This is truly an unprecedented US Presidential election. Never before has a sitting US President decided to drop out so late in the campaign, as President Joe Biden did with his surprise announcement on Sunday. He also threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris, making it very likely that she will become the Democratic party nominee for the presidency.
The Democrats now have a chance to possibly stop the slide toward defeat in the Presidential election in November. Questions about Biden’s health had the Democrats potentially losing even reliable blue states like Virginia and others.
Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign will suggest parallels to President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, another sitting Democratic President who withdrew from fighting for a second term. There are definitely some similarities. For one, the Democrats are once again a divided house, as they were in 1968. College campuses were roiling with anti-war protests then over the Vietnam War. The radical fringe, led by intellectuals and students, was at the forefront, trying to change the party platform. Today, many of the same college campuses are in a frenzy over the war in Gaza and the progressives are up in arms about US support for Israel.
Democratic national convention
In 1968, all of this came to a head at the party convention in Chicago, with riots and violence. This year as well, the Democratic National Convention is being held in Chicago. And the memory of the disastrous 1968 convention is sending shivers down the spines of Democrats.
Another odd coincidence is that Republicans are again nominating someone who had previously lost a Presidential race. Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee in 1968, famously lost—narrowly—to John F. Kennedy in 1960. In 2024, the Republicans have nominated former President Donald Trump, who is also running again after having lost the Presidential campaign in 2020.
Not everything is similar. In 1968, Johnson withdrew quite early, well before the major Democratic party primary elections were over. He was already being challenged by two anti-war politicians, Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy, though Johnson had been considering withdrawing even before the primaries had begun. In contrast, Biden has overwhelmingly won the Democratic primary. Moreover, he has faced no major internal challengers from his party for the nomination. The main problem he faces is his old age and the perception that he is not physically or mentally fit to be president for another term.
Still, in late July, with the Democratic party convention less than a month away and the election itself barely three months away, Biden pulling out is no doubt a risky move for the Democrats. Considering the state of the elections, however, it is unlikely that any other Democratic party politician will challenge Vice President Harris for the nomination. Unlike in 1968, the Democratic party is likely to present a much more unified front at their convention in Chicago this time.
Another important question is who Harris will pick as her running mate. Political wisdom would suggest that she should pick someone who would appeal to either a demographic or electorally a particularly important state. In Harris’s case, if done purely from a political strategic position, it would suggest picking someone from Pennsylvania because it is the largest of the swing states with the most electoral college votes. The 19 electoral college votes that Pennsylvania has will be critical to Harris’s chances in the election.
It should not have been this close in Pennsylvania. It is a state that voted for Biden convincingly but according to opinion polls, has recently shifted toward Trump.
The state also has a strong democratic party, with a very popular Democratic governor and senator. The governor, Josh Shapiro, was considered a potential presidential candidate himself. Taking him on as Vice President might make certain that Pennsylvania stays on the Democratic side. On the other hand, if the Democrats are confident that they can keep Pennsylvania anyway, the Harris campaign might want to go after one of the more competitive toss-up states like Arizona or especially North Carolina, which Biden lost narrowly in 2020.
There are a couple of reasons why North Carolina is a particularly juicy target for the Harris campaign. Democrats are still polling competitively in the state, and the Democratic Governor Roy Cooper was considered a potential replacement for Biden even earlier. North Carolina also has 16 electoral college votes, second only to Pennsylvania among the swing states. Moreover, Cooper could potentially help Harris in other southern states such as Georgia. Biden had won in Georgia in 2020 but the opinion polling in Georgia this time has Biden trailing consistently behind Trump. Georgia also has 16 electoral college votes, but no Democrat from the state has so far been mentioned as a potential running mate.
There are others, though the electoral math possibly makes them less likely to be Democratic Vice President candidates. Andy Beshear, the Governor of Kentucky, is popular in his state but Kentucky is too Republican to swing even with him on the ticket, making him somewhat unlikely as a VP pick. Kentucky also only has eight electoral college seats.
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Focus on Trump
Arizona is a swing state that Biden carried last time but is now trending toward Trump. So, the Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly is a potential pick, especially because Arizona is at the forefront of the immigration issue, a major target of the Republicans.
California Governor Gavin Newsom can definitely be ruled out because he doesn’t really expand the map. More importantly, under the 12th Amendment, both Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates cannot be from the same state without risking losing the election.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who is also thought of as a future presidential hopeful, is also unlikely because Democrats will not want to put two women on the ballot, though Michigan is also an important swing state.
Of course, such electoral map-based calculations can sometimes be forsaken for other considerations. But it would be foolish in such a tight election. Trump, for example, does not appear to have used such considerations for his VP pick. He picked JD Vance, who is a Senator from Ohio. The state is now quite reliably Republican, and so picking Vance does not really help Trump in expanding his electoral college map. But this is typically Trump, who is more concerned about his feelings, especially loyalty, rather than strategic thinking. This can be good for the Democrats.
It will take several weeks before we get a good sense of how the US electorate will see this dramatic change. Ultimately, this election will depend on which candidate it is about. For the last several weeks, since his poor debate performance, it has been all about Biden’s health, forcing his candidacy into a death spiral. If the Democrats can turn this into a referendum on Trump instead, they stand a good chance of winning in November. A large part of the country will not vote for Trump under any circumstance, which is why he hasn’t been able to gain a bigger lead despite Biden’s troubles. If the Democrats can pull together, they can possibly refocus the election on Trump’s craziness instead.
Rajesh Rajagopalan is a professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He tweets @RRajagopalanJNU. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)