Donald Trump’s pollster now brags that his candidate will win the election against Joe Biden in an “electoral landslide.” Even a recent Washington Post/ABC poll seemed to confirm it. But this assumes that Biden will be the Democratic nominee, and he will not.

The Post/ABC survey found that Biden’s approval for managing the economy dropped to the lowest of his presidency, into the 30 percent range, with a 21-point advantage for Republicans. When asked whether they were generally better off under Biden, 44 percent of Americans responded they were not as well off, with merely 15 percent saying they were better off and only 39 percent saying things were the same. Just 23 percent said they approved of Biden’s immigration policy, while 62 percent disapproved. 

Public opinion is just as bad on crime and social policies generally. Large majorities still oppose his handling of the bungled Afghanistan military withdrawal, and his ratings on foreign policy generally is in the 30 percent range. The Hamas/Israel war will complicate things further as polls find Democrats recently more sympathetic with the Palestinians than historically, especially among the young. 

Surely, everything is going wrong for Biden. The fact is that a majority of ordinary Democrats do not want Biden to run for reelection, believing he is too old for a second term. Even Washington Post top columnist David Ignatius — who thinks Biden has been a reasonably good president — has urged him to stand down as a candidate for president, if only to protect his future legacy. 

Wake up, Republicans. Biden will not be the Democratic presidential nominee. Most of this bad public opinion goes away immediately with a new, smoother candidate who could turn against that same Biden record in some dramatic way after he is maneuvered out of the race.

How could this happen? As the Ignatius article makes clear, the Democratic elite and party leaders fear Biden — perhaps the only candidate Trump could defeat — will lose. All of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention next year will know by its opening whether Biden can win — and so will Biden. They will not support a loser, especially to Trump. Biden might even lead the movement himself to find another candidate to save his legacy.

You may respond, “But no one will have run against Biden in the primaries, and all the delegates will be bound to vote for him.” No, only a few delegates are bound by state law, and Republican convention experts have traditionally argued that these laws are unconstitutional anyway. In fact, a convention sets the voting processes deciding who will win. And Biden could unbind them anyway. The Democratic elite “super delegates” will organize it and, indeed, will insist on it.

How could anyone come from nowhere and enter a race for president so late? How about the governor of the largest state, with solid experience and the largest number of Democratic delegates? It so happens that the Democratic governor of California is an exceptionally smooth candidate. Gavin Newsom has a solid progressive record — easily surviving a recall election — and Politico argues he even has a reputation for being pragmatic:

“Philosophically, he’s a moderate,” said Jim Wunderman, a leader of the Bay Area Council, a business coalition who has known Newsom for decades.

In the space of several weeks this year, the governor secured an ambitious climate change package, despite formidable industry opposition. He also overrode environmentalist concerns and worked with Republicans to keep older power plants running. And he vehemently opposed a proposed income tax increase on wealthy Californians to fund electric vehicle infrastructure, aligning himself with Republicans rather than the California Democratic Party.

New York Post conservative analyst Daniel McCarthy emphasizes Newsom’s political skills:

He’s a showman who’s booked a national spotlight for himself Nov. 30, when he’ll debate the governor who stakes the strongest claim to lead the Republican Party after Trump: Florida’s Ron DeSantis.

This almost-but-not-quite-presidential prize fight will take place on Fox News, enemy territory for Newsom.

Yet he can hardly lose: The debate crowns Newsom leader of the Democratic Party in the states, the obvious counterpart to DeSantis and his Florida model of GOP power.

McCarthy says uncommitted voters will especially be influenced. Going back to Richard Nixon verses John F. Kennedy, they often go to “whoever is better looking and more personable,” which could well be Newsom. In any event, other than Fox, the media will declare him the winner: “Even Trump will have every incentive to declare Newsom the winner and his intra-party rival DeSantis the loser.”

All of this could easily lead to Democrats unhappy with an aged Biden and anti-Trump Republicans happy to have an alternative, with both rallying to the California governor.

Newsom is credible enough to even run to the left of Biden and criticize him for not being as progressive as he needs to be to consolidate Democrats at the beginning. Clearly Democrats will be willing to take almost anyone by convention time, and no one else, including the hapless vice president, could stand against Newsom. (RELATED: Gov. Newsom Goes to China)

McCarthy thinks my scenario is not likely but concedes that it is, perhaps, possible. My experience as a top national and state Republican National Convention expert for Ronald Reagan in 1976, 1980, and 1984 and for others back to 1968 and up to the 1990s convinces me that a Newsom nomination at the Democratic National Convention would be an easy job for party experts to carry off, given such a week incumbent candidate and these more divided times. 

If the goal is to replace Democrats in 2024 — and it is mine — then running against Joe Biden will not do it. Republicans need to switch their political opposition to the Democratic Party and its affiliate union, media, education, environmental, and woke allies. They are the problem, and how they are viewed in the next election will decide whether Republicans can win Congress and the presidency.

Donald Devine is Senior Scholar at the Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C. He served as President Ronald Reagan’s civil service director during the president’s first term in office. A former professor, he is the author of 10 books, including his most recent, The Enduring Tension: Capitalism and the Moral Order, and is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator.