With Biden Out, Democrats Lose Advantage Of Incumbency

WASHINGTON ― The big blue airplane, the Marine Corps band, having the White House switchboard place your calls ― there are good reasons why most incumbents who have run for reelection in modern times have won.

Yet the grand imagery of the presidency combined with the reluctance of many voters to switch horses midstream was not enough to buoy President Joe Biden, so with barely over three months to go, Democrats will head into the November election having ceded the power of incumbency.

“He had no choice. With 86% of American voters thinking the incumbent is too old to serve effectively in another term, incumbency is not an advantage,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

In post-World War II America, seven incumbent presidents seeking a second four-year term have won it, while only Democrat Jimmy Carter, Republicans George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump have lost. Republican Gerald Ford, who became first vice president and then president thanks to resignations, and who then lost to Carter in 1976, is a unique case, never having run a race outside of a Michigan congressional district.

Having the pageantry of the military attend to one’s travel aboard the Air Force 1 Boeing 747 and the Marine 1 helicopter, the ability to place calls with the introduction: “Please hold for the president,” and generally commanding the bully pulpit offer tremendous benefits to a reelection campaign.

Political consultants and pollsters of both parties as well as independent analysts, though, said that in the case of Biden, those advantages simply were not enough.

“The polling kept coming back to his age,” said Steve Schale, a Democratic consultant who worked with the Unite the Country superPAC that backed Biden, and which on Sunday afternoon announced it would now back Vice President Kamala Harris. “In the end, he didn’t want to be that guy who handed the country back to Trump because of his own selfishness.”

Biden’s situation is most analogous to that of Democrat Lyndon Johnson, who ended his reelection bid in 1968, although he did so after nearly losing the New Hampshire primary, while Biden, running largely unopposed, did not lose any primary.

Johnson’s withdrawal from the race led to a contentious remainder of the primary season and the infamous nominating convention in Chicago ― ironically the same city Democrats are holding theirs this election cycle, too. Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, emerged as the nominee, who went on to lose to Republican Richard Nixon.

That Humphrey lost does not necessarily mean Harris would lose this year, observers said. Nixon did not attempt a coup after he lost the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy. Trump did after losing the 2020 election. Nixon in 1968 was not a convicted felon and a court-adjudicated sexual abuser. Trump is both of those things.

“She needs to redefine herself as a presidential candidate immediately before Trump defines her,” said Neil Levesque, director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College. “The incumbency is huge but being a fresh face with a campaign that is about the future will mean a lot.”

“The vice president has a pretty big plane, too,” added Larry Sabado, head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Most people will answer a call from the vice president, and the nominee of the incumbent party for president. Joe Biden isn’t running now, but he can still make lots of calls and host loads of events, fundraising and otherwise, for his VP.”

While it is correct that a vice president also has considerable stature, the accouterments and status of the two offices are worlds apart. The presidential plane, for example, is one of the largest jets in the world, while the two planes used as Air Force 2 are the same models used as short-haul airliners.

Al Cardenas, the former chair of the Republican Party of Florida who broke from the GOP after it embraced Donald Trump, said more important than incumbency at this point is the complete reset of the presidential race that Biden’s decision brings.

“Momentum is huge in final lap of a political campaign,” he said. “Lots of free media this week for Democrats as Trump’s campaign fades for a week or two while Dems determine their VP and gush over likely better poll numbers. Then the Democrats get four free days of coverage at their convention as they praise President Biden’s patriotic decision.”

Cardenas said he cannot predict how it will play out, but that it least gives Democrats a better chance of beating Trump. “A couple of days ago I thought this campaign was all but over, and now it’s anyone’s guess with Dems having all of the momentum at this point,” he said.