Biden’s decline is real, but he should have left last year

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Multiple sources are now claiming that Joe Biden has decided to step down as the Democratic candidate for the presidency. As Biden struggles with the pressure, he must realize that he has already lost the support of the party.

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Key officials from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi had told him to go. Donors were directing their dollars elsewhere and turning off the taps for the president.

Speculation was rampant all day. Much of the time it was contradictory.

Early in the morning, a source reached out to say a group of large donors, people who had bundled for Biden in the past and Obama before him were done. Their preferred choice going forward was to put Vice-President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket with Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly as her running mate.

Kelly is a former astronaut and naval fighter pilot who flew missions in the first Gulf War. He is married to Gabby Giffords, a former member of the House of Representatives who suffered a severe brain injury in an attempted assassination in 2011.

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The donor class believes that Kelly’s background would insulate them against Republican attacks of being weak on issues like defence while Harris could rally women and African-Americans to her side.

In the end, though, the donor class doesn’t have final say.

That’s not to say people with big bucks don’t have influence. Every politician needs money to run a campaign, no one moreso than a presidential candidate.

In addition to the donors there is a growing list of people in the Democratic Party that have called on Biden to step down. More than 20 members of the House and Senate have openly called for Biden to step aside.

“I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November,” California Congressman Adam Schiff said on Wednesday.

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Schiff is very close to Pelosi and it’s doubtful he would have called on Biden to “pass the torch” without speaking first to the former speaker.

A poll conducted by The Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found a majority of Americans want both Trump and Biden to leave the race for the presidency. The difference comes when looking at how supporters of each party feel about their respective nominee.

While 57% of all American voters believe Trump should leave the race, 73% of Republicans think he should stay. For Biden, 70% of all voters believe he should leave the race, a number that only drops to 65% when only Democrats are counted.

If the Democrats turn to Harris to replace Biden, they are playing with an unknown commodity. The AP-NORC poll shows that while many Democrats are enthusiastic about the vice-president taking over the top spot on the ticket, other Americans are not.

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Just 30% say Harris would make a good president, and 49% say she could not make a good president while 20% had no opinion. That’s still better than other names being floated such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Just 17% said Newsom would make a good president while 51% didn’t know. For Whitmer, just 15% believed she’d make a good president while 64% didn’t know.

Biden’s mental and physical decline has been noticeable for some time but has become more severe over the past six to eight months. He is clearly not the same man who ran four years ago. He has trouble walking stairs, trouble finding his way off stage and lately, trouble finishing a sentence.

As voters look at all of this and consider their ballot choices, Biden becomes less viable. It’s not just affecting Biden’s chances in swing states, the states in play are growing and Trump’s likelihood of winning is growing.

If Democrats really cared about winning, and about Joe Biden, they would have replaced him by last fall. Having him step aside by the end of this weekend may not be enough to turn things around by November.

The world watches.

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