Sources talk up the idea of an astronaut as the VP’s running mate.
In January Nikki Haley, still competing for the Republican US presidential nomination, said the first party to retire its 80 year-old candidate would win the next election.
So what? The Democrats have become that party. With 106 days to go the race to the White House has started anew. Joe Biden is out of it, and however it ends, 21 July 2024 will be etched in the timeline of American politics.
- Biden has become the first incumbent president to abandon a re-election bid this late, and the first since Lyndon Johnson in 1968 to decide against running at all.
- Kamala Harris – the first Black woman and Asian American vice president – has become the first Black woman and Asian American to be a major party’s presumptive nominee.
- Donald Trump has become the oldest presidential nominee in US history.
Why now? Biden and his closest advisors realised they couldn’t change the subject of the campaign conversation back to Trump. Worsening polls and emptying coffers told them it would be about Biden’s weakness until he stood aside. Senator Joe Manchin’s public plea yesterday to “pass the torch” may have been the last straw. Only leftists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were still arguing the risks of change were higher.
Democrats are now looking for answers to three questions to see who’s right.
Will anyone challenge Kamala Harris? Unlikely. For half an hour after Biden released a letter announcing his decision, a “mini-primary” was a clear possibility. In principle it still is. Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, wants one. Barack Obama hasn’t endorsed Harris. In practice, money and names started lining up behind her as soon as Biden posted a second message endorsing her and urging Democrats to unite to defeat Trump.
Soon afterwards…
- big donors including Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn and George and Alex Soros pledged their support.
- ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform, said it had raised nearly $30 million in five hours.
- party grandees including Bill and Hillary Clinton endorsed Harris, and sources close to two potential rivals – Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom of California – said they wouldn’t run against her.
Who would Harris pick as her running mate? Probably a white man. Possible candidates mentioned so far include governors Roy Cooper and Josh Shapiro of North Carolina and Pennsylvania respectively, and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. Sources say Kelly is close to Pelosi as well as Harris. He’s also a decorated combat pilot and Nasa astronaut, considered by supporters to be more than a match for JD Vance, Trump’s running mate. (Though an ex-marine, Vance never saw action.)
Is Team Trump bothered? It claims not to be, so yes. The strong vs frail narrative it was crafting against Biden is now history. Harris would not be a surprise as Trump’s new adversary; nor would she be his choice. A 2020 Harris campaign ad that went viral yesterday reminded viewers: “[Harris] prosecuted sex predators; [Trump] is one.”
She hasn’t dazzled as vice president – few do – but Trump has paid her the compliment of insulting her, and yesterday he leapt at the chance to tell CNN she would be “even easier” than Biden to beat.
And the truth? He could be right. Running for president is uniquely testing, as Harris knows.
- Her 2020 bid collapsed before a single primary.
- She’s been tasked with controlling immigration across the southern border for the past three-and-a-half years, and accused by Republicans of failing in grand style.
And yet… Since the overturning of Roe v Wade she has accomplished on a national level what Whitmer has in Michigan, harnessing pro-choice voters to deliver a series of midterm rebukes to Republican candidates.
What’s more… She isn’t 81, and she isn’t Trump. As Trump soaked up Republican adoration last week in Milwaukee, Biden will bask in Democratic gratitude next month in Chicago. Harris has been his loyal lieutenant; so unless a challenger turns the convention into a live-action drama, she should be able to bask a bit too.
