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Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff visit a watch party after Harris participated in a presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 10, 2024.
Harris won the debate, but will it matter on Election Day?
The presidential debate marks the unofficial point of the race when the majority of Americans start paying attention. As the dust begins to settle from Tuesday night’s showdown, early polls show Kamala Harris winning the debate 63% to 37%, according to a CNN poll, while YouGov’s poll has her winning 54% to 31% among registered voters who watched at least some of the debate, with 14% unsure.
Both Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton beat Donald Trump by even larger margins in 2020 and 2016, but only one of them went on to beat him in the electoral college on Election Day. So the question remains: Will the debate matter?
This is “the major unknown,” says Eurasia Group’s US analyst Noah Daponte-Smith. “I tend to think it won’t matter very much.”
“There are very few ‘gettable’ voters left, and polling has been remarkably stable in the race so far, with very little movement since Harris’ post-nomination ascendancy ended,” he explains.
Early polls also show that Harris didn’t change minds on the big issues. Despite her win, debate watchers still preferred Trump by 20 points on the economy and 23 points on immigration.
The real determining factor in a race this tight will be turnout. Harris may have won a few more supporters with a shining debate performance, but she needs to convince them to show up on Election Day. Meanwhile, Trump’s camp will be mobilized by the motivation to vote Democrats out of the Oval Office. With early voting kicking off next week in key states like Pennsylvania, we will be watching which candidate can drive more of their voters to the polls.
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves to the crowd during a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, U.S., August 7, 2024.
Is Harris now the favorite?
In the days before President Joe Biden withdrew from November’s presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump was widely considered the favorite to win. But with the entrance of Vice President Kamala Harris into the race, most analysts now consider the race a toss-up. For now, Harris has the momentum in many polls. What would it take for her to be considered the favorite?
By some measures, Harris already has a slight advantage. Election analyst Nate Silver’s model, an aggregator of other respected polls, currently has Harris leading Trump nationally by 45.8% to 43.7%. She also holds (very) narrow leads in swing states Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, while Trump leads by equally thin margins in Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada. Other analysts and prediction sites show similar results.
For Harris to become the favorite, she’ll need a lead of three points or more nationally over a couple of weeks, because the electoral college probably provides Trump the same advantage he enjoyed in 2016 and George W. Bush held in 2000. In both those cases, the Republican won the election despite losing the national popular vote.
But Harris must also post 2-3% polling margins in either Pennsylvania or Georgia, perhaps the two most evenly split states in the country. That result would signal Harris is likely to earn the 270 electoral votes she needs to win the White House.
Joe Biden's next chapter
Joe Biden suddenly has a lot more free time on the calendar. How has he been spending it?
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Harris for President Campaign Rally on Tuesday July 23, 2024 at West Allis Central High School in West Allis, Wis.
Obamas endorse Kamala Harris for president
Barack and Michelle ObamaendorsedKamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for US president on Friday, joining other high-profile Democratic Party leaders in backing the vice president’s bid for the White House.
“We called to say Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,” the former president told Harris.
The announcement capped a big first week for Harris. Her campaign raised a whopping $231 million in just a few days, and Harris has already started to narrow Donald Trump’s lead in key swing states. Although she is still behind in four of the five states, she has substantiallyclosed the gap left by President Joe Biden.
Trump’s biggest lead is in Arizona, where he stands 5 points above Harris. But when Biden was the nominee, Trump was ahead by 10 points. The former president is now ahead of Harris by only 2 points in Georgia and Pennsylvania; by 1 point in Michigan; and in Wisconsin, the candidates are tied.
As Harris narrows the gap, she is alsobreaking fundraising records and galvanizing youth voters. But it is too soon to tell whether this momentum is sustainable or just a short-term swell of enthusiasm following Biden’s decision to exit the race.
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Interested in who Harris might choose as her vice-presidential running mate? Click here to learn about the contenders.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at her Presidential Campaign headquarters in Wilmington, DE, U.S., July 22, 2024.
Harris and Trump plot new campaign strategies
InKamala Harris’ previous run for president, her campaign was plagued with so much public infighting she was forced towithdraw before the first primary votes were cast. In addition, herapproval ratings during her time as vice president have sometimes fallen below President Joe Biden’s.
So how has she generated so much excitement among Democratic voters and donors so quickly?
Between Biden’s withdrawal announcement on Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, the Harris for President campaign says it raisedmore than $100 million, a huge haul by any standard. That adds to the party’s already formidable fundraising this year. Credible Democratic Party challengers quickly endorsed her. By Monday night, Harris had secured enough delegates to lock down the party’s presidential nomination.
In part, her success is a sign of Donald Trump’s perceived weakness. The media’s recent focus on Biden’s unpopularity has obscured the reality that a majority of Americans –57% in a recent poll – want Trump out of the race too. That figure includes 51% of independents and 26% of Republicans. Add the reality that Biden’s exit from the race leaves Trump, 78, as the oldest person ever to win the nomination of a major party for president. Trump remains the betting favorite, but Dems believe, rightly or wrongly, that he’s beatable.
And for anyone wondering what strategy Harris might adopt against Trump, there’s this obvious clue from her first speech as a presidential candidate. Highlighting both her history as a prosecutor and Trump’s status as a convicted felon: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”
Much of the media attention on the Harris campaign will now focus on her choice of a vice-presidential running-mate. But there’s another looming question: Will Harris and Trump debate? ABC News is scheduled to host a second presidential debate on Sept. 10, but Trump has already cast doubt on his plans to attend. Heposted the following on his Truth Social account:
“My debate with Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the history of the United States, was slated to be broadcast on Fake News ABC, the home of George Slopadopolus, sometime in September. Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has [sic] quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC. “
Beyond that, Trump is keeping his options open.
Finally, Trump faces another challenge he didn’t expect: His new opponent is a woman of African and South Asian descent. He defeated Hillary Clinton eight years ago, but Harris doesn’t come with Clinton’s considerable baggage, and there are plenty of women and people of color who will listen carefully to Trump’s every word for signs of bias against women and/or racial minorities.
In short, Trump faces an opponent with no history of national electoral success of her own but one who poses a series of campaign dangers he didn’t face until Sunday.
Biden steps aside
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take on the back of a staggering announcement that President Biden is no longer standing for reelection. No one thought that President Biden should have stood for reelection after he won the first time. Certainly, nobody believed that he was going to be able to serve a full four years of a second term.
That was becoming increasingly obvious to Biden himself, because he saw what rank and file members of the Democratic Party were saying, how they were pulling. The internal polls that the White House has been getting over the last 48 hours were devastating for Biden, not just a loss, but a landslide that would have led to the Democrats getting wiped out in the House and Senate as well, would probably lead to the Republicans ending the filibuster. Biden ultimately a lot later than a lot of people wanted, but nonetheless ultimately standing down, standing aside, strongly endorsing Kamala Harris, his vice president, for the presidential nomination, and to defeat Trump come November. It is certainly a very long way to go. People were saying it's late. We have 107 days to go left in this election.
That's an eternity in US politics. It is longer than most elections in democracy actually occur for the entire campaign. And so, I mean, if you look at that, look at just how much might happen in a race where Trump and Biden have been historically both very unpopular, both seem to be far too old and unfit to serve as president for another term. Biden, the last numbers we saw in that were 74% of American voters saying that he was unfit to serve for another four years because of his age and increasing frailty. 49% of Americans said that about Trump. Now it's worse for Biden. But if Biden wasn't in the race, for Trump, that would be the worst that we'd ever seen.
And of course, now Biden isn't in the race and Trump is, which means that his age, his frailty, his incoherence when he makes statements, that is suddenly a big issue. It is immediately his largest vulnerability, even after the extraordinary ability of Trump to stand up and put his fist in the air and say, “fight, fight, fight” after an assassination attempt, a huge thing, but suddenly yet another piece of unprecedented history in the US.
This one in favor of the Democrats. I'd like to say this is a good day in US politics in the sense that it shows a level of selflessness from President Biden that he was unwilling ultimately, to put himself personally and his ego ahead of that of the country, and he recognized that this was going to be a disaster. No one had the ability to force him. They pressured him. They embarrassed him. They showed him facts. But ultimately, if Biden decided that he wasn't going to go, no one could have forced him. And of course, that's exactly the case for Trump as well. And, you know, you'll remember that after the 2020 election, when everyone in the Republican Party was saying, “you got to stop this, you got to stand down.” That's absolutely not what Trump was prepared to do. He puts himself above the party, above the country, and has done so consistently. I mean, you know, if you think about, the vice presidents in these cases, the 45th President Trump, threatened the life of his vice president in a last ditch effort to hold on to power, back on January 6th in 2021. The 46th president ended his campaign and strongly endorsed his vice president for the good of the country.
It would be hard to see a more dramatic contrast between two old white men in political power in the United States, one, America’s Nero, holding on for himself no matter what the consequences. The other, America’s Cincinnatus. They are not the same. And as a consequence, the US now has a much more competitive political race. I do believe that over the next month, the Democrats will not just dominate headlines, and they've done that a lot with Biden's unfitness, but also have energy and enthusiasm, and that they have not have and they haven't had for a very long time.
That is certainly an advantage for them. I think that Kamala Harris will do much better if the election nomination process is at least somewhat competitive. Now, I personally don't think that Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer, who are, you know, seen to be the most well-known and competitive candidates, potential candidates outside of Kamala Harris. I don't think they'll run, with Biden now having endorsed, fully endorsed his vice president, with Kamala wanting that endorsement, I think that they will wait, they’ll bide their time. They will support Harris, and they'll wait themselves until 2028. But I do think that others will decide to declare, I don't know who they'll be, but I think there will be some. And I think it's interesting that former President Obama did not endorse Harris. He said very strongly positive things about Biden. But he said that the process needs to be open and play out.
And I think that that is not just a knife to Harris. Not at all. I think it is a Obama recognition, that for all of her advantages, she has vulnerability and she will benefit from a process that doesn't look like the political machine has just decided that they're going to anoint her, that there's not going to be a primary process. So there needs to at least be some level of competition, a race that she has to show that she can win. And, you know, conceivably she could implode during that process. And then maybe she isn't the nominee, though I would bet a lot at this point that she is going to be. Where do we go from here?
We're in unprecedented times. As much as this is a better day for US democracy and there haven't been many, it is also true that this is a democracy that remains in crisis. We were less than a second, a fraction of a second away from former President Trump getting killed, getting assassinated, and if that had happened, I have no doubt that we would have had George Floyd-style riots across the country, but with a lot more guns. And I think that there is a lack of appreciation of just how close this country was to a level of political chaos, social instability and violence. And we have three more months plus before this election, where both the Democrats and the Republicans still believe that if the opponent wins, that it is going to be the destruction of democracy.
Biden's standing down did not change Trump's view of that or his supporters view of that. And the Democrats still feel the same way about Trump, and they feel the same way about Trump, even after his near assassination. There's been no unifying of the country on the back of that, and there'll be no unifying of the country on the back of Biden stepping down. But there may well be a lot more unifying of the Democrats, with perhaps a significant number of independents that show up. So very divided, deeply vulnerable over the coming months, we're going to be very busy. But it's nice on a Sunday to have something nice to say.
And I will certainly say that to President Biden, someone that I have criticized a fair amount over the past months, as he has deteriorated for not, doing the right thing in standing down, that you sir have my appreciation. as an American and more importantly, as a citizen of this little planet here, for doing something that the world can take a little bit of inspiration from, and thinking of someone beyond yourself for your legacy, which looks better today than it did yesterday. That's it for me.
And I'll talk to you all real soon.
President Joe Biden walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return to Washington, DC from Delaware on July 25, 2021.
Biden drops out of 2024 presidential race
President Joe Biden on Sunday announced he is standing down and will no longer seek reelection in 2024.
Biden, 81, made the extraordinary decision following weeks of speculation over concerns about his age and capacity to do the job following his disastrous debate performance in late June.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a statement.
“I will speak to the nation later this week in more detail about my decision,” Biden added.
Shortly after he announced that he was quitting the race, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this,” Biden said.
The president’s decision to step back reflects deep divisions among Democrats and came after a number of Democratic lawmakers urged Biden to drop out, both publicly and privately. Despite being heavily critical of Biden on issues such as the war in Gaza, progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood by him as centrist Democrats like Rep. Nancy Pelosi pushed Biden to quit the race.
It’s unclear precisely who the Democratic presidential nominee will be now, though Biden's endorsement of Harris makes her the frontrunner.
By dropping out, Biden opened the door for the Democratic Party to gather behind another candidate and for the delegates pledged to him to vote as they want. But if Democrats do not coalesce behind a particular candidate before the convention in August, it could pave the way for an open convention in which prospective nominees would vie for support from delegates. This would be messy and hasn’t happened since 1968.
A lot is now up in the air, and this is a risky gamble for the Democratic Party as it fights to prevent former President Donald Trump from winning a second term – particularly as he seems to be gaining momentum following the assassination attempt a little over a week ago.U.S. President Joe Biden removes his face mask prior to receiving his coronavirus disease (COVID-19) booster vaccination in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building's South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 27, 2021.
Is Biden ready to call it quits?
There are growing signs that President Joe Biden is opening up to the idea of quitting the 2024 race.
At the very least, he’s reportedly willing to hear people make the case for why he should drop out, and top Democrats privately believe Biden could step aside as early as this weekend.
Biden’s support is collapsing. Since the president’s disastrous debate performance, several prominent Democrats have questioned the viability of Biden’s campaign or publicly called on him to quit — with Reps. Adam Schiff of California and Jamie Raskin of Maryland the latest examples.
Reporting in recent days suggests that multiple leading Democrats have also privately warned Biden that he’s hurting the party’s chances and urged him to step aside, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Former President Barack Obama, who remains highly influential in the party, is reportedly worried Biden can’t win.
Biden has COVID at the moment — his diagnosis was announced late Wednesday — and is isolating in his Delaware home. We’ll be watching to see if the president ultimately buckles under the pressure, or if he’ll remain defiant in the face of the growing calls for him to exit the race. Meanwhile, the DNC rules committee is set to meet on Friday to discuss a plan to lock in Biden’s nomination early — before the convention next month.