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. I don’t see why ‘coloured’ would be offensive.

    Of course you don’t. Which is why you’ve bellied up to this with elbows out, not realising that this is a highly offensive term in the US and completely inappropriate when describing diverse communities and voters.

    Next to no serious individual uses ‘coloured’ to describe America’s African American, Black, Hispanic, Latino and other diverse communities in media reporting these days.

  2. citizen @ #1500 Saturday, July 27th, 2024 – 7:43 pm

    Trump: “You have to get out and vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine…In four years, you won’t have to vote again.”

    https://x.com/Acyn/status/1817007890496102490

    Pardon my ignorance but does the constitution specifically state that the US must be a democracy, i.e. that people have the right to vote for the president every four years? If so, Trump’s statement sounds like he is threatening to stage a coup if elected this year. Surely then he should be charged with high treason, or is he relying on the get out of jail free immunity card that his SCOTUS mates have handed him?

    I reckon he’s thinking that if he’s elected in 2024, in 2028 after Project 2025 is enacted he’ll be like “Who’s gonna make me call an election? I’m The King. I can rule as long as I want.”

  3. Confessionssays:
    Saturday, July 27, 2024 at 7:46 pm
    I don’t see why ‘coloured’ would be offensive.

    Of course you don’t. Which is why you’ve bellied up to this with elbows out, not realising that this is a highly offensive term in the US and completely inappropriate when describing diverse communities and voters.

    Next to no serious individual uses ‘coloured’ to describe America’s African American, Black, Hispanic, Latino and other diverse communities in media reporting these days.

    Confessions
    There’s no need to be patronising about it. Just a simple explanation is fine.

  4. Bystander:

    I’ve had to school you on various cultural elements recently, all of which you’ve opted to turn on me as some kind of ‘woke’ thing that is outside the ‘normal’ voter radar.

    On this you and BT are wrong. Just accept you are wrong without making this about me. Because this isn’t about me. I’d never use the words ‘coloured’ or ‘elements’ to refer to disadvantaged and marginalised voters.

  5. I reckon he’s thinking that if he’s elected in 2024, in 2028 after Project 2025 is enacted he’ll be like “Who’s gonna make me call an election? I’m The King. I can rule as long as I want.
    ———————————
    If the US public say yes to Trump, he will finally take ‘till death do us part’ seriously.

  6. Confessionssays:
    Saturday, July 27, 2024 at 8:16 pm
    Bystander:

    I’ve had to school you on various cultural elements recently, all of which you’ve opted to turn on me as some kind of ‘woke’ thing that is outside the ‘normal’ voter radar.

    On this you and BT are wrong. Just accept you are wrong without making this about me. Because this isn’t about me. I’d never use the words ‘coloured’ or ‘elements’ to refer to disadvantaged and marginalised voters.

    Confessions
    Two things.
    1. Your comment about ‘schooling me’ is once again patronising and unnecessary and when you do that it IS about you. You also use the term ‘recently’ but the last difference of opinion we had was months ago regarding your repetitive use of the term ‘old white men’.

    You apparently did not see my post a week or so ago in which I complimented you on your thoughts about what the democrats should do following Biden’s departure (this was before he went). You suggested that Kamala Harris should take over and have a woman as her running mate and I agreed with you. I still think it would be the best thing to do to maximise the women’s vote, given Trump’s stated intention of stripping them of their abortion rights.

    2. Finally, I thought it was fairly clear in my last post that I did accept the point you were making. Apparently not.

  7. Has the White House ever been occupied by any other bogan oaf of the calibre of Donald Trump?
    You are aware that Donald Trump is a reality TV actor?
    President Andrew Jackson was one of the truly great Presidents, last Presiden to to have fought in the Revolutionary War, he hated poms, was a General in the War of 1812, fought a number of duels and probably was illiterate.
    However, he was no oaf.
    Bill Clinton, Harry Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, LBJ, GW Bush, they were oafs.

  8. If the story about Biden resigning and endorsing Harris out of spite is true, then Harris has no campaign team behind her 3 months out.
    Sure, Biden has handed over his fundraising so far, but unless Bidens team has switched to Harris en masse, which isn’t likely, then hers is a Potemkin candidacy, and it’s over?

  10. LBJ swore like a paratrooper and sometimes talked to the Press while sitting on the dunny.

    But he delivered a great slew of civil rights legislation which
    in fact ended the racist Democrats’ domination of the South.

    Uncouth he could be but he was no oaf. A very effective liberal president.

  12. Badthinker says Saturday, July 27, 2024 at 10:27 pm

    If the story about Biden resigning and endorsing Harris out of spite is true, then Harris has no campaign team behind her 3 months out.
    Sure, Biden has handed over his fundraising so far, but unless Bidens team has switched to Harris en masse, which isn’t likely, then hers is a Potemkin candidacy, and it’s over?

    Biden also handed over his campaign team. Kamala Harris has already visited them. Campaign headquarters will remain in Wilmington.

    Harris visits Wilmington headquarters as she takes over Biden campaign
    Harris converts Biden campaign into her own
    Harris takes over Biden’s presidential campaign team
    Harris gets backing from majority of pledged delegates; Vance holds rallies in Ohio and Virginia
    Vice President Kamala Harris visits campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware, after Biden endorsement

  15. While it looks like either Josh Shapiro or Mark Kelly will get the running mate position. Tim Waltz’s odds have firmed over the last few days. That he’s not from a swing state would be one thing holding him back.

  17. bc,
    ‘Vance VP’ was awesome! If The Marsh Family do more, or you find anything else like it, I’d love to see it. 😀

  20. Pete Buttigieg is good, isn’t he?

    It reinforces my point last night about the depth of the Democratics’ bench. The fact there are so many quality candidates for VP shows how successful the party has been in winning elections in recent years.

    There is no equivalency with the Republicans. If Trump loses in November what is the party going to do?

  21. Cat

    “ Bad thinker where did the Biden supporting Harris out of spite come from or pulling things out your ass
    ————————————
    Rethug talking points. ”
    ————————————

    What a life BT – spending all day posting somebody else’s ideas on a blog.
    What is the point? Don’t they have bots for that?

  22. Confessions

    “ There is no equivalency with the Republicans. If Trump loses in November what is the party going to do?”
    ———————————-

    I see this as one of the (many) downsides of the hyper-partisan politics the Republicans have themselves worked to create in the two decades since Karl Rove worked for George W Bush.

    Many leading Republicans now come from small mid-western and southern States that are politically very one-sided. They are aided by local media that are completely non-critical of RW politics.

    The proverbial “drovers dog” could win those State elections. So the Republicans wind up with a lot of drovers’ dogs, who have little broad appeal away from their home turf.

  24. In all of this, I think the US is just starting to realise what Westminster governments learnt a decade or two ago, the transactional cost of ditching a poor performing or unpopular leader actually isn’t that high, and infact it can be quite beneficial to a party.

  27. Her true thoughts were written all over her face at the RNC. Whenever the camera panned to her sitting in the booth she looked utterly miserable.

    During her rise through America’s most prestigious schools, law firms and judicial clerkships, Usha Vance rarely — if ever — volunteered her opinions on the nation’s bitterly partisan politics to friends and colleagues.

    But she did express revulsion at former president Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

    Vance told friends she was outraged by Trump’s incitement of the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol and lamented the social breakdown that fueled his political support, according to one friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. Her view at the time contrasts with the later pronouncements of her husband and Trump’s newly minted running mate, JD Vance, who has downplayed the storming of the Capitol and called participants who were jailed “political prisoners.”

    “Usha found the incursion on the Capitol and Trump’s role in it to be deeply disturbing,” the friend recalled. “She was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/27/usha-vance-trump-jan6/

  28. If only Secretary Pete wasn’t gay he’d be a shoo-in as VP pick. *sigh*

    One day America will be enlightened enough to look past it as we have with Foreign Minister Penny.

  29. middle aged balding white man @ #1509 Saturday, July 27th, 2024 – 10:28 pm

    Herr a Drumpf now saying the quiet bit out loud….

    And still they defend him.

    What is it with these people? Oh wait…Branch Davidians, Jim Jones cult…

    I guess it’s the upshot of living in a society where all your basic needs have been taken care of and so your mind is up for capture.

  30. Why is this still not posted?

    With no serious challengers, Harris is set to become the Democratic nominee

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/27/2258117/-With-no-serious-challengers-Harris-is-set-to-become-the-Democratic-nominee?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web

    “Vice President Kamala Harris is officially the only serious contender for the Democratic nomination for the presidency.

    The Democratic National Committee set a deadline for other candidates to declare their intent to run by July 27 at 6 PM ET. No credible candidates except Harris did so.”

  31. Kamala calls Trump “weird” – Goodbye ‘tough guy’ image, nothing cuts deeper than scorn

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/27/2258596/-Kamala-calls-Trump-weird-Goodbye-tough-guy-image-nothing-cuts-deeper-than-scorn?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

    “The Harris campaign is calling Trump “old and weird.” It is a masterstroke. Nothing punctures the over-inflated ego of a toxic narcissist quicker than being thought of as a lumbering oddball. The strategy has legs. Trump compulsively provides evidence he is a nutter. And JD Vance is a gaffe machine.

    On Thursday, Kamala’s team issued a press release, “Statement on a 78-Year-Old Criminal’s Fox News Appearance.” The headline alone is worth the price of admission. But they were just getting started. It began:

    “After watching Fox News this morning we only have one question, is Donald Trump OK?”

    That is genius rhetoric. You pose a question to suggest a weakness — without actually taking a position. It gives the respondent a sense of accomplishment when they get the answer ‘right.’ It is a favorite go-to of Fox News and Tucker Carlson — “I’m just asking questions.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the Harris campaign layered in, “people are saying …”

  33. ‘Nick Catoggio of the Dispatch eviscerated JD Vance yesterday in his newsletter “On JD Vance and ‘childless cat ladies,’” writing that Vance had reduced “a phenomenon as sensitive and complicated as childlessness to brain-dead culture-war demagoguery.”

    It’s paywalled, but here’s a taste:

    Defining “Us” is the chief preoccupation of nationalism, and an “Us” that believes America can be made great again only by reversing 60 years of cultural liberalization naturally resents seeing women forgo motherhood for work. Vance’s emphasis on childless cat “ladies” is a tell in that regard: He didn’t need to gender his critique, as his complaint about childless people not having a stake in America’s future applies equally well to men. But it’s not men whose childlessness so offends revanchist traditionalists, is it?

    And:

    In virtually every way . . . Trump’s Republican Party is less “family oriented” than what preceded it. In fact, the member of the party most closely associated with family values happens to be the member most widely despised by the base. That would be Mitt Romney, whose (very!) large and loving family has earned him zero credibility among populists as a man fit to lead.

    Treating parenthood as some special qualification for civic responsibility is nationalists’ way of compensating for the right’s Trumpian drift away from wholesomeness.

    Needless to say, if Trump were childless, types like Vance would never have dared to suggest that parenthood is a necessary qualification for office. They’d be comparing Trump to George Washington.’

    https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/boilingfrogs/jd-vance-cat-ladies/

  34. Media ARE Reporting About Trump and the “Last Time You’ll Need to Vote”

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/27/2258568/-Media-ARE-Reporting-About-Trump-and-the-Last-Time-You-ll-Need-to-Vote?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

    “New York Times: Trump Tells Christians ‘You Won’t Have to Vote Anymore’ If He’s Elected

    Reuters: Trump tells Christians they won’t have to vote after this election

    The Hill: Trump urges Christians to vote: ‘You won’t have to do it’ in four years

    CNN: Trump tells Christians they “won’t have to vote anymore” if they get him reelected this November

    USA Today: Trump urges Christians to vote, says they won’t have to again if he wins 2024 election

    MSN Metro: Trump tells crowd they won’t have to vote again because ‘we’ll have it fixed’

    Newsweek: Donald Trump Saying ‘You Won’t Have to Vote’ in Four Years Sparks Fear

    USNews: Trump Tells Christians They Won’t Have to Vote After This Election”

  35. Continuing from @9:52am
    The Source: Trump Reveals He Aims to Rid Elections if He Wins Presidency: ‘You Won’t Have to Vote Anymore, It’ll be Fixed’

    Trump is flat-out telling possible voters his plans. While on stage in Florida, speaking to a Christian community, Trump stated that if he were elected, this would be the last time anyone would have to vote. The alarming statement points to an effort to change how America is governed, alluding to abolishing elections and permanently installing himself in office.

    The Mirror (UK): Donald Trump branded ‘dictator’ after telling MAGA fans ‘you won’t have to vote again’

    The comments went viral on X/ Twitter with more than 17.2million views as of Saturday morning. Many of those who referenced the clip shared their perceived concerns over the language he used in the speech.

  37. ProPublica (a pulizter winning publication)
    How much GOP has changed in just 20 years

    How a militant anti-abortion activist is influencing GOP politics

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/27/2253704/-How-a-militant-anti-abortion-activist-is-influencing-GOP-politics?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_5&pm_medium=web

    “The Wisconsin pastor was once a political pariah. But now his book is being quoted by politicians and former Trump officials. One activist is using it to disrupt elections.

    by Phoebe Petrovic, Wisconsin Watch
    ”

    Wisconsin Pastor Matthew Trewhella has an affable routine when he’s trying to persuade government officials to abolish abortion, ignore gun laws and question election results.

    The 63-year-old opens his talks with a photo of “Trewhella nation”: his wife of over 40 years, their 11 home-schooled children and dozens of grandchildren. He cracks jokes. He quotes history and scripture. He floats secession as a regretful possibility. With half-rim glasses and collared shirts, Trewhella looks and sounds more like a professor than a provocateur.

    But when addressing his congregation at an Embassy Suites in suburban Milwaukee, he sneers and shouts, deriding his enemies as wicked dogs, whores and tyrants.

    “When you see sodomy running rampant, when you see women in government, when you see men behaving like effeminate little squirrels, judgment is in the land,” Trewhella said during a 2020 sermon.

    Last year, he said homosexuality should be treated as a crime, noting that the Bible called for the death penalty for “the filth of sodomy.”

    For much of his public life, Trewhella has made a career of denouncing the law while railing against abortion and gun restrictions. Twenty years ago, that made him a political pariah. His reputation for blockading abortion clinics, calling for churches to form militias and defending the murder of abortion providers was so extreme that two state chapters of Right to Life, the anti-abortion group, condemned him.

    But today, the world has changed. He has been invited to speak by local Republican parties and other groups across the country. He gave a prayer breakfast sermon to one of the nation’s preeminent law enforcement associations. And a prolific booster of election conspiracy theories has used his work as the basis for a campaign to disrupt elections.

    Trewhella’s ability to tailor his message for different audiences has helped. He’s gracious to the women who introduce him at political events but tells his congregation that the idea of women in government is “sickening” and “perverse.”

    In the cast of characters who might influence the upcoming election, he’s not rallying crowds like Steve Bannon, the former Donald Trump strategist, or Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA. Trewhella is more behind the scenes, providing a religious justification for some far-right policies and causes. With the political establishment shifting, he exemplifies how in this splintered landscape, even the most fringe figures can become influencers.

    Trewhella gained his newfound acceptance with a self-published 2013 book, “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” which relies on a theory developed by 16th-century Calvinists seeking holy justification for fighting political oppression amid the religious wars of the Protestant Reformation. Trewhella has applied it to today’s political battles, writing that government officials have a divine “right and duty” to defy any laws, policies or court opinions that violate “the law of God.”

    To him, that means outlawing abortion and same-sex marriage, or even violently resisting the government if necessary, noting in his book that there are times when men “must redden their swords.”

  38. Trump huge lies and actual facts.

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/27/2258530/-The-Rat-Man-Cometh-and-Destroys-Trumps-Lies?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

    A few samples

    ”
    Opinion piece in the New York Times where Steve Rattner debunks multiple lies by four-time incited, twice impeached, sexual assaulter, tax fraudster, convicted felon Donald Trump. It’s titled, “Don’t Take Trump’s Word For it. Check the Data.”

    Rattner wrote: “… in his latest campaign for the White House, I’ve been struck by what appears to be an escalation in both the frequency of Mr. Trump’s lies and the outrageousness of his distortions.

    “Now that the uncertainty around Mr. Biden’s candidacy has been resolved, the campaign will begin anew. With Mr. Trump sure to ratchet up his false-hood laden rhetoric, it’s a good time to review his recent history of dishonesty.”

    Jobs

    Lie: “The only jobs [Biden] created are for illegal immigrants and bounce-back jobs – they’ve bounced back from Covid.”

    Truth: Under Trump – even excluding the impact of the Covid pandemic – the economy generated an average of 182,000 jobs a month, well below Biden’s 277,000 a month (excluding his post-pandemic bounce).

    Inflation

    Lie: “It’s killing people. They can’t buy groceries anymore. They can’t – you look at the cost of food where it doubled, and tripled and quadrupled. They can’t live. They’re not living anymore.”

    Truth: Trump’s lie doesn’t diminish the significance of higher food prices for many Americans. But the truth is not a single item tracked by the government is more than 56 percent more expensive than it was when Biden took office, while grocery prices have gone up 21 percent overall.

    Tax cuts

    Lie: “What we did was incredible … We got the largest tax cut in history.”

    Truth: Trump’s tax package was the eighth largest in the past 100 years if you compare it to the size of the economy at the time. This is well behind the tax cuts of Ronald Regan (which was more than four times the size of Trump’s) and Barack Obama. Notably, Trump’s tax cuts mostly benefited corporations and the wealthy.

    Debt

    Lie: “The tax cuts spurred the greatest economy that we’ve ever seen just prior to Covid. … the country was going like never before. And we were ready to start paying down debt.”

    Truth: The national debt increased by about $8 trillion – to $27.7 trillion – during Trump’s four years in office. This includes the impact of the pandemic. The debt grew at a faster rate each year under Trump. His tax cut helped drive the annual deficit to $1 trillion in 2019, up from $680 billion in 2017.

  39. Not sure if has been spelled out but i seem to recall a Trump scheme to have president appointed by slates of delegates appointed by each state legislature rather than via presidential election. Given Republicans controlling majority of states this would likely guarantee Republican/MAGA presidents for a number of terms. Not sure how legal it would be.

  40. C@tmomma @ #1529 Sunday, July 28th, 2024 – 7:21 am

    middle aged balding white man @ #1509 Saturday, July 27th, 2024 – 10:28 pm

    Herr a Drumpf now saying the quiet bit out loud….

    And still they defend him.

    What is it with these people? Oh wait…Branch Davidians, Jim Jones cult…

    I guess it’s the upshot of living in a society where all your basic needs have been taken care of and so your mind is up for capture.

    Once your mind has been conditioned to believe there is a being in the sky who controls and judges everything and everyone you are ripe to believe anything you are told.

  43. ‘fess, Atlas had Biden down by 5 in late June.

    fwiw, 538 suggest a slight GOP lean. They were about 1pt out (GOP lean) in 2022. Bang on in 2020.

  44. A new pivot for Trump, he is actually running to save the world..

    Former President Trump on Friday claimed there will be a major war in the Middle East and potentially a “third world war” if he does not win November’s election.

    Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, one day after Netanyahu met at the White House with President Biden and Vice President Harris.

    “If we win, it’ll be very simple. It’s all going to work out and very quickly,” Trump told reporters at the start of the meeting. “If we don’t, you’re going to end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a third world war. You are closer to a third world war right now than at any time since the second world war. You’ve never been so close, because we have incompetent people running our country.”

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4794793-trump-netanyahu-world-war-november-mar-a-lago-harris-biden/amp/

  46. Sprocket: Pete Buttigieg above illustrates what a great communicator he is, and reportedly he’s on Kamala Harris’s shortlist for VP.
    Or he’d make a fairly decent Secretary of State, he can speak 5 languages after all.

  47. It may not be easy for Trump to dump Vance in favour of someone else. Opinion (from admittedly a Dem leaning lawyer) that it depends on rules in individual states but changing the VP nominee gets progressively harder the closer to election day. Apart from political considerations, practical matters such as printing ballot papers come into play.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDyuFz1ReGA

  49. A few things regarding the VP race:

    1) Anyone who professes to know who the “final three” or similar shortlists are lying. The Harris campaign will be keeping that info close to their chests and, as far as I can see, has not shown any signs of being leaky.
    2) Don’t expect an imminent announcement. The Convention is still three weeks away and announcements can be as late as the Convention itself. While typically it’s a little earlier, the only reason you want it much earlier is to try and reclaim headlines and get some enthusiasm – something isn’t struggling with right now. Also, we’re already seeing a more rushed-than-normal vetting process, for obvious reasons. It would be inadvisable to force them to rush even more (and possibly make an error out of haste.)
    3) The running mate might not be your favourite or someone you considered. There’s a lot of factors at play and they are looking at a lot more information than you. Prepare for the possibility of reacting with “Who?” or even being underwhelmed. Also, politically-engaged centre-left Australians on a politics website aren’t a demographic they need to win, so it doesn’t matter what the majority of posters here just really like a lot.
    4) Lots of things are considered. Not just what state they’re from. The idea that the VP has to be from a swing state is a myth that endlessly persists, despite recent political history proving that thesis completely wrong – and also, the election is likely not going to be won or lost in a single state.

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