Criticisms about Joe Biden’s health condition accompanied him throughout the last four years of his presidency, and the president who wanted to make a comeback took part in the first presidential candidate debate, not to mention the problems when he referred to President Zelensky as Putin at the last NATO summit. It is therefore no wonder that the Democratic Party completely backed out of Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy, after the reigning president failed to convince either party leaders or voters of his mental well-being.
Democrats wanted to avoid the November election becoming a referendum on Biden’s health, so they had to move quickly.
Although the president appeared determined to run despite the setbacks and declining support within his party, on July 21 he announced his withdrawal from the presidential race and expressed his support for his running mate, Kamala Harris.
Joe Biden subsequently disappeared from public view. Although according to official communication, the president contracted the coronavirus and returned to his home in Wilmington to recover, many people doubted whether he was alive at all. However, the president returned to the White House again, and in a televised appearance, he wished to briefly explain the reason for his withdrawal.
This may have been necessary because more and more sources claim that in fact the elderly politician did not resign, but was resigned, Republican sources and according to him, Harris could have directly overthrown his own president. This was obviously not clear from Biden’s login, in his very short, 11-minute statement, the president drew attention to national unity and justified his decision with the timeliness of rejuvenation and the emergence of a new generation.
The Democrats quickly got over Biden
Although she does not yet have an official candidacy, after Biden’s resignation, Kamala Harris did not do much, she quickly started the campaign, which was apparently sufficiently supported by the Democratic political elite and financial hinterland.
A record $81 million in donations came in 24 hours to support the vice president’s campaign — more than Biden raised in the first two months of his own campaign. In addition, prominent Democratic party figures such as the Clinton couple also stood behind him.
However, Harris’ candidacy may become certain at the party’s nomination meeting starting on August 19. The only complication here is that, during the primary election, Joe Biden collected 3,905 delegates out of 3,949 state delegates, who received a mandate from the voters of the state they represent to confirm Joe Biden’s candidacy at the nomination meeting.
The current vice president must receive at least 1,969 delegate votes at the convention in order to avoid an open, so-called broker convention, during which multiple candidates can appear and campaign for themselves in order to reach the requisite number of votes.
The Democratic Party probably also wants to avoid this very chaotic situation, and according to the news, Harris has already managed to obtain the support of the majority of delegates behind closed doors. There are several legal ways to actually get this, although none of them can be called too democratic, considering that during the primaries voters cast their votes for Biden, which cannot be transformed directly into Harris votes. With all that said, the most likely scenario for Harris’ support is that prior to the nominating convention, delegates will hold an online vote where they line up behind Harris. Of course, we will know for sure after the nomination meeting is over, but according to the current situation, a duel between Trump and Harris for the White House is expected.
What are Harris’s chances against Trump?
According to preliminary polls, Harris could continue the campaign about where Biden left off in terms of support. The Axios looking at the average of eleven national surveys, it states that while Biden’s disadvantage against Trump was 1.9 percentage points at the beginning of July, Harris’s gap was 1.5 percentage points behind the Republican candidate. And according to CBS/YouGov research last week, Harris trailed Trump by 3 points and Biden by 5 points among likely voters. And according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll this week, Harris is ahead of Trump with 44 percent of support, all with a margin of error of 3 percent, so we can say that the candidates are neck and neck.
Although the latter survey shows a very favorable situation for Kamala Harris, these were made before Biden dropped out of the race, so they are purely hypothetical. The picture can also be colored by the fact that in the June NBC poll, Harris appeared as the vice president with the worst support ever measured, his support reached only 32 percent, while 49 percent of those polled were categorically disapproving of him.
A key question, then, is whether Harris’ reported blood refresh will enable an expectedly more dynamic campaign to win over groups alienated from Biden, such as young voters and the black population, without losing demographic groups such as older white voters, among whom Biden is relatively popular. maintained its popularity.
In addition, Harris’ victory may be determined by the success of the campaign focused on the so-called swing states.
The peculiarity of the American electoral system is that the electors of each state must be won – the percentage of victory is irrelevant, the winner takes all the electors of the state. In a polarized society, this means that the winner is almost guaranteed in most states, and the actual campaigning is concentrated on a handful of swing states. These are the places where the outcome of the presidential election cannot yet be determined. In the 2024 presidential election cycle, we are talking about only 6-7 such states, and based on the results of public opinion polls, Donald Trump performed better than his previous Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, in all of them. In these states, it will therefore be especially worthwhile to pay attention to the latest public opinion polls.
Author: Dávid Nagy, analyst at EuroAtlantic Consulting
Source: www.economx.hu
