What did Biden say during the June 27 debate? The story of a democratic presidential candidate who isn’t afraid to run for reelection
In an era where so many of us hold power over principle, it is very rare that historians write speeches for people such as Vice President Biden, according to Jon Meacham.
Biden’s concession is called patriotic by many Democrats in part to draw a contrast with Trump. This decision would be tough for any president, especially one who has been around for a long time.
On Sunday, President Biden made a historic announcement that he is no longer running for reelection. And he endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, instead.
All politicians want to be the top dog, but the numbers can move things — whether it’s polls or money. Both combined to exert a lot of pressure on Biden. Money had started to dry up, and he was slipping in swing states after his disastrous June 27 debate.
According to Biden in an ABC interview, the only polls showing his party losing would be from the Almighty, along with Pelosi and Schumer.
The charge seemed to be led by Pelosi, one of the smartest political operators in the Democratic Party. She pays a lot of attention to the polls and listens to the Democrats in swing states that have seen their numbers decline in the election. Eventually, Biden got past denial to acceptance.
This has been among the worst three-and-a-half weeks of any presidential campaign — from the debate to former President Donald Trump’s convention to Biden contracting COVID-19.
Democrats are smiling and are excited for the first time since the debate. This injects them with a lot of enthusiasm and money because it doesn’t mean they will win the race. Democrats donated $48.6 million through ActBlue, the largest site for processing donations, in the hours after Biden dropped out of the race. Since the 2020 election, it’s the largest day of Democratic donations.
Republicans don’t have a good picture of what they’re going to do against Harris now that the campaign is reset.
They’ve charged that Biden was too old, might not know where he is, wasn’t qualified to run the country and he and his son are likely corrupt and have enriched themselves.
If Harris becomes the Democratic Party’s nominee, Republicans will be running against a much younger candidate who is sure to draw on her experience to contrast herself with the convicted felon, and potentially be the first woman to be president.
When Biden mentioned he was thinking of running for president, many Republicans tried to change the topic to say the country shouldn’t have a president who is older than 80.
Candidate Candidates for the 2020 Democratic Convention: The Importance of a Problem Solved by an Attorney General in the Light of the Campaign of Biden
For someone to challenge Harris at the convention they will need the signatures of at least 300 delegates to get on a ballot. Biden has 3,900 delegates. It’s certainly possible someone challenges Harris, but who?
Many of the big names that have been mentioned as a Biden replacement have come out and endorsed Harris — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and others.
First, throw out the polls. We are starting from scratch, not in chronological order. Before Sunday, polls had shown Harris polling about the same as Biden. The latest national NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, for example, had Biden up 50% to 48% over Trump, within the margin of error. Harris was tied with Trump in points, 50% to 49%.
But that’s when people were thinking of her as a hypothetical candidate. Harris is going to face a lot of scrutiny now that he is likely to be the nominee.
She was not a really good candidate when she ran for the Democratic nomination. She struggled to convey her core values, instead saying she saw herself as a problem solver. She has been accused of being too strict on crime as the state’s attorney general, but also caricatured as a liberal by the right. She’s struggled with messaging at times as vice president, including on immigration, one of the areas Biden put her in charge of early on.
“The prospect of Kamala [Harris] as the nominee and most of [the] party leadership falling behind her makes me feel a lot better,” she explained, adding that while Harris still has to answer to some of the same policy concerns young voters had of Biden, she can run a stronger campaign against Trump.
She can rejigger the electoral map. There are risks and rewards with each of these candidates, but some of the names floated include lots of white, male moderates like Pennsylvania’s Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, as well as Whitmer, a swing-state governor.
Shapiro, 51, is a popular pick in Democratic circles because he’s generally well-liked, has handled thorny issues competently and is from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has seen more ad money than any other state. A block of the Blue Wall needs to be taken out by the Trump campaign. They targeted Pennsylvania more than any other swing state and were holding onto a narrow lead in the polls, as of Sunday morning.
It was found that Beshear is a popular Democrat. He’s won praise from both sides of the aisle for how he’s worked with both parties, but he’s in a Republican presidential state.
Kelly is from a swing state. He could help Democrats, since he is from a border state, and he is married to the former Rep. Giffords, who was shot in the head at a constituent event in 2011. He isn’t from a swing state with as many delegates as Pennsylvania or North Carolina, though.
Gen Z Followed Biden as the Candidate of the 2020 Senate Electoral Race: From Vinograh to Kamala Harris
This is all Biden has ever known. He won seven terms to the Senate from Delaware, and then was vice president. He ran for the presidency twice before winning. He dropped out in disgrace in 1987 after a plagiarism scandal and did not get many votes in his 2008 campaign before being plucked by Barack Obama to be his running mate.
He has always wanted to be president and has been told by plenty of people in his life that he couldn’t do a lot of things. In 2020, he defeated Trump, and Democrats credit him with saving democracy. Reality has now set in that the path forward was narrowing or notexistent.
In the hours after President Biden announced he would be stepping off the ticket and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters sprang into action online.
From coconut tree and “brat”-coded memes to official endorsements of Harris from youth-focused political groups, there was a tone shift among left-leaning young voters, organizers and activists: some moving away from doubts and frustration with Biden as their nominee and others excited and relieved for Harris’s prospects instead.
In about 100 written responses to NPR, voters overwhelmingly applauded Biden’s decision to leave the race, though some remained cautious and undecided on how Harris’ message and policy platform may differ from Biden’s.
26-year-old Zach Berly of Angier, NC., used to be a Republican. He voted for former president Donald Trump in 2016 but flipped to Biden in 2020. Over the past few weeks he began to become more concerned about the president’s health and began to be more cautious about Harris as a potential replacement. Berly’s support was cemented when he saw Harris speak in North Carolina last week.
She had planned to vote for Biden but was unsure if he could win another victory.
He explained that people were asking him which third party was the best to vote for. “I’m not sure that has fundamentally changed, but I do think Kamala [Harris] has the ability to reach people that Biden never could. The question is; will she make an effort to?”
Biden has repeated the phrase several times, “Don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.” but over the past year, some young voters have bristled at having to choose between Biden and Trump.
Young voters overwhelmingly voted for Biden in 2020, and the administration acted on a number of political issues that have previously motivated young voters to get politically engaged, including taking steps to establish an office of gun violence prevention, relieving billions in student debt and tackling climate change.
In national polls, Biden has struggled with Gen Z and younger voters. He also received loud criticism from prominent young organizers, who disagreed with some of his policy decisions, including his approval of an oil drilling project in Alaska last year and his commitment to send military aid to Israel in its war against Hamas.
There are a number of young voices that have been critical. The 22-year-old heads the youth-focused group Gen Z for Change, which advocates for progressive policies online and has nearly 2 million followers on TikTok. The organization supported Harris, even though they hadn’t endorsed Biden.
“Our endorsement of Vice President Harris is a broader representative endorsement of the Democratic party’s decision to listen to its constituents and unite around a candidate with newer and younger vision for this country” and the “necessary energy to defeat Donald Trump,” she said in a statement to NPR.
Harris tried to reach out to younger voters during Biden’s first term. Last fall, she traveled around the country, visiting different colleges and focusing discussions on issues like protecting abortion rights and curbing gun violence – two areas she championed during Biden’s first term.
Mason Pressler believes that her position on Gaza will be better than that of Biden.
But Crudete is more convinced that Harris can be moved to the left on foreign policy in ways that Biden could not.
If I had to vote, I was looking at third parties because there had not been a change in the democratic nominee. “I had even started just focusing on down-ballot races in the hopes that even if Biden lost, at least we’d have a chance with keeping the House and Senate.”
In just over a day after Harris announced she would seek the nomination, her campaign reported raising $100 million. Harris received a general response from Crudete.
After seeing Biden step down, I was really sad, but I had to do it. “In all honesty I really wish he let the delegates decide the nominee instead of backing Kamala [Harris] up from the get go.”