Biden ends terminally ill campaign and his party plunges itself into the unknown
President Joe Biden on Sunday euthanized his presidential campaign and handed party bigwigs—George Clooney, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi—what they were demanding: the right to embark on an experiment to put up a candidate whose odds of winning in November are better than Biden’s.
Nobody knows how this venture into the unknown will end. Perhaps Americans will come to appreciate Kamala Harris’s long-hidden charm and political acumen. Call it the Democratic Party’s version of “Right to Try,” the 2018 measure signed into law by then-president Donald Trump expanding access to experimental treatments for terminally ill patients.
Democrats would like to believe that Biden was the problem and that Trump’s strength at this moment—he leads the RealClearPolitics polling average in top battlegrounds, which now include states like Georgia and Arizona, by 4.4 points—is purely a reflection of Biden’s weakness.
They bolster their case by pointing to tight Senate races across the country, which have not broken in the GOP’s direction as Biden’s numbers collapsed. They tell themselves they have a deep bench, from Harris to Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) to governors such as Josh Shapiro (Pa.), Gretchen Whitmer (Mich.), and Andy Beshear (Ky.).
Those propositions will be put to the test over the next three and a half months. It is, of course, possible that Pelosi, Schumer, and their friends in the media are, you know, wrong. It is possible that voters disapprove of Biden not only because he can’t get out a coherent sentence but also because of the policies of his administration.