NIALL FERGUSON: I urged Biden to run for President in 2016, now I implore him to do the smart thing and retire

It’s late February 2024 and President Joe Biden is addressing the nation. Just a few weeks earlier, he performed poorly in the Democratic presidential primaries in South Carolina — with a shocking number of defections to maverick anti-vaccine candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Viewers expect an update on foreign policy. The news is currently dominated by the unexpected success of Russia’s winter offensive in Ukraine. But it is his signing that takes the world by surprise.

“As America’s future is tested here at home. . . I do not believe that I should spend an hour or a day of my time on personal, partisan matters, or on any duties other than the awesome duties of this office. . . Accordingly, I will neither seek nor accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

It could happen because something similar has happened before – in March 1968, when Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek re-election.

Johnson was not an old man – he was 59 – but he had been plagued by health problems since suffering a serious heart attack in 1955.

Still, it was a tough decision, and Johnson might have changed his mind if he had performed better in the New Hampshire primary two weeks earlier.

Why do I think Joe Biden will follow LBJ’s example? First, as with LBJ, for health reasons. Biden was born on November 20, 1942. He will be 81 by the time of the next election, and 82 by the time he is sworn in if he wins. The second-oldest American president, Ronald Reagan, left the White House in 1989, at the age of 77.

Everyone has seen the images of Biden falling off a bicycle near his beach house in Delaware last year or tripping over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy commencement a few months ago.

This week he left Brazilian President Lula da Silva visibly frustrated when he wandered off stage at the United Nations without shaking hands. Earlier, Biden had tripped into the Brazilian flag and nearly toppled it.

I’ve met Joe Biden several times over the years. I urged him to run for president in 2016, when he would have outperformed Hillary Clinton. The last time we were together—on St. Patrick’s Day, 2018, in the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency—we joked about what might have happened.

Biden has aged tremendously since then. An Associated Press/NORC survey in August found that 77 percent of Americans, including 69 percent of Democrats, think he is too old for another four-year term.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents in a poll published by the Wall Street Journal earlier this month said the same.

Biden’s age is a major reason why he and Trump are neck and neck in the most recent polls, even as Trump faces four criminal charges. According to the poll average published by RealClearPolitics, Trump is narrowly ahead with 45.1 percent compared to 44.6 percent.

No matter how you slice the polling data, Biden is in a weak position. His net approval rating is minus 12 percent. At this stage of his presidency, Trump was at minus 11.6 percent. With 42 percent approval, Joe Biden is currently better off than Jimmy Carter was in 1979, but in a similar position to Gerald Ford and much worse off than George HW Bush at the same stage. They all failed to get re-elected.

Considering how strong the US economy looks right now, an astonishing share of Americans – 64 percent – ​​think the country is on the “wrong path,” compared to 57 percent at this stage of Trump’s presidency.

And then there is the problem with Biden junior. Since 2018, the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Internal Revenue Service have been investigating Hunter Biden’s tax affairs, drug use, foreign business transactions and weapons purchases.

On October 3, the president’s son will be personally arraigned in federal court in Delaware on three criminal counts: possessing a gun in 2018 while an illegal drug user and lying to buy it. Hunter’s attorneys have indicated he will plead not guilty.

Next week, the House Oversight Committee will hold its first hearing on the impeachment inquiry, aiming to determine the extent to which the president is involved in his son’s somewhat shady business dealings, particularly in Ukraine and China. The White House calls the hearing a “political stunt.”

At a time when American trust in politicians is at an all-time low, the Hunter Biden story hurts his father politically by provoking the response: “All politicians are crooks, so why should we worry about Trump’s crimes? ‘

The worse the polls get for Biden, the more Democrats are talking privately about the need for a Plan B. After all, they supported Joe Biden in 2020 precisely to prevent a second Trump term.

And as the case of Lyndon Johnson shows, it wouldn’t be the first time a president has withdrawn from a re-election race. A total of six presidents have voluntarily opted out of a second term: James Polk in 1848, James Buchanan in 1860, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, Calvin Coolidge in 1928, Harry Truman in 1952, and LBJ in 1968.

Both Truman and Johnson waited until the primaries had begun before making their decision. Both presided over unpopular wars – in Korea and Vietnam respectively.

Today, on the other hand, Biden has already said that he will be a candidate next year; the war in Ukraine is not being fought by Americans; and it is much more difficult to change the plan too late due to the complexity of the modern primary system. To participate in the Democratic primaries, candidates must meet ballot access deadlines from all 50 states, which range from October 2023 (for early states like Nevada) to March 2024.

That poses a problem for mainstream Democrats, none of whom want to appear disloyal to Biden. Two less serious challengers, Robert Kennedy and self-help author Marianne Williamson, are already running against Biden. But others hold back.

There would be fewer headaches if Vice President Kamala Harris were popular or competent, but she isn’t either. Her approval rating is actually slightly lower than Biden’s. Still, Biden is adamant he won’t dump her from the ticket, though he certainly has the ability to do so. If he were to drop out after the primaries started, she would be difficult to dislodge.

However, if Biden drops out before the primaries begin, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro would both be stronger contenders than Harris.

Other Democrats who could run include Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois, who certainly has the money to finance a presidential campaign, and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.

My money is on Newsom. For those unfamiliar with the tall, lean and handsome Newsom, 55, it is worth checking out his interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity three months ago. It is true that California has sunk deeper into social trouble during Newsom’s time as governor since 2019 (and before that as lieutenant governor from 2011).

Yet Newsom — who was briefly married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, later an adviser to Donald Trump — shows every sign of being willing to move toward the political center. And he could beat Trump simply by being young and representative.

Newsom’s problem is that only Joe Biden can decide whether or not to follow Lyndon Johnson’s example. After all, he is still the president. And even a president in his dotage doesn’t take orders from anyone.

The first Democratic presidential elections in South Carolina are on February 3. The Democratic convention is from August 19 to 22. I suspect that Sleepy Joe will make way for Slick Gavin sometime between now and the latter date. But first Biden must become aware of the fact that otherwise Donald Trump will win.

That, too, has been done before – by Grover Cleveland, who served two non-consecutive terms in the 1880s and 1890s. The more Democrats imagine Trump repeating this feat, the greater the pressure on Biden to do one last smart thing. Retire.