Joe Biden withdraws

A thread for discussion of developments in US politics — one development in particular.

Adrian Beaumont update at 11:40am: I’ve done an article for The Conversation on Biden’s withdrawal.  It’s too early to analyse polls of Harris vs Trump as Harris hasn’t been a presidential candidate until today.  Economic data is improving, and Harris is much younger than Trump.  But it’s a very risky move as Harris hasn’t been battle-tested in primaries, and failed in 2020.  However, Democrats needed to take the risk as Biden’s age is of great concern and he’s already behind.  US Senate polls have the Democrats doing well, implying Biden was a drag.

Joe Biden has announced his withdrawal from the presidential election race, “to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term”.

Discuss.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,678 comments on “Joe Biden withdraws”

Comments Page 27 of 34
1 … 26 27 28 … 34

  1. Harris up in 3 or 4 polls now. She’s certainly looking a positive and energetic alternative. I predicted as soon as Biden stepped down that Trump wouldn’t debate her and it seems to be panning out that way. Smart really, as she would wipe the floor with him. I’m really interested in the next few polls out of Georgia. Trump had opened up a consistent 5-6% lead there and the Biden team would’ve been writing it off. I expect Harris to close the gap there significantly.

  2. Fox News struggling to stay relevent. She smoked a joint! Like this is something utterly voter repellent in 2024 when marijuana is legal in numerous states.

  3. Sarah Palin was a good candidate in 2008

    What?! I was there. McCain went from being a credible threat to a complete joke virtually overnight. Picking Sarah “I can see Russia from my house” Palin was insane.

    That moment makes a good signpost for when the right collectively forgot that you win elections by campaigning from the center, though. Playing to the base with braindead totems like Palin and the ferals who came after her is just for the primaries. You’re supposed to switch gears for the general, not double down on crazy.

  6. Griff:

    I really do feel that this last month in the US is one of those moments that will go down in history through the ages.

    Obama’s late endorsement of Harris was not even a week after she gained the presumptive nominee status, so likely to be forgotten in time, relative to everything else that has happened over the past 4 weeks.

  7. Re Obama, I actually think he should have waited longer to publicly endorse for maximum exposure / keeping Harris in the news cycle in a positive way as often and as long as possible.

    I guess that was his plan for days now, I’m sure he realised very quickly after Biden’s announcement that there would be no open primary after all like he favoured.

    But maybe the speculation had made waiting any longer untenable in case the wrong messages from his non-endorsement took root.

    Obama’s full-throated endorsement will add further momentum with the black vote and with independents more generally – say those who thought he was a good president but then switched to Trump in 2016.

  9. When the dust has settled on all the recent action, Harris still has to win the argument on the economy – clearly the main drag on the Dem ticket all year from all polling, fairly or not.

    It will be interesting to see how she attempts to do this. Biden’s efforts didn’t quite land and there’s quite a lot of disgruntlement out there from those who are still peed off by what inflation has done to their household budgets and generally still doing it tough.

    She needs the right blend of touting achievements (with promises of ‘finishing the job’ and helping them reap the benefits of the IRA for example) and empathy, she needs to remind them that inflation was global and compare USA’s performance to the rest of the West without seeming remote from voters’ day-to-day struggles.

  10. BTSays says:
    Friday, July 26, 2024 at 7:52 pm
    Re Obama, I actually think he should have waited longer to publicly endorse for maximum exposure / keeping Harris in the news cycle in a positive way as often and as long as possible.

    I guess that was his plan for days now, I’m sure he realised very quickly after Biden’s announcement that there would be no open primary after all like he favoured.

    But maybe the speculation had made waiting any longer untenable in case the wrong messages from his non-endorsement took root.

    Obama’s full-throated endorsement will add further momentum with the black vote and with independents more generally – say those who thought he was a good president but then switched to Trump in 2016.

    ___________

    That was my thought as well. I was thinking he was going to wait until the convention. When was the call recorded? It was released just after Trump used Obama as an excuse. Was it prepped as a trump card to win a trick? Should they have waited? We shall see, but I have to say it is quite entertaining 🙂

  12. Confessions says:
    Friday, July 26, 2024 at 7:50 pm
    Griff:

    I really do feel that this last month in the US is one of those moments that will go down in history through the ages.

    Obama’s late endorsement of Harris was not even a week after she gained the presumptive nominee status, so likely to be forgotten in time, relative to everything else that has happened over the past 4 weeks.

    ________

    I am with you there! 🙂

  13. Nah, Harris’ biggest argument needs to be won on the border. There’s currently a race to define her as the new presumptive nominee, and Republicans are trying to tie her to border crossings and illegal immigration.

  14. Confessions @ #1308 Friday, July 26th, 2024 – 7:55 pm

    C@t:

    What is the diet Mountain Dew reference to racism? I feel like it’s an inside Fox News thing.

    I think people are overthinking it. JD Vance was simply going meta. Saying that, because he drinks Diet Mountain Dew, it will be labelled a racist thing by the Democrats, because they label everything the Republicans do and say as ‘racist’, but also because I think the subtext is that Mountain Dew is the favoured beverage of White Americans. That’s my take on it anyway.

  16. BTSays, if I was going to refer to you I would type BTSays.

    I was referring to the right wing poster, Badthinker (BT).

    And I’ll pick you up on the following which you posted –

    I think Harris can hold Wisconsin even though it’s only voted Dem once since Reagan, and she’s definitely competitive in Michigan and Pennslyvania and she simply must camp out in these states to make sure she wins them. If she holds onto these 3 Rust Belt states and wins N Carolina, she could just offset losses in Nevada, Georgia and Arizona to squeak a narrow win…

    Wisconsin has voted Democrat each presidential election since Ronald Reagan with the exception of 2016 when it voted for Trump by approx 23,000 votes.

  17. C@t:

    I Googled, and came up with this:

    Before it was a soda name, the phrase mountain dew was, for generations, Appalachian slang for “moonshine.” The soft drink, invented in Tennessee in the 1930s as a whiskey mixer, arrived very late in the evolution of lemon-lime sodas, a topic I have covered extensively for The Atlantic. (Today, the beverage industry categorizes Mountain Dew, which has a yellower color and more intense flavor than other lemon-lime sodas, as a “heavy citrus” beverage.) Most sodas were regional during the early 20th century, due to challenges related to bottling and distribution; the market for Mountain Dew was mostly limited, at first, to the part of the country where its history began. Its brand rights were sold twice in the ’60s, with PepsiCo, its current owner, taking over in 1964. Even then, the country-bumpkin sensibility persisted. Mountain Dew was marketed with a hillbilly character on the bottle and under the tagline “Yahoo, Mountain Dew. It’ll Tickle Yore Innards.” Even by the late ’80s, just before Pepsi introduced Diet Mountain Dew, the company marketed the drink with a country twang: “Dew It Country Cool.”

    Mountain Dew became a national and then international drink, but it still hewed close to its origins, remaining most popular in a “Mountain Dew Belt” that includes a stretch from Alabama to West Virginia. It thus retains a deep connection to Appalachia. Writing for Eater in 2015 about her own love for Diet Mountain Dew—DMD to her kin—the Kentucky native Sarah Baird said, “When I moved away from home, it became very clear that I should be ashamed of drinking Diet Mountain Dew.” Now Vance seems to be referring to the same idea, that Mountain Dew is a drink for hillbillies, and thus a source of unwarranted derision.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/07/j-d-vance-mountain-dew/679204/

    That makes sense. Vance was clearly being too clever by half, because obviously his audience didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

  19. Kirky

    Sorry, I got it completely the wrong way round on Wisconsin – thanks for correcting this.

    Confessions

    You have a strong point re the border – she has to at least partially neutralise that somehow.

    I still contend that when push comes to shove, “it’s the economy, stupid” – a lot of people are still struggling so this election is unlikely to buck the norm. Arguably the last election was actually not about the economy but that’s an exception. Notwithstanding H Clinton’s other woes, even 2016 was really about the economy after the post-GFC years.

    Of course, it’s never exclusively about the economy – but it’s nearly always a top issue – here in the UK and in Australia too. When the Conservatives in the UK lost their poll lead on the economy in 1992 and in 2022 thirty years later, they didn’t come back from it and lost heavily at the next GE.

    When they were expected to lose in 2015 and in 1992 elections, people were overlooking the ratings on the economy – and they unexpectedly won narrow – but outright – majorities after all.

    It’s too boring for the media to use as a narrative most of the time, but it doesn’t change.

  20. Historical fun fact: It was James Carville who came up with the line, ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’

    Also, today, James Carville injected a note of caution into the Harris campaign. He said that the initial euphoria for Kamala Harris is one thing, but it won’t last, especially as the Trump Campaign gears up to get really vicious.

  21. C@t:

    I’m disgusted but perhaps not surprised that Republicans are using the same lines on Harris that Liberals used on Gillard.

  22. I actually wouldn’t put it beyond Trump if he sensed he could be in serious trouble to switch from JD Vance to Nikki Hayley for Vice President.

    Trump had a show called The Apprentice where he sacked people, he has the temperament to do it here, wouldn’t surprise me!

    He goes with Nikki Hayley he wins the election…

    The precedent has been set, the Democrats switched nominee, Trump can switch VP.

  23. There was a Mountain Dew Ad about 10 years ago that was pulled.
    Everyone has forgotten it, but somehow Vance thought it made him seem with it.
    No one knew what he was talking about.
    The bloke’s a dud.

  25. Badthinker says:
    Friday, July 26, 2024 at 8:24 pm
    There was a Mountain Dew Ad about 10 years ago that was pulled.
    Everyone has forgotten it, but somehow Vance thought it made him seem with it.
    No one knew what he was talking about.
    The bloke’s a dud.

    _______

    Coming from you, that is something! Trump isn’t one for carrying lead in his saddle. Will Trump stick or twist?

  26. C@tmomma says:
    Friday, July 26, 2024 at 8:16 pm
    Historical fun fact: It was James Carville who came up with the line, ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’

    Also, today, James Carville injected a note of caution into the Harris campaign. He said that the initial euphoria for Kamala Harris is one thing, but it won’t last, especially as the Trump Campaign gears up to get really vicious.

    __________

    Yep. Although it was Clinton’s choice to say the last word out loud 🙂

    Carville is with Confessions. Likes Shapiro. Says Walz is old. In looks perhaps as only a year older than Harris?

  27. I actually wouldn’t put it beyond Trump if he sensed he could be in serious trouble to switch from JD Vance to Nikki Hayley for Vice President.

    I don’t know if this is possible now that Vance has been endorsed. But I guess with everything Trump, official procedures and precedents count for nothing.

  28. I’m assuming there’s some sort of official deadline for nominations between the song-and-dance of the major party conventions and the actual election day for each state, the earliest seeming to be Ohio.

    Now wouldn’t that be ironic if Trump decides to dump JD Vance, given that he’s a Senator for that state?

  30. ”Biden was endorsed yet was pressured to resign.”

    Joe Biden had won sufficient delegates in the Primaries to secure endorsement, but this would not have been formalised until the Democrat National Conference early next month.

  31. Comments re Trump getting rid of Vance are way OTT / premature from anything I’ve read or seen.

    But if he actually did decide to, there’s no doubt Vance would be strong-armed behind the scenes so that he publicly withdraws under some pretext or other. He would want to keep in with Trump world too much not to do it, knowing that anything else currently would be political suicide.

    Then processes won’t matter too much.

  32. Could be that Trump got a heads up about Mark Kelly being the nominee and someone on his team picked Vance for his Armed Forces background.
    Keep in mind that Trump had 5 deferments from registering for the Draft due to ‘heel spurs’ and Biden also had deferments for ‘Asthma’, so Military Service wasn’t an issue in the 2020 campaign.
    Against that theory, Vance was a journalist in the Marine Corps, so not exactly action-man compared to an astronaut.
    I think Harris will crash and burn in the next few weeks, the Wicked Witch of the West can’t fake it as Chauncey Gardner.

  33. JD Vance’s ‘military background’ was in the media team. Briefly.

    Compare the pair:

    Mark Kelly has served his country as a U.S. Navy combat pilot, a NASA astronaut, and now as a U.S. Senator for Arizona.

    He is an independent leader who came to the Senate to serve Arizona’s working families, not corporate special interests. (Unlike JD Vance)

    As the son of two police officers, Senator Kelly learned the value of public service at an early age. He attended public schools from elementary school all the way through graduate school. Senator Kelly earned his B.S. degree in marine engineering and nautical science from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and later an M.S. degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.

    As a Navy pilot, he made multiple deployments on the aircraft carrier USS Midway and flew 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm. Senator Kelly is the recipient of the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and multiple Air Medals.

    He has logged more than 5,000 flight hours in more than 50 different aircraft and has over 375 carrier landings. Senator Kelly retired from the Navy with the rank of Captain.

  34. I think Harris will crash and burn in the next few weeks, the Wicked Witch of the West can’t fake it as Chauncey Gardner.

    Like we believe the bigoted, self-interested opinion of an LNP functionary who keeps getting their predictions wrong. 😐

  40. Mavis @ #1336 Friday, July 26th, 2024 – 9:38 pm

    I’ve read that Eric (& another, Thiele?) recommended Vance to be his father’s running mate. “This is another nice mess you’ve gotten me into” might be Donald’s response.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3qcj2MzPYc

    Great, thanks, now you’ve got me the mental image of Don Sr., Don.Jr and Eric meeting together complete with comedic sound effects.

    Not sarcastically, you’ve made my evening. Thanks for that. =)

  41. *Although I acknowledge that, if Harris wins, that shit won’t stop. Even if she loses, she’ll live rent free in many a head for years to come.

  42. Badthinker @ #1332 Friday, July 26th, 2024 – 8:37 pm

    ……Harris…..the Wicked Witch….

    Misogynist stereotyping by Reactionary. Sexism should be grounds for excommunication from the bludgers’ arena.

  43. Centresays:
    Friday, July 26, 2024 at 8:22 pm
    I actually wouldn’t put it beyond Trump if he sensed he could be in serious trouble to switch from JD Vance to Nikki Hayley for Vice President.

    Trump had a show called The Apprentice where he sacked people, he has the temperament to do it here, wouldn’t surprise me!

    He goes with Nikki Hayley he wins the election…

    The precedent has been set, the Democrats switched nominee, Trump can switch VP.
    —————–
    Scaramucci reckons Trump won’t pick anyone that overshadows him so would only pick a vanilla candidate.

  44. You’re welcome, Kirsdarke. I think we need a bit more humour on this site, particularly when viewing the open thread. I’m off.

  45. parkySPsays:

    Wednesday, July 24, 2024 at 8:06 pm

    Keep hearing about “why hasn’t Obama endorsed yet?”

    Well he is waiting for ‘his’ VP to do his full explanation tonight (US time). He is honouring the President.

    It has been an ahem “coronation process”.

    Large PAC donors leading to Congress members leading to Congress leaders.

    The former Dem President’s will then roll in. There is an order and it has been followed.

    Steve777says:

    Wednesday, July 24, 2024 at 8:22 pm

    Re Parky @8:06. The Clintons endorsed Kamala Harris earlier this week: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/us/politics/clintons-kamala-harris-endorsement.html

    ___________________
    It appears that my original contention was pretty close to on point.

    @Steve77 I always would have contended that in the case of Harris the endorsement from the Clinton’s mattered close to zero. In fact that was probably closer to no help.

    The Obama endorsement is another step and as I said it waited until the President’s message had been delivered. You have to respect people that love who they’ve worked with closely. Too many people forget that human factor in politics or are way too cynical to factor it in.

  46. Speaking of former Democratic Presidents, it seems Jimmy Carter is holding on for the moment. In May it was reported by his family that he was put into palliative care, but 2 months later he seems to be holding on.

    While I don’t know much about Carter, I gather that he was a President that cared about people, much unlike Nixon and Ford before him and Reagan after him, and I hope he lives to both reach his 100th birthday on 1 October and see the defeat of Donald Trump on 5 November.

  47. Palin was seen as a great choice to begin with. The majority of polls post RNC convention in the first half of September had McCain/Palin ticket either winning or tied with the Obama/Biden ticket.
    The excitement started to wear off after a couple of weeks and she fumbled a bit in her first interview on the 11th. This started people asking questions and Obama was back in the lead before infamous Katie Couric interviews aired on Sept 24&25. That was when she became the joke character portrayed by Tina Fey in people’s minds.

  48. The Clintons’ endorsement mattered as they still have much of the machinery of the party. Obama has the supporters but not the party heads, ward bosses, union heavyweights etc. Ideally you want both but the people who make the organisation can make or break things. The GOTV is so important.

    And the GOTV is the part the Trump team seems to be neglecting at the moment. It is probably not as important for the Republican sides base but it is for the rest of their vote.

  49. The Democratic Party and its complementary activist organisations have about 100 days to rally their plurality. They will be charged up. Another Blue Wave is a-coming.

  50. Kirsdarke @ #1346 Friday, July 26th, 2024 – 10:05 pm

    Speaking of former Democratic Presidents, it seems Jimmy Carter is holding on for the moment. In May it was reported by his family that he was put into palliative care, but 2 months later he seems to be holding on.

    While I don’t know much about Carter, I gather that he was a President that cared about people, much unlike Nixon and Ford before him and Reagan after him, and I hope he lives to both reach his 100th birthday on 1 October and see the defeat of Donald Trump on 5 November.

    Indeed. While I don’t want him to suffer unnecessarily, I do hope he hangs on to reach the tonne. And, if Harris wins this year, I hope he lives to see that (especially if Georgia goes blue again), just so his mind can be at peace. Although, that’s still a while away.

    Regardless of when Carter passes, he is the current holder of the title of longest-lived US President. But he’s not (at least not yet) the longest lived person who was a major party presidential nominee.

    Quick pop-quiz for everyone: Who currently holds that title? First to answer correctly wins the non-existent prize.

Comments Page 27 of 34
1 … 26 27 28 … 34

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *