In my last column, I asked readers for their views on whether, after his dismal June 27 debate performance against Donald Trump, President Biden should continue his reelection effort or step aside so the Democratic Party can nominate someone else.
The message that came back was loud and clear: Although most respondents were grateful to Biden for ousting Trump from the Oval Office in 2020 and felt he had accomplished a lot as president, a strong majority said he should end his reelection campaign and make way for a younger candidate.
Three-quarters of the 955 readers who responded to a survey included with the column said Biden should step aside as the party’s 2024 standard-bearer, while only 19 percent felt he should continue his reelection campaign. The remaining 6 percent either didn’t answer that question or were unsure. Since the respondents weren’t randomly selected, these results don’t necessarily reflect broader sentiment.
The freight and weight of the debate
“I was so disgusted by Trump and by Biden’s inability to contain him that I had to turn the debate off,” wrote Betsy Gitelman, 63, a writer and editor from Worcester County. Biden’s press conference last Thursday “seems to have gone reasonably well, but it can’t undo the damage of the debate.”
“As I watched President Biden walk toward the podium, my wishful confidence began to erode before he spoke,” wrote Michael Henderson, a retired restaurateur from Cape Cod. “Soon after that I was speechless and feeling anguish approaching physical pain.”
After hearing Biden ramble through several answers, Greg Noyes, 69, of Amesbury, who has worked in manufacturing and been a private-school teacher, simply couldn’t view any more. Convinced that a political catastrophe lies ahead with Biden atop the ticket, he had this message: “Mr. President, no one recovers from aging. What have you done that Donald Trump will not undo? Let go of your ego and put the country first.”
Barry Wanger, 70-something, of Chestnut Hill, who was Ed Muskie’s New Hampshire press secretary during the 1972 “crying” incident that so hurt his presidential campaign, said the debate damage can’t be undone. “Images are easy to establish and difficult to change,” he wrote. “After the debate, the issue of age is just cemented into the minds of voters.”
Mimi Elmer, 74, a retired psychotherapist from Cambridge, thought Biden should “listen to what the voters are saying” and renounce reelection. “Please, Joe, be the bridge to the new generation of fabulous and competent leaders you promised in your 2020 campaign,” she said.
Barbara Leedom, 85, of South Yarmouth, a retired teacher and writer, reported that all 19 members of her left-leaning current events group at the Barnstable library agree “that President Biden should, in current media-laden lingo, step down.”
James Callahan, 78, a former foreign service officer from Falmouth, said Biden “should think about what Ruth Bader Ginsburg did to our Supreme Court” by staying too long rather than retiring when there was a chance to replace her with a younger, like-minded justice.
After an hour, she turned the debate off, said Judy Gardner, 74, independent, a retired financial industry veteran from Ipswich. “It was too painful to watch,” she said. “What we needed was to see the president stride confidently out onto that stage and clearly respond to questions. That didn’t happen. Age has been an issue in the campaign all along, but I had no idea that the President was as muddled in his thoughts as what we saw.”
Declaring himself “a Joe Biden guy,” Lou Bernazzani, 71, a retired aerospace firm executive and current cochair of the Danvers Democratic Town Committee, noted that as a 2020 Biden New Hampshire volunteer, he had driven Jill Biden around the state, and in 2024 “had stood out in the cold outside New Hampshire schools and senior centers for the Biden write-in campaign.”
In a message directed at Biden, he concluded: “I hosted a debate party fully expecting that you would replicate the strength and clarity of your State of the Union speech, show Trump for what he really is, and invigorate your campaign to a victory in November. Unfortunately, what occurred was the opposite. … It is with a heavy heart that for the good of the country and to save us from what surely will come from a second Trump presidency, I urge you to step down [That is, not run again]. I am sorry.”
Still riding Biden, but worried others won’t abide him
“I watched the first 15 minutes of the debate and had to turn off the TV,” wrote Nancy Keating of Newton, a mid-50s physician, health-policy researcher, and a Democrat. Keating would still vote for him, but she worries many Americans will stay home, costing the Democrats not just the presidency but the Senate and the House as well.
Keating’s concern was a common refrain: The reader would personally support Biden again but was acutely worried others wouldn’t.
“Joe Biden has done a very good job as president and he would likely do a good job in a second term, despite his age,” wrote Jonathan Arnow, a 62-year-old physician and independent from Lexington. “But … he won’t and can’t win. He looks and sounds terrible. For the good of the country, and the future of our democracy, he needs to step aside.”
It should be noted for some hard-line anti-Trumpers, the threshold for an alternative wasn’t high.
“I would vote for Elmo’s severed head in a vat of formaldehyde before I’d vote for Trump,” wrote Joe Baker, 74, a retired reporter from Swansea and an independent. Matt Tarlin, a 65-year-old Independent from Needham, averred that he “would vote for a dead rat over Trump” but said Biden’s debate performance had convinced him “all was now lost.”
Postdebate apostates
Some confirmed what those commenters feared: After the debate, they wouldn’t vote for Biden again.
Although he would support “a viable Democratic nominee,” George Davison, 62, a sales executive from Cape Cod, said that “if it is Trump versus Biden, I will write in Nikki Haley.”
Noting that Biden has said he didn’t watch his faltering debate performance, Davison asked him to: “Please watch the debate, ideally with your wife. Then really reflect on whether that person you watched is a viable leader of the free world.”
Richard Yeo, a retired administrator from Newtonville and a Democrat, said that as a 90-year-old he is “very conscious of the problems of increasing age,” and thought “it would be a great mistake to have Biden or Trump in for another four years.” Faced with that choice, Yeo said, he might well blank the presidential race.
Susan Morris, 77, of Boston, an independent, had this message for the president: “I am angry at you for not recognizing your age challenges — and angry at the Democrats for hiding them — and letting your ego say ‘only I can do the job.’ If you are the candidate, I won’t vote.”
Bob Campatelli, 72, a retired sales executive from Stoneham and an independent, said he was in a genuine quandary after watching the debate, which he thinks killed Biden’s chance for reelection.
“Do I vote for a senile old man or a lying con man or do I not vote at all?” he wrote.
We’re grateful, please know, but you still should go, Joe
Fred Ehrhardt, a 70-something independent and retired systems analyst from Reading, did not watch the debate but said Biden’s introducing President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as “President Putin” at a NATO event plus his press conference reference to “Vice President Trump” had persuaded him Biden shouldn’t run again and should instead endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.
His message: “Joe, your administration has accomplished more than many in the last 20-plus years. Sadly, now I doubt you can be reelected. Please abandon your quest so as not to put at risk much of what you have done.”
Richard Stower, 78, a retired minister from Yarmouth, Maine, addressed this thought to Biden, who he said had served the country nobly: “The Roman leader Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus saved Rome from invaders. He then immediately gave up his power voluntarily and returned to his farm to live out his days. Like Cincinnatus … retire to enjoy your home and family.”
More maddened than saddened
Nancy Blackmun, 81, a Needham psychologist and the daughter of former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, wrote to note that her father “made us, his family, promise to tell him, if and when we saw him declining, that he should retire. And we did. And he retired.” She added: “I think it is a grievous failure of responsibility by Jill and the rest of the Biden family not to have done this.”
Blackmun wasn’t the only one to express some exasperation at Biden or his family.
Rich Parker, 67, a physician from Newton, said the debate made him realize how much Biden is struggling and directed this message his way: “You should not have run for a second term, but you did. If you put country and party over self, you will step aside.”
Don’t change the horse this late in the watercourse
Others warned against the risk of a midstream change of mounts.
“The party would almost certainly fracture over whom to choose and the campaign infrastructure may not be solid enough for a new candidate,” wrote Steve Johnson, late 60s, a retired supply-chain executive from Wayland and a longtime Democrat turned independent. “As we saw with Ronald Reagan, the vice president, his Cabinet, and staff will rally to carry the administration through a second term.”
Ginni Spencer, 78, a former human resources VP from Bedford, said that though it was “tempting” to change horses, it was too “perilous” at this point. Although she appreciated all Biden has accomplished, she also had a rebuke for him: “It was not a surprise that you were going to be 81 in 2024. You accomplished so much and yet left us vulnerable to … the end of democracy as we have known it.”
“For him to withdraw now would throw the Democratic Party into chaos and ruin our chances of winning in November,” said 60-year-old Raj Melkote, a Woburn engineering executive and a Democrat. Having watched the debate, Biden’s ABC interview, and his press conference, Melkote offered this conclusion: “As long as he can think lucidly, set direction, and hire and nominate competent people, why does his physical health matter? If after winning reelection he cannot function, let him resign in 2025 and let VP Harris step in then.”
Although “horrified” by the debate, Andy Starkis, 77, a retired attorney and law professor from Milford, thought Biden could counteract the damage by addressing the nation with a message like this: “I’m an old man, one who’s battled my whole life with a speech defect that makes unscripted public interchanges difficult. I also have to deal with the memory lapses and misstatements that are common to almost all of us old folks, including Mr. Trump. That said … the wide consensus of those historically minded experts who follow these things is that I’ve been more successful than any other president since Franklin Roosevelt. That’s what this badly stumbling debater is capable of.”
However, Robert Fiske Jr., 70, an independent, former Maine legislator, and now a Boston businessman, offered a hopeful alternative scenario.
“Visualize at the end of the Democratic Convention governors Gavin Newsom of California (56), Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan (52), J.B. Pritzker of Illinois (59), Wes Moore of Maryland (45), Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania (51), Andy Beshear of Kentucky (46); Vice President Kamala Harris (59); Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey (55) and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota (64); and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (42) standing on the stage, hands held together over their heads with the winner of the open convention,” he wrote. “This is an exceptional group of talented new leaders that represents what most yearn for: a viable younger alternative.”
The longer online version of this column includes more reader comments than the print version. Thank you, everyone, for weighing in.
Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeScotLehigh.