Geopolitics Review Extra — 23rd July 2024

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Biden Withdraws From Presidential Race

Contents

Introduction
Biden Withdraws
Kamala Harris Endorsed
What Next?
Concluding Remarks

Bitesize Edition

Biden announced on Sunday that he would indeed be withdrawing from the presidential election in November. Anybody on Substack found out about the potential for this to occur on Thursday, three days before it actually happened. Sounds like another win for Substack, right?
It was questioned if Biden was forced to step down by those with influence within the Democratic Party, namely Nancy Pelosi. Whether true or not, for the Democrat’s chances in November, we had to see a change. We’ve seen many endorse Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee since Biden stepped down, including Biden himself. In fact, Harris gained $81M in campaign donations in the first 24 hours, a record-setting amount.
The Democrats can now assess the lay of the land in this election, and focus on key demographics where Harris polls better than Biden and Trump. Whoever becomes the presidential nominee will select a vice president. This selection by the Democrats can also strategically attempt to gain influence in a closely contested swing state such as Michigan or Pennsylvania.
As for the Republicans, Trump was on a roll after surviving an assassination attempt. He and JD Vance will now have to pivot completely and have already slandered Harris on social media. Harris was tasked with addressing immigration during Biden’s presidency, and immigration remains an issue, worsening throughout the last four years. It’s improving after his executive order last month stopping asylum at the border, but it still provides fuel for Trump to attack Harris. When it comes to geopolitics and her role on the global stage, Harris is fairly inexperienced, another potential avenue of attack Trump could pursue.
These contests of rhetoric and policy differences between Trump and the new Democratic nominee will become clear over the coming weeks, with Harris already receiving enough delegates to become the candidate for the Democrats. Hence, it will likely be Harris. The next question then turns to when she will be chosen. A virtual roll-call is rumoured to be held before August 7th of the Democratic delegates. If it doesn’t occur before then, the Democratic Convention occurs in the middle of August, and could also be used to select a nominee.
It has certainly been a fast-moving few weeks in politics and geopolitics around the world, and so I’ve written this extra post. Let’s dive in below.

Introduction

Last Thursday, we heard the first whisperings that Biden was set to step down over the weekend.

Now, I’ll explore the process that led Biden to step down, why he endorsed Kamala Harris, and what happens next.

Biden Withdraws

It was clear for a time that Joe Biden’s cognition was slowing down. For fragmented American politics, many Democrat voters would still have voted for Biden because voting for Trump is unimaginable to them. The difference in approaches to the next presidency, and the direction of the United States for the two parties are canyons apart.

It’s unfortunate that it came to Biden stepping down, but it had to occur. Biden’s not being cognitively-able led to questions as to whether he is truly running the United States. If this is being asked now, he certainly would have been four years from now.

Biden had, of course, been considering the comments about his cognition for many weeks, especially after the presidential election debate. Only four days ago, he asked for unity amongst the Democrats to back his campaign. Why the sudden change and the withdrawal? Sources have noted Obama has expressed concern privately about Biden’s ability to run for president, and Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic House speaker, has reportedly been pulling strings behind the scenes to encourage others to push Biden to withdraw. One source even stated Pelosi would commit to “the easy way or the hard way.” We seemingly saw Biden convinced of “the easy way”.

It was debated if Biden was staying in the race in an effort to protect his son, Hunter. Hunter was convicted of all three felonies in his federal gun trial in June after he lied about his drug use on a form when he purchased a handgun in 2018. A criminal tax trial against Hunter is also set to begin on September 9th after he is charged with evading $1.4M in taxes between 2016 and 2019.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

As Biden isolates himself at his beach house in Delaware with COVID, a social media craze is stirring that he was forced out through a coup, pushed by Nancy Pelosi from within the Democratic Party. Many are even questioning if Biden is alive. I’m sure this will end up being social media noise and conspiracy theories spiralling out of control.

What was clear was that the Democrats recognised that Biden firstly wouldn’t last another four years cognitively, and secondly, was getting steamrolled by Trump in the election campaign process. Signing away the 2024 election to try again in 2028 wasn’t an option for the Democrats. After a four-year Trump Presidency, we could live in a dramatically different world in 2028. They had to make a change and it could well have been forced upon Biden after three weeks of rejecting calls to step down. It was stated that the eventual reason Biden stepped down was new polling data. This data showed Biden losing many swing states, including Michigan, North Carolina, and Georgia. He was also losing support in New Mexico and Virginia, states predicted to lean Democrat in November.

The Democrats now stand a much stronger chance of challenging Trump moving forward. The change had to be made. Biden marked his withdrawal with a clear endorsement of his Vice President, Kamala Harris.

Kamala Harris Endorsed

The Clintons have also voiced their support for Harris after Biden’s initial support. Harris has also been backed by Nancy Pelosi, Andy Beshear, Gretchen Whitmer, JB Pritzker, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, and Pete Buttigieg. However, Obama didn’t immediately endorse Harris, stating the candidate on the ballot should earn it to legitimize their campaign more. Or Obama had heard the whisperings of his wife’s potential campaign and thought he’d see if anybody whispered back? Based on today’s news, it seems not. It also seems unlikely Michelle Obama would run at all, stating in 2022 that she “detests” the idea of running for president. Much has changed since 2022, but “detesting” an idea is a strong rejection.

The huge flow of support for Harris is making it tough to go against her for the Democratic nomination.

Photo by Joshua Sukoff on Unsplash

It has been revealed today that Harris has the support of enough Democratic delegates to win the party’s nominee for the presidency, a huge tailwind for her campaign. She also received $81 million in the first 24 hours for her campaign, an unprecedented amount of campaign funding in a short time. She seems to be attracting tailwind after tailwind.

She would appeal to female voters and black voters more than Biden would, with Harris supported by 50% of female registered voters, and also bettering Trump’s 43%. Especially amongst suburban women, Harris holds 55% support versus Trump’s 39%. As occurs with many elections in the United States, it’s those uncommitted voters who don’t always vote Democrat or Republican that will sway it. Harris gains slightly more support from independents, with 43% against Trump supported by 40%. When comparing Biden vs Trump, however, only 34% supported Biden versus 44% who would support Trump. These metrics make it clear amongst these mentioned voter demographics, that Harris is preferred to Biden. In a few weeks, I’m going to explore the demographics of the election more deeply.

As Dr Pippa Malmgren has also discussed previously in her writings, RFK. Jr can also have an impact on this election, having the potential to pull voters away from both Trump and the eventual Democratic nominee.

What Comes Next?

Biden will remain president until January without any further hiccups when the winner of the election in November will be sworn in. Joe is expected to leave his home in Delaware today and return to the White House, so we should find out today if the social media craze has been overstated.

As for the election, it will still be decided by a group of swing states that could fall either way. Michigan and Pennsylvania are truly on a knife edge, with Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, and Arizona also up in the air.

Harris was former Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017, and Senator for California from 2017 to 2021, before her role as Vice President. California is predicted to be a Democrat win, and so Harris’ nomination if it does occur offers little advantage regarding any swing states she might bring with her.

Photo by Isabella Fischer on Unsplash

However, what could bring one of these swing states is who becomes Harris’ vice president candidate. Even if the Democratic candidate isn’t Harris (which it likely will be), the same question arises. A president needs a vice president. Could Harris seek to gain support in Michigan through Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, or Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania? Both Harris and Shapiro were prosecutors in their past, and so will likely know of characters such as Donald Trump who can’t seem to keep himself out of court at the moment. Be it 34 counts of falsifying business records, or the case pertaining to Trump removing documents from the White House during his first presidency, he is certainly attracting his fair share of legal proceedings at the current moment. Funnily enough, the latter case was recently thrown out by a judge appointed by Trump. Other potential candidates for Harris’ VP include Roy Cooper, North Carolina Governor, Mark Kelly, the Arizona Senator, Andy Beshear, the Kentucky Governor, J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois Governor, Pete Buttigieg, the current Transportation Secretary, and Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California. One thing is clear, Trump has already made his move in selecting his VP candidate in JD Vance. The Democrats can now focus on states that could swing their way or voter demographics they could appeal to with the selection of a vice president who represents these demographic groups. The ball is in the Democrats’ court to make a smart choice here, and focusing on swing states with as large a proportion of the population as possible supporting a vice president candidate sounds like a productive approach.

As for Trump, this will throw a spanner into his campaign. He was seemingly on a roll towards the White House, surviving an assassination attempt, and Biden’s cognitive decline was stealing all the headlines. Trump openly lied multiple times during the presidential debate and still came out of it looking better than Biden. To even get themselves back into the competition, the Democrats had to make this change to even give themselves a chance in November. Trump will be susceptible to Harris with her background in law, and any age-related issues that were aimed at Biden, could now very easily flip to the other side of the American political system and be aimed at Trump, although he is much more cognitively able than Biden was in his campaign. Harris could also heavily challenge Trump and Vance’s policies towards abortion and IVF.

As for alternative Trump approaches against Harris, he has always been firm on immigration and the border crisis with Mexico. One of his most memorable policies from his first presidency was his attempt to build a wall, that Mexico was obviously going to pay for. During Biden’s presidency, Kamala Harris was tasked with addressing the immigration issues that continue to plague the United States today. This could add fuel to Trump’s campaign pivot that he will now have to take, albeit a pivot that will still be filled with lies. Many state Harris was given an impossible task, with little resources to even begin to sort the huge problem. We recently saw border arrests fall more than 40% at the end of June after Biden enforced an executive action barring asylum at the border, so progress is being made. The problem is a deep-routed one, however, that won’t be solved in a month.

Photo by Greg Bulla on Unsplash

Another potential issue that could be used against Harris is her role on the international stage. She has been domestically focused in the past with her background in law, and so would be expected to do well domestically as a Democratic nominee. However, it will become clear in the coming weeks if she receives the nomination how she would approach key global issues such as the Russia-Ukraine War, the conflict in Gaza, and the superpower conflict against China. A few months ago she was told to scale back her criticisms of the Israeli government, which is a move that would likely gain her more support from those who consider the conflict in Gaza as a key issue that will determine their vote. In contrast, Trump has said Israel should wrap up their operation quickly, without diving into specifics. If Trump’s 2020 peace plan for Israel and Palestine is anything to go on, Trump would heavily favour Israel. He would diminish Palestinian issues such as their hope for state recognition, and would make little effort to stop the advancement of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Harris has made appearances on the global stage, but coverage of them is often very muted. It will be interesting to see how she approaches these foreign policy questions in her campaign over the coming weeks and months now that they will be thrust into the limelight. Many questions still remain.

Concluding Remarks

As I discussed in yesterday’s Geopolitics Review, the news has moved so fast this month that it has been running away from me. Hence, I released this piece as an extra analysis this week. Looking forward, with Harris having enough delegates to claim the Democrat’s nominee, it could be announced sooner rather than later that she will be the candidate, with a virtual roll call to occur before August 7th as detailed by the Democratic National Committee’s rulemaking arm. The Democratic National Convention will be held between the 19th and 22nd of August.

If it was taken to a vote of the delegates at the convention, and Harris won a commanding victory, this would reinforce her campaign and only strengthen it. The vote at the convention would be a two-round system, ending after one round if a candidate receives a majority (over 50%). The question, if it did go to a vote of delegates, would be who would run against Harris for the Democratic nomination when she looks so set to achieve the nomination?

I’d predict fairly certainly that Harris will be the nominee of the Democrats, and whether it occurs before or during the Democratic Convention doesn’t matter. She will still be preparing her campaign, and working to challenge Donald Trump. It’s going to be an intense few months. Like many issues I discuss here, eyes will then turn to November. Apologies for sounding like a broken record, but November will have profound impacts on global geopolitics. The Biden withdrawal has given the Democrats a more optimistic feeling once again. Let’s see if this turns into votes.

Next week, I’ll discuss the French election results, before analysing updates in Ukraine, and finally moving on to more posts on the American election. Subscribe here if those topics take your interest.

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Geopolitics Review Extra — 23rd July 2024

Biden Withdraws From Presidential Race

Written by Geopolitics Explained