Democrats are beginning to ask themselves if Joe Biden was the better candidate than Kamala Harris all along as former President Donald Trump’s election chances continue to rise with just two weeks left until Election Day.
In an op-ed for The Hill, the Atlantic Council’s Harlan Ullman posited a “thought experiment” that the Democrat Party may have miscalculated replacing Joe Biden with Kamala Harris through a soft coup in August.
“By most accounts, the election is still a horse race too close to call. But although Vice President Kamala Harris quickly assumed the presidential mantle from Joe Biden and put in place an impressive start-up, October has not been particularly kind to her. Donald Trump has closed the electoral gaps, and some believe he is actually leading,” Ullman wrote on Monday.
"What if Joe Biden was the better candidate all along?" (@TheHillOpinion) https://t.co/ilDyghJhS8
— The Hill (@thehill) October 21, 2024
“No matter who wins, we have to ask: Would President Biden have been a better candidate and choice despite suffering from the effects of age and 81 years?” Ullman asked.
“Further, suppose that the disastrous June 27 debate with Trump had not taken place, or that Biden had been firing on all cylinders that night. Would Biden have been forced to withdraw? And whether Harris loses or wins, some will ask whether Biden might still have been a better candidate.”
Ullman also drew comparisons between Trump and Biden’s similar ages, arguing the Democratic Party and its grassroots may have misjudged switching out Biden for Harris.
“The public may have decided, as senior Democrats have, that Biden is too old to serve,” she noted, adding that Biden would be 86 years old by the end of his second term.
And with Trump just three years younger than Biden, the former president is also “not immune to the vagaries of health,” Ullman stated.
But Ullman marveled at Trump’s “unlimited endurance” and acknowledged that “the physical comparison between the two presidents could not be more striking.”
“He is also interesting — love him or hate him, Trump is far from boring. The size of his audiences at rallies confirms that,” he admitted.
“In retrospect, perhaps America would have been better served if the 46th president Joe Biden won a second term,” Ullman added.
Following Harris’s disastrous Fox News interview last week, Trump running mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) joked that Democrats “should consider swapping Kamala Harris for Joe Biden.”
To my Democratic friends: maybe you should consider swapping Kamala Harris for Joe Biden.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 16, 2024
The Democrats are in trouble and they know it. This op-ed by a member of the Atlantic Council, a top globalist think tank, is a major signal among their ranks to prepare for a likely Harris defeat.