Both before the November 5 presidential election and after, there's been plenty of talk about President Joe Biden stepping down and making Vice President Kamala Harris America's first female president. Despite ardent backing from Democratic Party stalwarts, the idea isn't a popular one, as the latest I&I/TIPP poll indicates.
Some Democrat activists, humbled by the Electoral College drubbing they took from former (and soon to be current) President Donald Trump, have pushed hard to have the age-hobbled Biden step down from the office of the presidency so that Kamala can take over and make history — and also, perhaps, to make a big noise that would steal some of Trump's pre-inauguration thunder.
To find out who supports the idea, the online national I&I/TIPP Poll asked 1,436 adults the following question:
"Which of the following do you believe is in the best interest of the country?", followed by these choices: "Biden should finish his term," "Biden should step down and hand over the presidency to Harris," "Biden should be removed from office using the 25th amendment," and "Not sure."
The poll, taken from Nov. 7 to Nov. 8, has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.
A majority of Americans — 54% — say they do not want Biden to leave office, they want him to finish his term.
And only 16% say he should voluntarily step down and let Harris become president.
For the first time since we started asking this question, more than half of all voters want Biden to finish the 10 weeks remaining in his term.
A slightly larger share, 16%, want him removed from office by use of the 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of a a president who "is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." In the event of such an event, the vice president becomes the president.
The remaining 14% aren't sure.
What's perhaps most interesting here is that Democrats, who enthusiastically embraced the idea of Kamala Harris' accidental candidacy for the presidency, are the biggest foes of having Biden step down to yield his post to the current veep.
Among Democrats, 63% want Biden to remain in office, along with 50% of Republicans and 52% of independents.
As for the idea that Biden should resign to let Harris make history, if only for less than three months, only 24% of Dems support the idea, while 9% of Republicans and 17% of independent and third-party voters agree.
How about removing Biden via the 25th amendment? Again, no major party or broad-based voter group supports the idea, with 5% of Democrats, 28% of Republicans and 15% of independents saying it would be a good thing.
So, with no real voting constituency backing the idea of Biden leaving office right away, it's likely to go nowhere.
Even so, that hasn't stopped the movement to have Biden quit (again) and give Harris the job, thus accomplishing with bureaucratic legerdemain what couldn't be accomplished at the ballot box. Far from it.
Just last week, Jamal Simmons, Vice President Harris' former communications director, called on Biden to step down so that Harris could take the job.
"Joe Biden’s been a phenomenal president, he’s lived up to so many of the promises he’s made. There’s one promise left that he could fulfill, being a transitional figure," Simmons told CNN’s "State of the Union." "He could resign the presidency in the next 30 days, make Kamala Harris President of the United States."
Why? "It would absolve her from having to oversee the January 6th transition of her own defeat. And it would make sure, it would dominate the news, at a point where Democrats have to learn, drama and transparency and doing things the public want to see. This is the moment for us to change the entire perspective of how Democrats operate."
The idea has legs. The Washington Post on Nov. 13 even ran an op-ed with the suggestive title "Biden’s legacy is secure, but he could augment it by stepping aside."
Will it happen? The Washington Examiner asked a number of "senior White House officials" whether Biden would consider doing it. The response: Not likely.
“There’s a sense that we tried to jam Vice President Harris down voters’ throats instead of hold an open primary,” one official said. “This certainly wouldn’t make that feeling go away.”
Another was even more blunt, saying that Biden was unlikely to “gift the vice president an honor she didn’t actually earn.”
Still, it's happened before.
In 1974, President Richard Nixon, besieged by the Watergate scandal and watching his presidency go down in flames, voluntarily resigned and was replaced by Vice President Gerald Ford, who subsequently lost in 1976 to outsider Democrat Jimmy Carter.
And there is the remote possibility that Biden's tenure could end involuntarily by removing him from office.
The 25th amendment to the Constitution states that, if Biden's cabinet chose, they could declare Biden mentally unfit to carry on the duties of the presidency and send him packing after informing both houses of Congress. He would then be replaced by Vice President Harris.
Will they do that? Despite the debate, unlikely. As the I&I/TIPP Poll clearly shows, nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to finish his term in office. Would Democratic Party officials in effect remove Biden from office a second time without votes?
Even CNN host Dana Bash threw cold water on Simmons' idea: "This has now jumped from an internet meme to a Sunday morning show," she said.
So those Democrats like Simmons who want to make Harris president even though she was beaten soundly in the general election are likely to be disappointed.
And if you think Biden will resign on his own, that's not likely: Just look at the picture of him beaming as he greeted victorious MAGA leader and former President Donald Trump back to the White House.
I&I/TIPP publishes timely, unique, and informative data each month on topics of public interest. TIPP’s reputation for polling excellence comes from being the most accurate pollster for the past five presidential elections.
Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as national issues editor, economics editor, and editorial page editor for Investor’s Business Daily.
