Biden Passes Baton To Harris

So, there will be a no rematch between the United States’ President Joe Biden, 81, and his immediate predecessor at the White House, Donald Trump, 79. At last, the drag-on has stopped. After months of hesitation, fumbling and bumbling, an apparently reluctant Biden on July 21 finally announced that he was stepping down and endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris for the Republican Party ticket for the November 5 election. Biden announcement came a week after Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13 as he held a massive rally of supporters in Pennsylvania. On the eve of his decision, opinion polls showed two-thirds of Republican voters wanting him to quit the race.

A disastrous debate with Trump on June 27 created concern among Democratic Party supporters and millions of independent voters. Serious doubts over the president’s fitness for another four years in office were expressed from different quarters. Even if he were to be reelected, Biden would have been 86 by the end of the second innings in January 2029. After Biden’s first two years in office, this scribe had analysed in this very column that his picking the party ticket and actually securing four years in office at age 82 in January 2025 was something “improbable, if not impossible”. Core Democratic members have four months to rally behind Harris. As of now, the battle ahead is arduously challenging. 

Compulsion at work 

Biden’s public approval rating was the lowest ever registered by the time he completed two years in office. The subsequent surveys carried no encouraging trend. And Harris, 59, was even less popular. Will voters be enthused about the change of guard this late for the country’s first black woman candidate for the top job? The vice-president has very little to do under the US constitution, apart from submitting suggestions to the president and occasionally attending ceremonial functions. Although basically a low-profile job, the VP serves as someone “only a heartbeat away” from the president. In case the presidential chair is vacant due to some highly rare event, the VP takes over the job.

A party’s presumptive presidential nominee has never called it quits at this late hour of the race. President Lyndon Johnson, in the midst of the Vietnam War, announced in March 1968 that he would not seek another term after he sensed defeat, more than victory, stared at him. An obstinate Biden shrugged off earlier suggestions from his supporters that he step aside to pave way for a younger, and physically healthier, candidate. In 2020, Biden gave hints that his would be a single-term president that would pave way for a stable of younger leaders to make their bid for the White House job.  

Within two years in office, however, Biden’s taste for the powerful position soared and desired four more years in office. This came at a time when the US influence in the international community had begun waning. Had Biden decided to quit earlier, it would have stemmed the slide in his public image and saved himself much embarrassment. That would have also given more time and space for his endorsee to prepare for the campaign. A spring decision might have prompted better candidates than Harris to throw their hats in the ring. Political analysts attribute Biden’s obstinacy to his half a century of waiting and winning only one term. This, too, has been marked, if not marred, by most Republicans and a sizeable section of independent voters thinking that Trump’s victory was stolen in 2020. Trump said Biden “was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve.” 

Accepting Biden’s endorsement, Harris promised: “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda”. Considered by many noted observers as the worst for a presidential candidate, the June 27 debate might prove to be the eventual clincher for the Republican contender. In the first ever live TV debate in 1960, Richard Nixon from the Republican side and John F. Kennedy representing the Democrats drew a record number of viewers across the country.

Senator Kennedy faced the two-time vice-president under wartime hero Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. But voters swept him to power to become the youngest and the first Catholic president to enter the White House. Shocked and angered, Nixon threw a tantrum: “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.” Eight years of rethinking, however, made Nixon return to bid again in 1968, and he got elected before winning a second term in 1972. 

With bated breath

Will Trump become the comeback president? He weathered many odds in 2016, and seems to have a fighting chance of doing it again if he does not commit major missteps during the next four months of crucial campaigning. His performance in the debate with Biden presented him as a confident candidate who knew what he would do to “make America great again”.  Trump’s camp is likely to focus on corruption and “America first” issues against the new rival who is expected to focus on social harmony, stability and reliable global role for an America with international partners in promoting freedom all over. That Trump has been convicted in an array of felony cases will be brought up in the last lap of the race, which is bound to be retaliated by defining the country’s first non-white presidential candidate with the evil of corruption.  

Three weeks remain for the Republicans to formally anoint their candidate. Although, former President Barack Obama initially wanted the party convention (August 19-22) to decide on who would be the best to confront Trump, he endorsed Harris on Friday. Whoever passes the finishing line to the White House first on November 5 will be associated with a number of historic firsts. As an incumbent president, Trump lost to Biden who had served two terms as Obama’s vice-president. With Europe unambiguously turning to the right, the US might not lag behind putting emphasis on migrants’ policy, identity issues and erosion in the US global influence wielded in the post-World War II decades. 

In sum, race, rightist rise, economic woes and migrants’ policy will have an impact on the competing candidates’ poll prospects. Awaiting the crucial popular verdict in 14 weeks’ time, the run-up might get steered in ways previously not recorded in such sober electoral drill.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)