When is it too late for Biden to drop out?

[Florida Man for Crime]

One of the interesting facts that has come out in the Trump trial in NY is that the RNC was considering dropping Trump as the Republican candidate after the Access Hollywood tape came out, when there was only a month (or less) until election day 2016.

This suggests that it is in fact possible for a Presidential candidate to be replaced pretty late into the process, even though many ballots had been printed by that point and some votes already had started to be cast via early voting. Remember, even if Biden's name were to stay on the ballots in the event of a late drop out, Democratic electors could publicly pledge to vote for some other designated candidate, so a vote for "Biden" could in reality be a vote for another designated candidate.



It is of course still possible that Biden could win, and it's possible the polls could be systemically wrong in underestimating him, but it's not looking good. To reiterate, given the current polls, it is entirely possible IMO that Biden could still win, but that's not good enough. We need a guarantee (or close to a guarantee) of victory. The stakes in this particular election are simply too high, because a Trump victory could lead to the end of the United States.

Even if you think Biden is particularly substantively good (and I can understand the argument for that - he has in fact been relatively good in a lot of ways, albeit too weak on Ukraine, climate change, and the Supreme Court), it's reckless in the extreme to place that consideration above electability if it is true that American voters would be substantially more likely to vote for another Democratic candidate who is young, likeable, and fresh. Polling in a dead heat is also certainly not good enough or acceptable (and it's not even a dead heat, it's a slight Trump lead - look at the averages you hack) because Trump is likely to have an electoral college advantage.

If Biden drops out now, there could still be time to organize some hasty caucuses in at least some states to give the new candidate some sort of democratic legitimacy, rather than having them emerge from a smoke filled room.

If Biden instead waits until later, dropping out would be more complicated, and the only viable option may be for his VP to replace him. For that reason, his VP choice is particularly important, and he should be pressured to select whoever is the most electable candidate to potentially replace him.

Either way, if things don't start to move substantially more in Biden's favor (perhaps if Trump is convicted and even after that Biden is STILL down in polls), he should at some point consider his patriotic duty and consider whether he should place his duty as an American above his own personal ambition. How late is too late for him to do this?

[Florida Man for Crime]

January 20th, 2029 or 2025 methinks.

Dropping out after inauguration day seems like little more than empty virtue signaling, but I added on/after inauguration day as poll options for you anyway.

If Trump wins, dropping out after he is inaugurated would be meaningless, and if Biden were to win, there would be no reason for him to drop out unless he didn't want to do the job or unless he has some sort of sudden health issue.