US elections upended as a “sleepy race” gives way to mad dash to elections

By Rodney J. Jaleco | Date 07-23-2024

WASHINGTON D.C. — President Joe Biden, announcing last Sunday he was ending his re-election campaign and endorsing Vice Pres. Kamala Harris has upended the 2024 presidential elections, energizing Democrats and stumping Republicans.

There are a little more than a hundred days before the November elections and about five weeks before the Democratic national convention in Chicago. The compressed window is not lost on Ms. Harris – who if she wins will become only the first female, Black Asian American president of the United States – so she’s moving swiftly to consolidate her candidacy. She has kept the Biden re-election machinery intact.

Jaws are dropping over reports that small party donors (defined as donations of $200 or less) have pumped in about $100 million in the 48 hours since the president’s announcement – US politics has never seen such a massive and rapid influx of cash for any candidate. More telling, the Harris campaign has reportedly signed up 30,000 new volunteers – further evidence of a reinvigorated party that only a week ago appeared resigned to a Trump landslide. 

Former Pres. Trump, who’s been leading in the polls, was apparently so confident that he went with Ohio Sen. James David (“JD”) Vance, a novice lawmaker and relative unknown, as a running mate. Mr. Vance is often depicted as “Trump lite” – although he previously compared him to Hitler – because of how he seems to mirror the oft-amorphous Trump. 

For weeks, Pres. Biden ignored calls to give way to someone younger and better able to prosecute the Democratic case against Mr. Trump, a convicted felon,. Poll after poll showed him lagging Mr. Trump especially after his June 28 debate debacle, spreading a sense of panic and desperation and worse, drying up the cash well crucial to any political campaign.

The attempted assassination of Mr. Trump at a July 13 Pennsylvania rally also radically altered the dynamics of the 2024 presidential race. The Trump campaign was quick to exploit the near calamity by fanning the perception that the Republican standard bearer’s victory was somehow inevitable or ordained. 

But the emergence of the vice president as the top Democratic candidate – and the unprecedent groundswell of support – has changed those dynamics again. There’s not quite a precedent for it, at least one from recent memory.

Ms. Harris, who started her public service career as a prosecutor in California who went after sex offenders and fraudsters, among others – has turned not only the Democratic campaign on its head but also the Republicans’. The GOP built a campaign around Pres. Biden, attacking his age and mental acuity in addition to his liberal policies. Suddenly, Mr. Trump, 78, is historically the oldest US presidential candidate whose gaffes will be subject to the same questions and concerns that dogged Pres. Biden. 

An ABC/Ipsos poll showed that about 20% of voters don’t have an opinion about Vice Pres. Harris, offering a rare opportunity to reintroduce her as well as define her presidential agenda.

As an aside, Vice Pres. Harris became the highest ranking US official to visit Palawan, a key staging area for military and coast guard missions in the West Philippine Sea, during a visit to the Philippines in Nov. 2022. 

Pres. Biden has been hailed as a modern-day patriot for giving way to Ms. Harris. The move not only makes him a lame duck president for the last six months of his term, it also effectively ends a remarkable half century of service in the US Congress and White House. 

The coming Harris-Trump face-off has inspired musings of a “prosecutor vs felon” contest as well as a slew of social media memes that underline their nearly 20-year age difference, the “Silent Generation” vs Gen X and Millennials.  

The Vice President is on the cusp of making history, approximating the first African-American Pres. Barack Obama in 2009. Are American voters ready for a woman president? The daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants? Are they ready to see a continuation of the post-pandemic socio-economic, security and foreign policies that Republicans assail?

There are signs that Ms. Harris’ candidacy has triggered a latent energy not seen in years, at least for the Democratic party. People needn’t wait too long to see what happens next with elections just 15 weeks away. But it will be exciting to watch.