Douglas Schoen: Down-ballot Democrats need Biden to drop out

As Democrats grapple with President Joe Biden’s botched debate performance last week, political strategists are not only assessing how Biden’s failure is affecting the presidential race but also how it might affect competitive, down-ballot matchups.

To be sure, the Biden campaign has seen a marked shift in the polls since last week’s debate. As it currently stands, former President Donald Trump leads President Biden by 3 points, 47% to 44%, a three-point swing from the week before the debate per RealClearPolitics’ polling average.

And there’s no doubt that congressional races across the country have tightened in the week following the debate. While Democrats were narrowly predicted to win back the House of Representatives before the debate, per FiveThirtyEight’s generic congressional ballot, their margin of victory has been virtually cut in half – from 0.5% to 0.3% – over the last 7 days. 

In California, Republicans believe Biden’s poor performance could energize their base in the 47th Congressional District, where outgoing Representative Katie Porter has left her seat vacant following a failed bid for Senate in a crowded primary field.

Orange County, famously referred to by Ronald Reagan as “where the good Republicans go before they die,” has transformed into a political hotspot over the last twenty years due to a significant increase in Asian and Latino immigrants.

For context, Democrats swept Congressional races in and around Orange County in the 2018 midterms, a rebuke of Trump’s unexpected win in 2016, no doubt. Ever since, however, Republicans have begun to claw back lost ground, but at great financial and structural costs to both parties.

Indeed, since 2018, Orange County’s Congressional races have topped the list as the most competitive and expensive in the country. To be sure, Katie Porter only narrowly defeated Republican Scott Baugh in 2022 by 4 points, 52% to 48%. Porter, a powerhouse fundraiser, spent in excess of $28 million to defeat Baugh, who spent a meek $3 million and still almost won.

Now Baugh is running again, this time against a much weaker, and less financially formidable candidate, Democratic State Senator Dave Min. Min, the son of Korean immigrants and a former economic advisor to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), will no doubt appeal to the 47th District’s liberal and immigrant population, who feel threatened by Republicans’ anti-immigrant, pro-gun, and pro-life policies. 

However, Min already faces an uphill battle. Aside from being less known, Min trailed Baugh by 5 points in the early stages of the race, according to FiveThirtyEight. While there is very limited public polling available in the race, whatever momentum Min had gained in recent weeks is sure to have dissipated in the wake of the presidential debate.

Further, according to Open Secrets, each candidate has spent approximately $4 million thus far. What concerns me, however, is Min only has $425,000 on hand, while Baugh has at least $2 million. Put another way, fundraising could very well be the difference for Min, and many aspiring House Democrats, who are seeing donors close their wallets in the wake of Biden’s debate catastrophe.

To be sure, Variety reported that Hollywood donors will not continue donating if Biden stays in the race. One donor remarked, “If he doesn’t drop out, we’re not giving any more money to Democrats or the Democratic Party.”

In that same vein, House Republicans have not taken their foot off the gas, pressuring vulnerable Democrats, like Min himself, into taking a position on Biden’s mental fitness. 

Just this week, an NRCC spokesperson released a statement directed toward Min’s campaign: “Dave Min has stood by and enabled this crisis due to his own fecklessness and allegiance to his extreme party over the people of Orange County. Min cannot deny, deflect or gaslight voters any longer.”

To be frank, the debate was a massive, missed opportunity for Biden, and indeed down-ballot Democrats, to own the kitchen-table issues that have come to define this election: the economy and inflation, immigration and the Southern border, and foreign policy.  

Indeed, Biden was not just speaking for himself in that debate. He was laying out a Democratic vision for the next four years and beyond. And for many voters like me, I left that debate feeling more confused than ever about what Democrats stand for, what their plans for the future are, and how they will tackle the major issues we face as a nation.

And I’m not the only one. A new poll by my firm, Schoen Cooperman Research, showed that less than half of debate viewers (49%) said Biden spoke about the issues they care about during the debate. Worse, 47% of debate viewers say they are now more likely or definitely will vote for Trump come November.

David Urban, a former Trump campaign adviser and Republican strategist, perfectly described how Biden’s performance will negatively affect down-ballot candidates in CNN’s post-debate coverage: “I’ve heard from leading Democrats across the United States, elected governors and congressman, who are texting me and saying ‘I’m worried I’m going to lose if Joe Biden is at the top of the ticket.’ Bob Casey… in the state of Pennsylvania… is throwing up in his mouth because he knows if he has to stand next to Joe Biden he’s going down.” 

Put another way, if Biden is forced to start competing with Trump in those states which he won by more than 7 points in 2020, his campaign, by all measures, is finished. Worse, his staying in the race will likely cost Democrats control of the House, Senate, and White House.

Of course, polling only provides a snapshot of how voters are feeling in the aftermath of perhaps the most humiliating, and downright sad debate our country has ever witnessed. But, it will take some time to determine if Biden’s initial plunge in the polls is a real trend rather than a temporary fluctuation. However, as it stands right now, Democrats at every level of the ballot, in competitive races all over the country, should be worried if Joe Biden does not drop out before their convention in August.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.