By Matthew Continetti
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Even before 1:46 p.m. on Sunday, July 21, when
Joe Biden declared that he had changed his mind and would not be running for a
second term as president, the 2024 election cycle was filled with historical
rarities. Biden and Donald Trump were the two oldest major-party candidates
ever. They were also among the least popular. It was the first rematch of prior
nominees since 1956, and the first time since 1892 that the presumptive
nominees were a sitting and a former president. President Biden suffered from
the worst polling of any incumbent president since Jimmy Carter. And former
president Trump was polling better than any Republican in 20 years.
Then things got weird. On June 27, Trump and Biden held
the earliest presidential debate on record. Biden’s god-awful performance sent
the Democratic Party into a spiral. The subsequent three weeks were chaotic,
confusing, and acrimonious. Members of Congress called for Biden to withdraw
from the race. Donors withheld campaign funds. In one of the most influential
op-eds ever to be published in the New York Times, or anywhere
else, the actor George Clooney demanded that Biden retire. The president fought
back. He sat for interviews with ABC and NBC. He held a solo “big boy” press
conference. Nothing stopped the revolt.
On July 13, Trump became the first sitting or former
president to be shot in more than 40 years. The assassin’s bullets came within
centimeters of ending Trump’s life and killed one bystander and injured two
others. Days later, in Milwaukee, Trump became the first Republican to be
nominated for president three consecutive times. (Eight years separated the
first and second nominations of Richard Nixon, the other GOP three-timer.) A
subdued Trump called for national unity. He chose Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio
as his vice-presidential nominee, making Vance the first member of the
Millennial generation to appear on a major-party ticket and the youngest VP
nominee since Nixon in 1952.
On July 17, the third day of the GOP convention, Biden
announced he had Covid. He cleared his schedule and self-isolated in his home
in Delaware. The next day, Trump delivered the longest acceptance speech ever,
bringing a remarkably successful convention to a close in the wee hours of July
19. Then Trump and Vance traveled to Grand Rapids, Mich., where they held their
first rally as a ticket amid signs that President Biden’s support in
battleground states was collapsing.
As late as midday, July 21, Biden’s campaign staff
remained under the impression that their man was still in the race. Then came
Biden’s announcement, delivered as a typed letter posted on the social-media
platform X: “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country
for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for
the remainder of my term.” In a separate post 27 minutes later, he threw his
support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
Thus did Joe Biden become the first sitting president not
to seek reelection in 56 years. But there is an important difference between
this withdrawal and the last one. When Lyndon Johnson said that he would
neither pursue nor accept his party’s nomination in 1968, the Democratic
primaries were just beginning. That is not the case in 2024. Biden made his
decision 107 days before the election. No presidential candidate, let alone an
incumbent, has bowed out after winning his party’s primary. No candidate has
thrown up his hands this late in the cycle.
Most Democrats greeted Biden’s departure from the race
with feelings of gratitude, relief, and in some cases giddiness. They should
temper their enthusiasm. While Biden’s retirement may answer one of the party’s
problems, it also raises new questions. It creates a different set of problems.
This will be the first Election Day since 1976 without a
Bush, Clinton, or Biden on the ballot. If Joe Biden completes his term in
office, America will have had back-to-back one-term presidencies of opposite
parties for the first time in over a century. In this epochal moment, there are
three major players: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump. Their
personalities, policies, decisions, strategies, and next moves will determine
the result of this most unusual election. Let’s examine them each in turn.
Biden
The end of his career is as stunning as its rebirth four
years ago. In the winter of 2020, Joe Biden seemed to be finished. He placed
fourth in the Iowa caucuses. He came in fifth in the New Hampshire primary.
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders beat him two to one in Nevada.
Biden rebounded the following week in South Carolina.
Party elites consolidated behind him. As the coronavirus dominated headlines,
Biden seemed the safest bet to defeat Trump. By April, the nomination was his.
Then Biden retreated to his basement. He hardly was seen on the campaign trail
before his first debate with Trump in October. In retrospect, it was the only
debate against Trump he ever won. A month later, when the votes were counted,
Biden had defeated Trump 51 percent to 47 percent.
The next three and a half years did not go well. The
lawless southern border became an issue as early as the spring of 2021.
Inflation showed up not long after. That August, America retreated from
Afghanistan. Thirteen service members were killed during the unnecessary,
precipitous, hasty, and hazardous withdrawal. The next February, Russia invaded
Ukraine.
Biden did not stanch the flow of illegal immigration,
restore price stability, or provide Ukraine the tools it needed to launch a
successful counteroffensive. Then Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023,
killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 240 captives, including eight
Americans. Antisemitism appeared on America’s streets and on America’s
campuses. At the same time, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen launched
a war on maritime commerce. In the months since, the U.S. Navy has seen more action
than at any time since World War II. Through it all, Biden dithered.
And through it all, Biden faced concerns about his age.
He rarely spoke to the press. He returned to Delaware practically every
weekend. He kept a light schedule. For three years, he and his team were able
to project a façade of normalcy. Then the mirage disappeared. In February,
Biden declined to be interviewed during the Super Bowl. That same month,
special counsel Robert Hur released his findings about Biden’s handling of
classified materials and described the president as a “well-meaning, elderly man
with a poor memory.” A furious Biden appeared in a hastily organized press
conference. That only made matters worse.
In front of a teleprompter, Biden could emote, inveigh,
and plead in a way that resembled the backslapping Irish Catholic politician of
yore. On his own, Biden was adrift. In early June, the Wall Street
Journal reported that Biden showed signs of “slipping.” Evidence of
his infirmities began to mount. When he traveled to France for the 80th
anniversary of D-Day, Biden seemed frozen, confused, stiff. At a June 15
fundraiser in Los Angeles, Barack Obama grabbed his wrist and led him off the
stage. At a Juneteenth concert a few days later, he seemed barely aware of his
surroundings. As soon as he stepped on stage for the June 27 debate, it was
clear that something was wrong with the president.
We don’t know what. Biden’s press team has dismissed
reports that a specialist in Parkinson’s disease visited the White House on
multiple occasions. When asked if he’d submit to a cognitive exam, Biden has
dodged, saying he takes one every day on the job. (If so, he has failed
repeatedly.) His condition seems to have deteriorated geometrically as the days
have passed arithmetically. Biden was not seen in public for close to a week.
In his letter to the American people, he spoke of fulfilling his duties as president.
Does anyone seriously believe he is up to the task?
Republicans are asking why, if Joe Biden can’t serve four
more years as president, he should serve another six months. It’s a partisan
question, for sure. It is also a legitimate one.
Harris
The vice president is the front-runner for the 2024
Democratic nomination. She has the president’s endorsement, as well as
endorsements from Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Representative James
Clyburn of South Carolina, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York,
Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Roy Cooper of
North Carolina, Wes Moore of Maryland, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. At
this writing, Barack Obama has not made an endorsement, favoring a “process
from which an outstanding nominee emerges.” By July 23, according to the AP,
Harris had secured the support of enough delegates to be that nominee.
Right now, Democrats are excited about Harris in a way
they never were about Biden. Money is deluging the campaign. The legacy media
are on her side. One pool report breathlessly noted the outfit Harris wore on
July 21 as she worked the phones to rally support. Liberal pundits gleefully
point out that Trump is now the oldest candidate. “This Is Exactly What the
Trump Team Feared,” read one headline in the Atlantic.
The headline writers need to take a deep breath. Harris
is not a guaranteed winner. On the contrary: She enters the race with several
liabilities. She has a lower favorability rating than either Biden or Trump.
She is gaffe-prone. Her office has been plagued by mismanagement and turnover.
And there is no saying how she will perform on the trail.
When Harris ran for California attorney general in 2010,
she defeated Republican Steve Cooley by a mere 74,000 votes out of some 9
million cast. That was the last election in which she faced serious opposition.
Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who challenged Biden this year
because he was rightly concerned the president was unelectable, has won more
Democratic primary votes than Harris. She dropped out of the 2020 Democratic
primary a full month before Iowa.
Harris’s office gives her the baggage of incumbency with
few of the benefits. She is linked to the Biden legacy, no matter how much she
or the media may deny it, while having neither the platform nor the power of
the presidency to command attention and shape reality. In the spring of 2021,
President Biden tasked Harris with investigating and resolving the “root
causes” of illegal immigration to the United States. She was ineffectual. As
the nominee of her party, Harris would have to answer not only for illegal
immigration, but also for the 20 percent increase in prices since Biden took
office and the chaos and American hostages held abroad. Little in her past
suggests that she will respond convincingly.
Biden’s intention to remain president complicates
Harris’s situation. When Vice President Hubert Humphrey left the 1968
Democratic convention as his party’s nominee, he had to deal with challengers
Richard Nixon and George Wallace on one hand, and his boss LBJ on the other.
Rather than make a clean break from Johnson, Humphrey found that he had to
defend the president’s record while trying to forge an independent identity. He
was unsuccessful. The dramatic events of 1968 resulted in a narrow Republican majority,
with Nixon defeating Humphrey by a little more than 500,000 votes nationwide.
To date, most polls have shown Harris slightly more
competitive than Biden. They also show her losing. Prior to July 21, Trump was
ahead of Harris by two points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
That is about where the Trump–Biden race stood before the June 27 debate.
Harris has a tough task ahead of her. She must
reintroduce herself to the American public, for what seems like the fourth
time, as an inspirational and unifying figure with a program for lowering the
cost of living, fixing the border, and bringing peace to Europe and the Middle
East while containing China. What she is likely to do instead is run a campaign
based almost exclusively on women’s rights (including abortion), gay and trans
rights, civil rights, and the defects of Donald Trump’s character. That was how
Hillary Clinton ran against Trump eight years ago. It did not work out as
planned.
Trump
Donald Trump overtook Biden in the polls last autumn and
has not relinquished his lead. He rolled up the GOP nomination without having
to debate. He has been indicted multiple times, found liable for sexual abuse,
convicted of a felony in a New York court, and shot in a field in Pennsylvania.
He installed allies on the Republican National Committee, allowed Biden to
self-destruct in the debate, rewrote the GOP platform, selected a protégé as
his vice president, and watched his former rivals Governor Ron DeSantis and
former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley endorse him. Trump begins the general
election as the unquestioned leader of a party he remade in his image, a party
more unified and enthusiastic than it has been in years. This is his election
to lose.
And he might lose it. Democrats have outperformed
expectations since 2022. A reinvigorated Democratic Party changes the dynamic
of the race. Trump remains unpopular. His approval ratings are barely above
Harris’s. To win, he must keep her numbers low. If independents find Harris
more acceptable than Trump, if the voters who disapprove of both candidates
nonetheless choose her over the former president, then his path to the
presidency will narrow. Republican House and Senate candidates will waver. GOP
confidence will fade.
But these are big ifs. As I write, the Democrats have yet
to nominate candidates for president and vice president. Nor is it clear
whether the nomination will be contested. The Democratic National Convention
begins on August 19, leaving several weeks for turmoil. Biden’s health
condition remains a mystery. Trump’s sentencing in New York has been delayed
until at least September 18. He likely will debate his new opponent.
So much has happened in June and July that we are tempted
to forget that there are several months left in the campaign. What will October
bring? It’s an open race for the White House. And 2024 isn’t done with us yet.
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