The Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur announced Wednesday that he is launching a primary challenge against President Joe Biden, saying that “we must change course” because Biden won’t win in 2024.
“[Biden] is not going to win,” Uygur said. “It should not have been me, it should have been somebody else, but unfortunately it was not anyone else. There’s only four months left. We must change course. He has at best a 10% chance of winning. I’m running as a proxy. I am running to win. But I am also running as a proxy for any other candidate.”
Uygur added that “we have got to get Biden out of the race” because “if he loses this time around, it’s not just his problem, it’s all of our problems.”
“I actually think democracy is on the line, and so if it takes me running, that’s what I’m gonna do,” he said.
But Uyghur’s bid is a long shot—not only because the Democratic Party has coalesced around Biden (Marianne Williamson is the only other notable Democrat in the race since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. switched to run as an independent and she is polling in single digits.)
It’s also a long shot because Uygur is not eligible to be president due to the fact that he is a naturalized citizen who immigrated to the U.S. from Turkey as an eight-year-old. Under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, only “natural born” citizens are eligible to be president.
Uygur disputed that the Constitution would bar him from becoming president, telling Semafor that he believes the issue would reach the Supreme Court, where he’d be handed a “slam dunk” victory.
“That’s another good reason to run,” he told Semafor. “I’m tired of 25 million Americans having this albatross around their neck.”
Uygur acknowledged Williamson’s effort to primary Biden but argued that she “hasn’t broken through.”
“I have nothing but respect for her courage and her policies, but at this point, we’re not at progressives versus establishment,” he said of Williamson. “We’re at four months left, and things must change. Otherwise, we’re almost definitely going to lose to Trump.”
It’s not the first time Uygur has ran for office.
In 2020, he ran for California’s 25th Congressional District seat, which was won by Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.). Uygur came up with 6.6% of the vote, finishing in fourth place among 12 candidates.
