15 Experts Predict What Biden’s Dropout Means for the 2024 Election

 

15 Experts Predict What Biden’s Dropout Means for the 2024 Election

Political analysts and historians weigh in on an unprecedented moment in American politics.

 

‘What some call chaos can also be called competition’

 

‘Kamala Harris is ready to energize our base’

‘Opportunity to offer a vision of genuine reform’

‘We’re driving off road’

 

‘Highlight the fractures in the Democratic coalition’

‘This is an entirely new race with an entirely new tone’

‘Four months out, the presidency is Trump’s to lose’

 

Ronda Churchill for POLITICO; Samuel Corum/

By POLITICO MAGAZINE

07/21/2024 08:17 PM EDT

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/21/biden-dropout-expert-predictions-00170164

 

Aweek ago, former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated. Today, President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid. To put it mildly, it’s hard to know what might actually happen in this chaotic, historic presidential election year.

 

But we reached out to a group of top political analysts, thinkers and historians to ask them what they see in their crystal ball and offer their best predictions for American politics over the next four months until Election Day.

 

Is Vice President Kamala Harris going to quickly consolidate support for the Democratic nomination or will the party fracture? Will an open process strengthen her or weaken her? If she is the nominee, can she beat Trump in a general election? Our experts differed, with some on the left and right bullish about their prospective standard-bearers. Only one group will be right.

 

Here’s what they said.

 

‘An open process will be the hottest ticket in American politics in decades’

BY MONA CHAREN

Mona Charen is a syndicated columnist and policy editor at The Bulwark where she hosts the “Beg to Differ” podcast.

 

President Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 contest ratifies the wisdom of Abba Eban’s observation that “Men and nations do act wisely when they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”

 

Democrats are now lining up to endorse Vice President Harris so as to avoid “chaos” at the Democratic Convention next month. Many still carry the memory of Chicago in 1968, the last time the Democrats held an open convention. It was a disaster, with dueling rioters in the streets — protesters and police. But fear of 1968 is overdone. Arguably, many Americans feel that the Democratic Party withheld important information about Biden’s condition during the primaries. If the party now imposes a nominee without competition, voters may feel disenfranchised again.

 

An open process will be the hottest ticket in American politics in decades. What an opportunity for the Democrats to strut their stuff and show off their bench. It will give Harris an opportunity to shine if she’s going to rise to the occasion. And if she wins the nod, she will do with the full embrace of a party that had a say.

 

What some call chaos can also be called competition. Democrats should welcome it.

 

‘Kamala Harris is ready to energize our base’

BY MICHAEL STARR HOPKINS

Michael Starr Hopkins is CEO of Northern Starr Strategies, a political communications firm.

 

In these times when self-interest seems to rule politics, Joe Biden has shown us what real leadership looks like. Mark my words, history will remember him as a patriot who put country over personal ambition. That’s the kind of courage we need.

 

Kamala Harris is ready to energize our base. She has the prosecutor’s grit and the charisma to go head-to-head with Trump. Young people, women and communities of color will see themselves in her fight. Don’t buy the tough talk from Trump’s camp. They know they’re in for a real battle. This is an entirely new race with an entirely new tone.

 

The singular focus for Democrats now is about getting voters off their couches and into voting booths. We have a golden opportunity here. While the GOP is trying to drag us backwards — banning abortions, attacking birth control and undoing basic civil rights — we can rally around what really matters: defeating Donald Trump. This is not about finding a perfect candidate or getting everything we want. It’s about protecting our nation and every American who calls it home. Fear and timidity in the face of autocratic ambitions only emboldens those who would undermine our republic.

 

‘It doesn’t matter whom the Democrats pick. They can’t stop what’s coming.’

BY HELEN ANDREWS

Helen Andrews is a senior editor at The American Conservative.

 

It doesn’t matter whom the Democrats pick. They can’t stop what’s coming. Donald Trump will win in November, because voters remember what life was like during his term and it beats the past three years on every metric, from cheaper groceries to fewer wars. The Democrats thought they could overcome that straightforward pitch by harping on Trump as a threat to democracy. But how can anyone run with that line after the Democrats have thrown out the results of their own primary under pressure from donors and other privileged insiders? By caving to their demands, Biden has fatally undermined the central theme of his whole campaign so far — preserving democracy.

 

Kamala Harris will try to energize supporters by touting the chance to make history as the first woman president. That will fall flat. Biden could have resigned his office and allowed Harris to run as the incumbent, but he chose not to, for one simple reason: We all want to see a woman president, but not like this. If that breakthrough is tarnished by an illegitimate process, whether a forced resignation or a convention coronation, it will forever make feminism’s great political victory hollow.

 

‘We’ll be spared the rematch that almost nobody wanted’

BY GEOFFREY KABASERVICE

Geoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington, D.C., as well as the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party.

 

Joe Biden first entered the Senate more than half a century ago, at a time when America’s governing institutions were still capable of greatness, and as president he periodically attempted to remind citizens in these drastically more polarized times what government could do at its best.

 

Unfortunately, by the time Biden attained his lifelong goal of the presidency he had lost the oratorical magic and buoyancy of his younger years. He retained sufficient persuasive power to bring governing-minded legislators from both parties behind some significant bipartisan achievements, and he showed considerable statesmanship in finally stepping aside from his doomed reelection campaign. But Biden failed to bring the country together or to lessen its angry tribalism, and in some ways he made things worse. His evident physical and mental deterioration were all too apt a metaphor for a nation in decline, no longer capable of the unity and dynamism and optimism it showed in its prime.

 

Donald Trump’s vengeful, destructionist populism is more likely to undercut America’s global competitiveness at every turn than to restore it — and I fear that the Democrats will respond with their own brand of tribalism and extremism. But Biden’s withdrawal does at least mean that we’ll be spared the rematch that almost nobody wanted. Whoever the Democratic nominee will be, he or she will be young and energetic enough to make the case that America should move past the violent stalemates of the past few decades. As much as I respected Biden’s backward-looking evocation of bygone greatness, Democrats now have the opportunity to offer a vision of genuine reform and better outcomes for all Americans.

 

‘We’re driving off road’

BY JOSHUA ZEITZ

Joshua Zeitz is a historian and POLITICO Magazine contributing writer.

 

Had he not rescued the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy from the grips of a would-be autocrat — had he simply helmed the ship through steady waters — Joe Biden would be written down in history as one of the most successful presidents in the modern era.

 

His domestic policy achievements in one term exceed those of all of his predecessors since Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. And unlike Johnson, Biden’s foreign policy was a critical success: he held the NATO alliance together in the face of Russian aggression like no president since Harry Truman; he skillfully navigated rising Chinese and Iranian incitement — all the more complicated, since that aggression is so often asymmetrical. And he came to the defense of Israel, in Israel’s most trying moment, despite the constant scheming and ineptitude of the Israeli government.

 

Biden will most assuredly be remembered as one of the greats. There is no shame in growing old. There is much honor in placing country before self, particularly in such a pivotal moment.

 

History offers no road map to the next three months. We’re driving off road. But we know a few things.

 

Voters were unhappy with a choice between two men who would be octogenarians in their second term. A majority of the country loathes the idea of a second Trump administration, fears Project 2025, supports reproductive freedom and embraces democracy over insurrection.

 

It’s now incumbent on Democrats, and presumably Vice President Kamala Harris, to prosecute the case. And it’s incumbent upon American voters to overcome ancient race and gender prejudices in the service of building a better future for themselves and their families.

 

‘Donald Trump is now the de facto president’

BY CURT MILLS

Curt Mills is executive director of The American Conservative.

 

Congratulations to the Democrats for couping an incumbent president. Donald Trump is now the de facto president. The only time, Grover Cleveland in 1892, that a former president has run in the general after leaving office: He won. Explosive powder has now been thrown into that mix. Anyone now sharing the stage with Trump will look much, much smaller.

 

Kamala Harris is underrated by the right but still likely overmatched. The positive narrative wrote itself: the first African American woman vice president from the most important state in the Union, and in Democratic politics. She had four years to shine and failed woefully. Now she has only four months to deliver at a far bigger stage.

 

Flashback six weeks: Harris was the most unpopular vice president since Dick Cheney. At least he had the excuse of the Iraq War. …This is a vexing, panicked move by the Democrats.

 

‘The critical question is whether the Democrats will get smart’

BY ALLAN LICHTMAN

Allan Lichtman is a distinguished professor of history at American University.

 

Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race but retaining the presidency has profound implications for my prediction system, the 13 Keys to the White House, which has correctly forecast presidential election results since 1984. Under this system, they are predicted losers if six or more keys fall against the incumbent party. Otherwise, they are predicted winners.

 

Biden’s withdrawal forfeits the Incumbency Key for the Democrats. That puts the party currently three keys down. The Democrats also lose the Mandate Key, given party losses in the U.S. House elections in 2022, and the Incumbent Charisma Key because Biden is no FDR or JFK. Under these circumstances, three of the four undecided keys would have to fall to predict a Democratic defeat: Third Party, Social Unrest, Foreign/Military Failure, and Foreign/Military Success.

 

However, the Democrats could forfeit another key, the Party Contest Key, which would put them four keys down and closer to a predicted defeat. Over the next few weeks, the critical question is whether the Democrats will get smart and follow Biden’s advice to unite behind Kamala Harris. She is a well-qualified candidate, having served as Vice President, U.S. Senator and Attorney General of California.

 

Aside from the Keys, history offers important lessons. Since 1900, the incumbent party has never won reelection when competing in an open-seat election, combined with a serious nomination contest. However, although the sample is small, the incumbent party has about an equal chance of winning reelection in an open-seat contest, absent a party battle. Examples include 1928 and 1988.

 

‘This coup is not going to work out well for the Democrats’

BY JOSH HAMMER

Josh Hammer is senior editor-at-large of Newsweek and host of “The Josh Hammer Show” podcast.

 

Iam honestly shocked at how the 2024 Democratic Party coup of President Joe Biden went down. The president has clearly been physically and mentally impaired for years now, as some of us repeatedly pointed out when it was less fashionable to do so. The much-discussed CNN presidential debate revealed precisely no new information for anyone paying even the slightest attention. And in a presidential election that will once again come down to the Rust Belt — and the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular — it is bizarre for Democrats to swap out the man who talks ceaselessly about his hardscrabble Scranton upbringing for a left-wing Californian with more baggage than an Acela train.

 

This coup is not going to work out well for the Democrats. The purported party of “democracy” is now so committed to ignoring a near-presidential assassination and depicting their opponent as an existential threat to “democracy” that they are deposing their very own democratically elected nominee — after shutting down their presidential primary process from all even semi-plausible competition.

 

All of this is, to put it gently, farcical beyond belief. No reasonably independent-minded voter can possibly look at this shitshow of a situation and conclude that the Democratic Party is, at this moment, anything but a hypocritical laughingstock. Nothing is a given, we are still a long ways out from November, and it is impossible to know what kind of “October surprise” Democrats have up their sleeves, but Donald Trump and JD Vance remain in good shape to be sworn in as POTUS and VPOTUS come January 2025.

 

‘Democrats have a fantastic opportunity to return the race to traditional fundamentals’

BY BILL SCHER

Bill Scher is a contributing writer to POLITICO Magazine and the politics editor for the Washington Monthly.

 

Incumbent presidents who preside over growing economies with low unemployment and wages rising faster than inflation, and who have not sent American ground troops to fight and die in unpopular wars, consistently win reelection. Economic improvement fosters confidence that the existing administration can ably address any remaining problems. All evidence suggests that Joe Biden was on track to lose reelection largely because of concerns about cognitive decline. Now that Biden will not be the nominee, Democrats have a fantastic opportunity to return the race to traditional fundamentals.

 

For the next four months, I certainly expect Trump and his running mate Senator JD Vance to try to detach the race from traditional fundamentals with race-baiting, misogyny and immigrant-bashing. It’s already started.

 

On Saturday Vance said of Harris, “What the hell have you done other than collect a check?” Vance has barely served in government, while Harris has been a city district attorney, state Attorney General, U.S. Senator and vice president who has represented the administration on more than 15 foreign visits. Yet Vance is talking about Harris like she’s on welfare. Trump responded to Biden’s withdrawal by accusing him of welcoming “millions of people coming across our border” including “many from prisons, mental institutions, and record numbers of terrorists,” completely ignoring the success of the recent border crackdown.

 

Biden’s increasingly garbled speech allowed age and health to overshadow his record. Harris’s recent appearances on the campaign trail have been far sharper. I can’t predict with certainty how well she will hold up to vicious attacks over the next four months, but she is better equipped to neutralize such distractions and return the focus to the subject areas where reelection efforts are typically won.

 

‘A consolidation of the entire Democratic Party behind Kamala Harris’

BY CHUCK ROCHA

Chuck Rocha is founder of Solidarity Strategies and a former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign adviser.

 

What you’re going to see over the next four months is a consolidation of the entire Democratic Party behind Kamala Harris. You will see a seamless effort of all those resources that were going to be spent on behalf of Joe Biden being spent on behalf of Harris. The most important of these is the super PAC that’s affiliated with Biden’s reelection, Future Forward, which as of today reported over $200 million in the bank. You’re also going to see unprecedented fundraising from Democrats, seeing historic amounts of money being raised online.

 

The most interesting thing immediately will be who Harris picks to be her vice president. I think that’s where things are really going to align for the excitement in the party and where the jockeying will really happen. I don’t think anyone can take on the vice president as the nominee because in the Democratic Party, you do not want to be seen as going against the potential first woman president and the first woman of color.

 

We should not forget that Vice President Harris has been the lead for the administration on pushing back against the Dobbs decision, which led to women all across America losing fundamental rights that they’ve enjoyed for years. On this single issue, the difference between a woman of color running against these two white dudes will be the contrast that probably puts her over the top along with all the accomplishments that this administration can roll out in TV ads. Stay tuned and screw your wigs on tight.

 

Democrats endorse Kamala Harris after Biden drops

 

‘This kind of chaos this close to election day means Trump is going to win’

BY SAURABH SHARMA

Saurabh Sharma is the president of American Moment, a Washington-based organization that recruits and trains the next generation of conservative staffers.

 

Inever thought Joe Biden would step down, because everyone who could force him to do so from his staff to the DNC rules committee were heavily incentivized for him to stay at the top of the ticket. The one exception was the donors. It’s no coincidence that Biden’s resignation announcement came the day after FEC records showed a disastrous drop in donations to the Biden campaign, especially compared to President Trump’s.

 

Democratic donors have an interesting relationship with their own power. Many are uncomfortable with the influence they wield, but still wield it happily. Expect them to call for the Democratic Party to engage in some semblance of Democracy in the coming weeks — while still engineering the result that is most convenient. That result is Harris and an undefined white guy. Either there will be a pro forma contestation at the top of the ticket, or they’ll encourage a more democratic veepstakes to give the ticket more legitimacy.

 

That process will necessarily highlight the fractures in the Democratic coalition. Expect public fights over Israel and the future of the Dems’ domestic policy agenda. Every unpopular fight in public will send more support Trump-Vance’s way. During the next few weeks, the Trump campaign will iron out its plan to make Harris incompetent and off-putting to the electorate — and they’ll succeed. More importantly they’ll ask the critical question “what did Harris know and when?” when it comes to Biden’s health. There will still be a close election, but this kind of chaos this close to Election Day means Trump is going to win.

 

‘If the new nominee runs with the old playbook, they risk being equally vulnerable’

BY ANDRA GILLESPIE

Andra Gillespie is an associate professor of political science at Emory University.

 

Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election removes one attack arrow from the Republican quiver. But regardless of whom the Democrats select as their nominee, they will need to craft a compelling, forward-looking message and respond deftly to the dissatisfaction among a significant segment of the electorate that made Biden vulnerable long before his disastrous debate performance on June 27. If they don’t, those who pushed Biden out of this race will probably still feel unsettled in a month or two.

 

Whether Kamala Harris or another Democrat is chosen as the nominee, Donald Trump and his allies will tie every perceived failure of the Biden Administration to them. As such, it is incumbent on the new nominee to be ready from Day 1 to correct the record when Trump engages in policy mischaracterizations, hyperbole and outright lies. They will also have to present a truthful, coherent, compelling and prospective vision for what they want to achieve and why. While contrasting a Democratic vision with Trump’s record, character, and the plans of his allies is certainly part of that contrast, it will take more than outlining existential threats or honing in on a few issues for Democrats to create a winning coalition. They are going to have to convince a diverse coalition of voters to support them because even if those voters disagree with Democrats on a few issues, on balance, Democratic policies would be in their general best interest.

 

Biden’s arguments to this end were floundering before June 27. If the new nominee runs with the old playbook, they risk being equally vulnerable. Moreover, this risk will be compounded by the fact that Biden’s departure already introduces the logistical challenges of retooling a complex, national campaign. In a best case scenario, voters may be more receptive to Biden’s original message because the new candidate will not be dogged with questions of acuity. But the new campaign would do well to prepare for the toughest attacks that an emboldened Trump could possibly make because that’s what is likely to happen next.

 

‘[Democrats] will find themselves tied to a half-baked and untested set of ideas’

BY OREN CASS

Oren Cass is the founder and chief economist of the conservative think tank American Compass and author of the Understanding America newsletter on Substack.

 

The Republican Party’s transformation into one focused on workers and their families, skeptical of Wall Street and free trade, and committed to rebuilding American industry has received more attention, but the Democratic Party’s agenda has been in flux as well. The Biden administration’s embrace of industrial policy, for instance, remains deeply unpopular with the economic advisers of the Obama era like Larry Summers and Jason Furman. Even within the administration, long-running battles have raged between free traders like Janet Yellen who sought closer ties with China and economic realists like Katherine Tai who recognized globalization’s failures. Are Democrats prepared to take seriously the importance of immigration enforcement to tight labor markets that raise wages at the low end? Is Big Tech the keystone in their coalition or do they agree with FTC Chair Lina Khan’s indictment of it?

 

In a competitive primary process, these issues would have been litigated in public and the views of whoever emerged victorious would have earned legitimacy as the party’s path forward. Instead, the next Democratic nominee for president — whether Kamala Harris or one of the many governors earning mention — is likely to assume that title without having given any indication of his or her vision (if he or she has a vision at all), and without reference to the different set of experts who would advise each of them. Perhaps the Democrats will luck into a compelling and coherent ideology to carry them forward. More likely, they will find themselves tied to a half-baked and untested set of ideas for which they are ill-equipped to make the public case.

 

'I'm still riding with Biden': DNC Chair on Biden's withdraw from 2024 race

 

‘Picture a prosecutor versus someone with 88 indictments’

BY ANGELA RYE

Angela Rye is co-host of Native Land Pod and Principal/CEO of IMPACT Strategies, a political advocacy firm.

 

The first order of business for the Democratic Party is uniting behind the candidacy of Kamala Harris and her running mate, who must be announced soon. People need to see the ticket they will be voting for not just the dictatorship they are voting against. The next four months leading up to the election could be some of the most challenging the Party has ever seen, and that is in the face of the Republican Party being fully united behind their messiah, Donald Trump, and his running mate, JD Vance.

 

Joe Biden announcing that he will not seek reelection several weeks before the convention means that Kamala Harris doesn’t inherit the nomination, despite the fact that she should. When people voted for Joe Biden during the primary process, they did so with the understanding that they were supporting a ticket he led and Kamala Harris, with all of her accomplishments as vice president, was his number two. There is one person who stepped away from the nomination: Joe Biden — not Kamala Harris. Every voter who cast a ballot for the Biden-Harris ticket, has the right to ensure their votes still count in the nominating process before and during the Democratic convention.

 

Vice President Kamala Harris earned it. She has demonstrated a significant record of accomplishment and can win. Can you picture a prosecutor versus someone with 88 indictments?

 

This is a different election from 2020 and all the years prior—it is a political war. Joe Biden labeled the last cycle a battle for the soul of America before. Now, it’s a war for democracy, and the American people must act accordingly.

 

‘Need to dispel the Trump nostalgia’

BY LIAM DONOVAN

Liam Donovan is a principal at Bracewell LLP and a former National Republican Senatorial Committee aide.

 

After three weeks of gazing into the political abyss, Democrats have cycled through the stages of grief, accepted the inherent risk of a presidential shake-up, and euphorically embraced a candidate they would have feared leading their ticket just a month ago. The swap leaves them with four months to climb out of the deep hole Biden dug over the past three and a half years.

 

The fundamental challenge for Harris is the same as it was for Biden: irrespective of age or acuity, American voters tell pollsters they remember the Trump era more fondly than the Biden years, and they believe that Trump’s policies helped them more than Biden’s have. So long as this is the case, victory will remain out of reach. Harris and her running mate will need to dispel the Trump nostalgia, camp out in battleground states, and contrast their vision for the next four years with the dark future they promise under Republican rule. The battle has already begun to define her among an ambivalent electorate, with Republicans seeking to reinforce a lightweight image while Democrats showcase a tough-minded prosecutor and foil to Trump.

 

For his part, Trump finds himself in the unfamiliar position of the front-runner. One hundred days out, the former president is on a winning trajectory, one that hasn’t wavered for the past nine months. For the first time in his political career, it is the other side that stands to benefit from injecting variance and uncertainty. That Trump is in this position at all is a testament to uncharacteristic discipline and poise, both by the candidate and the campaign; the White House vs. jailhouse dichotomy seems to have focused the mind. But Trump is a guerilla candidate at heart, and he must take care to avoid the many unforced errors imaginable against a history-making nominee.

 

Four months out, the presidency is Trump’s to lose; but after an eight day stretch that saw the attempted assassination of one presumptive nominee and the political defenestration of an incumbent president, events loom large. And with Biden looking like a bigger albatross by the day, down-ballot Democrats are ecstatic to shed his baggage, even if it means rolling the dice with an upstart underdog.