I began writing this over a week ago, before the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, and before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. My intention then was to speculate on the possible consequences of Democrats in Congress and other liberal-progressive leaders pushing their president and putative 2024 nominee off the ticket only weeks before the election.
My speculative thoughts then were that the risks of changing their ticket with an unwilling Joe Biden were very great—although the president had chronically unfavorable polls, and these poll numbers were deteriorating, especially in key states.
Now, Mr. Biden has officially stepped down from running for re-election. He was forced to do this by his party’s establishment, caused by the public reaction to his debate performance against Donald Trump, and a sudden realization by many Democrats of how frail he really was. Mr. Biden has also now endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him.
Because Biden’s withdrawal came so very late, the selection of his replacement has many potential complications and risks.
Mr. Trump has now not only survived a very serious assassination attempt, but also demonstrated remarkable poise and grit under fire. Within a few days of nearly dying, he triumphantly appeared at his party’s well-organized and smooth-running convention, chose a vice-presidential running mate, and returned to his national campaign.
His poll numbers continue to improve, suggesting not only an Electoral College landslide, but even a Trump popular vote victory. And now the poll numbers of Democratic candidates in competitive House and Senate races are also falling.
This alarmed Democratic candidates and the party’s strategists, and in the past few days, more than thirty leading elected Democrats publicly called on President Biden to retire. Several party strategists from past presidential campaigns warned of political disaster in November (less than four months away), and important major donors were withholding large campaign contributions. Finally, the establishment media, long hostile to Mr. Trump and protectively biased toward Mr. Biden, were in a panic, and turned savagely on the president.
President Biden, however, initially refused to quit the race. He was skeptical of the polls and felt he was physically and mentally able to do the job for another four years. Now, his delegates who overwhelmingly control the upcoming Democrats’ national convention only three weeks away in Chicago, must make another choice.
Vice President Harris, with Biden’s endorsement, is a heavy favorite, but her low polling numbers and poor campaign track record could tempt major opponents to contest the nomination at the party convention.
There are many procedural and legal hurdles yet to overcome. If the convention does coalesce around Vice President Kamala Harris, whose own 2020 presidential campaign was a failure, and who has had even worse polls than Mr. Biden as long as she has been vice president, they might be bypassing a stronger candidate. A lackluster campaigner in the past, Harris has been widely criticized for her role being in charge of the southern border crisis and the consequences of millions of undocumented illegal immigrants entering the U.S. over that border. She will also have to defend the rest of the Biden administration record.
If the Democrats choose someone other than Kamala Harris, the question is who that might be. Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Governor Gavin Newsom of California, and Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg have been frequently mentioned, but their poll numbers have been even lower than Mr. Biden. They also remain mostly unknown outside their home states and have no national campaign organizations. With the DNC convention in Chicago only a few weeks away, do they have sufficient time to woo the delegates?
Some might say the Democrats have brought this dilemma on themselves by hiding from view Mr. Biden’s frail condition and making it virtually impossible for a major candidate to challenge him in the primaries.
Considering this election cycle’s tendency for surprises and breaking precedents, the final outcome in 2024 is still difficult to predict.
Many conservative commentators are warning conservative voters about overconfidence, citing 2022 as an example. A campaign cycle in so much unchartered territory defies easy predictions.
Nevertheless, Republicans and conservatives came out of their national convention energized and united, with their nominee significantly enhanced in favorable stature. Their young vice presidential nominee is likely to help the ticket in the vital Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The party has also recruited much stronger candidates in competitive U.S. Senate races than they did in 2022.
The formidable challenge for Democrats now is to somehow overcome these Republican advantages and inspire their voters to go to the polls. With an incumbent president no longer at the top of the Democrats’ ticket and a former president at the top of the GOP ticket, the Republicans gain one more advantage.
How the voters finally assess all the political drama, surprises and choices in this cycle will be the rest of the story of the elections in 2024. The only true surprise now would be if there were no more surprises.
Barry Casselman is a writer for AMAC Newsline.
All the Democrats did was replace one puppet, that has outlived his usefulness to both the party and its socialist agenda, with another puppet that will now support the EXACT same socialist agenda. Net change is literally ZERO in terms of what changes on a day-to-day basis in the Democrat controlled White House. The same people that told Biden what to say and do will now be doing the same with Harris. Harris will be brought out in public under the most controlled circumstances, just like they did with Old Joe. The last thing party leadership wants is Harris blowing up the carefully crafted PR that the MSM is in the process of feeding the ignorant public that watches them.
As for how swapping out Biden impacts the Presidential race, the Democrat contingency game plan for this particular event is already in motion. Biden will be praised universally across the MSM as a great POTUS, that was under-appreciated by the ignorant peasants who didn’t know how lucky they were to have him for 4 years. Harris will be hyped up to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. A champion of every progressive value and a real super star going forward. In the meantime, the real power brokers of the Democrat Party are picking who will be Harris’s VP and writing the PR spin that the MSM will endlessly parrot between now and the election. All the other Democrat planned ballot manipulation projects already under way will of course continue.
Should the Democrats “win” this next election, expect Harris will step down from the Presidency within the first year (thus checking off that identity checkbox to placate the Democrat voter base), so her VP can be elevated to POTUS and he or she will select whoever the Democrat puppet masters want as their dream team for the next 8 years to 16 years.
How does this impact Trump and Vance. Well, the MSM and the Democrats are already back to portraying Trump as Hitler and “an existential threat to democracy” a week after the attempted assassination, so we’re back to business as usual in terms of Democrat messaging to their ignorant voter base. I expect we’ll be seeing a steady stream of negative attack ads on Vance hitting the MSM by Wednesday or Thursday of this week. The MSM was going to attack anyone Trump selected, so the Democrats just had to wait for the VP choice to be named.
In terms of any debates going forward, I expect the MSM will of course provide the questions ahead of time to Harris and whoever is her VP choice. The questions will of course be centered around issues the Democrats want to exclusively focus on. So, if anyone is hoping for a real debate of the issues important to most Americans, they will be as disappointed as the last debate. Harris will be coached as intensely ahead of time on the answers to give, just like Biden was but was incapable of performing on stage. I expect both Trump and Vance to be able to handle whatever is thrown at them, but I also expect any debate will also be obviously tilted to favor the Democrats in terms of how the events are moderated.
While it may be counterintuitive, the Dems have actually strengthened both their presidential (anybody but Biden) and vice presidential (anybody but Harris) candidates.
It will be interesting to see if either Trump or Vance will agree to debate their opponents after the Democrat Convention.
In any case, this makes the race which was slipping away from the Dems a little tighter. We need to keep the pedal to the metal if we are to succeed in November.
The real surprize would be if the democrats put forth a couple of real choices and let voters decide.
O LORD ! ! What are we gonna do without Tweedle Dee. ??? Kyle L.
Full disclosure: I am a republican. That said, I don’t want to hear another word from democrats about threats to democracy because they have ZERO credibility on the issue. It is the DEMOCRATS who tried to get Trump kicked off the ballot in several states. It is the DEMOCRATS who invoked lawfare to Get Trump off the campaign trail. It is the DEMOCRATS who pressured Biden to drop out of the race only because 1. Their lies about Biden’s cognitive condition were exposed at the debate in June. 2. Donor money was drying up. and 3. Democrats were in danger of losing down-ballot races. If it weren’t for those three factors, Biden would still be on the ballot and the primary votes of 14 million democrats would actually matter.
My bet is they pick Hillary as VP. She has the “experience”. As despicable as she is, there are people that still support her and will vote for her.
If that happens I guarantee Kamala will have a short presidency.
How much $$$$ did it cost the DNC?
Quite a few states have ballot access laws that will allow for whomever the democrat party overlords select for their serflike following of voters only to be running as a write in but not as a printed option opposing Donald Trump. Meaning in effect whomever the shadowy democrat overlords select to run with, or without consent of their Marxist political club following, should they be printed by name on the ballot in these states, many of which are democrat run, it will be a violation of their own voting laws and another mockery of the democratic values of our constitutional republic.
That said however, when has that ever mattered to “democrats”, who ignored the very principles on which our country was founded, and pushed the country into an abyss of civil war over the abhorrent matter of slavery?
I did not want to see this. Sleepy Joe was the easiest to beat. Dems like to vote solely on race and sex. They are going from an old white guy they didn’t really like to a woman who is not black but claims to be a black female. That’s all the low IQ leftist voter needs to hear. This is not good. Keep Praying for our great President Trump. MAGA
This is a gift. Kamala is a mental midget. At least Joe can blame dementia but Kamala just IS! My question is: if Biden is so diminished he can’t RUN for POTUS, when’s the Art. 25 because he can’t BE POTUS?
I will very surprised if Trump is able to pull it off. There is just too much evil influence in the electorial process today. There is nothing fair and legitimate in any federal election anymore. The liberal elites have too much power and control and nothing to counter their obvious lies and betrayal. The Republicans are like beat down children afraid to open their mouths, much less actually do anything. I really admire Trump for his perseverance and determination but he just dont have enough good sane people of power to help him right the ship. I hope and pray that i will be pleasantly surprised come November 6.
so the dmeocrats are runnign cackles the laughing clown.
Is her campaign slogan going to be: “I’ll go heels up in front of every man”?
Maybe her campaign slogan going to be: “I laugh at danger, I laugh at heartbreak, heck I laugh at everything”.
Perhaps her campaign slogan going to be: “I don;t take things too seriously”.
The Dems have this election rigged. I listened to Tucker interview someone who explained how they will cheat with harvested ballots and drop boxes. They’ll use illegals who were automatically registered to vote and then file mail in votes in their names.
Our only chance is to get a massive show of R voters out to the polls to overcome their cheating. Four more years of Obama will destroy this country.
Conservatives must not become overconfident! The MSM and the far-left democrats will not retreat, but will be even more spinning the “greatness” of Joe Biden and all his accomplishments, and how whoever replaces him will carry on to finish his “Build Back Better” platform! Thet rhetoric is only going to get more intense to Donald Trump’s age and against “Making America Better Again”. The next couple of months are going to be very unbelievably more crucial to keeping our Republic. FIGHT – FIGHT – FIGHT!!!!!
Here’s something I don’t know:
There are states that have not yet had their “official primary.” Can Biden’s name be replaced on the ballot? Michigan and Wisconsin just happen to be two of those states. Some states do have “uncommitted” or “write-in” on the ballot.
I am not eligible to vote in Wisconsin or Michigan (I live elsewhere) but it sounds like some scrambling will have to take place – and these two states are definitely purple states.
I sure wish Joe Manchin would run. I thought he would, but he has backed out overnight.