Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton Are the Only Viable Alternatives to Joe Biden

Only two people have the standing to step into the fold

Lawson Miller
5 min readJun 29, 2024

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Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in 2016/Photo by Voice of America/Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

There are no signs that Joe Biden is about to exit the presidential race. Nor has polling shown thus far any discernable negative impact on Biden’s overall standing in the race due to the debate.

This hasn’t quelled the hand-wringing from pundits and Democratic operatives following Biden’s debate performance. And as party leaders such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Kamala Harris have shown, they are coalescing around Biden.

But if we are to have a serious conversation about who could replace Biden if he determines he should not continue, which again, at this point, is extremely unlikely — then that conversation needs to be realistic.

The fact of the matter is that only two people have the name recognition, national infrastructure, and broad support of the Democratic base to run a successful general election campaign five months from election day: Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton.

Most Americans don’t know who Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer are. And replacing Biden with a generic no-name Democrat this close to the general election would likely prove to be disastrous. Voters who ignore politics…

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Lawson Miller

Legal professional. Historian. MA in history from Arizona State University. MLS from S.J. Quinney College of Law at the UofU.