On Sunday, President Joe Biden surprised American voters and the wider world by announcing that he would drop out of the presidential race. His decision came after weeks of pressure from Democrat politicians, donors, including Hollywood icon George Clooney and party grandee and apparatchiks to drop out following a disastrous TV debate and growing concern about his physical health and mental acuity.
Welcomed by many in his own party, the decision has nonetheless thrown the Democrats into a state of flux, because, unlike the UK party system, there is no fixed mechanism for dealing with the presumptive nominee pulling out at the 11th hour.
Indeed, it is such a rare occurrence that a sitting president quits a re-election race, that political historians have to look back over half a century to Lyndon B Johnson who quit in 1968. Like Biden, Johnson had serious health concerns, but unlike Biden, Johnson was not the presumptive nominee and indeed he faced the serious prospect of losing his own party’s endorsement during the primary process.
President Biden, by contrast, had already won 3,896 pledged delegates during Democratic primary contests – more than enough to secure the Democrat nomination and by all accounts was looking forward to a coronation at the Democratic National Convention which take place next month.
These “pledged delegates” along with so-called “supper delegates” will now decide who will face Donald Trump in November. For them, there is surely only one question, who can defeat Donald Trump, who after surviving an assassination attempt and a hugely successful Convention has seen the republican base re-energised ahead of the November poll.
While unsurprisingly attention automatically turned to President Biden’s deputy, Vice President Kamala Harris, who was quickly endorsed by several leading democrats, including Bill and Hilary Clinton, some within the Party want more candidates to come forward as there is real concern that the VP doesn’t really have what it takes to beat Trump.
Not only is she behind Donald Trump based on national polling (5 points behind the former president), she is more importantly behind in the crucial swing states. Coupled with this, her personal ratings as a VP at the start of their fourth year in office is dire on -17. This figure is worse than Al Gore +30, Dick Cheney +10, Joe Biden -5 and Mike Pence -8 at a similar time and shows that if she secures the nomination she has a mountain to climb if the Democrats after to hold on to the White House for another four years.
As the brilliant political scientist, Matt Goodwin put it “She is basically where Joe Biden is – languishing – failing to impress a majority of Americans, most of whom also think the country is not heading in the right direction and it’s time for change”.
There are other problems with Harris too, not least the questions of her ability to campaign. When she ran against Joe Biden in the 2019/2020 Democrat primaries the voters gave her a big thumbs down. Despite her initially being talked up as a top contender and potential frontrunner, her campaign ended with support in the low single figures and ran out of money.
Then there are the concerns about her management style. Indeed, Politico ran an article as far back as 2021, which featured a number of criticisms, including a refusal to “take responsibility for delicate issues” and blaming “staffers for the negative results that ensue”. Perhaps most damming of all were the comments from several Harris staffers who told the publication that: “People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” and “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s—”.
Which brings me back to the only question that should matter to Democrats, if Harris secures the presidential nomination, can she win in November? The polls suggest not as the vast majority of Americans have already made up their minds about who they will be supporting later this year and the small number of genuine undecided voters might not be enough to shift the dial in her favour.
So, do the Democrats gamble on Harris knowing full well her flaws and that she starts off trailing the Trump juggernaut, or do they gamble on someone else? Either way, the Democrats have a lot to think about over the next few weeks and rushing to select Harris could seal a Republican win.
Rushing to nominate Kamala Harris could seal a Trump win
