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Joe Biden announced Sunday that he is ending his 2024 campaign for president. There’s no doubt he made the announcement because major Democratic leaders in state after state have increasingly come to abandon his candidacy.
The steady drumbeat questioning the Biden candidacy since his disastrous debate performance just over three weeks ago made Sunday’s announcement all but inevitable. Still, the decision by the incumbent president is virtually unprecedented at this point in a modern election campaign.
The question now is what is likely to happen in the wake of Biden’s endorsement of his vice president, Kamala Harris?
BIDEN ENDS BID FOR SECOND TERM IN WHITE HOUSE AS HE DROPS OUT OF HIS 2024 REMATCH WITH TRUMP
With Biden’s endorsement, the nomination of Harris as the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee is all but inevitable. And, even if some Democrats talk about a mini-primary or an open convention, I believe the party will be hard-pressed, whatever procedure they adopt, to deny the sitting vice president the party’s nomination.
Here’s the bottom line: While Harris’ nomination is inevitable, her election as the next president of the United States certainly is not.
Former President Trump is correct to say that Harris will be easier for him to beat than Biden. And the polling evidence we have suggests that she is essentially as weak nationally and in the seven key swing states as Biden was. Moreover, while Biden arguably has a record of achievement to run on, it’s hard to point to any accomplishments by the vice president. Indeed, her most prominent role in the Biden administration has been to be responsible for the southern border as our so-called border czar, which objectively, as well as politically, has been an unqualified disaster for the Democrats and the Biden-Harris administration.
BIDEN ENDS BID FOR SECOND TERM IN WHITE HOUSE, ENDORSES KAMALA HARRIS
It is hard to see how Harris will be able to run a campaign that will be in any way fundamentally different from the one Biden was running. And her political appeal does not seem to be as broad as that of Biden, even with his support eroding this summer.
To be sure, it is likely that African Americans in the party, especially the Congressional Black Caucus, will be strong, indeed vociferous advocates of Harris’ candidacy, as will the progressive left. But in a situation and in circumstances where Trump has spoken of uniting the country, it’s hard to see how Harris, given her political posture and appeal, will be able to do similarly.
To be sure, there is one issue that Harris will run on, and she will run very, very aggressively on it, and that’s abortion.
Still, objectively speaking, given that the two most important issues facing the country are inflation and the southern border, it’s hard to see how abortion will have the same impact electorally that it had in the midterms two years ago.
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Moreover, given Harris’ posture on the Middle East, it also seems likely that she will be challenged to do what Democrats invariably have done in presidential elections, both nationally and in swing states, and that is to win the Jewish vote.
All of this adds up to a very great challenge for my party. And under these circumstances, the calls for an open convention and a mini-primary process seem likely not to succeed or, if they do succeed, to create an unprecedented degree of uncertainty and potentially chaos, over the next month or so.
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Indeed, there will be calls from Republicans, which have already begun, to get the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. These leaders are asking, in effect, if Biden can’t run for another term, how can he continue to serve as our president?
At the very least, that is a fair question. But for now, we can say with some degree of certainty that the race has swung decisively in the direction of Trump.
What and how the Democrats respond to these extraordinary circumstances will determine whether the race remains competitive, or whether the Republicans achieve the large-scale victory they are seeking with a decisive win in the presidential election, holding the House and retaking the Senate.
