Rumours intensified late last week that Joe Biden was on the verge of withdrawing from the presidential race. Sunday would be the day, the whispers said, and so it came to pass: early this afternoon, Delaware time, president Joe Biden announced on social media that he was stepping down from the 2024 presidential race. In a separate announcement he endorsed his vice-president Kamala Harris as his party’s nominee.
Although Biden’s move had been presaged in some quarters, most of the signals from the White House were that he would hang on fiercely but precariously and perhaps wrongly. There is every indication that, after several weeks of Democratic upheaval, he finally gave in to the strategic arguments put forward by former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and others.
Biden’s announcement was a shock but not a surprise. He had been under enormous pressure since his dreadful performance in the presidential debate in June, with a growing chorus of those worried not only about the Democrats’ chances of winning the White House but of gaining back the House of Representatives (once seen as a real possibility) and retaining the Senate (always going to be difficult).
The immediate response from Democrats has been a mix of relief, excitement and fear. This move resets the race for the presidency in ways that Democrats don’t yet comprehend and Republicans fear. Biden has quickly been portrayed as a patriot, as someone who has (finally) put his country first, and as a president whose substantial legacy is now, if not absolutely safe then much safer. Donald Trump now has a competitor for “hero” status.
Despite Biden’s endorsement, Harris is not yet the Democratic candidate. Others might well try to enter the race, though that would severely muddy the waters and irreparably damage Harris’s, and their own, chances. The cleanest path forward would be a consensus that Harris is the nominee. We can be certain that Pelosi and other senior Democrats are already working towards that end. It would lead to an open convention where Biden’s delegates (now released from voting for him) would vote as a block for Harris.
Any challenger faces a tough path. They would have to gain the signatures of at least 300 of the delegates who were previously committed to Biden before the start of the Democratic National Convention on 19 August in order to put their candidature forward. And if their bid is successful and they receive the Democratic National Convention nomination, time would then be taken up with negotiations over access to the funds and campaign organisational structures that currently belong to the Biden–Harris campaign. The hope is that potential candidates like governor Gavin Newsom of California and governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, both of whom have previously said they will not run against Biden, will strongly stand behind Harris.
If Democrats can coalesce with enthusiasm and some very hard work around Harris, beating Donald Trump in November becomes much more likely. That, after all, is the prima facie case for Biden stepping aside.
While Harris currently polls little better than Biden nationally, she has good support from women, young people and voters of colour; she will need to make some major efforts to attract white male voters, especially those who are less well educated. She should do what she can to appeal to never-Trump voters who supported Nikki Haley.
A large part of her ability to lift the Democratic support eroded under Biden will depend on who she chooses as her running mate. That person will almost certainly be a white male, either a state governor or a senator. The names most often suggested include Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. Any one of these could help with votes in key states.
Of course, the elephant in the room is Harris’s sex and race. Since she was elected vice president she has constantly faced a nasty barrage of sexist, racist comments; this will now escalate to appalling levels. What impact this would have on the vote is less clear.
Trump and the Republicans had started down this road well ahead of Biden’s withdrawal. At the Republican National Convention, speaker after speaker linked her to policies on illegal immigration, calling her Biden’s “border czar.” Conservative media have declared she would be a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion president — far from a positive description. The nastiness on this issue should be held back somewhat by the very fact that J.D. Vance’s wife is of South Asian descent, though that logic is unlikely to hold throughout the MAGA camp.
It’s fascinating to imagine the response to all this is in the Republican camp. It has surely upset their current strategies. Trump is notoriously uncomfortable around strong women and people of colour, and Harris knows how to get under his skin. Within hours of the Biden announcement, the attacks had begun.
Rather than responding in the spirit of magnanimity he momentarily adopted at the party convention, Trump described Biden as “the worst president by far in the history of our country” and, true to form, issued a fundraising appeal on the basis of his new opponent. “If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president,” House speaker Mike Johnston posted on social media. “He must resign the office immediately.” There will be much more along these lines in the days ahead as Republicans seek to undermine Biden as a lame duck president.
The final problem for Harris is the future campaign roles of current White House staff and powerful and respected Democrats. Will those senior staff who have been so loyal to Biden over so many years work willingly with Harris to help her campaign? Has she finally dealt with the issues that saw a substantial turnover in her own staff? And will the Obamas, the Clintons, and Biden and his family be the ardent champions across the nation that she needs?
Harris has said she is honoured by Biden’s endorsement and that she intends to “earn and win” the Democratic nomination. She has already made history as the first woman and first woman of colour to be vice-president; now she stands at the brink of another historic leap at a crucial time in American political history. •
