Against a contested convention
By 
I think that at this point the case that Biden stepping down would be better for the Democratic Party and the country has become close to unanswerable, and it comes down to point 1 here — Biden’s poll numbers have gotten marginally worse since the debate, and he doesn’t have any margin to give up. And given that for better or worse and right or wrong Biden’s age is going to dominate media coverage of the campaign as long as Biden is running the path forward.
My only real quibble with Levitz is with his near-agnosticism toward the question of Harris v. a contested convention. I will say more about the latter in a future post, but I think this lays out the case succinctly:
Is “she’s the VP” a good reason? It’s a clear, tangible, objective reason. That’s good enough. If you let the conversation get any more abstract or intangible than that, every candidate will have an unfalsifiable story about why they’re the best choice. Keep it simple—Harris.— poorly reasoned (@poorlyreasoned) July 2, 2024
Even if one assumes arguendo that someone like Whitmer or Buttigieg would be a better candidate than Harris in the abstract, whether they would be a better candidate after being installed by party elites with no legitimate process after Harris was passed over is a whole different question. And there’s not really compelling evidence that the alternatives are better than Harris in any case:
New CNN poll: @KamalaHarris is within striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical matchup between her and the former president, 47% of registered voters support Trump, 45% Harris, a result within the margin of error
Ahead of Whitmer, Newsom, Buttigieg vs Trump— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) July 2, 2024
Or perhaps I can just observe that Bill Maher wants a contested convention in the hope that Governor French Laundry — who we know without any evidence other than the author’s personal sentiments — would be a better national candidate than Harris and drop the mic. This is the whole problem — everyone has a just-so story and with no viable criteria to resolve it the result might be good television but it would be bad for the party and the country. The simple answer is the right one here.