Joe Biden is an exceptionally weak incumbent. We’re amid an economic recession, the banking system is failing, and we’re adrift abroad. Biden once again left Americans behind in war-torn Sudan. It’s a checklist presidency, with its officials more concerned about adhering to woke orthodoxy than effective governance. Inflation remains at unacceptable highs, which is killing working families. Biden’s age and competency are also in play, an issue accentuated by the Democrats’ plot to oust Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), whose mental decline has been evident for years, to pave the way for judicial confirmations. Biden seems primed for a challenge on his left, a sizeable portion of Democrats doesn’t want this old man to run, but that likely won’t happen for many reasons, but one stands out as the actual killer to the ‘primary Biden’ operation.
It's the calendar. The primary season for Democrats is a coronation merry-go-round because they already have their candidate, which ensures a Biden sweep. All the early contests are states where Biden performed well four years ago. With no field, he’s bound to dominate, allowing for a delegate count that would be insurmountable for any challenger, something that former Obama adviser David Axelrod noted on CNN:
…structurally, the president has altered the playing field in a way that should make it harder for a challenger to elbow in. Biden’s supporters on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) followed his recommendations and set up a firewall by voting to change the calendar of early 2024 primary contests to favor states in which he would be expected to win handily.
Gone completely from the official calendar are the Iowa caucuses, the traditional campaign kickoff event but one that treated Biden rudely with a fourth-place finish in 2020. Instead, the calendar will begin in South Carolina, a Biden stronghold where Black and moderate White voters revived his flagging candidacy and launched him toward the presidency.
New Hampshire, where Biden finished a dismal fifth in 2020, is scheduled to go second, but it will be joined by Nevada, a state where Biden can expect better treatment. Under the DNC plan, Michigan and Georgia, two other Biden-friendly states, will then follow. Not all of these changes are set in stone, however, as New Hampshire, long home to the first-in-the-nation primary (as distinct from the caucuses held in Iowa) is threatening to move its 2024 date forward, in defiance of the DNC, to keep its time-honored status. Republicans in Georgia could block the move to an earlier state primary date.
The other factors favoring Biden are obvious: the 2024 Democratic field is a clown show. So far, it’s Marianne Williamson and her magic crystals and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has spewed misinformation about vaccines for years. And yes, the Kennedy family isn’t supportive of this effort. As we noted before, Democrats also hope that Trump clearing the 2024 GOP field will make the choice even clearer, despite Biden's noticeable cognitive deficiencies. He may be old, stupid, and slow—but he’s not an agent of chaos like Trump; that’s the Left’s narrative. During the 2022 midterms, Democrats gambled that voters would pick stability over havoc, despite all the political headwinds facing Democrats—and they were right.