It’s official. Joe Biden has withdrawn from the 2024 presidential election. He will remain as president. He has, what’s more, done what some thought he wouldn’t and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement on the Democratic presidential ticket. As of this writing, Kamala Harris’s X account has remained silent on this topic.
Previously on RedState: BREAKING: President Joe Biden Ends Reelection Bid, Will Remain As POTUS
NEW: Joe Biden Officially Endorses Kamala Harris, Complicates Democrat Plans for ‘Mini-Primary’
Democrats Rally Behind Kamala Harris As Biden Bows Out
President Biden’s withdrawal was, of course, inevitable. He’s been done for some time, and the final act was just the acknowledgment of the unavoidable. The president is normally considered the head of his party’s apparatus, as he is the party member holding the highest office. But Joe Biden lost control of the Democratic party some time ago, and the calls for his withdrawal were just getting more and more strident, even in the hours leading up to his announcement.
Now he’s out – and has endorsed his understudy. This raises several questions.
First: Will the Democrats submit to Joe Biden’s endorsement and nominate Kamala Harris? She is, after all, already a known commodity, she is already part of the campaign, and as I understand it, she will have access to the Biden/Harris campaign war chest. But she is also probably the weakest candidate in the Democrat field; she is not overly bright, her personality is abrasive, and she has, as I’ve often said, the political acumen of a stuffed armadillo and the personal appeal of athlete’s foot. The Trump-Vance campaign has to be gloating happily at the prospect.
But the Democrats, presidential endorsement or not, have few other options. If they shove Kamala aside for someone else, they will cause a fracture in their party that will take a generation to paint over; they will, at a stroke, lose the votes of leftist women and “women of color.” That’s too big a part of their constituency to ignore.
Second: The VP candidate will be key. There again, there are only a few good options. Gov. Gavin Newsom is still not finished with his self-appointed task of reducing California to third-world nation status. There are a few moderate (sort of) Democrats in the field, like Montana’s Sen. John Tester. But there’s a problem: Most of these likely candidates, from Newsom on the far-left to Tester on the not-as-far-left, are white dudes. The same aforementioned “women of color” voters who will be salivating over the prospect of Candidate Harris will object to a white dude as her understudy – because these people decide these things largely on melanin content and plumbing, which is honestly how Kamala Harris got her current job.
Third and finally: There are the outliers. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is a nationally known figure and might see the way clear to try to shoehorn himself in. Illinois’s Governor JB Pritzker might like a shot, as may Kentucky’s Andy Beshear. And here’s the thing: Biden’s endorsement notwithstanding, a fair number of Democrats are likely to see their national convention in August as an open convention, and that is liable to cause a lot of friction – and whoever emerges as their candidate will do so as damaged goods.
This won’t be the Democrat’s year unless something truly astonishing happens in the next few weeks. Donald Trump and JD Vance have to be viewing these events and the upcoming election with increasing confidence. Watch the battleground state polls in the coming weeks; these will be the first indicators as to which direction the American political frog will jump.
This seems appropriate.
