How could Democrats replace Joe Biden as their candidate for ...

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN’s performance in his televised debate with Donald Trump, on June 27th, could hardly have gone worse. With Democratic figures asking if a way can be found to replace him as the candidate for the election in November, what are the options? The main trouble is that he has comfortably secured enough delegates to win his party’s nomination. That means that only one person can change who will be the Democratic candidate to face Donald Trump: Mr Biden himself.

No one can force the president to step aside. If he were persuaded to withdraw (whether by his wife, or by a posse of Democratic grandees), candidates to replace him would need to woo the party’s patricians, ignoring the expressed will of the plebeians who voted in the primary races. The Democratic national convention in Chicago on August 19th-22nd would revert from its modern form—a four-day bout of pageantry—to its old-fashioned way of working: four days of back-room haggling. The party could well emerge deeply divided after such tumult. America has not witnessed such a contested convention since 1976, when Republican Party bosses plumped for Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan.