Rama Krishna Sangem
Joe Biden’s name wasn’t on the ballot, but history will likely remember Kamala Harris’ resounding defeat as his loss too. As Democrats pick up the pieces following President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory, some of the vice president’s backers are expressing frustration that Biden’s decision to seek reelection until this summer despite longstanding voter concerns about his age and unease about post-pandemic inflation as well as the US-Mexico border all but sealed his party’s loss of the White House.
The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden, said Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden in 2020 for the Democratic nomination and endorsed Harris’ unsuccessful run. If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place.
Biden leaves happily
Biden will leave office after leading the U.S. out of the worst pandemic in a century, galvanizing international support for Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion and passing a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that will impact communities for years to come. But having run four years ago against Trump to restore the soul of the country, Biden will make way after just one term for his immediate predecessor, who overcame two impeachments, a felony conviction and an insurrection launched by his supporters.
Trump has vowed to radically reshape the federal government and roll back many of Biden’s priorities. Maybe in 20 or 30 years, history will remember Biden for some of these achievements, said Thom Reilly, co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University.
But in the shorter term, I don’t know he escapes the legacy of being the president who beat Donald Trump only to usher in another Donald Trump administration four years later. The president on Wednesday stayed out of sight for the second straight day, making congratulatory calls to Democratic lawmakers who won downballot races as well as one to Trump, who he invited for a White House meeting that the president-elect accepted.
Biden is set to deliver a Rose Garden address Thursday about the election. He issued a statement shortly after Harris delivered her concession speech on Wednesday, praising Harris for running an historic campaign under extraordinary circumstances.
Some high-ranking Democrats, including three advisers to the Harris campaign, expressed deep frustration with Biden for failing to recognise earlier in the election cycle that he was not up to the challenge. The advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Biden exited campaign late
Biden, 81, ended his reelection campaign in July, weeks after an abysmal debate performance sent his party into a spiral and raised questions about whether he still had the mental acuity and stamina to serve as a credible nominee. But polling long beforehand showed that many Americans worried about his age.
Some 77 per cent of Americans said in August 2023 that Biden was too old to be effective for four more years, according to a poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs. The president bowed out on July 21 after getting not-so-subtle nudges from Democratic Party powers, including former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
He endorsed Harris and handed over his campaign operation to her. Harris managed to spur far greater enthusiasm than Biden was generating from the party’s base. But she struggled to distinguish how her administration would differ from Biden’s.
Appearing on ABC’s The View in September, Harris was not able to identify a decision where she would have separated herself from Biden. There is not a thing that comes to mind, Harris said, giving the 899Trump campaign a sound bite it replayed through Election Day.
