Finally, the voices were heard saying that the Democratic Party had no hope of winning the US presidential election with a candidate who clearly no longer gave any guarantee that he would have the strength to govern (please read the analaysis titled “Is it time for Joe Biden to retire?“), especially when his opponent had just delivered an impressive show of determination after an assassination attempt. And so Joe Biden announced that he would not run for president in the November election, the first US President to do so since Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and at the same time to endorse Kamala Harris. A decision that the Liberal Globe predicted four years ago that Joe Biden would step down and Kamala Harris would run for President of the United States (please read the analysis titled “Are They the Winning Duo (Biden-Harris)? Will be Kamala Harris the First Female Vice & President of the United States Equally?“)
And this decision may have been received with apparent relief by most of the Democrats as a climate had formed where defeat in the election with Biden as a presidential candidate was considered almost certain, but it formed a new field of uncertainty.
Is Camilla Harris the ideal candidate for the Democrats?
And the reason is that precisely because Biden’s candidacy was taken for granted, there were essentially no other nominations. And it may be that Joe Biden, like some other members of the Democratic Party, hastened to declare his support for the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris, but it is not certain that this is a candidacy that can unite the Democratic Party and claim the presidency with claims .
In some ways Harris offers the ideal alternative. She is a woman of mixed African-American and Asian descent, is considered a “centrist,” and her past as California State Attorney General allows her to be seen as “tough on crime” and appeal to more conservative voters.
But, at the same time, he is not convinced that he can rule the superpower, despite the recent effort to improve its image on this front as well.
In other words, she did not manage to take advantage of the relatively “safe” position of the Vice-President in order to confirm that she is the next president. It is no coincidence that the polls about a potential duel with Trump most of the time predicted that he would lose.
And of course Kamala Harris has to deal with the fact that at the moment American citizens in public opinion polls have a better image of the Trump era compared to the Biden era.
Added to all this is the very complexity of the American electoral system. Because the Democrats may be favored by the actual demography of the electorate which means a lead in the cumulative actual vote, but because of the electoral system the electoral battle is mostly focused on those states that are considered swing states.
A selection process that ceases to be formal
Regarding the process, it is clear that now the process of validating the nomination loses its formal character and becomes a real selection process, since at the conference to be held in Chicago towards the end of August the delegates will not be bound to vote for any candidate and therefore it will be an open process.
Joe Biden had won about 3800 of the delegates, in a convention where 1986 delegates are needed to give the anointing to a candidate. As of Sunday night, Kamala Harris had secured 531, as delegates from Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Florida, and Louisiana have already declared their support. If there is no serious rival nomination he is likely to be anointed at the Convention that begins on August 17th in Chicago. However, we are expected to see exactly how the process will be organized to nominate the candidate for President on the part of the Democratic Party.
Against this background, it is clear that most of the Democratic Party apparatus believes that the best choice is Harris and that it is best to establish as early as possible that she is the candidate, to find a vice presidential candidate, possibly among Democratic state governors and start the election campaign.
Others seem to appreciate that other nominations need to be considered, possibly with greater appeal especially in swing states and thus a more open democratic process. It is characteristic that neither Senator Chuck Summery, the president of the Senate, nor Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House, nor Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, nor former President Barack Obama have made a statement of explicit support for the Harris candidacy.
At the moment no other candidacy has appeared, while Harris has already acquired both the mechanism and the money ($96 million) of Joe Biden’s election campaign. However, the Republicans are expected to question this “automatic” transfer of funds from one campaign to another, there will be an official announcement of Kamala Harris as a candidate for President, before the Federal Election Commission, and there is also expected to be a legal battle based on the American legislation on funding policies.
A new condition
The Harris candidacy creates a new condition for the Trump camp, as the calculation they had made that a dynamic Trump would have a Biden shadow of himself against him does not apply.
To be sure, the Republican presidential ticket has gained momentum, both with the attempt against Trump and the selection of Vance for the vice presidential position, who combines her youth, the assertion of a “deep American” identity with aggressive rhetoric .
But he will now face a female candidate if Kamala Harris is chosen, with Trump traditionally having trouble with the female vote, and a new running mate.
Much will also be judged by how Americans feel about their overall situation, especially regarding the economy.
Joe Biden can boast that during his time the US recorded continuous growth rates and extremely high employment rates, as well as a drop in inflation from a point, but at the same time it was his own presidency that coincided with what is universally described as a cost of living crisis.
As a result, polls show a relatively negative perception of the economic condition, reduced consumer confidence and an absence of much optimism about the future of the economy, both generally and at the individual level.
It remains to be seen whether all this is “charged” to the Democratic nomination, especially if it is Camilla Harris.
