President Biden has been an extraordinarily successful one-term President, having passed infrastructure, microchips, COVID recovery, and climate change legislation each of which was a major achievement - Photo WIRED
Biden Drops Out
By Nayyer Ali MD
Three weeks after his disastrous debate performance, President Biden withdrew from the Presidential campaign and was quickly replaced as the Democratic Party coalesced around Vice-President Kamala Harris. This completely shook up the race.
Despite presiding over a strong recovery from COVID and passing major legislation in his first two years, Biden had been running behind in the polls by small margins throughout 2024, particularly in the critical swing states. As America uses the Electoral College system, simply winning the most votes is not enough to win the White House. You have to win enough states to reach 270 Electoral Votes in the Electoral College. Al Gore in 2000 and Hilary Clinton in 2016 both won more votes than their opponents but still lost the election by small margins in a few critical swing states.
In the current elections, the most important states are Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Winning all three would almost certainly win the White House. There are other states that could go either way, including Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. But Biden was not building consistent leads in any of these
The Biden campaign gambled that an early debate held in June instead of the normal schedule of late September would help reset the campaign and push Biden into the lead. Instead, the debate showed Biden to be frail, incapable of putting forth strong arguments, and obviously unfit for the task of prosecuting the case against Trump.
For three weeks, Biden tried to undo the damage with a variety of public appearances, but he still came off as tired, frail, and of limited capacity. Biden still had the skills to govern as President, and he handled a major NATO summit well two weeks ago, but his problem was not being President, it was running for President.
Initially, a few Democratic voices called for Biden to step aside, and there was a drumbeat of newspaper and blog columns making the case for Biden to quit. When Biden did not back down from the campaign, the big guns came out. The key voice was probably Nancy Pelosi, who demanded that Biden show her the polling that there was a path to victory. In fact, Biden had slipped significantly in both national and swing state polls. The voters were saying he was just too old for the job.
Biden however waited. He waited for the Republicans to hold their convention, where their entire firepower was unleashed against him. He also waited for Trump to pick a running mate, and Trump went with a junior version of himself in J.D. Vance, the Ohio Senator who was once a Trump critic in 2016 but is now completely devoted to the MAGA cult. The problem with Vance is that he is so extreme that he adds nothing to the ticket, and will not bring in any moderate voters.
Finally, on July 21, Biden told his key advisors and then posted on Twitter that he was stepping down. He could not make public comments as he was isolating due to a COVID infection. The reaction to this decision was astounding.
The party and its base quickly came together behind Kamala Harris as the logical pick to replace Biden. A gusher of small-dollar donations came in, about 80 million in less than 24 hours, a record haul. Another 150 million was pledged by big donors to the Biden/Harris Super PAC. The Democrats were clearly energized by what just happened, and the prospect of a crushing defeat and return of Trump to the White House turned on a dime to the expectation that Harris would effectively campaign and beat Trump.
Trump is now the tired old man who can’t keep his thoughts in order. And the entire Republican strategy for winning this election, which was focused on Biden being too old and frail to be President, has to be tossed out. Harris, on the other hand, can avoid some of Biden’s baggage, such as the Israeli war in Gaza, while making the case for abortion rights and voting rights. She can tack to the center without worrying about losing her base voters, who want to defeat Trump more than anything. Her early appearances have been quite successful, and the enthusiasm is now on the Democratic side.
President Biden did something entirely selfless. He gave up the Democratic nomination for President for the greater good of saving the country from Trump. He has been an extraordinarily successful one-term President, having passed infrastructure, microchips, COVID recovery, and climate change legislation each of which was a major achievement. He can now go out of office with his head held high and with the gratitude of the country. It’s not clear if the President is suffering from a degenerative neurological disease, or just simply old age, but the job of the President is extremely demanding, as is the job of running for President. He just didn’t have enough gas in the tank to do the latter, and he made the right choice to step aside.
