6 political points of view from Biden’s decision
Democrat Donations During Biden’s First Definitive Confirmation of the Ohio State Senator’s Electoral Rights Against Trump in the ’20th Century’
Jon Meacham told NBC News on Sunday that it’s rare for people to writing speeches for Biden as a historical matter.
Biden has come under fire by Democrats for his concession and his attempt to draw a contrast with Trump. It would be hard for a president to make a decision like this, for someone who has been around a long time.
President Biden made an announcement on Sunday that he wouldn’t be running for reelection. He decided to support his vice president, in this case, Kamala Harris.
All politicians want to be the top dog, but the numbers can move things — whether it’s polls or money. And both combined to exert a huge amount of pressure on Biden to reconsider. Money had started to dry up, and he was slipping in swing states after his disastrous June 27 debate.
Biden indicated in an ABC interview that only the “Lord Almighty,” polls showing his party losing or maybe some combination of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, current House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina could get him to step aside.
Pelosi appeared to lead the charge, one of the most savvy political operators in the Democratic Party. She pays very close attention to the polls and she listens to the swing-state Democrats who had seen a cratering in the numbers in their states and districts. Biden got past the denial to acceptance.
This has been among the worst three-and-a-half weeks of any presidential campaign — from the debate to former President Donald Trump’s convention to Biden contracting COVID-19.
But with this announcement, Democrats are smiling and seem energized for the first time since before the debate. This has given them a lot of excitement and money, since they don’t know if they will win the race. In the hours after Biden’s withdrawal, Democrats donated $46.7 million through ActBlue as of 9 p.m. ET, the largest site that processes Democratic donations. It’s the biggest single day of Democratic donations since the 2020 election.
This will be a closely watched and hyper-compressed campaign. With less time, it will be more important how Harris deals with the spotlight, but also that she can convince Democrats she is a better person than Biden and that they are making the correct choice.
Biden is accused of being too old, not qualified, corrupt and having enriched himself due to the fact that he doesn’t know where he is.
Republicans may have to think about how they talk about Harris, not only because she is black, but also because she is a candidate against two white men.
The Democrats got to troll the Republicans after Biden announced he would not seek the presidency, but soon after the announcement many people said the country couldn’t have a President who would be 83 at the end of his term.
Getting Your Candidate Out of Lyman-Biden: She’s Got the Votes Done, But You Don’t Want to Embrace
They will need at least 300 delegates to challenge Harris at the convention in order to get on a ballot. For context, Biden has some 3,900 delegates. It’s certainly possible someone challenges Harris, but who?
Many of the people mentioned as a Biden replacement have endorsed Harris, including the governor of Pennsylvania and the governor of California.
First, throw out the polls. We are starting from scratch. Before Sunday, polls had shown Harris polling about the same as Biden. The latest national NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, for example, had Biden up 50% to 48% over Trump, within the margin of error. Harris was also statistically tied, 50% to 49% over Trump.
But that’s when people were thinking of her as a hypothetical candidate. Now that Harris is likely to be the actual nominee, Harris is going to face a whole new level of scrutiny.
She wasn’t a very good candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2019. She was challenged to convey her core values but she said she was a problem-solver. She faces criticism from the left for her tough approach to crime as the attorney general of California, while also drawing ridicule from the right for being a liberal. She’s struggled with messaging at times as vice president, including on immigration, one of the areas Biden put her in charge of early on.
Kamala Harris, who was communications director in the second year of the administration, believes she will be the next president. She has a great position on the most important issue to the Democratic coalition and a majority of Americans who are against the president, and that is better than what she was.
She can rejigger the electoral map. There are risks and rewards with each of these candidates, but some of the names floated include lots of white, male moderates like Pennsylvania’s Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, as well as Whitmer, a swing-state governor.
Shapiro, 51, is a popular pick in Democratic circles because he’s generally well-liked, has handled thorny issues competently and is from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has seen more ads than any other state. The Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin need to be removed from the campaign by the Trump campaign. They are holding onto a small lead in Pennsylvania, which they targeted more than any other swing state, as of Sunday morning.
Beshear, 46, is a popular Democrat. He was praised from both the left and right for his work, but he is in a Republican state.
Kelly, 60, is also from a swing state. He is from a border state, and he could help the Democrats if he were elected; he is married to a former congressman who was shot in the head in 2011. He isn’t from a swing state with as many delegates as Pennsylvania or North Carolina, though.
Biden has been in public life since 1972, when he won election to the U.S. Senate as a 29-year-old. He wasn’t even old enough to serve in the Senate at the time. He turned 30 two weeks after his election.
He has been told many times that he doesn’t have the skills to be president, and has always wanted to be one. Democrats credit him with saving democracy after he defeated Trump. The path forward was narrow or possibly void at this time.
Ms. Harris was competing with other progressives like Elizabeth Warren. She was running at a time when progressive voters were uniquely focused on criminal-justice reform and suspicious of law enforcement, which was a problem for Ms. Harris, who had built her political career as a prosecutor. Hemmed in by these dynamics, Ms. Harris struggled to define her brand.
When Ms. Harris began her primary campaign in January 2019, she had served just two years as a senator; the rest of her career had been spent as a state and local prosecutor. The politics changed when Ms. Harris entered politics, despite the fact that this background was a reliable path to political office on the right and left. She had been elected in many cities across the country by the time she was trying to get attention for herself. These prosecutors promised to divert or decriminalize drug-related offenses, reform cash bail, decline to prosecute cases involving police misconduct and otherwise minimize the prosecutorial role.
