Will Gavin Newsom Replace Joe Biden in 2024?

The question itself seems absurd on the surface.

Will the sitting president running for re-election eventually drop out of the race? That sort of thing doesn’t happen.

In our modern political era, with a candidate as old as Joe Biden, might we be on the verge of a political bombshell that will flip the 2024 script on its head?

You don’t have to look far to find stories littering the internet questioning Joe Biden’s mental acuity. When polled, The American people have their concerns merely by observing the president’s deterioration on their tv screens.

Writing in the Washington Times, Adam Brandon makes an out-on-a-limb prediction that by October, Joe Biden won’t even be on the ticket for Democrats in 2024.

Instead, he’ll be replaced by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a man who’s been running a shadow presidential campaign for a year now:

Since the day President Biden entered office, the nation knew it would be a surprise if he finished one full term in the Oval Office.

Mr. Biden himself indicated that it was inconceivable that he would run for reelection. Yet 2½ years into his presidency, Mr. Biden shows no signs of bowing out of the 2024 presidential race.

It is clear, however, that with Mr. Biden’s age, frailty, proneness to gaffes, and the vast majority of Democratic voters hoping he does not seek a second term, the Democratic Party reluctantly supports Mr. Biden as its leader.

So, what happens now? Is there an alternative candidate for the Democrats? I’m willing to make a bold prediction and say that by the end of October, Mr. Biden will withdraw his reelection bid, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom will be declared the Democrats’ most viable option for the presidency.

Brandon cites several reasons for his prediction, not the least of which is that Vice President Kamala Harris remains a deeply unpopular and polarizing figure. If Harris were to be Biden’s replacement, it would be akin to forfeiting the game for Democrats in 2024.

The only real hope, argues Brandon, is for Newsom to step in when Biden decides it’s time to step away for family or medical reasons.

In a related story at The Hill, Becket Adams discusses the need for a serious examination of Joe Biden’s brain. In recent remarks, it’s not even clear the President knows which countries are involved in the war he keeps funding:

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, President Biden falsely claimed that Russia is at war with Iraq. Russia is at war with Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is “clearly losing the war in Iraq,” Biden told the press pool, “losing the war at home. And he has become a bit of a pariah around the world.”

On Tuesday, during an unrelated fundraising event in Chevy Chase, Md., Biden made the exact same slip-up, mistaking Ukraine for Iraq.

“If anybody told you … that we’d be able to bring all of Europe together in the onslaught on Iraq and get NATO to be completely united,” the president said, “I think they would have told you it’s not likely.”

This piled on top of other ongoing Bidenisms, like the point that he repeatedly claims his son Beau Biden died in Iraq, a lie he’s repeated often in recent years but which is untrue. Beau returned home from Iraq in 2009 but succumbed to brain cancer in 2015. A fix-year gap between reality and Joe Biden’s recollection.

Furthermore, Joe recently claim he would be building a railroad system over the pacific ocean:

“We have plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean,” the president said this month during an address before the League of Conservation Voters.

There is no such plan, of course, to build a railroad from the Pacific coast to the Indian Ocean.

And it just keeps going, and going:

On June 19, the president promised to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and water by — the year he won the presidency?

“I’ve committed to — by 2020, we will have conserved 30 percent of all the lands and waters the United States has jurisdiction over and simultaneously reduce emissions to blunt climate impact,” he said.

Following a June 16 speaking engagement at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, where Biden promoted gun control efforts, the president signed off by saying, “God save the Queen, man.”

“God save the Queen, man,” where did that come from?

There are parts of Biden’s psyche that simply aren’t firing on all burners and the mishaps, misstatements, and gaffes are becoming too innumerable even for Democrats to ignore.

Put all together, it’s not entirely insane to consider a scenario where Joe Biden is replaced by Gavin Newsom to spare the party from embarrassment next year as the president continues to age.