Special Report: The Ides of March… in July
In which, the betrayal of President Biden bears its bitter fruit.
Did not think I’d be writing another Special Report on the American presidential election in as many weeks, but we’re getting “October surprises” like they’re going out of style.
That being said…
Called it! Biden withdraws.
For those of you who didn’t see the entirety of last week’s newsletter (time to become a premium subscriber for full access, no?), here’s what I said about the movement to remove President Biden from the presidential race:
There was a really interesting sequence of stories on Axios this past Wednesday:
10AM: A poll reported that two thirds of Democratic voters wanted Biden to drop out of the race.
Noon: A story about Biden saying he would consider withdrawing if diagnosed with a medical condition.
I’m not enough of an insider of party politics to say Biden is for sure withdrawing, but with party leaders putting the pressure on I think we can at least say that there is a serious conversation underway to replace Biden. I would even go so far as to say an exit strategy is in place, and the discussion/debate in Democratic circles is on if and when to implement said strategy.
The possibility of an open Democratic convention is a high probability.
Well… here we are.
Yesterday, President Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race “via PDF,” giving his own staff a full minute to digest the news before announcing it to the world.
It’s not as dramatic as LBJ's announcement of not seeking reelection, or Nixon resigning, but it’s up there. Not wholly unprecedented, so not exactly a Constitutional crisis, but rare enough to be a crisis of legitimacy for the Democratic Party and its media allies.
The immediate aftermath of Biden’s announcement has broken down along three main lines:
The refocused attention on VP Kamala Harris as Biden’s heir apparent, and the almost desperate energy party leaders and fundraisers are pouring into her “overnight campaign.”
The serious media whiplash that went from hair on fire panic at the thought of Biden sticking it out to waxing panegyric in the space of 24 hours.
The seriously weird nature of the announcement: No lead time to the West Wing staff, no in-person announcement, and only making a public comment on it this afternoon. It’s led some to start questioning whether Biden is even alive. That may be going too far, but I could certainly see how the stress of the situation and the shock of his reversals could easily cause a frail man for Biden to collapse under the pressure. Not unlike Woodrow Wilson towards the end of his term. Again, not historically unprecedented.
Where do we go from here?
We’ve got about three weeks until the Democratic Convention in Chicago, which has VP Harris working the phones to pull support together to avoid any kind of late attempt at the convention to displace her. Most party leaders and superdelegates appear to be of the same mind, rapidly lining up to support Harris, but recall a trend I’ve been noting for years now: the cracking Democratic coalition. The effort to oust Biden from the race surfaced those party fissures in a dramatic fashion, so it makes sense that a show of unity in the wake of his withdrawal would be priority number one.
However, there's the posture of unity and actual unity. Just like being the party of “anti-Trump” wasn’t enough to hold together Biden’s coalition, being the party of “anti-Trump, retire-Biden” won’t be enough either, which raises some very legitimate questions as to VP Harris’ ability to distance herself from the President even as she has to campaign on his (and her) record. That brings us to a key question:
Can Harris stop Trump 2.0?
Well, a lot will come down to Harris’ VP pick, but the short list says more about the fracturing Democratic Party, and betting markets that accurately anticipated Biden’s exit aren’t bullish on Harris’ chances against Trump. Here’s why:
Harris still doesn’t have much name recognition among voters. She was barely a factor in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, making her elevation to VP something of a head scratcher. She wasn’t even a favorite of Biden’s.
Her California record doesn’t particularly endear her to the Democrat’s progressive wing.
Her incompetence as Biden’s border czar is going to be front and center in an election where voters are getting more conservative on immigration.
Her VP pick needs to somehow appeal to moderate voters AND her progressive wing AND have some level of national name recognition AND provide some advantage in a battleground state. I doubt such a unicorn exists.
Harris is from California. At the end of the day, most of America doesn’t like California, doesn’t want to be California, and gets regular reminders that the California Harris helped govern is no progressive paradise.
As I’ve cataloged extensively in this publication, the Biden administration is a historic moment of presidential incompetence. There will be plenty of efforts to whitewash Biden’s failings and make Trump’s age a liability, but the fact of the matter is that Biden has precious little in terms of substantive wins (Sorry, Axios, big price tag legislation isn’t a “win” in inflation world) to show for his four years in office, and Harris cannot run independently of that.
Bottom line, there may be a lot of energy and media attention going to Harris right now, but I highly doubt it’ll be enough to fundamentally alter the current state of play in the election. It’s still Trump’s election to lose.