Two weeks. We’ve had two weeks since Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance. Normally, a debate sustains a news cycle for a few days. But Biden’s performance was so bad, his obvious mental decline so apparent, that the media just can’t let it go.
To be fair, we on the right have not let it go since his basement campaign in 2020. But the media has suddenly had their eyes opened and the veil lifted. They see now what they were too un-curious to see before: Biden is a man in decline.
The problem for the Democrats is that, when it comes to seeking another candidate, time is up. The ideal time was during the primary, when they could have found an acceptable challenger to the president, or encouraged Kamala Harris to run as his successor while persuading him to secure his legacy by being a one-and-done president. That time has long since passed, and now that the primaries are over and Biden has a ton of delegates and millions of Democratic voters under his belt, they can’t pull a fast one and replace him. The party fighting the so-called “threat to democracy” can’t go in and undermine the democratic process now.
The only chance they have is for Biden to step aside himself, doing so voluntarily and with grace. It is an option that is clearly off the table, considering his letter to Congressional Democrats earlier this week. But, as it stands, Biden is the only person who can remove Biden at this point. And even if he were to do so, there are a myriad of problems with that decision. For one thing, if Kamala doesn’t succeed him then his millions in campaign cash can’t be used by whoever the Democratic candidate is. For another, no one has a built-in national organization that is ready to go.
It’s too late to replace Biden. There is no hope for Gavin Newsome or Michelle Obama or Gretchen Whitmer or even Hillary Clinton. There is no hope at all. The news cycle ends with no resolution for Joe Biden. Trump will soon name his running mate, which will take over the news cycle until the Republican National Convention. The RNC will then be the focus of the news cycle. And then you have the pre-Democratic National Convention, where Biden will be nominated ahead of the main convention (due to the rules the DNC had to adopt because of election law in Ohio). There is no time left to change the news cycle in Biden’s favor.
This leads to a look at the polling and the current projections from several election models. As the kids might say, **TRIGGER WARNING** for any Democrats who might read this. You will not be happy.
Just about every major model shows Trump winning. Not only that, but some models include some states being toss-ups and still show Trump winning. At that point, he’s just running up the score.
Here’s CNN’s model, which is based on their own polling and reporting, and includes toss-up states:
And RealClearPolitics, based on polling and without toss-up states:
And FiveThirtyEight, which ran a thousand simulations:
And Cook Political Report, which includes toss-up states and doesn’t show Trump winning, but shows him a lot closer than Joe Biden:
So, again, the Cook Political Report is Joe Biden’s best-case scenario, and he’s behind Trump with 44 outstanding electoral votes from toss-up states. Not only is it too late to replace him, it might be too late to beat Trump. It is no wonder at all that the Democrats are in a panic right now as they realize they will lose once again to Trump.
Of course, this is all a snapshot of the current moment, and it’s all simply a projection of November based on the current situation. Things could absolutely change between now and election day, which is less than four months away. But still… these numbers are brutal for Biden, and the worst part is he is probably not aware of it. That tight inner circle protecting him from all the bad things in the world is very likely protecting him from this. They have him convinced the polling is wrong, that he’s actually winning, and that everyone is picking on him and underestimating him.
They have him living inside a fairy tale while the world crumbles around him.
