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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri and I'm the senior political correspondent at Puck. And this is Somebody's Gotta Win. Everywhere I go, people ask me, why won't a credible Democrat challenge Joe Biden? After all, he's underwater in the polls. Two thirds of Americans say he's too old. He's tied nationally with Donald Trump in the polls.
And voters are saying to the party they want more options. It's opening the door for perhaps third-party candidates who might actually take some of his voter share. If someone was going to rise up and take on Joe Biden, it probably should have happened already. But November 1 would be the latest. And there's a real bench of Democrats who could do this. Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Raphael Warnick of Atlanta, and even J.B. Pritzker of Illinois. But it would be pretty risky.
Nobody wants to do it because they don't want to blow their chances in 2028, but they might be misguided. You know, there's no saying that 2028 is going to be an easy race to the nomination. There might be as many as 10, 15 players on the bench, and it could be messy.
2024 could actually be better. You get the chance to rise up and take on a weak candidate. But there are even more reasons why they're not willing to do it. And it's one of the biggest background conversations in Washington, D.C. To talk about all of this, I brought in NBC's political reporter, John Allen. John, why doesn't anyone have the balls to jump in the ring and challenge Joe Biden? At this point, Tara, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the willingness of anyone to get into the race
and the seriousness with which they could run a race against Biden. That is to say, those who might be able to challenge him most effectively are also the ones who are most reluctant to do so for a variety of reasons. I think the first one is the logistical reason, which is that it's very difficult to get on the ballot at this point in all the states that you need to get on the ballot to really make a good primary challenge. But beyond that,
So there's tremendous fear within the Democratic Party of being the person who gets blamed for electing Donald Trump a second time. So if you are, you know, Gavin Newsom or J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois or any of the other Democrats that get mentioned with some frequency.
You look at the possibility that you run a divisive campaign, kind of like Teddy Kennedy's run against Jimmy Carter in 1980, and conclude that there is a reasonably good chance that even if you win, whether you win the nomination or lose the nomination, that you may be seen as a
seen as having divided the party in a way that makes it easier for Trump to walk back in the White House. That's not a legacy that many Democrats would be eager to have. It's not just about this election, though, for these politicians. I mean, they are always thinking about their own opportunities down the line. And I think they're probably also positioning themselves for 2028, right? And if you jump in now, then...
You're pretty much dead to the party by 2028. That's what I've been told from people close to those various candidates. Like, if we got in there and challenged a very weak president, maybe you could win. But what might happen is that the entire party apparatus comes after you. You've got, like, Hillary Clinton, the Obamas, every, you know...
state party chair, governor, putting out statements against you and you become a pariah in the party and maybe you poll. Like, I mean, RFK Jr. is getting like 15 points nationally, at least at one point. And to me, that was just a sign that, you know, voters are saying we want options. We want someone else. He's not even, you know, some would say he's not even really a Democrat. But,
it certainly shows you that there's a hunger among the electorate for someone else, right? But these candidates, they're afraid of what the party's going to do to them, right? I mean, the party right now, because the DNC and...
and the White House are so close to each other. I mean, the DNC are basically... They're basically running the Biden re-election campaign. Like, all the party poobahs are in for Biden, right? There's no way they're going to say, hey, it's time to step down. Yeah, not only are they in for Biden, I mean, you know, obviously the DNC changes rules, so they put South Carolina first. That's a huge advantage to Biden. I think most folks will remember that South Carolina is where he turned his campaign around in 2020. He was...
you know, basically losing all the primary contests until then and turned it around on the strength of huge support within the African-American community in South Carolina. So the DNC has put South Carolina first, obviously, at the behest of the White House. That's another one of those sort of logistical challenges. But when you talk about 2028, yes, absolutely. Like these folks are thinking about what comes next and they're looking at an open seat in
in 2028, which is a lot more inviting than trying to defeat two presidents, to defeat Joe Biden in a primary and Donald Trump in a general election. That feat is really a monumental task that these folks should be looking at. We're watching Ron DeSantis try to do that on the Republican side right now and falling flat on his face. So if you're a Democratic
candidate who's thinking about your future and you feel like it might be more than just the next three or four years that you'll still be young enough to run, still be in good enough shape to perhaps be able to build yourself over the next few years. 2028 is much, much more inviting. Now, of course, you're looking also at
you know, if Biden wins reelection, you're looking at his vice president, Kamala Harris, perhaps having a little bit of an inside track. But, you know, her popularity ratings aren't very high. Yeah, I don't think that. You would expect a fully open and competitive field on the Democratic side in 2028. And no matter who wins the presidency, if it's Biden versus Trump, the White House itself will be, you know, an open seat, basically a general election without an incumbent. Yeah, I don't know. I might challenge that. I mean,
When you go into 2028, you're right. It's an open seat, but it could also be a primary with like 20 people. The bench will be really big. Whereas 2024, you're only up against one guy who's very weak, who's, you know, his poll numbers are below water. Two thirds of the country thinks he's too old to run. You could come out of this victorious too. Whereas in 2028, you're up against, you know,
10, 15 people, some hot new young governors who have track records that maybe the American public doesn't know quite yet. You're in for a long, brutal primary. I don't know. I don't, I'm not totally sure that 2028 is promised to any of them. Oh, I totally agree with you. I don't think it's promised to any of them, but I do think that when they're making that calculation,
and they look at the two possible races, 2028 is more inviting than 2024. I'm not sure that I even agree that it would be easier to win in 2028 than 2024 for any of these individual candidates. To your point, Joe Biden is not somebody who is beloved by all of the Democratic voters. There's a significant share of the Democratic Party that thinks that he's too old or thinks that he shouldn't be the nominee for another reason. So yeah, the opportunity is there, but the risk is huge.
The other thing too is like power is not given, it's taken. And if you come in there and you kill the king and you're the winner,
I mean, that's something. You know what I mean? And obviously, people are screaming at Washington that they want an option. And I think it makes people angry when they feel like they're not getting an option. And I'm not talking about Republicans. I'm talking about Democrats who feel like we don't want this person to be our candidate. And they're furious that they're not getting a primary. And what are Democrats so scared of about having a primary? Well, first of all, Joe Biden and
the White House and the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee and mostly the state party committees don't want a challenge for Joe Biden, right? They're squarely in his corner. The establishment of the Democratic Party is squarely in his corner. And so they're not looking for somebody else to run. I think that a lot of the voters would like to have more options, but they're not given those unless one or more of these folks steps up and says,
You know, I'm willing to throw caution to the wind. I do think that he's beatable. I do think that beating him in a primary would make me a strong general election candidate as a, you know, a Kingslayer or whatever, however you phrase it. You know, all of those are possibilities. But again, it's sort of a mountain to climb. And, you know, most politicians have some level of willingness to accept risk.
But most of them have a limit, a pretty strong cap on what their willingness to accept risk is. Right. So, you know, running for office in the first place is taking a risk. But typically what we see from politicians is they try to plot out the strategies that they think are important.
you know, most likely to be the easiest path to the next job. And, you know, the conventional wisdom, whether it's right or not, is that getting into this race is going to be likely be a losing effort and certainly going to be a divisive one within the Democratic Party and could, again, end up in the election of Donald Trump. And I can
None of these people want to be the person that's remembered as straightforward electing on the Democratic side. I sense regret, though, among the Democratic Party...
apparatus and establishment that like Biden didn't decide on his own not to run again for reelection. I mean, the DNC and the White House are so in lockstep that like the people who would be in the, you know, the smoky back rooms making these decisions, they're all together and they're pretty much behind the president. So it's like none of them are going to say to him like,
listen, all the polling and the data says that you're too old. People want an option. We need to have a primary. Do you think that Democrats are just afraid of a primary? Like, was that part of it? Or they really just gave Joe Biden the option of whether he wanted to run again? Because I sense that these Democrats are traumatized from prior primaries and that they're also...
kind of wishing that Biden decided on his own not to run. Well, I mean, he chose, right? Nobody could choose for him whether he was going to run again. So he chose to do that. He waited as long as possible, I think, before announcing the campaign, which was an effort to sort of freeze the field to make it more difficult for other people to jump in, right? As they wait to see what happens. So the DNC, it's not surprising, is aligned with the White House. The
When a party has the White House, its national committee with the DNC or the RNC is an arm, essentially the White House, the political arm of the White House. The president chooses the DNC chair. So, you know, none of that should be terribly surprising. Yes, I think there is frustration among voters that there's not more of a choice. But I also think that there are any number of Democrats who think that a divisive primary would be detrimental to the party.
Sometimes a divisive primary is not. In 2008, I think you could argue that the divisive Democratic Party put a lot of interest in the Democratic side and put Democrats in a better position to win for 2008 when Obama got nominated and then Clinton came in behind him. But I'm not sure that the 2016 primary that was divisive between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was held.
helpful. There's sort of at least a mixed record on that. Right, because people felt like the party locked it up for Hillary Clinton. And in 2008, this young African-American man, Barack Obama, who nobody thought would win, emerged from the primary victorious. And isn't a primary a great opportunity to find new talent and to show who can rise above the rest?
That's the other thing. Yeah, I mean, look, we live in a democratic republic. I mean, competition is... Political competition is like in our DNA. It's in the DNA of our political system. And yet, if you are strong enough as an incumbent president, but most of them are strong enough to ward off serious competition, then you will do that because...
Like you said, you have to take power. Not only do you have to take power, nobody gives it up easily. Yeah, that's true. Nobody does give it up. I'm starting to sense that there's actual anger at the party among Democrats outside of D.C. and some in D.C. that they feel like they're being fed dog food and they're just like, we don't want to eat the dog food. We want something else. And there's a feeling that I think it's going to result in low voter turnout as well.
If people aren't excited about Joe Biden, how are you going to get them to go out and vote? Right? I think it's going to be hard to determine what constitutes low voter turnout because
In the last election, there was such an increase in voter turnout. We saw, I think, the increase in Democratic participation in 2020 from 2016 was about 21%. A huge jump in the number of people who voted. On the Republican side, it was less than that, but it was still a huge increase. So I'm not sure what exactly what numbers would constitute
uh, lower voter turnout. I guess I would be shocked if there were fewer voters that showed up this time around, but we're also, you know, a long way out. So, uh, both campaigns are going to try their best to, uh, you know, make people angry on their own side and get them to show up. Uh, that worked pretty well. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been a lot of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.
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In the White House, they're telling concerned allies, don't worry, abortion and Trump will get our voters to turn out. Don't worry. But I think they notice that there's softness around African-Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, younger voters, that they're just not feeling the Biden buzz. I mean, if you're a Democrat right now and you're not worried about the 2020 election, you're not worried about Joe Biden standing, you're not paying attention
That's not to say that Donald Trump is about to cruise back into the White House, but just look at the polling. Most national polls in a head-to-head, Trump and Biden are even. Usually what we've seen in recent elections is even when the Democrat wins, they're up at least a few points in the national polls. So right now it looks like Trump is in a better position than he was, say, on Election Day in 2020.
And, you know, if you look at the other polling, and this, I think, speaks to your point of the dissatisfaction with the parties, if you include third party candidates, if you include in the testing Libertarian Party, Green Party, no labels, you know, Cornel West, who's running for president, if you include all of them, you know, in the last NBC poll, which is about, you know, a week old or so, what we saw was Trump up 39% to 36% over Biden.
Democrats should be worried about their standing. The question is, I think there are multiple questions. Number one,
Is there anything that they could do to change course? So to your point, would anybody jump in at this late date, try to get into a primary fight with Biden? I think the answer is unlikely, very unlikely. And then the other thing is, if Biden is the Democratic nominee, what can he do to change his trajectory? And you're right, he is not energizing or inspiring all of the Democrats across the country to be excited about him
And, you know, what we've seen just recently, he spoke in Arizona. He's, again, making the argument that democracy is on the ballot. He's trying to and making an argument about what he calls the extreme MAGA Republicans. He's trying to agitate the base, if not for him.
against Donald Trump and against the elements of the Republican Party that Democrats find particularly objectionable. Right. I sense that people are just starting to feel like, oh God, this is the Democratic Party picking the candidates again. They're just trying to hold on to power. The Biden world just wants to hold on to power. They're not doing what's best for the country. And I think that sentiment is going to keep growing. But there is some weird fantasy wish-casting going around D.C. that I've heard. I just want to break it down for you. I heard it for the first time actually yesterday, this idea that
at the convention in Chicago, at the DNC convention, Biden would announce that he's not running again and let it be a delegate floor fight for who the next nominee is. I mean, what are the chances that would ever happen? Well, I mean, I think to your point about the idea of the party picking, I mean, you know, when that would be the ultimate case of the party picking. Yeah.
Right. I mean, literally the insiders picking somebody in a smoke filled room as opposed to, you know, a Democratic Party election, you know, a primary election or any other election where the members of the party, not not the not the insiders, but the people who are registered to vote as as Democrats are the ones who choose somebody. I mean, you know, to the extent that the American public is is disgusted with both parties, to the extent that the American public believes
but the parties don't serve the public interest to the extent that they believe that all of these decisions are made by insiders and everything is rigged. That would only fulfill and fuel those views. So I cannot see that scenario. You know, I guess it's possible. I just think it's very hard to see that happening. Also, I think it's important to remember, and people forget this so much,
Joe Biden either ran for president or thought about running for president basically every election from the time he turned 35 until the time he won the presidency. This is not somebody... Yeah, from the time he was eligible. Right. So, like, I mean, literally, like, the 1980 election, the 84 election, he was looking at it. 1988, he ran. 92, you know, like, he looked at it. 96, he ran.
Bill Clinton was an incumbent, so he didn't run. He was vice president for Obama, so he didn't run then, but he ran in 2008. He thought about running in 2016 and decided not to at the last minute. He kept running for president every time for basically a period of 40 years. This is not somebody who doesn't want to be president, or let me put it the other way. This is somebody who spent his entire life trying to be president of the United States. I cannot see a scenario which he's like, I'm just going to give this up.
Yeah. But at some point...
You got to think about the party over your own ambitions. Sorry. At some point you need to think about the country over your own ambitions. I'm not sure that that's consistent with the history of American presidential candidates. That's true. That they put the country over their own interests. Anointed by God. They're like popes, honestly, the way they think about it. I mean, the biggest, like the biggest, the biggest common denominator among all the people who run for president is that they have egos that would put Napoleon to shame. Right. So like,
That's a good way of putting it. Look, they're able to justify it, right? Their own minds that they believe that they're the best person to run the country. And so therefore what they're doing by promoting themselves by seeking the presidency, by holding the presidency is doing the best thing for the country. They believe that those, and they believe that those things are not at odds with each other, but, but in sync with each other and alignment with each other, that what they do that is good for them is in fact good for the country. And,
And if you can, you know, if you can believe that, uh, and, and believe that it's always true, you know, maybe you should run for president. Not you personally, Tara. I mean, don't get me wrong. I would love to see your campaign. I think it'd be incredible fun on a debate stage. In fact, maybe you should do like a fake debate on the, on the podcast sometime. Uh, but like,
I think it'd be fun to watch, but I'm not saying you should run for president. You could be my campaign manager, right? Or you could be my running mate. Fuck it. I do not see nor would I accept any party's nomination for president or vice president of the United States. What would our party be called? Because we wouldn't run as Democrats or Republicans. Our party would be called the party because we'd have the best freaking party. The party, the freaking party. Yeah, no, you're right. I'll think about this one. I just got to figure out who our donors are.
We're just... Money's overrated in politics these days. Is it? I think it is. It's not... Just run a media campaign. We could just run it all from a podcast studio. I think that's the future, for better or worse. Got it. Well, until then, I'll be thinking really hard about my campaign platform. Thanks so much, John, for coming on the pod. This has been another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'll be back on Thursday with another pod. If you're interested,
If you actually want to put a face to the voice, though, I played myself on Billions. The episode dropped on Sunday, October 1st. It's episode eight of the final season where Damian Lewis makes a comeback. And I make a cameo as myself, Tara Palmieri, Puck News reporter, spying on a certain politician who wants to run for president.
If you want more of my written work, though, sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest at puck.news slash Tara Palmieri. The discount code is Tara20 for 20% off. Please rate and share this podcast if you like it and see you on Thursday.
