Issues & Insights
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Should Biden get out of the car? Source: Picryl. Public domain.

Should Biden Resign And Make Kamala Harris The First Woman President? I&I/TIPP Poll

Both before the November 5 presidential election and after, there’s been plenty of talk about President Joe Biden stepping down and making Vice President Kamala Harris America’s first female president. Despite ardent backing from Democratic Party stalwarts, the idea isn’t a popular one, as the latest I&I/TIPP poll indicates.

Some Democrat activists, humbled by the Electoral College drubbing they took from former (and soon to be current) President Donald Trump, have pushed hard to have the age-hobbled Biden step down from the office of the presidency so that Kamala can take over and make history โ€” and also, perhaps, to make a big noise that would steal some of Trump’s pre-inauguration thunder.

To find out who supports the idea, the online national I&I/TIPP Poll asked 1,436 adults the following question:

“Which of the following do you believe is in the best interest of the country?”, followed by these choices: “Biden should finish his term,” “Biden should step down and hand over the presidency to Harris,” “Biden should be removed from office using the 25th amendment,” and “Not sure.”

The poll, taken from Nov. 7 to Nov. 8, has a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.

A majority of Americans โ€” 54% โ€” say they do not want Biden to leave office, they want him to finish his term.

And only 16% say he should voluntarily step down and let Harris become president.

For the first time since we started asking this question, more than half of all voters want Biden to finish the 10 weeks remaining in his term.

A slightly larger share, 16%, want him removed from office by use of the 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of a a president who “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” In the event of such an event, the vice president becomes the president.

The remaining 14% aren’t sure.

What’s perhaps most interesting here is that Democrats, who enthusiastically embraced the idea of Kamala Harris’ accidental candidacy for the presidency, are the biggest foes of having Biden step down to yield his post to the current veep.

Among Democrats, 63% want Biden to remain in office, along with 50% of Republicans and 52% of independents.

As for the idea that Biden should resign to let Harris make history, if only for less than three months, only 24% of Dems support the idea, while 9% of Republicans and 17% of independent and third-party voters agree.

How about removing Biden via the 25th amendment? Again, no major party or broad-based voter group supports the idea, with 5% of Democrats, 28% of Republicans and 15% of independents saying it would be a good thing.

So, with no real voting constituency backing the idea of Biden leaving office right away, it’s likely to go nowhere.

Even so, that hasn’t stopped the movement to have Biden quit (again) and give Harris the job, thus accomplishing with bureaucratic legerdemain what couldn’t be accomplished at the ballot box. Far from it.

Just last week, Jamal Simmons, Vice President Harris’ former communications director, called on Biden to step down so that Harris could take the job.

“Joe Bidenโ€™s been a phenomenal president, heโ€™s lived up to so many of the promises heโ€™s made. Thereโ€™s one promise left that he could fulfill, being a transitional figure,” Simmons told CNNโ€™s “State of the Union.” “He could resign the presidency in the next 30 days, make Kamala Harris President of the United States.”

Why? “It would absolve her from having to oversee the January 6th transition of her own defeat. And it would make sure, it would dominate the news, at a point where Democrats have to learn, drama and transparency and doing things the public want to see. This is the moment for us to change the entire perspective of how Democrats operate.”

The idea has legs. The Washington Post on Nov. 13 even ran an op-ed with the suggestive title “Bidenโ€™s legacy is secure, but he could augment it by stepping aside.”

Will it happen? The Washington Examiner asked a number of “senior White House officials” whether Biden would consider doing it. The response: Not likely.

โ€œThereโ€™s a sense that we tried to jam Vice President Harris down votersโ€™ throats instead of hold an open primary,โ€ one official said. โ€œThis certainly wouldnโ€™t make that feeling go away.โ€

Another was even more blunt, saying that Biden was unlikely to โ€œgift the vice president an honor she didnโ€™t actually earn.โ€

Still, it’s happened before.

In 1974, President Richard Nixon, besieged by the Watergate scandal and watching his presidency go down in flames, voluntarily resigned and was replaced by Vice President Gerald Ford, who subsequently lost in 1976 to outsider Democrat Jimmy Carter.

And there is the remote possibility that Biden’s tenure could end involuntarily by removing him from office.

The 25th amendment to the Constitution states that, if Biden’s cabinet chose, they could declare Biden mentally unfit to carry on the duties of the presidency and send him packing after informing both houses of Congress. He would then be replaced by Vice President Harris.

Will they do that? Despite the debate, unlikely. As the I&I/TIPP Poll clearly shows, nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to finish his term in office. Would Democratic Party officials in effect remove Biden from office a second time without votes?

Even CNN host Dana Bash threw cold water on Simmons’ idea: “This has now jumped from an internet meme to a Sunday morning show,” she said.

So those Democrats like Simmons who want to make Harris president even though she was beaten soundly in the general election are likely to be disappointed.

And if you think Biden will resign on his own, that’s not likely: Just look at the picture of him beaming as he greeted victorious MAGA leader and former President Donald Trump back to the White House.


I&I/TIPP publishes timely, unique, and informative data each month on topics of public interest. TIPPโ€™s reputation for polling excellence comes from being the most accurate pollster for the past five presidential elections.

Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as national issues editor, economics editor, and editorial page editor for Investorโ€™s Business Daily.

Terry Jones

Terry Jones was part of Investor's Business Daily from its inception in 1983, working in a variety of posts, including reporter, economics correspondent, National Issues editor and economics editor. Most recently, from 1996 to 2019, he served as associate editor of the newspaper and deputy editor and editor of IBD's Issues & Insights. His many media appearances include spots on the Larry Kudlow, Bill Oโ€™Reilly, Dennis Miller, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and Glenn Beck shows. He also served as Free Markets columnist for Townhall Magazine, and as a weekly guest on PJTVโ€™s The Front Page. He holds both bachelor's and master's degrees from UCLA, and is an Abraham Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute

7 comments

  • No. Adding insult to injury. Biden and Harris have denigrated the Process and the Presidency รจnough. It will take years for the Dems to recover.

  • I wouldn’t be surprised if President Biden actually resigns-and this is why.
    President Biden is still angry, scarred and humiliated at having been removed as the nominee of the Democratic Party. His anger now overwhelms any good judgement he has left.
    This is possibly (and I think it is “likely”) why he agreed to let Ukraine use the long range missiles-which could have World War III consequences.
    Biden has always intended and especially now intends to resign his Presidency, and views this decision on resigning as a “no can lose situation.”
    Let Kamala, he concludes, handle the horrid situation Ukranian situation that he constructed. If Harris does somehow make a correct decision on this foreign affair tripwire, then Biden will he hailed as having made a far sighted decision-and a magnanimous one. The Democratic Party will hail him forever.
    If she doesn’t, then he gets more revenge on the interlope and usurper of what should have been his-the Democratic nominee for President. Also, she gets her just desserts.
    Of course, a World War could mean the end of America, but I think Biden’s too far mentally to care.
    Biden’s Corn-pop” may be shaking his head, but Joe Biden will have gotten the last laugh.

  • What a horrible idea. To have air head, radical, abortion crazed, Kamala Harris take over, is a thought to terrible to contemplate.

    She’ll recess appoint some nutty judges. Or sign executive orders for Leftist ideas, abhorrent to ordinary Americans. Amnesty to 12 million illegal border jumpers, anyone?

    Can’t believe Issues & Insights would publish such an awful article.

  • โ€œgift the vice president an honor she didnโ€™t actually earn.โ€

    That’s too funny! Biden didn’t earn the presidency either, the democrats stole the election and anyone who doubts it isn’t paying attention to their attempt to do the same thing by counting illegal ballots in the Pennsylvania election.

  • There are a bucketful of good reasons the voters rejected Harris/Obama/Biden. Let that rejection be message enough.

  • The USA does not want to damage its own legacy by putting a pretender in place for a month and then letting her reap decades of funding and glory that she never, ever earned.

  • Note the most significant justification for the call: poor Kamala’s pwecious widdle feewings would be hurt if she had to preside over the session of Congress at which the electoral college results are announced, in this case, of her own defeat. Poor Kamala.

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