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”

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  1. Wat Tyler

    Now that is a fun little question. Bob Dole lived for a long time, but I don’t think it is him. If its anyone from the 19th century then I’d have no idea. My guess is its someone random from the early 20th, like Cox or Landon.

  2. @Wat Tyler

    Assuming this is a trick question about “major party presidential nominee”, I think the answer is Strom Thurmond, who lived to 100 after contesting the 1948 Presidential election, back when the “Dixiecrats” were still a thing.

  3. Ah, of course. I did think of Strom Thurmond, but he wasn’t running as a Democrat so I didn’t think that counted. If so, then its probably him.

  4. Strom Thurmond would be the longest-lived third party candidate who received electoral votes (and longest lived over all), so I’ll give you credit for that answer. But when I say “major party”, I mean of the party’s that could realistically win an election in their era (e.g. Democrat v. Republican.) I’m not trying to be tricky.

  6. Ah, screw it. I’ll be generous. YaramahZ got it right by mentioning Landon.

    Alf Landon was the Republican nominee in 1936. He lost in a landslide to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He lived until 1987 and died 33 days after his 100th birthday.

    If Carter lives past 4 November this year, he’ll beat out his record. He’ll need to live past 22 April next year to beat Thurmond’s record.

    Prizes for both of you. 🙂

  7. I’ll go with William Jennings Bryan then. He certainly ran enough times.

    Edited… Ha, Landon was just a lucky guess. I did think it had to be someone from that era though.

  10. Nah, Bryan died in his 60s. Days after the Scopes trial concluded (stress of which has often been blamed as a contributing factor to his death.)

    He was actually quite young when he first was nominated for President in 1896. He was only 36.

    The other week I mentioned that Breckenridge was in his 30s when he was VP and during his respective vice presidential and presidential candidacies, I forgot to mention how young WJB was too.

  12. “Watch the above video. We were apparently caught up KHive and missed this.”

    No “we” weren’t – that was covered by US news sources two days ago. When it happened.

  14. So Vance goes on rightwing media to clean up the mess he created with his childless cat lady comment. Surely it’s a simple exercise…

    Patrick Svitek@PatrickSvitek
    ·
    5h
    Vance to Megyn Kelly on “childless cat ladies”: “Obviously it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats. … People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance … and the substance of what I said, Megyn — I’m sorry, it is true.”

    And meanwhile:

  16. I picked up a copy of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s book when I was in the US:

    If he turns 100 it might become a collector’s item!

  17. Tim Alberta@TimAlberta
    ·
    5h
    Ya know, it’s funny. When I reported that Trump allies were second-guessing the Vance pick, I got blitzed with MAGA hate mail. But I also got a ton of texts from other Republicans—folks fully supporting Trump—predicting this was the biggest misstep of his political career.

    The remorse must be extreme. 😆

  18. Rex Douglas says:
    Saturday, July 27, 2024 at 8:03 am
    Griff says:
    Friday, July 26, 2024 at 7:24 pm
    “And that is Obama all in:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km1Rkm0pHO4”

    Well that was a bit cringy I have to say.

    Failure to bend the knee along with the Clinton’s and the Biden’s was a misstep from the Obama’s, but better late than never.

    Harris has played all this perfectly.

    _______

    Wasn’t it just! But we aren’t the audience. Likely to come across as folksy over there 🙂

  20. Confessions @ #1367 Saturday, July 27th, 2024 – 8:29 am

    Tim Alberta@TimAlberta
    ·
    5h
    Ya know, it’s funny. When I reported that Trump allies were second-guessing the Vance pick, I got blitzed with MAGA hate mail. But I also got a ton of texts from other Republicans—folks fully supporting Trump—predicting this was the biggest misstep of his political career.

    The remorse must be extreme. 😆

    The biggest mistake Chris La Civita and Suzy Wiles have made so far in the campaign. Talking Trump into picking Vance.

  21. C@t:

    Apparently it was Elon Musk dangling the offer of $45M per month to Trump’s campaign in exchange for picking Vance that sealed the deal. And then Musk walks back the offer.

    Love that the con man got conned.

  24. I am not sure that Musk was the only one pushing Vance. I suspect the boys (Don Jr. and Eric) were big fans of the neo-Traditionalist ethos that Vance represents.

  28. Confessions @ #1371 Saturday, July 27th, 2024 – 8:39 am

    C@t:

    Apparently it was Elon Musk dangling the offer of $45M per month to Trump’s campaign in exchange for picking Vance that sealed the deal. And then Musk walks back the offer.

    Love that the con man got conned.

    I wonder if Peter Thiel will also pull back from donating to Trump?

    Someone mentioned yesterday that Kamala Harris actually represented Silicon Valley.

  29. Griff:

    What isn’t clear from the polls this week is whether the polls are reflecting Harris’s announcement, Trump’s shooting, the RNC, something else, or some combo of above. Next few weeks will be interesting.

    Meanwhile…

  30. What are people’s thoughts on LV vs RV for this election? Do you place any consideration on whether it is LV or RV numbers when estimating that Democrats need a lead to be competitive?

  32. “Has a presidential nominee ever agreed to a debate, then pulled out?” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a rumored vice presidential candidate. “Remarkable show of weakness here.”

    “Trump’s team is afraid to put him on the debate stage against Kamala Harris for a number of reasons,” said former GOP congressman Denver Riggleman. “The primary reason is that he’s non compos mentis. Second reason is that Donald will be dragged across America by Kamala for his treatment and ideas about women.”

    “Donald Trump is too old and weak to debate Kamala Harris,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former Barack Obama campaign staffer and co-host of Pod Save America.

    “I think people are underestimating how much of the momentum shift and public impression was driven by Trump, right out of the gate, saying he was pulling out of the debate with Harris,” said Josh Marshall, founder and editor-in-chief of Talking Points Memo. “Prez elections are a series of performative moments about power. At critical moment he showed weakness and fear.”

    “For Trump, the legal and political are now inseparable. Is Trump’s refusal to schedule the next debate really about Harris not yet obtaining the nomination?” said Lisa Rubin, legal analyst for MSNBC. “Or does it reflect the understanding his NY conviction likely will stick (at least through November), reinforcing the prosecutor vs. criminal frame that could benefit her?”

    “Remember how Trump used Obama as an excuse not to debate Kamala (‘There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party – namely Barack Hussein Obama – that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone ‘better.’)?” said MSNBC contributor Bryan Tyler Cohen. “Now that Obama endorsed Kamala, will Trump finally agree to debate Kamala, or was that just a desperate excuse he cooked up to cover for the fact that he’s too chickenshit to get on stage with her?

    “Trump was afraid to debate @NikkiHaley after she destroyed her rivals in the R debates,” posted the X account for the Haley Voters for Harris PAC. “Now he’s afraid to debate @KamalaHarris with a horrible excuse about Obama. We see a pattern.”
    (Raw Story)

  33. C@tmomma says:
    Saturday, July 27, 2024 at 9:05 am
    Griff,
    Democrats always do better with Registered Voters over Leaning Voters.

    _______

    I was thinking of Likely voters. In theory LV models would be more accurate than RV provided of course you can accurately predict who is a Likely voter. I wonder if the switch from Biden to Harris would make estimating who a Likely voter is more difficult as we do not have prior information.

  34. JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, defended his comments where he described the country as being run by “childless cat ladies”, insisting in an interview on Friday that “I’ve got nothing against cats”.

    Just proving that JD Vance is a real smart aleck. Take out ‘cats’ and what do you have left? ‘Childless..ladies’. 😡

  35. “Donald Trump is too old and weak to debate Kamala Harris,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former Barack Obama campaign staffer and co-host of Pod Save America.
    Has Harris ever cdebated anyone live on TV?
    Pence?
    Trump says he’ll debate her on FOX, so what’s the problem?

  37. Badthinker @ #1385 Saturday, July 27th, 2024 – 9:21 am

    “Donald Trump is too old and weak to debate Kamala Harris,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former Barack Obama campaign staffer and co-host of Pod Save America.
    Has Harris ever cdebated anyone live on TV?
    Pence?
    Trump says he’ll debate her on FOX, so what’s the problem?

    The fact that chickenshit Trump is only willing to run to daddy Rupert’s network, FOX, to debate Kamala. After he had agreed to debate Joe Biden on American ABC.

  38. Surprised JD Bowman didn’t back down on the cat ladies.
    Early days, but this unheralded hick could be another Spiro T Agnew.

  39. When President Biden said he was dropping his reelection bid, the sudden upheaval in U.S. politics came as a blow for many in the Russian elite who closely track relations between Moscow and the West.

    Biden’s withdrawal in favor of Vice President Harris has upended a race that the Kremlin and its backers believed Donald Trump could win, creating “a window of opportunity” to settle the war in Ukraine on Russia’s aggressive, expansionist terms, according to analysts and current and former Russian officials.

    “If Kamala Harris wins the election, it will be a huge disappointment for the Kremlin,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of R.Politik, a Russian political consultancy now based in France. “Not because they expect some concrete anti-Russian steps but because the nature of American politics will become, from their point of view, irrational and unpragmatic and self-destructive.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/07/26/russia-kamala-harris-us-presidential/

    LOL!

  42. The vice-president’s ascent marks a historic moment. But the US must remain vigilant to the threat of the ‘model minority’ myth

    “We are here! We are here! We have arrived!” cheered the lawyer and activist Valarie Kaur, to more than 4,000 south Asian participants mobilizing for Kamala Harris on a Zoom call on Wednesday night.

    “I want to name this a historic moment – and as a moment for all of us to come together.” If elected, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee would become the first woman, first Black woman, and first south Asian to win the US presidency.

    Kaur’s grandfather, a Sikh farmer from Punjab, India, sailed to the US by steamship in 1913. “He faced detention, threats of deportation, denial of citizenship. Could he imagine that we would be here, in this moment, 111 years later? Could we have imagined, in our lifetime, this moment would come?”

    Kaur was one of a series of speakers that included the actor Mindy Kaling, the congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, the Philadelphia councilwoman Nina Ahmad, the actor Poorna Jagannathan and other south Asian female leaders who called on south Asian women to rally for Harris.

    While views within the south Asian community are mixed – a few speakers, and many listeners on the call, voiced concerns over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza – the possibility of electing Harris in an election where the future of American democracy is at stake has renewed hope for Democrats. In just 24 hours, the Harris campaign shattered fundraising records, raising $81m, and south Asian organizations have been quick to mobilize. Indian American Impact Fund, an organization that supports Indian Americans in political office, launched the website desipresident.com with the slogan “Kamala ke Saath” (which means “with Kamala” in Hindi). Ananya Kachru, co-chair of high school and college Democrats outreach for South Asians for America, reported seeing a “700% uptick in voter registration in under 72 hours” – with a majority of those being voters under 35.

    The 2024 election brings with it another historic moment: Usha Vance, the wife of the Republican vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance, a woman of Indian heritage and a child of immigrants could become America’s second lady. The illumination of two women with Indian heritage – who represent opposing visions for America’s future – demands reckoning with an often overlooked and complex history about the ascendance of a community that makes up just over 1% of the US population.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/26/kamala-harris-indian-american-politicians-model-minority-myth

  43. Griff @ #1391 Saturday, July 27th, 2024 – 9:28 am

    C@tmomma says:
    Saturday, July 27, 2024 at 9:22 am
    Griff,
    It’s just a guess on my part, but I would assume that Likely Voters would break about even for either side.

    _________

    We need to model who is a Likely voter. See https://news.gallup.com/poll/111268/how-gallups-likely-voter-models-work.aspx for an example. But does Biden shifting to Harris reduce the accuracy in prediction? Just musing as it is raining out.

    Of course it must affect the accuracy of the prediction as Kamala Harris is encouraging more voters to sign up as Registered Voters but also bridging the enthusiasm gap that Biden had created, hence increasing the number of Likely Voters. This is just me spitballing based on observations to date.

  45. ‘Fess,
    Dave McCormick is a real piece of work. he put out an immediate attack ad against Kamala Harris that the Trump campaign are using as their template for the attacks on her. I’m glad his approach appears to have backfired on him.

  46. From memory only, When I last looked at this, 4y ago, RV generally slightly favoured Dems more than LV Likely Voters. RV is better early in a campaign and LV more reliable as the election nears.

    That was for national voting. The “lean” part doesn’t necessarily hold for state polls.

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