After last week’s debate disaster, some Democrats are trying to circle the wagons to protect President Biden, noting that Barack Obama lost his first debate as an incumbent president, too.
But this one doesn’t pass the smell test. Mr. Obama wasn’t 81 years old at the time of his debate debacle. And he came into the debate as a strong favorite in the election, whereas Mr. Biden was behind (with just a 35 percent chance of winning).
A 35 percent chance is not nothing. But Mr. Biden needed to shake up the race, not just preserve the status quo. Instead, he’s dug himself a deeper hole.
Looking at polls beyond the straight horse-race numbers between Mr. Biden and Donald Trump — ones that include Democratic Senate candidate races in close swing-state races — suggests something even more troubling about Mr. Biden’s chances, but also offers a glimpse of hope for Democrats.
You don’t need another pundit telling you that Mr. Biden should quit the race, although I’m among those who emphatically think he should. But Democrats should be more open to what polls are telling them — and again, not just Biden-Trump polls. There is a silver lining for Democrats to be found in these surveys. Voters in these polls like Democratic candidates for Congress just fine. More than fine, actually: It’s Mr. Biden who is the problem.
The data is remarkably consistent. There are five presidential swing states that also have highly competitive Senate races this year: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. (Sorry, Florida and Ohio don’t count as swing states anymore — and Texas isn’t one quite yet.) In those states, there have been 47 nonpartisan surveys conducted since Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump emerged as their parties’ clear nominees in March.
In 46 of the 47 polls, the Democratic Senate candidate polled better than Mr. Biden. He and the Senate candidate performed equally well in one poll. Which means that Mr. Biden didn’t outpoll the Senate candidate in any of the surveys. (I’m using the versions of the polls among likely voters, and the version with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. included if the pollster made one available.)
None of the 47 polls — not a single one of them — showed the Democratic candidate trailing in the Senate race, though two showed a tie. In contrast, Mr. Biden led in only seven of the surveys, was tied with Mr. Trump in two and trailed in the other 38.
The contrast is remarkably consistent across blue-chip surveys, the dubious ones that voters probably should have some concerns about and everything in between. And the difference isn’t only at the margin. Mr. Biden is underperforming the presumed Democratic Senate nominee by a net of five points in Michigan, seven points in Wisconsin, eight points in Pennsylvania, 11 points in Arizona and an unlucky 13 points in Nevada.
Unfortunately, Democrats, once inclined to ignore the pundits and trust the data, have now soured on public opinion surveys. Contrary to what many of them — including people in the White House — will say, polls were quite accurate in 2022. Poll skepticism is a shame, because in a democracy, polls are a vital way of letting the public have their say in between the once every two to four years that they get to vote.
And for at least a year now polls have been overwhelmingly consistent in showing that voters think Mr. Biden is too old to serve another term.
But surveys like the ones above are vital for two reasons. First, they make it much less likely that there’s some sort of systematic skew in the surveys. The pollsters are finding plenty of Democratic voters, just not enough Biden voters. And second, these Senate candidates are well known to voters in their states and running in actual races, not hypothetical matchups, like those featuring other prospective Democratic presidential candidates that pollsters occasionally test. Relatively unknown candidates typically underachieve in surveys.
If you made me a Democratic superdelegate, I’d probably vote for a candidate who has proved her or his mettle in a swing state, like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia (though Mr. Warnock running for president would cost Democrats a Senate seat). Or I’d take my chances on a member of the new generation of leaders, like Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland.
What if you’re convinced that the overall political climate — even without Mr. Biden — is actually pretty good for Democrats? In recent years, the party has won more than its fair share of special elections. That might call for someone like Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who would at least project quiet Midwestern competence compared with Mr. Trump. And if the party really wanted to show itself to be the adults in the room, it could nominate Vice President Kamala Harris, whose approval ratings are now notably less bad than her boss’s.
But pundits don’t get to choose. Delegates do — and they should be listening to voters.
To overcome the obvious problem — the Democratic primary is over — here’s an idea. It’s not ideal, but I want a Democrat who can give the party a fighting chance. Even if the replacement candidate’s chances are below 50 percent, what matters is that he or she probably can poll better than Mr. Biden.
The party could hold an open audition for the nomination process. Candidates who raised their hands would hold two or three debates against one another. They could give speeches and hold rallies. And Democrats could vote in straw polls sponsored by donors in a combination of virtual locations and physical ones that reflected the demographic breadth of the Democratic Party — say, in Atlanta, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and one or two more rural locations. Voters would also express their opinions in regular opinion polls.
Delegates could take this information into account at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and make a more informed decision. This plan would require Mr. Biden to declare his intention to exit the race sooner rather than later.
It’s not a great plan. But there is no great plan left. At this point, any Democrat would likely be an underdog to Mr. Trump. Not because Mr. Trump is popular, which he very much isn’t, but because it’s hard to imagine a replacement being fully prepared for the race. This candidate would still have to answer for some problems, like inflation, that occurred on Democrats’ watch. In addition, the party’s current coalition puts it at a significant Electoral College disadvantage.
Poker players like me, and the accomplished risk-takers from astronauts to venture capitalists I’ve talked to for my research, understand the importance of working with incomplete information. And they understand that sometimes doing nothing is the riskiest plan of all.
Nate Silver, the founder and former editor of FiveThirtyEight and the author of the forthcoming book “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything,” writes the newsletter Silver Bulletin.
