Seymour Hersh, in his column on Substack June 21, conveyed leading Democrats’ increasing fear that President Joe Biden will lose the November election to Donald Trump, and their casting about even now for a “better” candidate with the same policies. Hersh reported that the unprecedentedly early date for the first Presidential debate might be giving those Democratic leaders a chance to see if Biden can handle the campaign, or if they need to try to replace him.
“There is a serious concern among the Democratic Party leadership and the major Democratic fundraisers, primarily the big donors in New York City, about Biden’s ability to defeat Trump in November,” Hersh wrote. “This is, of course, not to be spoken of in public. A major touchstone for many will be Biden’s performance in the [June 27] debate. The President is going to need to match the intensity he demonstrated at his State of the Union address in March, next week, to keep his contributors happy. A shaky performance, I have been told by two longtime politicos who have direct knowledge, will increase pressure on Democratic Party to do something drastic, and unprecedented, before the November election.”
Noting Democratic sources’ idea that Biden could recover from a flop in such an early debate, Hersh continued:
“One extreme possibility in the case of a very bad showing Thursday night, I have been told, is to obtain agreement from Biden and his family advisers, for the President to come to the Democratic convention in Chicago in August and accept the accolades of a first-round delegate victory; then he would decline the nomination and throw the nominating process open to all. The new shoe-in candidate, in this vision, might be Gavin Newsom, the young and photogenic governor of California, or the popular Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois. The vice-presidential nominee—in this scenario—would be up to the convention delegates to select.”
