Behind the Curtain: Kamala Harris' epic edge
Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei

If President Biden steps aside, Vice President Harris would be almost impossible to beat for the nomination, thanks to endorsements, money, optics  and 2028 politics, top officials tell us. 

Why it matters: All Harris needs is Biden's backing. If she gets it, the Obamas and Clintons likely would follow, making any challenge an affront to the sitting president and two former presidents. 

The big picture: If she gets Biden's endorsement, the only way a top-tier Democrat could challenge her would be to risk their future by saying "not your turn" to the first woman vice president, first Black American vice president and first South Asian vice president.

• Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chaired the House Jan. 6 committee, told Axios' Hans Nichols that Harris is "incredibly strong ... You can't say Biden has done a good job without saying she's done a good job." For her to be pushed aside from consideration, he said, "would be the kiss of death for the party."

Of course, all this may take a while. Biden stunned — and annoyed — lots of powerful Democrats on Wednesday by digging in ahead of his interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos (now being shown as a prime-time special at 8pm ET Friday).

• After publication of a new poll showing him losing ground to former President Trump, and breaking-news stories suggesting he might be on the brink of quitting, the 81-year-old president joined Harris on a campaign all-staff call. He insisted: "No one's pushing me out ... I'm not leaving."

The intrigue: Biden and his closest advisers have long felt Trump would beat Harris. They question her political skills and likability beyond the liberal bases. But polls show her running no worse than Biden in a hypothetical match-up with Trump.

• And in some cases, better: A post-debate CNN poll found Harris in a statistical tie with Trump and slightly stronger than Biden because of broader support from women (50% of female voters back Harris over Trump vs. 44% for Biden) and independents (43% Harris vs. 34% Biden).

• Biden's private worries wouldn't necessarily keep him from endorsing her publicly. It's called politics. Biden would push to pair her with a moderate Democratic governor like Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro (51), Kentucky's Andy Beshear (age 46), North Carolina's Roy Cooper (67) or Illinois' J.B. Pritzker (59).

How it works: We gamed out potential scenarios with some of the nation's most experienced Democratic operatives. Most feel strongly that for both political and practical reasons, Harris looks all but unbeatable. 

• If Biden "got there" on deciding to throw in the towel, top Democrats expect he would announce he was endorsing Harris — his running mate in 2020, and partner in governing for the past three years. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during her briefing Wednesday that one of the reasons Biden picked her back in 2020 "is because she is, indeed, the future of the party." 
  
  
• One reason to go that route is to avoid the mayhem of a wide-open convention in Chicago beginning Aug. 19. That would take Democrats' focus off Trump while they scrambled, knifed and preened. 
  
  
• Harris as nominee, or perhaps president, would become part of Biden's legacy, which matters a lot to him — a proud, stubborn man who's been in public life for 50+ years. 
  
  
• Then there's the practicality: If you're eyeing the 2028 nomination, you're thinking about the base. Do you really want to torpedo Harris' chance to become the first woman president of color? What are your real chances of defeating Harris and her formidable apparatus (White House, DNC, Biden-Harris campaign) when you're less well-known nationally than she is — then beating the Trump machine, with its huge head start, in the 75 days between the Democratic convention and Election Day?

Behind the scenes: Let's say Biden didn't endorse, or Democratic leaders insisted on a process. At the highest levels of the party, there's talk of a series of, say, five regional debates before the convention. The candidates would debate live before the Democratic delegates, gathered in cities throughout the country (e.g., New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and L.A.).

• It'd all be televised. Then when the convention opened in Chicago on Aug. 19, delegates would have seen the field in action. There are a few problems with this, including determining who gets to debate. And you'd be trying to do something really complicated, in basically no time. "We can't organize a two-car parade at the moment," said one veteran of presidential campaigns who's knee-deep in possible Plan Bs. 
  
  
• What if Biden gets out too late for that, or the debates never come together? Then you could have an old-school frenzy in Chicago of candidates racing among delegation breakfasts to make their case. 

A "mini-primary": Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), a Biden campaign co-chair, said in response to a question from Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC that he'd support Harris if Biden dropped out, although he wants the ticket to continue to be Biden-Harris. "This party should not, in any way, doany thing to work around Ms. Harris," he said. "We should do everything we can to bolster her."

• On CNN on Wednesday, Clyburn said you "can actually fashion the process that's already in place to make it a mini-primary, and I would support that. ... I think that Kamala Harris would acquit herself very well in that kind of a process. But then it would be fair to everybody." A Clyburn aide later clarified that he was just explaining the existing process.

Between the lines: Some party elders tell us the drama in all these scenarios would electrify an exhausted, disconsolate party, and engage a nation that otherwise would be tuned out for the summer.

• Top Democrats tell us that after a possibly contentious public fight, they'd end with a ticket featuring two faces much younger than Trump (78), probably a man and a woman, getting massive free public attention — then a surge of donations. 
  
  
• Although Biden claims he's 100% in, some of his close friends still think he'll make what they consider the obvious decision and bow out. On Sunday, we outlined what Biden allies see as a graceful way for him to walk off the stage instead of being shoved: Step aside on his terms after triumphantly declaring his term a success. He'd get a prime-time convention role to pass the baton.
  
  
• Tom Friedman, Biden's favorite New York Times columnist, cleverly celebrated George Washington twice in his second piece calling for Biden to step aside. This is what several Democrats will tell Biden if they're allowed near him: You can be a great man, a historic figure, if you do what the founding president did and put country over ambition. Then trust your party and then the American people to do the right thing.

The math is simple for a new ticket to win: Both parties agree the winner will be decided by a few hundred thousand voters in seven states — Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

• Trump enjoys a small lead in most. So the new ticket would merely need to keep Biden's vote, plus pick up a few undecided voters or current Trump-leaning "double haters" — voters who dislike both, but will hold their nose and pick one. Do this, Democrats win. 
  
  
• Given the amount of convention and post-convention free media — the world would be transfixed by this spectacle — the new ticket would simply need enough money to flood those seven states for 10-ish weeks. That's a lifetime in politics. 

The bottom line: Replacing Biden for the Democratic nomination in the coming weeks would be messy and wildly unpredictable — but highly doable.

• Go deeper: "DNC rules provide a path if Biden were to step aside" (NBC).

 

Mike is a co-founder of Axios. He is the author of the daily Axios AM and Axios PM newsletters, and he covers the most important news of the day.

 

 

 

 

Jim is a co-founder and CEO of Axios.

 

 

 

 

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