Where Biden's potential Democratic replacements stand on the Gaza war | 2024 US election news

Washington, DC The political firestorm sparked by last week's U.S. presidential debate is still raging despite assurances from the White House that President Joe Biden is not dropping out of the race.

The 81-year-old president’s dismal performance against his predecessor Donald Trump has fueled questions about his viability as a candidate, and even his fitness for office. During the debate, observers noted that Biden regularly lost his train of thought and appeared exhausted or confused.

This prompted Biden to step down and make way for another candidate to represent the Democratic Party, ahead of the November presidential election.

However, many potential Biden replacements have expressed support for him, but that has not been enough to quell speculation about the president's future.

Ahead of the debate, Biden faced growing discontent among broad swaths of the Democratic base over his staunch support for Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians and sparked accusations of genocide.

So if a new Democratic candidate is nominated, repairing war-related fractures within the party could be a top priority: Key demographics, including young voters, progressives, Arabs and Muslims, have all expressed discontent with the Gaza war.

Here, Al Jazeera looks at what Biden's potential alternatives have said about the conflict.

Vice President Kamala Harris US Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, speaks out, ran for president in 2020 [File: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters]

If Biden were to step down, Harris would be the favorite to replace him at the top of the Democratic ticket.

A former senator from California, Harris is the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica. She ran unsuccessfully for president in 2020.

As vice president, Harris represents the Biden administration, which has unreservedly supported the war on Gaza. Yet she was one of the first senior administration officials to use the word “ceasefire” to call for a truce in Gaza.

Given the scale of the suffering in Gaza, an immediate ceasefire is needed for at least the next six weeks, Harris said in March.

At the time, NBC News, citing unnamed officials, reported that Harris would have taken a stronger stance against the war if the White House had given her the chance.

This is Biden's war. This is Biden's failure, one source said. I think she would have called for a ceasefire a long time ago.

Publicly, Harris has stressed that she is a perfect fit with Biden.

The Vice President has been a staunch supporter of Israel. In 2017, the first measure she co-sponsored as a senator was to condemn a United Nations Security Council resolution denouncing Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Later that year, she told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that she had a deep connection to Israel.

Having grown up in the [San Francisco] Bay Area, I fondly remember those Jewish National Fund boxes that we used to collect donations to plant trees for Israel, Harris said at an AIPAC conference.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Gretchen Whitmer, 52, was elected governor of Michigan in 2018 [File: Rebecca Cook/Reuters]

Almost immediately after last week's debate, commentators began tossing Whitmer's name around as a possible replacement for Biden.

A popular swing state politician, Whitmer rose to national prominence in 2020 when she clashed with then-President Trump over COVID-19 pandemic policy. She won reelection handily two years later.

As governor, Whitmer rarely addresses foreign policy. But she has expressed support for Israel on several occasions.

“We here in Michigan condemn this heinous act of terrorism,” she said at a synagogue event days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel. “We stand with Israel. And Israel has the right to defend itself.”

At the rally, Michigan lawmakers held hands as they sang and danced in support of Israel, a gesture that many in the state's large Arab community found offensive.

In recent months, Whitmer has also expressed sympathy for the loss of life in Gaza, but she has declined to say whether the growing Palestinian death toll amounts to genocide.

I'm not going to step in where I know a lot of these terms are used to inflame us and divide us, she told NBC News earlier this year.

In April, CNN asked Whitmer whether she supported a permanent ceasefire in Gaza; she sidestepped the question.

“I believe the hostages must be released and the violence must stop, and we really need to talk about rebuilding Gaza and supporting the Palestinians,” she said.

During her 2018 campaign for governor, Whitmer said she strongly supported a Michigan law that penalizes businesses that boycott Israel.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 56, is a strong advocate for Biden's agenda [File: Marco Bello/Reuters]

Since defeating a recall attempt in 2021, Newsom has been seen as a rising star in Democratic politics.

A staunch supporter of Biden's agenda, the former San Francisco mayor has served as a spokesman for the president's campaign, making media appearances and at last week's debate.

Like other U.S. officials, Newsom strongly condemned the Oct. 7 attack and visited Israel last year, where he expressed uncompromising support for the country.

“Despite the horror, what I saw and heard from the people of Israel was a profound sense of resilience. A commitment to community and a common purpose, especially in these very difficult times,” he said in a statement after his Oct. 20 trip. “That is the Israeli spirit. And it is also the California spirit.”

Israel had then killed nearly 4,400 Palestinians in Gaza, about four times the number of Israelis killed by Hamas on October 7.

In March, Newsom called for a ceasefire in Gaza in a letter to California's Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities.

“I condemn the continuing and horrific loss of innocent civilian life in Gaza,” he said at the time.

I support President Biden’s call for an immediate ceasefire as part of an agreement to ensure desperately needed humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza and the release of hostages. I also unequivocally denounce Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, 51, is a staunch supporter of Israel [File: Alex Brandon/AP Photo]

Although he lacks the national prominence enjoyed by his fellow governors Newsom and Whitmer, Shapiro is considered a leading candidate to potentially replace Biden.

The governor, who previously served as Pennsylvania's attorney general, comfortably won his election in the Mid-Atlantic swing state in 2022. Since taking office, he has enjoyed positive approval ratings.

When it comes to the Gaza war, Shapiro has been a staunch supporter of Israel.

The “whataboutism” argument used by some to justify Hamas’s unprovoked actions is ignorant and misguided, he said last year. There is no moral equivalence here. Israel has the right to defend itself.

Shapiro has also openly denounced what he describes as anti-Semitism on the part of protesters opposing the war in Gaza.

In April, he compared pro-Palestinian student protesters to the Ku Klux Klan. The campus protests, however, have been largely peaceful, and student leaders say accusations of anti-Semitism betray their goal: to encourage their universities to divest from Israeli companies linked to human rights abuses in the country.

“We have to ask ourselves whether or not we would tolerate this if these were people dressed in KKK attire or insignia making comments about African-American people in our communities,” Shapiro told CNN.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, 42, previously served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana. [File: Alan Freed/Reuters]

Buttigieg ran an unlikely presidential campaign in 2020 despite his meager resume, having only served as mayor of a college town in Indiana. Still, he did well in early primaries before dropping out and endorsing Biden.

In 2021, he became the first openly gay cabinet secretary after the U.S. Senate confirmed him to lead the Department of Transportation. But he has been criticized for his response to several crises: There have been massive delays in civil aviation, as well as a 2023 train derailment that caused a chemical oil spill in Ohio.

But liberal commentators describe him as an effective communicator, able to push back against Republican arguments.

In a rare comment on the Gaza conflict earlier this year, Buttigieg suggested he understood why many people voted noncommittal in Michigan's Democratic primary to protest Biden's support for the war.

First of all, I get it, and nobody can look at what's going on there and feel good, he told the Pod Save America podcast in February.

The other thing I would like to say is that right now, negotiations are underway to ensure that two things happen: an end to the killings and the return of the hostages.

During his presidential campaign, Buttigieg expressed support for Israel.

In 2019, he also said the United States should not foot the bill for a possible annexation of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

But a few months later, he appears to have changed his mind. Asked whether he would attach conditions to aid to Israel to prevent annexation, he replied: “If you're asking me to commit to withdrawing American support for Israel, the answer is no.”

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