Republicans Think They Can Beat Biden, and Harris, and Whitmer, and Newsom

Republicans view President Joe Biden as old, feeble, and, most importantly, beatable. Members of the GOP badly want him to remain in the race. This much was clear from my conversations with delegates on the grounds of the Republican National Convention this afternoon.

Vice President Kamala Harris, should she replace Biden as the 2024 Democratic nominee, is likewise not seen by this crowd as a formidable threat to Donald Trump. “She’s not articulate. She doesn’t know America. She doesn’t know Americans,” Anthony Kirk, an Arizona delegate and a state senator, told me. “I don’t know if the country could stand four years of that laugh.”

Many believed that Harris may be just as weak an opponent as Biden (a plus), and therefore didn’t want to see a brand-new ticket take shape. However, according to some delegates, if both Biden and Harris were nudged aside, that outcome would be a counterintuitive advantage for the GOP. “It’s not going to bode well for their party leadership, or the entire apparatus, for them to pass over the opportunity for a first female Black president,” Jerry DeWolf, a Maryland delegate, told me.

[Eliot A. Cohen: Step aside, Joe Biden]

When it comes to the other Democrats who could potentially compete in a “mini primary” before the party’s convention next month, opinions diverge. Multiple people even suggested (or trolled) that Hillary Clinton might reemerge to make this year’s election a proper 2016 rematch.

More seriously, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s name kept coming up on a small list of politicians who might fare well in a presidential election. “With J. D. Vance attacking the ‘blue wall’—Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—you have to counter that,” Alan Swain, a North Carolina delegate and a candidate for the state’s Second Congressional District, told me. Other delegates I spoke with mentioned Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, noting that his swing-state pull is essential for the Democrats’ survival. Ryan Campbell, an alternate Washington state delegate who grew up in Southern California, told me that California Governor Gavin Newsom looks and sounds the part of a president, but that his policies have ruined “the most beautiful state” in America. “The man is a dumpster fire, as far as policy goes,” Campbell said.

No Republican I spoke with today would characterize themselves as afraid of any candidate on the Democratic bench. Most simply view the situation as a mess. Trump’s co–campaign manager Chris LaCivita, speaking with Politico’s Jonathan Martin in a live interview this morning, referred to the current Biden situation as “nothing more than an attempted coup by the Democratic Party.” Conservative Political Action Conference chair Matt Schlapp scoffed that Democrats are scheming “in a tofu-filled room.”

Many RNC attendees I spoke with believe that Trump and his newly minted vice-presidential candidate, J. D. Vance, are on track for a landslide, rendering any discussion about an updated Democratic ticket moot.

Nothing seems to hurt Trump’s standing in the polls in any meaningful way. Tonight, he’ll appear onstage, a white bandage on one ear, with members of the crowd wearing their own bandages in solidarity. Trump is a living martyr currently running against someone who has been derided as a dead man walking. The Biden-replacement question will continue, but, for now, Republicans are already thinking ahead to Trump’s inauguration.