6 political observations from the decision of Biden to step aside
The Last 30 Years of Presidential Campaign: The Story of Lyndon B. Johnson’s First Decision and the Implications for the Future of the United States
“As ahistorical matter, few people do this in an era where many of us privilege power over principle“, Jon Meacham, who has helped writing speeches for Biden, told NBC News on Sunday.
Biden was called patriotic and selfish by many Democrats in order to draw a contrast with Trump. This is a hard decision for a president who has been with him for a long time.
Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to run for reelection in 1968. Even then, LBJ made the announcement in March, not July. Like Biden, LBJ did so because the writing was on the wall. He was unpopular because of his health concerns and the Vietnam War.
The numbers can affect things, even if politicians want to be the top dog. Both combined to exert a lot of pressure on Biden. After his June 27 debate, money was getting dry up and he was falling in swing states.
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, one of the most savvy political operators in the Democratic Party, appeared to lead the charge. She pays close attention to the polls and listens to the Democrats in swing states who have been badly hit by the results of the election. Eventually, Biden got past denial to acceptance.
The last few weeks of the presidential campaign has been one of the worst in the last 30 years.
Democrats are smiling after this announcement, for the first time since the debate. This has injected them with enthusiasm and money because it does not mean 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. The biggest day of Democratic donations since the 2020 election happened this week.
There’s an opportunity for Harris that Biden didn’t seem to have. It’s another sign of how much a restart this move will bring to the campaign.
They believe that Biden wasn’t qualified to run the country and he and his son are likely corrupt and have enriched themselves.
Candidate Challenges to the Democratic Candidates: Is Ms. Harris an Alternative or a Continuum of the Biden Campaign?
The idea of Ms. Harris being the presumptive Democratic nominee will take a few days to spread. It will take a few days for pollsters to go back out and ask people their views.
Democrats get to troll Republicans, but soon after Biden made his announcement, many started saying the country can’t have a president who will end up being 83.
At least 300 delegates have to sign up for a challenge to Harris at the convention. For context, Biden has some 3,900 delegates. It’s certainly possible someone challenges Harris, but who?
Many of the big names that have been mentioned as a Biden replacement have come out and endorsed Harris — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and others.
How exactly voters respond to the Democratic shakeup remains to be seen. A recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, conducted before Biden withdrew from the race but after his poor debate performance, showed both Biden and Harris in a statistical tie with Trump.
Ms. Harris could give what they wanted, whether they wanted it or not. A quarter of voters are “double haters” — those who were seemingly begging the two major parties to give them choices other than Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden. One question is: Is Ms. Harris an alternative or a continuation of the Biden candidacy? She gets a two-point boost relative to Mr. Biden among these voters.
On the one hand, she was not a very good candidate when she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2019. She struggled to convey her core values, instead saying she saw herself as a problem solver. She has been caricatured as a liberal by the right and criticized as being too tough on crime as the state’s attorney general. 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.
Less than a day after President Biden ended his campaign for president, Democrats rallied around Vice President Harris, who is also running for president. She is expected to be nominated next month when delegates meet in Chicago.
And she has the opportunity to 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.
It is a popular pick among Democrats because he is well liked and has handled difficult issues from his native Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has seen more ad money than any other state. The Trump campaign knows it has to take one of the blocks out of the Blue Wall — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. As of Sunday Morning, they were holding onto a narrow lead in Pennsylvania and had targeted it more than any other swing state.
Beshear is a democrat. He’s won praise from both sides of the aisle for how he’s worked with both parties, but he’s in a Republican presidential state.
Kelly, 60, is also from a swing state. He is married to a former Congresswoman who was shot at a constituent event in 2011; he could help blunt the Republicans’ immigration attacks since he is from a border state. He isn’t from a swing state with as many delegates as Pennsylvania or North Carolina, though.
Biden, the Vote for a Vice-President, or What He Has Learned About Running for the Post-Trump Presidency
This is all Biden has ever known. He won a number of terms in the Senate from Delaware. He ran for the presidency twice before winning. He dropped out in disgrace in 1987 after a plagiarism scandal and did not get many votes in his 2008 campaign before being plucked by Barack Obama to be his running mate.
He has always wanted to be president and was told many times that he could not do a lot of things. Democrats credited him with saving democracy in 2020 after he defeated Trump. But now, reality set in that the path forward was narrowing, or potentially nonexistent.
Gov. Andy Beshear, D-Ky., seen as a potential contender, told MSNBC Monday morning that he was endorsing her candidacy. “The vice president is smart and strong which will make her a good president,” he said.
The Democratic Party in Chicago seems to have little appetite for a fight for the nomination to take on Donald Trump, and even if there was a fight, it is likely to be insignificant.
Many people would love to see a mini-primary. Sen. Joe Manchin said on Monday that the process to find out if you have the strongest candidate is what he was talking about.
“I mean, [the Democratic Party has] gone to the left. Let’s hope she comes back. A person can change positions at any time. And I would like to see that direction change,” he said.
Campaign war chest: Democrats rally behind a Republican presidential candidate: Do you think Harris is the only one? An analysis by Cooksey
The Biden campaign reported in its most recent disclosure that they had $240 million on hand and there is a dispute over whether campaign finance laws allow Biden to just hand it all over to Harris.
These are not ordinary times. In a text solicitation to supporters Monday, Harris asked for $20 donations, and wrote that this will not be an ordinary election.
Sean Cooksey, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission, tells Morning Edition there are legitimate arguments to be made about whether or not Harris is entitled to those funds.
All contributions made to a candidate for the November election can be returned or redesignated as long as the candidate isn’t a candidate in the general election.
But he may have to consider his interpretation if the Trump campaign files a complaint with the FEC, or a request for an advisory opinion, on Biden’s efforts to hand over his campaign war chest to Harris.
There are only about 100 days until the presidential election and the Democrats have a short time to do their efforts in court.
It was Trump who said on X thatKamala Harris wouldn’t be able to outrun the Harris-Biden record.
Specifically, Republicans are already highlighting Harris’s more liberal immigration positions and will argue that she “covered up” for Biden’s mental acuity. “You lied about it every day,” senior Trump campaign official Chris LaCivita said on X.
Turning the 2024 Race on its Head: Sen. Mark Kelly, S.C. Rep. Mark J. Harris, Ms. Joey, R.J. Roe v. Wade
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz. has won statewide races twice and could put back on the map a state that Democrats believe had largely slipped away from Biden by the time he exited the race.
With just four weeks until the convention, Democrats will have little time to vet a potential running mate and voters won’t have to wait long to find out: the running mate is historically announced in the days prior to the convention.
I was out in the field trying to track the impact of the events of the previous few days, like the president coming down with an assassination attempt, and the pick of a running mate for Donald Trump.
The 2024 race has been turned on its head. And to get a full read on the effect of the change-up at the top of the Democratic ticket, we’ll need two things:
Harris and Trump have work to do with important groups, from younger and nonwhite voters to suburban and white voters.
Ms. Harris will drive abortion messaging more sharply. During the June debate, when asked about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Mr. Biden’s answer was meandering. Abortion, though, is one of the few issues where voters consistently say they trust Democrats more than Republicans, and Ms. Harris has already indicated that she’ll make this issue a centerpiece of her message.
Comment on Biden’s “Why he should not resign” statement in the New York Times,” by Alyssa Choudhury
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A majority of Americans think that Biden should continue in office and not resign despite his decision to step aside from the presidential race.
