Former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said Vice President Harris should replace President Biden on the Democratic ticket this fall, making him one of the first figures in the Democratic Party to publicly call for a change after the president’s poor debate performance last week.
“We have to rip the band aid off! Too much is at stake,” Ryan wrote in a social media post. “[Harris] has significantly grown into her job, she will destroy Trump in debate, highlight choice issue, energize our base, bring back young voters and give us generational change. It’s time!”
Biden’s first debate performance raised alarms among some Democrats and supporters, with the president struggling to string ideas together or rebut Trump’s many false statements. That’s created a rising notion among Biden critics that the president has to go, with Harris among the top picks to replace him on the ticket.
Almost half of Democrats in a new poll say Biden should allow a different candidate to take the party’s nomination.
Ryan argued in a Newsweek editorial on Monday that despite him being a fan of Biden, he’s not the candidate for 2024.
“Joe Biden’s debate performance was deeply troubling,” he wrote. “But it isn’t just about a 90-minute debate and a terrible performance. This election needs to be about generational change — something about which I have been shouting for more than a year now.”
The former congressman said Biden’s promised generational “bridge” collapsed last week at the debate.
“Witnessing Joe Biden struggle was heartbreaking. And we must forge a new path forward,” Ryan wrote.
Describing Harris as the “highlight of a historically dreadful night,” he argued it should be her to lead the party after this month’s convention.
“Those who say that a Harris candidacy is a greater risk than the Joe Biden we saw the other night and will continue to see are not living in reality,” Ryan wrote. “It is not just utterly preposterous for the haters to say that, it is insulting.”
The popular moderate lawmaker, who left Congress in 2022 after narrowly losing the Ohio Senate race to Sen. JD Vance (R), also argued that Harris can represent the generational change that the party needs.
“The Democratic Party’s Achilles heel for years has been a lack of upward mobility for fresh, young leaders,” he wrote. “When young candidates like JFK, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama carry the torch for Democrats, we win. Now a fresh, charismatic candidate can do it again.”
“We must help her,” he added.
Much of Ryan’s post-Congress work has focused on his political action group We the People, which has pledged to advocate for moderates and pro-democracy issues.