On Sunday Joe Biden bowed to the inevitable in withdrawing from the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. Only now has the presidential race become interesting as the fifty-nine-year-old Harris, more than likely to receive the Democratic nomination, prepares to face off against Donald Trump. Suddenly the plethoric Republican candidate has become the old duffer in the race while the Democratic one represents generational change. Every fault-line in American politics — gender, race, and class — will form an explicit battleground between Harris and Trump.
Republicans would be wise not to underestimate Harris, a former federal prosecutor and California senator whose early years as vice president were marked, among other things, by public scrutiny of her staff shake-ups. But that scrutiny appears to have toughened her up. Her public speaking skills, if her recent appearances are anything to go by, seem to have markedly improved, particularly as she feistily defends the Biden record, which, incidentally, looks pretty good on both domestic and foreign policy, and attacks Trump — something that the doddering president himself was utterly incapable of accomplishing.
Indeed, there was a funereal feel to the entire Biden campaign over the past week, especially after he announced that he had been stricken with Covid and would need to go into isolation. Immured in his Delaware vacation home, where he has been recuperating from a bout with Covid, Biden was unable to deliver the news of his withdrawal from the presidential race in person. Instead, he issued a written statement. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” he wrote. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party, and my country for me to stand down and to focus solely on my duties as president for the rest of my term.”
Just how will he focus solely on his duties? J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, has already declared on X that it’s hypocritical for Biden not to run and claim he can remain commander-in-chief. William Ruger, who was nominated to become Trump’s ambassador to Afghanistan, observes that Biden is now the lamest of lame ducks. “He’s cast in the role of Franklin Pierce. Abandoned by his party, he’s not considered competent enough for the campaign let alone the job of president. Let’s hope that nothing significant happens internationally or economically on the rest of his watch.”
The immediate author of Biden’s exit was former House speaker Nancy Pelosi who maneuvered from behind the scenes to shiv him by rallying legislators on Capitol Hill to call for his withdrawal. But the pebble that led to the avalanche was first thrown by Trump. It was Trump who, in a sense, overperformed during the presidential debate with Biden. No line was more telling than Trump’s observation, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”
With the Democrats boldly disposing of Biden, they will now enjoy the glare of the spotlight. The media will be fixated with a new cast of characters. How will Harris capture the nomination? Whom does she pick for her vice president? Who will serve as her campaign manager? Can Harris make the case that Biden policies are responsible for low interest rates and record low unemployment, while exciting the minority and female voters that Trump was hoping to woo?
Poor Trump. He will pout and fume and rage and expostulate. But his salad days are over. With Biden gone, he’s going to have to fight for the presidency rather than glide to victory.