In poll after poll this year, many and sometimes even most Democratic voters have said they don’t want President Joe Biden to be the party’s nominee again in 2024, mainly because of his age. And yet Biden, who isn’t facing a credible primary challenger, seems to have that renomination locked up.
Jonathan Chait of New York magazine is wondering why that is. “The demand for a different option is robust,” Chait writes. “What is mystifyingly absent is the supply.” In his telling, many politically skilled Democrats, such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, could run and have a reasonable shot at defeating Biden and winning the presidency — but they aren’t.
On the website formerly known as Twitter, many Democrats pilloried Chait for his article, but the specific reasons for the pillorying differed in an interesting way. Some argued that Biden is a strong candidate, basically saying that reports of his political weakness are greatly exaggerated.
But others simply claimed the process of challenging Biden in a primary would inevitably prove so divisive and damaging that it would help Trump win in 2024. This logic implies that, even if Democrats fear Biden has serious weaknesses, it’s better to stick with him.
I think the second argument, while being convenient for Biden’s interests, is likely correct. But rather than take it for granted, it’s worth examining its underlying assumptions in more detail. Why isn’t any credible candidate giving a primary challenge a shot? And what would happen if someone did?
Challenging the incumbent president is a messy process
Primaries are democracy in action: the people (or at least the rather limited, unrepresentative subset of the people willing to turn out for a partisan primary) vote to choose a nominee. Primaries are also often, in practice, messy, expensive, and divisive.
All incumbents naturally would rather avoid serious primary challenges, for their own interests —…
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