In a historic and shocking move, Biden leaves the Presidential race. Kamala Harris is gathering support
President Joe Biden announced in a historic move that he wouldn’t seek the Democratic Party’s nomination. Instead, choosing to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President. The move, which has been speculated about since a difficult debate performance three weeks ago, will almost certainly change the nature of the race going forward. Here’s what that means.
My Mistake
Right off the bat, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge my shock at the situation. In my initial response to President Biden’s disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump, I argued that Biden didn’t need to drop out and referred to the early calls as “a massive overreaction.” That has proven to be off-base and incorrect. In the simplest of terms, I was wrong.
Normally, I would expect a party to stand by its incumbent. Losing the incumbency advantage is a massive risk, especially when it means standing against someone as toxic and volatile as Donald Trump. The incumbency advantage comes with the power of name recognition and the ability to fund a larger campaign, something Biden excelled at.
However, money and name recognition do not automatically guarantee success in an election, especially when your candidate has not seen a serious lead against his Republican challenger. It was that failure that persuaded Biden to drop his race. I overemphasized the incumbency advantage, that will not be as important in the upcoming race.
The Race Going Forward
While it is difficult to say how the race will go forward with absolute certainty, we live in strange times. There is some evidence that Harris will see some improvement in her chances against Donald Trump. In the case of Pennsylvania, Biden trailed Trump by roughly 3 percent to the New York Times, but when Harris went up against Trump, she was only trailing him by 1 percent. Additionally, the Times noted that Harris did slightly better than Biden among key Democratic constituencies.
According to The New York Times:
“In both states, Ms. Harris performed slightly stronger than Mr. Biden with Black voters, younger voters, and women — all groups that Democrats need in order to be successful this fall. And, importantly, those are groups where Mr. Biden appeared to be losing ground.”
That said, these polls represent only the initial reaction to the newly established election race and not a long-term tracking poll that we can use to fully analyze Harris’ chances at winning the presidency. Moreover, Harris is not guaranteed the nomination. While she has gained some support, many Democrats have yet to endorse her, and the convention is several weeks away. If Vice-President Harris is to turn the tide against Trump, she will have to bank on President Biden’s infrastructure and earn the support of her party and the nation. One can only hope she is successful. The nation’s well-being depends on it.
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References
A 501tax-exempt, charitable organization 1100 13th Street, NW, and Suite 800 Washington. “Summary Data for Donald Trump, 2024 Cycle.” OpenSecrets. https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race/donald-trump/candidate?id=N00023864 (July 21, 2024a).
A 501tax-exempt, charitable organization 1100 13th Street, NW, and Suite 800 Washington. “Summary Data for Joe Biden, 2024 Cycle.” OpenSecrets. https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race/joe-biden/candidate?id=N00001669 (July 21, 2024b).
Igielnik, Ruth. 2024. “How Kamala Harris Performs Against Donald Trump in the Polls.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/us/politics/kamala-harris-trump-polls.html (July 21, 2024).
Joe Biden [@JoeBiden]. 2024. “My Fellow Democrats, I Have Decided Not to Accept the Nomination and to Focus All My Energies on My Duties as President for the Remainder of My Term. My Very First Decision as the Party Nominee in 2020 Was to Pick Kamala Harris as My Vice President. And It’s Been the Best Https://T.Co/x8DnvuImJV.” Twitter. https://x.com/JoeBiden/status/1815087772216303933 (July 21, 2024).
Kelly, Conor. 2024. “A Second Trump Term Would Be a Disaster.” The Progressive American. https://progressiveamerican322183019.wordpress.com/2024/04/24/trumpdisaster/ (July 21, 2024).
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Olorunnipa, Toluse, and Patrick Svitek. 2024. “Biden Makes Stunning Decision to Pull out of 2024 Race.” Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/21/joe-biden-drops-out/ (July 21, 2024).
Sfondeles, Tina. “Not All Illinois Democrats Fall in Line over Kamala Harris Replacing President Biden – Chicago Sun-Times.” The Chicago Sun Times. https://chicago.suntimes.com/2024-democratic-national-convention/2024/07/21/illinois-democrats-president-biden-dropping-out-democratic-national-convention-kamala-harris (July 21, 2024).
staff, Washington Post. 2024. “Read Biden’s Letter Announcing He Is Dropping out of 2024 Presidential Race.” Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/07/21/joe-biden-letter/ (July 21, 2024).
Wiederkehr, Ryan Best, Aaron Bycoffe, Ritchie King, Dhrumil Mehta and Anna. 2018. “Pennsylvania : President: General Election : 2024 Polls.” FiveThirtyEight. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/pennsylvania/ (July 21, 2024).
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