With President Biden under pressure to drop his bid for a second term, his party has been thrust into uncharted territory, grappling with a long list of risks and rewards as it faces the prospect of replacing Mr Biden less than two months before the party convention.
No likely candidate has withdrawn so late in the process. But no party has faced the challenge that Democrats face today: a candidate dogged by doubts about his mental acuity; his ability to defeat his rival, former President Donald J. Trump; and his fitness to serve four more years as president.
All of this has left Democrats grappling with critical questions: Is it easier to defeat Mr. Trump with or without Mr. Biden at the top of the ticket? Is it riskier to pick a new candidate or stick with a president who seems destined for defeat?
On Wednesday, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that Trump’s lead over Biden among likely voters had grown to six percentage points after the president’s halting performance in last week’s debate.
The White House said the president was not giving up, and he met with Democratic governors on Wednesday. But he confided to an ally that he realized the next few days were crucial to saving his candidacy. To that end, Mr. Biden began preparing for his first in-person interview since the debate, with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, on Friday morning.
Several Democrats said that regardless of the risks, a new nominee could bring a range of benefits to the party, particularly if Mr. Biden names a successor in an effort to ensure a smooth transition and minimize party infighting.
A new-generation candidate could bring a jolt of energy to the ticket. That would give so-called double-haters, voters unhappy with the rematch between an 81-year-old president and a 78-year-old former president, a possible new place to turn in November. A new candidate would almost certainly benefit from a surge in campaign contributions, at least initially.
“If you’re driving your car straight off a cliff, there are definitely risks in swerving to the right or left,” said Howard Wolfson, a Democratic consultant, who said he doubted Biden could recover from the debate and defeat Trump.
But other Democrats, including some who advise Mr. Biden, said that changing horses now could lead to a divisive and destructive fight in the party. It could saddle the party with an untested candidate and a logistical nightmare that would only increase the prospects of a Mr. Trump victory this fall.
“There are a lot of things that need to happen that would require an act of God to make it happen,” said Stephanie Cutter, a Democratic consultant who also advises Biden’s campaign but did not speak on his behalf.
The Crash-Course Campaign
A late-stage Biden replacement would be less well-known and less experienced on the national stage than either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump — obstacles that a newly selected candidate would have to overcome quickly.
Without a traditional primary, candidates would be deprived of practical lessons in how to be a presidential candidate: training on questions from voters, learning the ins and outs of unfamiliar regional issues and making alliances with key players in each state. And they would not be subject to a thorough vetting and examination — by voters, their opponents and the media — of their records and political strengths and weaknesses.
Political leaders have realized the risks of relying on unknown candidates for last-minute vice presidential picks: Sarah Palin of Alaska, who was John McCain’s running mate in 2008, and Dan Quayle of Indiana, who was George H.W. Bush’s running mate in 1988, both struggled and stumbled in their election seasons.
“Choosing someone new is not without substantial risk — that’s why so many Democrats are so reluctant to consider replacing Joe Biden on the ticket,” said Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist who worked on former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign.
Republicans wouldn’t make it easy. Under normal circumstances, a campaign has months to do opposition research on its own candidate to ensure it is prepared for any attack.
But the Trump campaign has already had enough time to gather opposition research files with potentially damaging information about Biden’s potential successors that could be used to define them before they have a chance to do so themselves.
(“Is invasion czar Kamala Harris the best they have?” the Trump campaign asked in an email sent Wednesday morning, a series of attacks including on her role in Mr. Biden’s immigration policy.)
That said, the sheer excitement of a new face — in a year when so many voters have been complaining about a repeat of 2020 — could provide a real boost to the fall campaign. And while a new candidate could be subject to damaging opposition research findings from Mr. Trump, there is less time for that information to be released and digested.
A tense process
There is no real playbook for how to replace a candidate who drops out weeks before the convention. For some Democrats, the potential disarray and division are reason enough for Mr. Biden to stay in the race.
One way to minimize disruption could be for Mr. Biden to support Vice President Kamala Harris on her way out, some Democrats argue.
“The advantage Kamala Harris has in this scenario is that she’s already been vetted — thoroughly,” said Elaine Kamarck, a Democratic National Committee member and fellow at the Brookings Institution. “We probably know everything there is to know about her. Which you can’t say about the others. And she’s been in the White House for four years. She has a lot of name recognition.”
If Mr. Biden fails to name his preferred successor, should he drop out of the race, the process would become a fight for delegate loyalty, one that would likely expose ideological and generational struggles that have been simmering for years. Fights over the war in Gaza, immigration or policing, already expected to play out at the convention, could now become much more important, helping to determine the new nominee.
One thing Democrats should never take for granted is that “Democrats can agree on something,” Ms. Cutter said.
But that is far from a unanimous view. Ms. Kamarck said the animosity Democrats feel toward Mr. Trump would unite them.
“The antipathy towards Donald Trump’s second term four years ago has not changed,” she said.
And some Democrats said there were ways to minimize lasting damage. Jeff Weaver, a strategist for both of Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaigns, said the party should settle on a quick selection process, including party-sanctioned debates.
“If that were to happen, it would take up all the political oxygen in the room until the Democratic convention,” he said. “And by the time the convention comes around, people would have a pretty good sense of who these candidates are.”
A new nominee could face other complicating factors. An Ohio election law requires parties to have their candidates in place by Aug. 7, nearly two weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The party had been planning to formalize Mr. Biden’s nomination before then, through a virtual online roll call vote. Unless the law changes, which could still happen, the party will struggle to decide on its new ticket by the August deadline — or forfeit its spot on the ballot in Ohio.
In other states, Republicans are already considering using lawsuits to block Democrats from changing the nominee’s name on the ballot.
Richard Winger, an election rules expert and editor of Ballot Access News, said he does not believe such litigation could legitimately interfere with ballots in states.
A Race for Money
A new Democratic candidate would likely inherit Biden’s campaign infrastructure, party infrastructure and organizations already built in swing states, party strategists said.
But that will only get that person so far without ample cash flow. A new candidate would need to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to mount a serious campaign and introduce themselves to America in an abbreviated campaign.
“They have $1 billion to do this, and they have time to spend $1 billion to tell this story?” said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who argues that changing candidates would be a bad idea for the party.
The answer depends in part on whether that candidate is Ms. Harris.
Saurav Ghosh, director of campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, said that as vice president, Ms. Harris could take over Mr. Biden’s campaign accounts if she became the nominee, which others would not do.
If the new nominee is not Ms. Harris, Mr. Biden’s money could go to the Democratic National Committee, which will be allowed to spend just $32 million coordinating with the campaign.
Several senior Democratic strategists said they were not worried about that challenge. The new candidate’s coffers would likely be flooded with online donations from grassroots supporters. Better yet, donors who gave the maximum amount to Mr. Biden — and thus could not give more to Ms. Harris — would have a clean slate to give maximum donations again to a different nominee, a potentially huge windfall.
Moreover, the Democrats’ array of well-funded super PACs — which can raise and spend unlimited amounts but cannot legally coordinate with campaigns as they do — would almost certainly quickly shift to supporting a new nominee.
Still, Mr. Biden’s supporters who oppose the idea of a change said it would not be as easy to start a new campaign as those who advocate it might think.
“You can’t just snap your fingers and assume this is going to happen,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, who has insisted Biden would be the nominee in the fall.
Michael S. Schmidt contributed reports.
