What’s the point of no return for a Biden-Trump rematch? It’s later than you think

The notion of reprising any moment of the nightmare year of 2020 produces a gag reflex from a sizeable majority of Americans. So it’s no surprise that rare consensus in our politically ruptured nation is this:

Please no rematch between President Joe Biden and the quadruply indicted Donald Trump. No one liked the original movie, so the octogenarian sequel – “The Old and the Restless” – surely would flop.

Few political topics today get described so similarly across the expanse of media silos. But this one’s unifying.

“The Biden-Trump rematch that nobody wants” – New York Times

“Americans don’t want 2024 rematch between Biden and Trump: poll” – New York Post

“Poll: A historic number of Americans don’t want a Biden-Trump rematch” – The Hill

“Poll: Americans Really Don’t Want a Biden-Trump Rematch in 2024” – Insider

“A Trump-Biden rematch may be on the horizon in 2024, whether voters like it or not” – Fox News 59 in Indianapolis

None of this cynicism has prevented Biden and Trump from building commanding leads heading into their respective party primaries. Biden, an incumbent president, faces only token opposition in Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson. Trump continues to lap the large GOP field, seemingly vindicating his warped view that, within the Republican electorate, indictments are to him what spinach is to Popeye.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

It begs a question last raised on Oct. 7, 2016, when Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood video became public, offering a harrowing glimpse into his soul: Just how late is too late for a political party to change horses in the presidential stream?

Trump’s comments about sexually assaulting women had been so foul that even the New York Times departed from nearly two centuries of conservative norms to print an unsanitized transcript. Loud calls came from many within the Republican Party for Trump to step aside or be removed from the ballot.

But with the story having broken just 34 days before the general election – and Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton flailing – Trump refused to fold, and the Republican National Committee stood idle. The rest is tragic history.

Seven years later, Trump’s psychosis has reached pitched levels, and the inevitability of his 2024 presidential nomination is real. As the first candidate in history with more court dates than campaign stops on his calendar, he looms as the wildest of wild cards, and for the foreseeable future, uncontrollable, utterly untethered from any conventional political norm.

ALSO READ: Surviving Election 2024: Don't worry about polls. Or Trump. Or Biden’s age. It's still the economy, stupid.

In the unlikely event Trump should fail in his quest for re-coronation in August at the Republican National Convention, it’s anyone’s guess what might be left of the party in his angry wake. So the point of no return might already be viewable in the party’s rearview mirror.

Or perhaps not. (More on that in a moment.)

On the Democratic side, however, hands are wringing at the prospect of running an aging president with poor approval ratings. Publicly, there’s no appetite among party regulars for a primary challenge to Biden. Memories haven’t faded of intra-party contests having helped assure one-term presidencies for both Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican George H.W. Bush.

But the angst is palpable. Rightly or not, Biden’s age — he’ll be 82 on Inauguration Day 2025 — looms among his largest obstacles to reelection, exacerbated by the phenomenon of polls showing more voter concern about his advanced years than that of the barely younger 77-year-old Trump, a man frequently seen slurring his word salads since early in his presidency.

ALSO READ: Trump is embracing five ‘fake news’ outlets he supposedly hates

Democrats are happy with Biden’s policy accomplishments even as they struggle to sell them to voters. But would they consider moving away from him in the dreaded event of a health crisis, or even some troubling public episode?

And if so, how might that play out? What is the Democrats’ point of no return?

Raw Story interviewed Elaine Kamarck, a national expert on electoral politics at the Brookings Institution. Kamarck, founding director of the Center for Effective Public Management, has written the book on primaries. She also serves as a Democratic national committeewoman.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity:

Q. There’s a fair amount of polling and reporting suggesting that Americans are repulsed at the thought of a Biden-Trump rematch. Is that your sense as well?

A. Yeah, right now they’re dissatisfied. Repulsed is a bit of a strong word.

Q. Fair enough. You’ve written at Brookings that President Biden’s age is probably the biggest issue facing him. Do you see that as the case moving forward?

A. I do. Look, he's got a very good record, but his age is obviously interfering with it. People are even willing to admit that he's got a good record, but many of them can't get past the age question.

Q. Considering health issues raises tough scenarios. Obviously, Vice President Kamala Harris would replace him were he to die or become unable to serve because of his health, but politically speaking, how might that play out? And is there a point of no return, understanding that it would be different if something tragic happened tomorrow or a year from October?

A. Let's take it chronologically. If it happened anytime between now and probably February or March, Kamala Harris would become president, but she would not become the automatic nominee of the party. In fact, there would be filing deadlines still to pass and people would jump in. [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom is obviously out there positioning himself to fill in the void if there is one. So are a bunch of other good governors, [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer, etc. The Democrats have a good bench. People keep asking me about plan B and I say, “What do you mean, plan B? It’s a bench.” So between now and mid-February, when most of the filing deadlines have passed, you’d have a wide-open primary. There's nothing automatic about a party’s incumbent president getting the nomination. People would compete.

Q. What about something happening after the primaries began?

A. Now, if in fact, it happened, let's say from March to June, you would have a situation here some delegates would already be won and committed to Biden. Those delegates would become automatic or uncommitted delegates. They’d go to the convention and get to pick who they wanted to. If other candidates got their names on the ballot, then voters would be able to vote for different candidates and late primaries would become incredibly important. Because those late primaries would be where you could see how a Gavin Newsom does against a Gretchen Whitmer. And so you might not have somebody going into the convention with a majority of delegates like we usually do, but you'd have a kind of mixed bag. And someone would get the nomination.

Q. So there’s quite a contingency plan for a health crisis or the like.

A. Well, let’s say it happened after about June 15 but before the convention (set for August 19-22 in Chicago). Then, basically, every delegate is uncommitted. They’d go in and we’d have an old-fashioned convention, where people would bargain. As one friend said to me when we were discussing this not too long ago, it would be fascinating to watch all the not-smoking rooms.

Q. Smoke-unfilled rooms. That’s a good one.

A. That's right, it would be the same deal as in the old days, but no cigarettes, no cigars. Okay, so, that would be before the convention and/or, God forbid, during the convention. But let's suppose it happens after the convention votes and Joe Biden is the nominee of the Democratic Party. Then the Democratic National Committee gets called into special session, and the 435 members of the Democratic National Committee, of which I am one, vote and pick a nominee – and presumably a vice presidential nominee – as well.

Q. So there are 435 members corresponding to the number of districts in Congress?

A. Yes. And, by the way, the Republicans do it the same way. If something happened to Trump, let’s say, after their convention, the Republican National Committee gets called in. The two parties approach this issue the same way. Both parties have a provision in place that their national committees would choose the new nominee if the existing one became incapacitated before election day.

Q. So it’s the same structure?

A. Yes. The DNC would vote, or the RNC would vote, and you’d have a nominee for the general election. Now, let’s suppose this happened after the election but before the meeting of the Electoral College, the Electoral College would get to decide.

Q. Wow, you’ve thought this out, haven’t you?

A. Oh yeah, I’ve had this question before. In our lifetimes, the experience has been that members of the Electoral College just sort of automatically cast their vote. But now you’d have a situation where suddenly the identity of these people becomes very important and what they think becomes very important. If it happens after the Electoral College but before the Inauguration, we’re not quite sure what happens. It’s about three weeks.

Q. Somebody just takes over the Capitol probably?

A. Yeah, right, no one knows. And obviously, if it happens after the Inauguration, the vice president becomes president. The thing that people miss about this is that up until the day of the general election, there is no constitutional mandate. There is no constitutional law. There's no law at all because, up until that point, this is party business, not national business. And political parties were by design not written into the Constitution because the Founding Fathers didn't like them and didn't think we should have them. It was the one thing they didn't understand about democracy, which is you can't have it without political parties.

Q. What an answer.

A. Well, it does help that I wrote a book on it.