Joe Biden has succumbed to the inevitable. He has bowed out of the race for a second term and endorsed his vice-president, Kamala Harris, who is now mounting a charm campaign to win over the Democratic delegates who will nominate the party’s candidate at the national convention next month.
The Democratic Party must now salvage its position. Donald Trump is on a high following the assassination attempt. Biden has left it late. Rumours about his cognitive decline have dogged him for years.
But the decision to hold an early debate in June, in which the president’s incoherence turned his party against him, could be remembered as what saved the Democratic campaign before it was too late. Had the debates been held after September as usual, then the Democrats would’ve been stuck with a candidate who voters increasingly thought was unfit to lead. Trump missed a trick by agreeing to the debate. No wonder Republicans have been briefing for weeks that Biden is being ousted by a coup.
There is an opening for the Democrats now. Whoever becomes the nominee – and Harris is by far the favourite – will have three and a half months to recover from the past month of speculation and establish themselves as the candidate to beat Trump.
The response in the UK has been as you’d expect. The Prime Minister has tweeted: “I respect President Biden’s decision and I look forward to us working together during the remainder of his presidency. I know that, as he has done throughout his remarkable career, he will have made his decision based on what he believes is best for the American people.”
Labour’s approach to the US election is to be diplomatic towards the candidates and deferential to American democracy. Its position is to wait and see, play both sides, prepare for all circumstances. The party has expended time and political capital wooing the Republicans and the Democrats. No American politician – whatever David Lammy might have tweeted about them in the past – is too outrageous for Labour to work with.
As I wrote last week, Labour will be anxiously eyeing the isolationist tendencies in the Republicans and the penchant for protectionism in both parties. Joe Biden’s economic nationalism was designed to benefit the US at expense of those abroad. But the Democrats’ platform is now uncertain. As Sohrab Ahmari writes in an excellent column:
“It’s an open question whether the Dems will continue down the path of economic nationalism and protectionism, let alone appreciate why the Biden version struggled to widen its appeal.”
Kamala Harris could represent a return to an Obama-era embrace of liberal economics and international diplomacy. Or she could plough on with Biden’s shift to the left on economics. She will face hitherto unknown scrutiny if she does become the nominee. Her position will become clearer. No 10 will be watching closely.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here.
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