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By Katherine Fung
Senior Writer
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President Joe Biden's new COVID diagnosis could be the "nail in the coffin" for his reelection campaign, political consultant Jay Townsend told Newsweek.
The White House confirmed that Biden tested positive for COVID on Wednesday after he abruptly canceled his appearance at a UnidosUS event in Las Vegas, Nevada. As a result, Biden will be self-isolating at his Delaware home in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, per a note from the president's doctor.
Biden's diagnosis takes him off the campaign trail at a critical moment in the presidential race. It comes just days after an assassination attempt on his Republican opponent and amid weeks of calls from his own party to step aside as the Democratic nominee. Former President Donald Trump also just announced he had selected Senator JD Vance of Ohio to be his running mate at the Republican National Convention, which is being held this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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Townsend told Newsweek that the recent developments "could be the nail in the coffin" for Biden's campaign "especially if the symptoms linger."
"It costs him time," Townsend said. "Time he won't have to be the President. Time he won't have to be a candidate. Time is the one thing in a political campaign you can never get back."
"And it comes at one of the worst possible times for him," he added.
Jeffrey Kraus, government and politics professor at Wagner College, agreed, "This could not happen at a worse time for the President."
"At a time when he needs to be countering the message coming out of Milwaukee, he will be unable to," Kraus told Newsweek. "It is also not helpful at a time when a growing number of leading Democrats are suggesting he should not run because of his performance in the first debate and some of the other episodes of his misspeaking that have recently come to light."
Brandon Rottinghaus, politics professor at the University of Houston, also told Newsweek that it was "trouble" for Biden to be off the campaign trail at a moment when "there are questions about the vigor of his campaign."
"More than the time lost campaigning, the contrasting imagery of the virulent GOP in Milwaukee and a sick president is pretty stark," Rottinghaus said.
When reached for comment, the White House referred Newsweek to its previous statement from spokesperson Andrew Bates, in which Biden said that "he is the nominee of the party" and that "he plans to win."
Earlier in the day, the chorus of Democrats urging Biden to exit the race grew louder after Representative Adam Schiff of California became the most prominent member of the party to join those voices.
Biden has been facing an onslaught of criticisms in the aftermath of last month's presidential debate, during which he often looked confused and sounded hoarse. At one point, the president was unable to finish his sentence. His performance has renewed questions about whether the 81-year-old is capable of serving a second term. Biden is already the oldest president in U.S. history. If reelected, he will break his own record for being the oldest person inaugurated.
"While he needs to project strength, there will be those, regardless of how unfair it may be, who will assert that he is no longer up to the task and that the Party should act to replace him on the ticket," Kraus said. "It's not just about the Presidency, but a faltering Biden could drag the rest of the party's candidates down with him."
Despite the internal panic within the Democratic Party, Biden has vowed—in a series of full-throated interviews, letters and private meetings—that he'll stay in the race. In a Tuesday interview that will air Wednesday night, Biden told BET that the only thing that would cause him to reconsider his candidacy would be a "medical condition."
"If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, 'You got this problem, that problem,'" Biden told BET host Ed Gordon in a clip shared ahead of the broadcast.
The timing of those comments, which came less than 24 hours before his COVID diagnosis, has prompted questions about whether his illness could push Biden out of the race.
Townsend said it very well could be Biden's "excuse to drop out," which would be "perhaps one of the better excuses he could muster."
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Update 07/17/24, 9:37 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Rottinghaus.
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