Democrat Contingency Planning

Over the past several days, I've begun to see more little hints that the Democrats are looking for a Plan B. A few weeks ago, I noted that they were quietly dusting off two potential candidates, California Gov Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov JB Pritzker. Just this past Tuesday, the Sacramento Bee noted,

Gov. Gavin Newsom is taking fundraising steps often used by potential presidential candidates, setting up multiple committees that in their first three months have raised and spent millions of dollars.

. . . Newsom has repeatedly denied any interest in running for the nation’s highest office next year. But whether President Joe Biden wins or loses, there will be no Democratic incumbent in 2028. As governor of the nation’s largest state, the big winner of two elections and a recall, Newsom would be well-positioned for a White House run.

And as of yesterday, Ron DeSantis agreed to debate Gov Newsom:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Wednesday evening that he has accepted California Governor Gavin Newsom’s debate challenge.

DeSantis accepted the challenge during an interview on Fox News with host Sean Hannity, who will host the debate.

When asked by Hannity what his answer was to Newsom’s offer, DeSantis responded: “Absolutely, I’m game.”

While JB Pritzker has maintained a somewhat lower profile as a potential 2024 contender, he just recently got into his own public fight with DeSantis:

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) fired back at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) after the 2024 presidential candidate attacked a state law Pitzker signed letting non-U.S. citizens apply to be police officers.

“This man isn’t smart enough to be president,” Pritzker said of DeSantis on Monday, writing a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Back in April, The Hill ran a piece very much like the Sacramento Bee's on Newsom, suggesting Pritzker, even if he might not be quite serious about 2024, is a good prospect for 2028:

The decision to hold the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago handed a critical win to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, elevating his profile at a time when many are speculating on his ambitions for higher office.

Pritzker, a Hyatt Hotels heir fresh off a landslide reelection last November, has seen a string of progressive wins under his tenure and stirred discussion of presidential aspirations after traveling to New Hampshire and Florida last year.

As of late June, Barack Obama was reportedly on board with Biden:

Former President Barack Obama pledged during a recent lunch with President Biden at the White House that he would do all he can to support Biden’s reelection and reportedly stressed that Donald Trump remains a formidable political foe.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Obama voiced concerns about Trump’s political strengths, such as his intensely loyal base of supporters, political polarization and the conservative media world backing him.

But that meeting was six weeks ago. Why are reports of it emerging just now? Nick Arama's take at Red State probably does reflect the current state of affairs:

I wrote about the Harvard/Harris poll that had Trump up by five points and there was NY Times/Sienna poll that has them tied. The RealClear Politics average as of Wednesday, Aug. 2, is Biden, by the slimmest of margins, at +0.9, and given how the polls seem to always be skewed toward Democrats, that’s looking like a win to me there.

. . . There’s definitely some spin in that report with the claim that “Obama made it clear his concerns were not about Biden’s political abilities, but rather a recognition of Trump’s iron grip on the Republican Party, according to the people.” Either Obama is spinning to Biden or that’s the WaPo trying to cover for Biden’s deficiencies.

Either way, Obama knows that they have a lot to fear in a race with Trump and there’s a big problem with Biden.

Even the take at NBC News is less than univocal:

The Washington Post was first to report Wednesday that Obama had expressed concern during the private lunch about Trump's strengths, including his base, conservative media that's friendly to Trump and a politically polarized electorate. Sources familiar with the meeting declined to offer additional details.

. . . As NBC News reported on the day of Obama’s White House visit in June, officials in both camps were careful to characterize it as just “another check-in conversation,” a clear effort to convey that such interactions were hardly uncommon.

But since the June meeting, Biden has had a number of setbacks, some major. The most important was the Delaware federal judge's refusal to sign off on Hunter's plea deal, when it was pretty clearly expected that if this went through, it would remove the Hunter issue from the 2024 campaign, or at lest make it harder to raise. The baggie-in-the-White House story kept the Hunter issue alive even before the plea deal fell through, and that appears to have had the additional problem that it's forced Hunter out of the White House, where he'd apparently been a close adviser to Joe. Their strange codependency also seems to have given Joe a kind of moral support.

Now there's Devon Archer's testimony to the Comer committee, which has at minimum made Joe's repeated insistence that he never discussed business with Hunter inoperative. And beyond that, Joe has finally been forced to acknowledge his seventh grandchild.

But before he could do so, he wanted to take one final step: getting the "green light" from his son, which he received last week, one source said. And on Friday, Biden finally spoke out about his seventh grandchild whom, for years, he wouldn't so much as acknowledge in public.

It almost sounds like Hunter tells Joe what to do. That's a problem, even for Democrats.

My own guess is that Gov Newsom would not be maintaining a low-key profile as contingency candidate without the approval of Speaker Emeritus Pelosi, with whom he is close, and even with the tacit acquiescence of Barack Obama.

By the same token, the Republican public strategy of moving toward impeachment isn't serious, as I think they're fully aware that even if the House votes out articles, there's no chance of conviction in the Senate. On the other hand, McCarthy and the Republicans are startiong to get a sense they can use Trump to panic the Democrat establishment into taking Biden off the ballot, whether Trump winds up as the nominee or not.