Stephens: There are no certainties in life, football or politics. But the likelihood of Harris defeating Trump is low, in part because of the disapproval ratings I cited earlier, in part because she proved to be a poor campaigner when she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, in part because she has not had an especially distinguished tenure as veep, and in part because the one job she was given — dealing with the immigration crisis — is the one Americans feel especially sour about.
The two more plausible options for Democrats, it seems to me, is that either (a) she stays on as the vice-presidential nominee, with someone else at the top of the ticket, or (b) Democrats nominate Wes Moore or Georgia’s Raphael Warnock in her place. I’d be happy to see Moore at the top of the ticket, but he probably hasn’t been in office as governor long enough to be the presidential nominee.
Bouie: The argument for muscling Harris aside in favor of a nationally untested governor without deep and proven ties to key constituencies is much weaker than it looks. And that the downside risks of fracturing the Democratic Party should be considered as much as the upside chance of finding a Goldilocks candidate who offends no one, unifies the party, escapes the burden of Biden’s unpopularity, runs a competent campaign on the fly, and goes toe-to-toe with Trump.
Stephens: I don’t know what “muscling Harris aside” means, exactly.
Bouie: I’m not sure how else one describes the spectacle of party elites coordinating to keep the sitting vice president from getting the nomination after the president unexpectedly declines to continue his campaign. There is an implicit vision here of the Democratic Party as essentially a mid-20th-century machine. But as we continue to witness with dissatisfaction of supporters of Bernie Sanders with the conduct of the 2016 and 2020 primaries, the currency of the Democratic nomination process is democratic legitimacy. If this were an open nomination, yes, let the chips fall where they may. But this would be an unusual, highly contingent situation, and barring a democratic process, rank-and-file Democrats — like those who gave Biden the nomination — would have real, reasonable and legitimate questions to ask about the sidelining of Harris.
Stephens: Biden was muscled aside in 2016 to make way for Hillary Clinton. George H.W. Bush wasn’t simply handed the nomination in 1988. Nelson Rockefeller was pushed off the ticket in 1976 (and Gerald Ford nearly won). Going back further, vice presidents were repeatedly cast out whenever they didn’t suit the needs of the ticket — from Henry Wallace to Hannibal Hamlin and so on. The party should choose the candidate it believes has the best shot at defeating Donald Trump. That’s the only relevant criterion, whether it’s the “party elites” who are making the decision (an elite that includes many minority voices in the party) or the rank-and-file.
