The Biden-Trump Presidential Debate: Implications and Prospects

On Thursday, June 27, 2024, US President and Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden and former President and Republican Party nominee Donald Trump held their first of two debates agreed upon by the two candidates’ campaigns; the second debate is set to be held on September 10, 2024. The results of the first debate were negative for the Democrats; Biden’s apparent distraction and physical weakness led them to panic and serious trepidation about his ability to continue in the presidential race and its impact on voters, less than two months before the party’s national convention in Chicago in August 2024, and four months before the general election on November 5. Biden’s lackluster performance, his vacant facial expressions, his frequent stuttering, and his inability to respond forcefully to Trump’s accusations and lies reinforced American voters’ doubts about the 81-year-old president’s abilities.

Although Trump is only three years younger than Biden, he appeared more coherent and aware during the debate, although he lacked logical arguments and honesty in his discussions.¹ A number of Democratic Party officials considered Biden’s performance the worst in the history of American presidential debates, since they began being televised in 1960.² According to some opinion polls conducted after the debate, three out of four American voters, and about half of Democrats, do not believe that Biden should continue as the Democratic Party’s candidate. In contrast, half of American voters and most Republicans believe that Trump appeared to have the cognitive ability necessary to be president.³

Biden’s Missed Opportunity

Although the rules for the debates favored Democrats, Biden failed to capitalize on them. Contrary to the tradition since 1988, in which the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates⁴ has usually overseen them, the 2024 election debates were left to the CNN and ABC television networks to organize. Previously, presidential debates were held in September and October, with the exception of 2020, when there were only two debates due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They were also between then-president Trump and his challenger Biden. Shorter and earlier debates usually favor Democrats because they relieve Biden of psychological stress given his age and mental capacities. Bringing them forward could give him a window to repair any damage before the general election. Biden also benefited from the fact that no select audience was allowed to attend the debate, and that the microphone of the candidate who was not speaking was muted so that he would not interrupt the other. Both an audience and a hot mic would have been in Trump’s favor, as he has a greater ability to interact with and move an audience, in addition to his reputation for frequently interrupting and insulting his opponents, as he did in the 2016 Republican primary debates, and in the presidential debates with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party nominee in 2016, and then with Biden in 2020. Neither candidate was allowed to have advisers in the debate hall to whom they could turn during breaks, and they were also not allowed to bring pre-written notes.

It was clear during the debate that Biden had missed a great opportunity to make the election a referendum on Trump, who was convicted in May 2024 in Manhattan, New York, of thirty-four criminal counts in cases of tax fraud and violating election finance laws by paying campaign funds to a pornography actress to “buy her silence” about an illicit relationship between them; so as not to affect his chances in the 2016 presidential election. Trump still faces three other criminal federal and state cases, the most important of which is inciting the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol building to prevent the transfer of power to Biden. Moreover, Biden’s mental distraction did not allow him to benefit from Trump’s refusal, once more during the debate, to commit to conceding defeat if he loses the election.

Biden also failed to focus on issues that matter to the Democratic base and to women in particular, such as concerns about the Supreme Court’s overturning the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, after Trump succeeded during his presidency in appointing three conservative justices out of nine, which upset the balance of the court (six conservatives to three liberals). He also neglected to explain his administration’s economic policy regarding high inflation rates, the crisis of illegal immigration, the war in Ukraine, and the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in the face of Trump’s attacks, which enabled the latter to turn the election into a referendum on Biden’s cognitive and physical abilities. Polls conducted after the debate indicate that the public believes that Trump succeeded in presenting his ideas more clearly and explaining his policies in a coherent way, although voters generally believe that he was not honest. Moreover, he repeated only two arguments during the debate (the issue of immigration and open borders, and the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021). According to a CNN poll conducted shortly after the debate, 67 percent of viewers said they thought Trump won, while only 33 percent said Biden won.⁵ A YouGov poll conducted the following day suggested that Trump won the debate by a 2-to-1 margin.⁶ A third poll conducted by Morning Consult the day after the debate found that 57 percent of those who watched the debate believed Trump won, including 19 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of independents, and 93 percent of Republicans.⁷

Can Biden Be Replaced?

Biden’s performance in the presidential debate has generated a surge of Democratic voices, campaign donors,⁸ and pro-Democrat media outlets, such as the New York Times.⁹ These voices are urging him to allow a new generation of Democrats to run in the election to prevent Trump from returning to the presidency. While Biden and his campaign have acknowledged that his debate performance was poor, they still insist that he is the best placed to defeat Trump. Biden’s advisers have been reaching out to Democratic members of Congress, major donors, and key supporters of his campaign to allay their concerns and assure them that President Biden is not considering withdrawing from the race.

Available information indicates that Biden’s wife, Jill, who is believed to be the person most influential in the president’s decisions and without whose support he cannot continue, insists—along with the rest of the family who met on Sunday, June 30, 2024, at Camp David—that Biden stay in the race.¹⁰ It seems that the Democratic leaders in Congress have decided not to interfere in the president’s decision, but, in a sign of their dissatisfaction with his continued candidacy, they are moving to focus on winning the House of Representatives and the Senate, regardless of the outcome of the presidential race.

In practice, under current Democratic National Committee ​​rules, replacing Biden with another candidate is not an option unless he voluntarily withdraws, is unable to continue due to a health problem that incapacitates him, or dies suddenly. Biden has technically secured his party’s nomination after winning the primaries during which he faced only token opposition, and he has enough delegates to support him when the nomination is formally decided at the Democratic National Convention in August 2024. Since every state has already held its own presidential primary, DNC rules require Biden’s delegates to pledge their support to him at that convention. But if Biden agrees to withdraw, or is unable to continue, the DNC could then open a vote for two new candidates for president and vice president, with the two winners of the majority of votes being the party’s official nominees.¹¹

The Risks of Replacing Biden

Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, cannot automatically replace the president in the presidential race. Instead, she would have to compete for the Democratic nomination with other candidates, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, or Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Democrats fear that such a contest could tear apart the party before the election and create bitterness, especially if Harris is not the replacement, which would also negatively impact support for the Democrats among African Americans because of Harris’s ethnic background. Sources within the Harris campaign do not hide their displeasure at talk of other potential candidates to replace Biden if he decides to withdraw or is unable to continue, seeing this as an implicit reference to “white American” supremacy.¹²

Democrats also fear that if they pursue a replacement for Biden just months before the general election, they will choose someone whose record has not been thoroughly vetted, whose campaign could suddenly collapse as a result of a previously undetected scandal, or as a result of his poor performance on the campaign trail or in a presidential debate.¹³ There are also concerns that if the party’s 3,933 delegates fail to elect the party’s nominees for president and vice president, the 739 “superdelegates”—top leaders and elected officials who are automatically appointed delegates to the convention based on their positions—will step in to decide the replacement for Biden. Under the Democratic Party’s delegate voting rules since 2016, superdelegates are not allowed to vote on the first ballot, but they do vote on subsequent ballots in order to avoid divisions and accusations within the party that its leadership is manipulating and controlling the vote.¹⁴

In general, there is a chance for a new candidate to beat Trump only if he has the consensus of all Democrats. However, if there is competition and bickering between several candidates, it will hinder the focus on competing with Trump in the short time remaining before the election.

Conclusion

Biden’s poor performance in the presidential debate has raised real concerns, both inside and outside the United States, about the possibility of Trump’s return to the presidency, with what that means in terms of partisan, political, ethnic and cultural tensions, a threat to democracy, and the clash with allies. Thus, Biden has put Democrats and the world in a difficult position, by insisting on running despite having pledged in 2020 to be a transitional president for one term to protect the United States from Trump,¹⁵ whom he considers an existential threat to American democracy. Today, by insisting on continuing with his candidacy, despite his advanced age and declining physical and cognitive abilities, he is almost handing the country over to Trump again.

This situation assessment was first published in Arabic on July 4, 2024 by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar.