With Biden out, Democrats have short window to develop winning strategy | Opinion

When I’m watching a movie or TV show adapted from a novel, I’m intrigued by which elements the screenwriters decide to change, and which are faithfully replicated from the original text. Over the years, I’ve concluded that there’s no hard and fast rule for when and whether to change plot, character or story, save one: It better work.

President Joe Biden was trailing in the polls long before the Israel-Hamas war began, before the June debate debacle, before former President Donald Trump, amid an assassination attempt, pumped his fist triumphantly on a Pennsylvania stage. A Free Press poll out Sunday found Trump leading Biden here by 7 percentage points.

Placed in an untenable position by his own party, and following close to a month of flagging numbers and sustained pressure from the country’s top Democrats, the incumbent president announced Sunday that he will abandon his campaign, stepping aside for an as-yet-unannounced successor.

It better work.

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Who will replace Biden?

Michigan pollster Richard Czuba swears by one measure: voter motivation. Political insiders know that elections are won or lost by turnout — which party can get its voters to the polls on Election Day?

In a May poll of likely Michigan voters, Czuba’s Glengariff Group found that strong Democrats rated their enthusiasm this cycle at 9.0, on a scale of 1-10. Strong Republicans, however, were at 9.6, and the news for Democrats gets worse: Independent voters, who assured Democrat victories in the last three election cycles, trailed at 8.2. Czuba told me Sunday that base voters of both parties are now around 9.2, with independents still soft.

But Biden and Trump are both historically unpopular with voters, who nonetheless say they're less worried about the criminal charges against Trump, his inflammatory rhetoric or his record of untruths than they are about Biden's age. Czuba expects exceedingly high turnout this fall, and has maintained throughout this cycle that whichever party "breaks the emergency glass and nominates another candidate" would have the upper hand — and has an opportunity to rally young voters.

So, Democrats’ mission is simple, or it ought to be: Stop self-flagellating, and unite around a candidate who can get voters to the polls.

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What happens next?

The Democratic National Convention, when the party’s delegates formally select a nominee, starts Aug. 19.

Despite fevered speculation — one insider told me there's a lot of fantastical thinking happening right now — it almost certainly won't be Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (Why not? Because she says she's not running, and will likely endorse Harris.)

Biden quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement, writing on the social media platform X that Harris has his “full support.” Harris followed with a declaration that she's running, and will work to earn the nomination. Bill and Hillary Clinton have endorsed the vice president. A slew of prominent Michigan Democrats have followed suit. It’s hard to imagine how the party could sidestep Harris, a trifecta of historic firsts — female, Black, South Asian — without alienating Black women, the Democrats’ most loyal constituency.

Biden’s replacement will have a short window to unite the party, and the party has a short window to get this right.

It better work.

Nancy Kaffer is editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact: nkaffer@freepress.com. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters and we may publish it online and in print.