Could Kamala Harris have won the 2024 election if Joe Biden had resigned the presidency at the same time he relinquished the party nomination?
I saw a news item today that Mitch McConnell, who (according to Google Gemini) last cast a Senate vote on June 11, and has not appeared on Capitol Hill since the week previous to that date, is still not medically cleared to return to work after having been hospitalized and then spending a stint in a rehabilitation center. As we've discussed previously, this long absence has led to a lot of speculation that he is worse off than he and his Senate office have admtited to - and even to some rumors that he died(!)
It seems McConnell is still alive, if not yet completely well. But his continuing absence may lead us to ask: is his long absence in the best interest of Kentucky and the United States? Would they - and he - be better served by retiring?
McConnell's health struggles while in office bring to mind the sad and dramatic case of President Biden, whose visible frailties during a 2024 presidential debate may well be responsible for Donald Trump re-ascending to the presidency. I suppose there is no need to rehash the deatils of Vice President Kamala Harris's being selected to replace him on the ballot, only to lose the election to Trump that fall.
My what-if scenario is: suppose President Biden had resigned the office of president in the summer of 2024, when his health decline could no longer be concealed from the American public. In that case, Kamala Harris would have become president for the remainder of Biden's term. In this scenario, it seems likely she would have been the party's candidate in the fall (bearing in mind that, had Biden resigned the presidency the same day he withdrew as the nominee, the party would have had four more weeks to try to plan and execute an orderly candidate selection process).
But - even had Harris been the nominee in this alternative scenario, in some ways the circumstances would be very different. She would have been running, not as a hastily and rather arbitrarily chosen replacement, but rather as an incumbent. She would have had a chance to exhibit her executive abilities to the country. She could have pointed to a track record of (hopefully) successfully steering the country through an extraordinary transition while maintaining calmness and normality in the economy, the markets, international relations, etc.
This alternate scenario is not a fool-proof strategy for a successor to win an election in his/her own right. Nine times in American history, the presidency has been vacated by a death or resignation. In all cases, the vice president filled out the remainder of the term. All nine successors then ran for office during the following election. But only five succeeded in getting re-elected at the top of the ticket:
| President | Party | Year Vacated | Reason Vacated | Successor | Ran for Re-election? | Outcome (If Ran) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| William Henry Harrison | Whig | 1841 | Death from pneumonia / typhoid | John Tyler | Yes | Expelled from Whig Party; ran as independent but ended campaign prior to election |
| Zachary Taylor | Whig | 1850 | Death from stomach illness | Millard Fillmore | Yes | Lost (Failed nomination) |
| Abraham Lincoln | National Union | 1865 | Assassination | Andrew Johnson | Yes | Lost (Failed nomination) |
| James A. Garfield | Republican | 1881 | Assassination | Chester A. Arthur | Yes | Lost (Failed nomination) |
| William McKinley | Republican | 1901 | Assassination | Theodore Roosevelt | Yes | Won (1904 election) |
| Warren G. Harding | Republican | 1923 | Death from heart attack | Calvin Coolidge | Yes | Won (1924 election) |
| Franklin D. Roosevelt | Democrat | 1945 | Death from brain hemorrhage | Harry S. Truman | Yes | Won (1948 election) |
| John F. Kennedy | Democrat | 1963 | Assassination | Lyndon B. Johnson | Yes | Won (1964 election) |
| Richard Nixon | Republican | 1974 | Resignation (Watergate) | Gerald Ford | Yes | Lost (1976 election) |
I am not sure how much from this table would be applicable to Harris's case. The basic trend seems to be: successors fared poorly in the 19th century, and then fared well during the 20th century, at least until Gerald Ford. And there have been no cases since the 1970s. It's interesting that only two Democratic presidents have vacated the office, and in both cases the vice president was subsequeently elected to serve four more years as president; and perhaps the composition of the party hasn't changed so very much since Roosevelt's coalition was put together.
What do you think? Would incumbency have made a difference for Harris?
To be honest, not only do I not know, at this point I don’t care. What happened, happened and is irreversible. The conspiracy theory I see regularly on Facebook is that McConnell is alive - technically. That his body is being kept alive by machines until after the cutoff date to call a special election. His office and even the word of the attending physician in Congress are not reliable. The state has a Governor who is a Democrat. If a Democrat would win the special election he or she could vote until January and, if he or she runs for the seat in November or he/she would be running as the incumbent and possibly flip the seat for the new Congress that is formed in January of 2027. It will be interesting to see if we are told in August that, tragically, McConnell, who was gaining strength in rehab, suffered another heart attack and has died.
ReplyDeleteSo far they have failed to show any credible "proof of life " evidence for McConnell. That checkered shirt picture was from 2023 and was AI altered, and not very skillfully at that.
DeleteSeems like one objective is to keep Thomas Massie from trying to run as an independent. In any event, McConnell's seat is in effect vacant
It might have helped Kamala Harris some to run as a sort-of incumbent. Would it have been enough to push her over the finish line? We'll never know. She was bucking some pretty strong head winds.
ReplyDeleteI have read some things saying that she should run again in 2028. I'm sure she would have governed better than Trump has. She is a serious person (which Trump is not) and has name recognition and experience. But I don't think that would be a good idea. I hate to say it but a woman can't win in 2028. It wouldn't matter if she were Abraham Lincoln reincarnated.
I think the US is inflicting more suffering on the rest of the world than its own citizenry is suffering. The whining is about gas prices and inflation while we bomb citizens and support genocide. How can we expect anything to improve domestically while these horrors are inflicted throughout the world? There are videos of Hillary Clinton promising the first thing she'd do as President is attack Iran. None of these politicians of either party measure up to ameliorating our imperial decline. Now they're merging our military with the genocide country. Neither party wants to fix that either. I will admit that Kamala would not have been a demented old man but steering us intelligently into a new multipolar world, I doubt it. At this point, I don't think the US will determine its own future. Things will just happen to us and a lot of it will be outside agents. Iran knows it can't trust the US in the least or the genocide country that dominates our politicians. As long as it controls the Strait of Hormuz, that's all that matters. it is the only language the US understands. Grab and twist.
ReplyDeleteIf we must keep reviewing 2024 ...
ReplyDeleteBiden reneged on his vow not to run for a second term and kept Harris buried in the background. She was an unknown to the moderate independents who might have voted for her. Tim Walz was turned into Uncle Buddy eating donuts at truck stops instead of touting his Minnesota record to progressives.
That two decent people with serious legislative careers could not win against the Great American Id says volumes about the rage, fear, and stupidity that is driving the nation off a cliff.
It also says something about the Democratic Party's kingmakers and message-makers, who have ignored grass roots concerns to obsess over identity politics and maintaining Great Society programs whether they work or not.
Get ready to learn Mandarin, everybody, because China is poised to replace us as the next superpower while we squabble over abortion pills by mail, vaccinations, and who controls the weather.
"That two decent people with serious legislative careers could not win against the Great American Id says volumes about the rage, fear, and stupidity that is driving the nation off a cliff."
DeleteI agree. The Democrats didn't have awful candidates. They had two good ones. They had awful strategies. And Biden didn't help things any by not keeping his promise to only run for one term.
I suspect that both parties have primaries loaded with decent, accomplished people (or Democrats still do; very much an open question now with Republicans), but most of them, for one reason or another, are deemed by the voters as not the right person for the moment.
DeleteHarris and Walz never had a chance to prove their mettle and that they were the right candidates for the moment, until the general election.
Personally, I thought Harris did her very best to rise to the moment. But I don't know if anyone could have surmounted that particular moment. She was set up to fail.
What about the moment caused her to fail? I don't follow.
DeleteWhat I discussed in the post - the Biden candidacy meltdown.
DeleteYah, OK, whatever. I weary of you Republicans always looking for ways to blame Democratic Party disorganization for Trump's victory. George F. Will likes that game, too.
DeleteThe ones I most blame for Trump getting elected are the morons who voted for him.
DeleteA lot of Republicans seem to think the Democrats should have pulled better candidates out of a hat to save us from Trump. George F Will' s favorite game was trying to blame Democratic Party "excesses" for Trump. He's pretty much backed off that. Seems to be seeing that leftists cannot wholly explain the loons in the GOP now.
DeleteThere's a little bit of the "look what you made me do" mentality. The Democrats didn't give us what we consider a better candidate, so what could we do but vote for the awful Republican? (It doesn't seem to have registered that the Republicans needed to come up with better candidates)
DeleteI sometimes listen to Heather Cox Richardson's podcast. I would consider her a centrist. She has mentioned several times that the Republican mentality seems to be that they are the default. They *should* rule. A Democrat would need to be squeaky clean and triple worthy to merit a chance.
Katherine—“ The ones I most blame for Trump getting elected are the morons who voted for him”
DeleteNo — it’s far worse than these voters being morons.
I agree that the voters are responsible. But I think they are worse than morons — they were instantly drawn by trump’s campaign way back in 2016 when he accused immigrants from Mexicans of being criminals and rapists in one of his first major speeches. His campaign caught fire then. It was a campaign based on inciting fear and hatred for minorities, especially Latinos and Muslims. Trumps war on DEI in his second term continues to harness MAGA voters clear desire to return this country to the 1950s, when women and minorities “knew their place” . This administration was founded on hate — racist hate— white resentment, and fear of losing their dominance. Men who believe their maleness and, and white skin, entitle them to dominate in both the working world and the home have been thrilled with this administration and its pseudo- masculine, anti- minority and women in leadership administration, especially as seen in the Pentagon. The sub- text has been supporting the alleged war on Christianity and the rise of white, “ Christian “ nationalism.
I don’t follow political campaigns closely anymore. I don’t really know what Harris said in her speeches, because I didn’t tune in. But I knew I couldn’t vote for trump no matter who the Dem Candidate was. I never watch TV news or political shows, and mostly skimmed election news in the media like NY Times, AP, and WaPo. I believe that voting third party or writing in is simply throwing away a vote. But I think, based just on skimming headlines, that Harris may have worked too hard to appease the far left of her party on abortion and transgender rights. Abortion rights are a concern across the electorate, including “Christian” conservative women in red states who want abortion to be legal. That’s why trump did a 180 on abortion and had the abortion plank removed from the GOP platform, and refused to say he would support a national ban. He saw which way the wind was blowing and the “pro- life” movement he manipulated had pretty much served its purpose. Harris’s support of LGBTQ rights, especially Transgender rights aroused fear and loathing that is totally out of proportion to any possible “threat”. The percent of the population that is transgender is miniscule and there is no evidence that there is a conspiracy to “convert” others into “adopting” this sexual identity. The transgender community is not a threat to anyone. But it’s a major culture war issue, with the MAGA folk deliberately fanning the flames.
The most important reasons our son and his family are emigrating are the openly racist policies of this administration and especially the reality that 70-77 million Americans voted for this man three times, including multiple members of our extended family, knowing full well what he stands for - a “white America” first program based on racist hate.
I think Democrats *should* rule, otherwise I'd be a Republican. But, geez, I don't blame Republicans for a dud Democratic president like Biden.
DeleteI don’t listen to podcasts. I really don’t like the format. It’s much faster ( and more accurate ) to read transcripts even if live captions are available. I do read HCR’s column every day. I think she is the best commentator out there, and she is pretty centrist (center left, not center right). I especially like the historic context on contemporary issues that she provides from her expertise as a professor of American history.
DeleteThe news today in the media world (more evidence of the consolidation of media by trumps MAGA forces), is that Ross Douthat has been hired for 60 Minutes by the trumpet running CBS now. I mostly skip his columns, but attempted to get through a transcript of one of his “ conversations “. I had to give up. He is a terrible analyst. But he’s another catholic convert in the MAGA fold, so a useful fool.
" Harris may have worked too hard to appease the far left of her party on abortion and transgender rights."
DeleteAt least, that may have been a perception among persuadable voters. I've read that Trump's campaign ran an ad with the tag line, "Kamala is for They/Them; Donald Trump is for you." (Or something like that.) Apparently this was considered highly effective, and is credited with helping to persuade many minority voters in particular to vote for Trump.
But I think it's also possible (likely) that the Democratic Party is going through a transformation, and Harris may be on the wrong side of the shift. Identity politics and abortion rights (Harris's home turf) are "Democrats 1.0". But the party, especially the progressive wing, is well along in moving to "Democrats 2.0", which appears to be more about DSA and anti-Israel.
The GOP went through a similar shift. 20 years ago, the common view of Republican voters was that they were "impatient"; they kept voting out incumbents who were viewed as too estalbishment, and turned to those who were viewed as reformers or radicals. That instinct coalesced into the Tea Party movement, which was primarily a libertarian-influenced movement. I guess it hit its high point when Paul Ryan was Mitt Romney's VP candidate in 2012. But that movement quickly lost steam, too; and it turned out Ryan was not who they were looking for. I would say the Tea Party was the last gasp of the Reaganite dominance; Reaganism, it turned out, was an exhausted project. It took Trump, who I think will be remembered as a great political entrepreneur, to articulate what they wanted, and to build a winning coalition around it.
It's possible that identity politics and abortion also are exhausted projects. Mamdani seems to be the new face of what I call 2.0 politics; but maybe the so-called Squad preceded him. Maybe what the progressive wing really wants is socialism. Could be a generational shift.
Jim, , don’t buy the lie that Democratic Socialism is “ socialism “.i KNOW that you studied economics at some point and know socialism is - and isn’t. Western Europeans and Asian countries tries with strong social safety net programs are NOT. “ socialist “ countries. They are as capitalist as the US but have more concern for their citizens and take more responsibility for caring for ALL their citizens than the US does. If even you can fall for this lie, there really is no hope for America.
DeletePeople need to stop thinking that abortion and LGBT rights are "far left" issues. MANY Republicans and independents believe abortion should be legal (sometimes with restrictions) or have adult gay/trans kids whose rights they uphold.
DeleteI *do* believe that Boomer/GenX Democrats are aligned with identity/DEI issues, and that Millennial/GenZ Democrats are more concerned with wage disparity and labor issues. They basically want to make laws about things that labor unions used to negotiate--minimum wage and benefits.
Why not just unionize? Largely because the workforce moves around a lot more. One of the obstacles we ran into unionizing adjuncts at MSU were young people who refused to sign cards because they thought they'd move on and get tenure elsewhere. They figured we 50-somethings were just losers. Last English conference I attended, those kids are now pushing 50, still adjuncts, but at least they've got a union. You're welcome, Kyle and Brittany.
Employment-at-Will laws and increases in temp/contract jobs have also made it easier for employers to weed out employees who might pass around union cards.
“MANY Republicans and independents believe abortion should be legal (sometimes with restrictions) or have adult gay/trans kids whose rights they uphold.”
DeleteThis may be true but apparently there aren’t enough of these Republicans who favor these rights and are willing to vote for a Democrat to make a difference.
You're right. Non-MAGA Republicans seem dazed by Trump and unsure of what to do next.
DeleteIIRC, Jim here simply planned not to vote for either party for president in 2024.
A friend's husband continues to vote for Republicans saying they're only giving lip-service to Trump and will be OK once elected. He's been wrong time and again, but still thinks things will soon "go back to normal."
What's going on in the GOP is not new.
I often think about my late friend and colleague Dan, Air Force major, wrote for Stars and Stripes, devout Catholic, active in Republican party politics. He quit the GOP 30 years ago when he went to a county party meeting and found it had been co-opted by the religious right.
The MAGA seeds were sown a long time ago when Republicans welcomed evangelicals and their socially conservative agenda into the fold. Now we're all living with the consequences of letting these nuts run the party.
The expansion of our war with Iran into more and more countries in the Middle East with Trump at the helm should scare the shit out of everyone. Especially since only Republicans have the clout to stop it.
"
DeleteIIRC, Jim here simply planned not to vote for either party for president in 2024."
True, I left that race blank.
FWIW, after hearing Harris's acceptance speech at the 2024 convention, I started considering voting for her. She was tacking to the middle. Later in the campaign, she started leaning more into abortion, including advocating for a national abortion-rights law. She lost me at that point.
She is a centrist, but if criminalizing abortion is the ditch you've chosen to die in, then not many Democrats you can vote for.
DeleteIf there was some sort of meeting-halfway possible where it's legal through 12-14 weeks nationally, that might strike me as a sensible compromise. Here, we seem to whipsaw between nearly completely banned and it being an unfettered constitutional right.
DeleteThe legislation she advocated for is pretty much the latter - no meaningful restricitons at any stage of pregnancy. And my take on the campaign was, this was her signature issue, in the same way hating immigrants is Trump's signature issue.
I get the politics in play then: the only campaign Trump knows how to run is a turn-out election; so a candidate in her position, so late to the party, may have felt she had little choice but to try to out-turn-out him. And (it seemed to me) she chose the abortion issue as the way to try to do that. And in 2024, that wasn't irrational; the Dobbs decision had spurred high Democratic turn-out for several elections.
We made different calculations.
DeleteI don't think a national anything-goes abortion law could possibly have passed the Senate with 60 votes, not given the way state laws have lined up since Dobbs. Congress can't even pass a Daylight Saving Time bill much less bipartisan bills on immigration, housing, and funding for the Iran war.
I also don't think that Harris talked about abortion as much as due process for immigrants and legal aliens, and voting rights. But I think a lot of Republicans believed she did because once a black female Democrat starts talking about abortion laws, that's all they hear.
When it comes to looking for failures, I’d say US militarism is our greatest failure and costs us the most.
ReplyDeleteOur bloated military budget gets us what? Nothing. Less than nothing. Iran is a second tier country and it’s totally blocked our military forces. Whatever has been “wasted” on New Deal programs, what’s left of them, doesn’t cause PTSD, brain damaged veterans and crippled veterans. Any reform of this country has to begin with cutbacks and total reshaping of the military. What does a good defense look like? Look what Iran is doing with a fraction of our expenditures and under severe sanctions. Also we have to disentangle with the Genocide Nation. To regain rationality at home, we have to stop projecting unending violence abroad.
DeleteStanley - it does seem to be true that technological advances can make more traditional weaponry and tactics obsolete. Cf. what Ukraine has been doing to the Russian invasion force (not to mention the Russian homeland) with drones this past year. At the same time, missiles et al still have a role to play.
DeleteYou may have seen that Hegseth has been firing a number of top generals and admirals. I think we can all assume that many/most of these decisions are bad for the military. That said, I read somewhere that Hegseth is a big proponent of the US adopting modern drone tactics, and is meeting resistance from some of the senior officers who have come through the ranks with giant contracts for fighter planes, subs, missiles et al.
Jim, yes, ballistic missiles are a necessary part of the mix. Wrt drones, high power lasers might be a countermeasure although there are weather limitations. Also, nonnuclear EMP. I hope that it all works out for asymmetrical warfare in favor of defensive postures. A lot of this expensive anti-missile missile stuff seems to have been obviated. The interceptors are very expensive and slow to produce and, worst of all, they aren’t working. Iran is supposed to have drones capable of cooperative function. A few drones fly together and then one of them collides with the interceptor and takes it for the team. I think we can have a very good and affordable defense if we actually switch to defense. I understand our inventory is low due to the war on Iran which means our defenses are down.
DeleteBack to the travel issue of TSA asking for phones. This is genuinely scary
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/us/duress-password-phone-wipe-charge.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1VA.RIGJ.bIEvEw_rlp3v&smid=nytcore-ios-share
I didn't know an app? code? existed where you could wipe your phone. Apparently it is legal and operates on Android phones. I have an Android phone. Part of me admires the James Bond-esque moxie of the whole scenario. They seize your phone and ask for the pass code. You give them the self-erase code instead. The legal argument seems to be that you aren't really on us soil in an international airport, even if it exists on US soil. And that your phone is no different than a backpack, it's a container. and they have the right to search the contents without a warrant. To me that's a bonkers argument. Your personal phone is more like a room in your house, with file cabinets and book shelves and video and audible content. They should have a warrant to search it.
DeleteIn the case of ICE picking someone up, they take the person's phone and they usually don't give it back, even if they don't end up holding the person. That amounts to theft of property, a smart phone is worth several hundred dollars. Often it is a person's only means of communication.
DeleteAnd if the argument is that it is portable property, would they be able to search and seize a camper without a warrant? I don't know the answer to that.
DeleteKatherine, I believe they return the phones, but can hold them for several days while they do a forensic search.
DeleteCPB rules
https://www.cbp.gov/travel/cbp-search-authority/border-search-electronic-devices
AI summary of ICE rules
AI Overview Whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can search and keep a seized phone or computer depends strictly on where the seizure happened, such as at a border crossing or deep inside the country. Generally, they must return property when a person is released unless it is held as active evidence or contraband.Search Rules by LocationAt the Border or Airport (Ports of Entry): Officers have broad authority under the "border search exception". They can perform manual searches of phones or laptops without a judicial warrant, and in many jurisdictions, without individualized suspicion. For deep forensic data downloads copying the entire device, some courts require reasonable suspicion.Inside the U.S. (Away from the Border): ICE agents cannot freely search or seize a phone or computer on the street, in a home, or during a traffic stop without a proper judicial search warrant or explicit consent. Doing so without a warrant or valid exception violates constitutional protections.Return of Property Upon ReleaseRequirement to Return: If a person is completely released and no charges or formal forfeiture proceedings are initiated, the government is legally required to return seized personal property like cell phones and computers.Delays and Retention: If the device was lawfully detained at a port of entry for forensic analysis, agents may hold it for a reasonable number of days (or longer if digital contraband or a major violation is discovered). However, keeping it indefinitely after a person is released without charges or a formal property receipt/notice of seizure is improper, and affected individuals should consult an attorney or legal aid organization immediately.
Whether ICE follows their own rules is an open question. There are many people who were detained by ICE who say that phones and even coats and purses were not returned to them.
DeleteI think this discussion about the cell phone illustrates how pervasive the un-American-ness is across the federal government. We have an unaccountable police force, ICE; a chief executive and agency leadership with no interest in holding them accountable; law enforcement agencies (DoJ, FBI et al) whose mission is supposed to be to protect the rights of US citizens, who do not do so; and a funding-and-accountability branch (Congress, currently controlled by Republicans) which lavishes ICE with incredible funding and refuses to hold them accountable. The rot is very deep, and it is spread across many agencies and government entities.
DeleteJim, I don't disagree with anything you said there.
DeleteICE loves traffic stops because they're quicker than in-home searches, search requirements are less stringent if contraband (i.e., an illegal alien) is suspected, and drivers can be shot dead on the grounds they were "weaponizing" their vehicles.
DeleteAt the very least and RIGHT NOW, ICE needs to take off masks, wear the body cams we paid for, have guns replaced with tasers, and be barred from traffic stops. However, when Homann paused traffic stops, Trump insisted they continue. And they do whatever Daddy says.
This government agency lawlessness is only the tip of the iceberg. Given what we see, I have zero doubt about something we don’t see. ICE detainees, female and male, are being raped by ICE personnel. All the components are there. It’s almost math.
DeleteIt's pretty well documented that food and sanitation in detention centers are sub-par, that visitation is at the whim of guards, and that medical attention is zero. In addition, there's no clear picture of how many detainees there are, where they're deported to, or what happens when they get there.
DeleteMedical experiments, sexual abuse, slave labor. If we're not there now, yes, the components are there.
Arbeit macht frei.