6 Political Lessons From Biden’s Decision to Step Down

Perhaps it was the Lord Almighty after all.

Or just Nancy Pelosi.

Regardless, President Biden made the historic announcement on Sunday that he would no longer be running for re-election, and instead endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris.

Here are six key points to learn from this:

1. Biden did this because of the polls that led to pressure from Democrats and donors

Nothing like this has happened since Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to run for re-election in 1968. Even then, LBJ made the announcement in March, not July. Like Biden, LBJ did so because the writing was already on the wall. He was struggling with health problems and was unpopular because of the Vietnam War.

All politicians want to be in charge, but numbers can change things — whether it’s polls or money. And both of those factors put enormous pressure on Biden to reconsider. Money started to dry up and he was sinking in swing states after his disastrous June 27 debate.

Biden indicated in an ABC interview that only the “Lord Almighty,” polls showing his party losing, or perhaps a combination of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, current House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina could persuade him to step aside.

Pelosi, one of the most astute political operators in the Democratic Party, seemed to be in charge. She paid close attention to the polls and listened to swing-state Democrats who had seen a collapse in the numbers in their states and districts. Ultimately, Biden got past the refusal to be accepted.

2. Democrats now have a much-needed boost in their step – and dollars in the bank

This was one of the worst three and a half weeks of a presidential campaign: from the debate to the convention of former President Donald Trump and Biden contracting COVID-19.

But with the announcement, Democrats are smiling and appearing energized for the first time since the debate. It doesn’t mean they’ll win the race, but it has infused them with much-needed enthusiasm — and money. In the hours after Biden’s withdrawal, Democrats donated $46.7 million through ActBlue as of 9 p.m. ET, the largest single day of Democratic donations since the 2020 election.

The campaign has now been reset and it’s clear that Republicans aren’t entirely sure how they’re going to take on Harris.

3. This changes the story of the race

Vice President Harris takes a photo with guests at a Fourth of July event on the South Lawn of the White House on July 4.

The Trump campaign, conservative media and Republicans on Capitol Hill have been campaigning against Biden – and the Biden family – for years.

They claim that Biden is too old, that he may not know where he is, that he is not qualified to run the country, and that he and his son are likely corrupt and have enriched themselves.

Throw that worn-out script out the window.

If Harris does indeed become the Democratic Party nominee, Republicans will be running against a much younger candidate (Harris is 59), a former prosecutor — who will undoubtedly use her experience to compare herself to the convicted felon — and potentially the first woman president, the first black female president, and the first Asian American president.

That poses all sorts of risks for the way Republicans talk about Harris: A black woman running against two white men presents a different dynamic than an older white man.

It’s not often that Democrats troll Republicans, but shortly after Biden’s announcement, many tried to flip the script and say the country can’t have a president who is 83 years old at the end of his term.

Hunter who?

4. Harris will likely become the Democratic nominee, but she has a lot to prove

To challenge Harris at the convention, they’ll need at least 300 delegates’ signatures to get on a ballot. For comparison, Biden has about 3,900 delegates. It’s certainly possible that someone will challenge Harris, but who?

Many of the big names who have been mentioned as a Biden replacement have spoken out and supported Harris — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and others.

It seems like everything is going well for Harris, but she still has some work to do.

First, throw out the polls. We’re all starting from scratch. Before Sunday, polls showed Harris trailing Biden by about the same margin. The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist national poll, for example, showed Biden ahead of Trump 50% to 48%, within margin of error. Harris was also statistically tied, ahead of Trump 50% to 49%.

But back then, people thought she was a hypothetical candidate. Now that Harris is likely the actual nominee, Harris will face a whole new level of scrutiny.

She has enormous strengths and weaknesses. Harris is younger than Biden and can (probably) prosecute the case better than he can, though she’ll have to prove that in the court of public opinion. Harris has the potential to galvanize important parts of the Democratic base — black voters and younger voters, two groups Biden has struggled with. She also seems to have found her voice during this campaign, particularly on abortion rights.

But then again, she wasn’t a particularly good candidate in 2019, when she ran for the Democratic nomination. She struggled to communicate her core values, saying instead that she saw herself as a problem solver. She’s been caricatured on the right as a California liberal, while also being criticized on the left for being too tough on crime as the state’s attorney general. She has sometimes struggled with her message as vice president, including on immigration, one of the areas Biden had made her responsible for early on.

People who know Harris well say she has improved since then.

“Kamala Harris is going to be the next president of the United States,” said Jamal Simmons, who was Harris’ communications director in the administration’s second year. “She’s a better candidate than she was, with a great position on the most important issue for the Democratic coalition and a majority of Americans who are anti-MAGA.”

This will be a hyper-compressed and closely watched campaign. How Harris handles the spotlight will be crucial, not just because of the compressed time frame, but because she needs to prove herself a better messenger than Biden and convince Democrats they’re making the right choice before next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

5. Democrats could achieve geographic or ideological balance with vice presidential pick

If Harris does indeed become the vice presidential nominee, she will have plenty of choice.

And she has a chance to reshape the electoral map. There are risks and rewards with each of these candidates, but some of the names mentioned are heavily white, male moderates, such as Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, as well as Whitmer, a swing-state governor.

Shapiro, 51, is a popular choice in Democratic circles because he is generally well-liked, has handled tough issues skillfully and is from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has received more advertising money than any other state this election. The Trump campaign knows it has to take down one of the Blue Wall blocs: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. They have targeted Pennsylvania more than any other swing state and held a narrow lead in the polling average as of Sunday morning.

Cooper also comes from a swing state, but one that is more within reach of Democrats. He is also 67 years old.

Beshear, 46, is a popular Democrat who has won praise from both sides for his work with both parties, but he runs in a Republican presidential state.

Kelly, 60, also comes from a swing state. He’s an astronaut married to former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was gunned down at a voter rally in 2011; he’s shown he can raise a lot of money for Democrats and could go some way to staving off Republicans’ immigration attacks, since he comes from a border state and has split somewhat from Biden on border policy. But he doesn’t come from a swing state with as many delegates as Pennsylvania or North Carolina.

Whitmer would help with Michigan, but there have never been two women on the presidential ticket of a major party.

6. This decision will be a capstone of Biden’s legacy

Biden has been in public life since 1972, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate at age 29. He was not yet old enough to serve in the Senate. He turned 30 two weeks after his election.

This is all Biden has ever known. He won seven terms in the Delaware Senate and then served as vice president. He ran for president twice before winning. He dropped out of the race in disgrace in 1987 after a plagiarism scandal and didn’t get many votes in his 2008 campaign before being picked by Barack Obama as his running mate..

He always wanted to be president, and many people in his life told him there were many things he couldn’t do. He defeated Trump in 2020, and Democrats credit him with saving democracy. But now the reality is that the path forward has narrowed, or possibly ceased to exist.

Many Democrats have called Biden’s concession patriotic and selfless, in part an attempt to create a contrast with Trump. It would be a tough decision for any president, especially one who has been around as long as Biden.

“Historically, very, very few people do this,” historian Jon Meacham, who has helped write speeches for Biden, including his 2023 State of the Union address, told NBC News on Sunday. “And in an era when so many of us value power over principle, when so many of us would rather take than give, I think it’s a moment for the country to consider that the president has taught us a lesson: that our own desires, our own immediate desires, should not always be the defining factor.”