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Ross Douthat

By Ross Douthat

Opinion Columnist

In February, there was a flurry of discussion about whether Joe Biden’s advancing age and seeming weakness in a matchup with Donald Trump meant that he should step aside. I wrote a column on that theme, but the more notable (that is, nonconservative) voices arguing that Biden should consider withdrawing from the race included the polling maven Nate Silver and my colleague Ezra Klein. The report from the special counsel Robert Hur, which indicated memory problems for the president, was also part of the discussion — or, if you prefer the terms favored by the president’s allies, part of the unnecessary freakout.

“The Drumbeat for Biden to Step Aside Will Only Grow Louder” ran one headline from that period, from Robert Kuttner in the American Prospect. Kuttner was wrong; the drumbeat has quieted. All it took was Biden giving a passable State of the Union address: Thereafter his poll numbers marginally improved, the optimists on the Democratic side seized the rhetorical initiative, and the “should Biden step aside?” discourse faded into background noise.

But here we are entering May, with just six months before the election, and the basic dynamic that inspired the original discussion/freakout is still with us. Biden’s mini-surge was, well, miniature. He’s still slightly behind in national polling, and he still trails Trump in the swing states that won the Electoral College for the Democrats last time — Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The gap is narrow: Depending on your preferred polling average and what you make of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s polling numbers, Biden........

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