles said Harris is a liability for Team Biden: “I actually like the woman. She lives a block and a half from me, and if there were anyone else on the ticket, things would be less of a concern, but the odds that he dumps her are slim to none.”
Democratic bundlers have also mentioned a few other names, including Anthony Blinken, Mark Cuban, and AOC (who turns 35, the minimum required age to run for president, three weeks before Election Day).
The convention would be a free-for-all—the first open convention since 1956, when Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson asked delegates to select his running mate.
To be clear, on the record, no elected Democrat or Democratic pundit or pollster or campaign adviser would ever entertain the possibility of this happening.
Off the record, tons (all?) of them would love to see it happen. A large chunk is convinced Biden will not be the nominee—his pretty good performance Thursday at the State of the Union notwithstanding. “He’s just too old, and it’s like no one’s even talking about ‘How is he going to make it to 2029?’ ” one Democratic campaign adviser told me.
I asked Dean Phillips, the Minnesota congressman who challenged Biden for the Democratic nomination and got approximately nowhere, what he thinks will happen if an open convention doesn’t happen—if we continue down the path we are on in November.
“We will likely see a meaningful alternative party form for the exhausted majority, for the center-right, center-left Americans who no longer believe the operating bases of the Democratic and Republican parties serve them,” Phillips said, looking beyond the current election cycle. “That’s the likely path. I think there’s going to be that energy. We’re reaching rock bottom now.”
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