I. Sad, Grateful, Relieved
One of those words was present in virtually every text message that flooded my iPhone from Democrats at every level of the party and every region of the country in the minutes and hours after Joe Biden made his historic decision known to the world at 1:46 p.m. ET today. Often, the texts contained two of the words or even all three.
After all the angst and agita of the past three weeks, mixed emotions were to be expected, I suppose. Still, the tone and content of the messages was striking. Suddenly, Democratic electeds (U.S. senators and congresspeople, governors, mayors), candidates, donors, strategists, and even Biden staffers—who in recent days had been howling about what they deemed the self-destructive lunacy of Biden’s insistence on staying in the race: about his selfishness, cluelessness, and degree of delusion; about his displays of an angry, self-aggrandizing narcissism that had some comparing him to Donald Trump—were now speaking of Biden with awe and reverence, praising him for a titanic act of patriotism and self-sacrifice. Even those most ardent in their desire to see him go were touched by a sense of grief.
And those who wondered what had become of the Biden they once knew—a deeply decent man who understood the stakes of the 2024 election as well as anyone on Earth—were comforted to glimpse that Biden again. (Speaking as someone who has known the man since 1986, when I met him as a senior at Northwestern and he offered me a job I didn’t take on his forthcoming 1988 campaign, you can count me in this category.)
In a way, the reactions in my texts and the outpouring of encomiums to Biden on cable and in social media lent credence to an argument advanced by many of his longtime, bold-faced admirers in the punditocracy after his disastrous debate performance a little more than three weeks ago: whereas staying in the race and getting clobbered by Trump would destroy his legacy—and so much more—getting out would turn him into a hero, and uncork a gusher of energy among Democrats that would reboot and reshape the presidential contest. And while it’s too soon to know for sure, that appears to be what’s occurring even as I type these words.
II. Shocking But Not Surprising
In November of last year, I sat down with James Carville to film the final interview in the series finale of my show, The Circus, on Showtime. The Ragin’ Cajun had been arguing for months that Democrats needed to “wake the fuck up” to the pervasive, age-related doubts regarding Biden’s candidacy —in the broader electorate and among Democrats specifically—that had been blaring from national and battleground state polls since the fall of 2021.
James had taken a metric ton of guff from people in his party for pointing out what was blindingly obvious. When I asked him how that felt, he cited Galileo’s famous response to being forced by the Inquisition to recant his view that the Earth revolves around the Sun: “And yet it moves.”
In the months since, I’ve thought about that interview again and again, as Democrats continued to pretend that Biden’s age wasn’t a drag—the drag, really—on his standing versus his profoundly and enduringly unpopular opponent. But I’ve thought even more about another thing James said. Looking at all the polling, and, more importantly, reading the wind and weather among voters out there in the country, he concluded, “I just don’t think this is pointing in a linear direction where we end up with Trump and Biden, and it’s a rerun of 2020. … I think it was a Republican economist”—in fact, it was Herb Stein, who worked for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford—“who said, ‘That which can’t go on, won’t.’ Some shit’s going to come up, and we’re going to go, ‘Oh, goddamn, why didn’t I see this coming?’”
The “shit” that Carville forecast turned out to be the Atlanta debate, which triggered the tidal wave of panic, anger, and data-driven assessment among Democratic electeds and donors that ultimately led to Biden’s withdrawal today. It feels like eons but was just nine days ago when James predicted on the Impolitic podcast that, despite Biden’s better-than-feared performance at his post-NATO summit press conference and steadfast vows to stay in the race, he would inevitably find it impossible to continue. “What happens with politicians, generally,” James said, “is they look behind them as they’re charging forward and [if] they don’t see anybody, then they say, well, you know, maybe I shouldn’t be charging this fixed position by myself.”
James wasn’t alone in saying things like this, of course, though he was way ahead of the curve. But the reason I’m noting them is to make a larger point: that as shocking, staggering, and earth-moving as Biden’s decision today was in some respects, it wasn’t wholly surprising in others. The writing has been on the wall, in increasingly large font, since the debate—but the conditions that set the stage for the crisis that ultimately precipitated Biden’s exit have been apparent to those willing to be clear-eyed for quite a bit longer than that.
III. Never Bet Against Nancy
Amid all the coverage and commentary, one angle currently receiving less attention than it might—and that history will surely note and long remember—is how Biden’s decision offered an implicit reaffirmation of one the oldest, most reliable, indeed arguably inviolate rules in Democratic politics: Never bet against Nancy Pelosi.
To say that Speaker Emerita Pelosi personally drove Biden out of the race overstates what took place in the past three weeks—but not by much. Based on my reporting, a more precise and accurate formulation is this: If not for Pelosi, Biden wouldn’t have been driven from the race today, and might have been able to run out the clock (as was his and his team’s strategy) until his renomination was formalized at the Democratic convention in Chicago in mid-August.
It was Pelosi who spearheaded the effort first to persuade and then to pressure Biden to step aside. Though she had indispensable allies in marshaling this effort—including, crucially, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Barack Obama—Pelosi’s role was singular in its execution and effect. Starting with her seminal doubt-casting appearance on Morning Joe on July 3, Pelosi conducted a masterclass in power politics as sophisticated as any I have seen in 35 years of covering this stuff. She carefully and sure-handedly balanced an extraordinary number of psychic variables, emotional equities, and personal histories and agendas, all the while methodically and relentlessly (some would say ruthlessly) turning the screws on Biden—making it abundantly clear that the campaign to push him off the ticket wasn’t going to abate and, in fact, was destined to become more public, direct, and voluble (and thus more embarrassing to him). Indeed, more than one Democratic congressperson told me that Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, and others were prepared, if need be, to go on camera this week and call on Biden to drop out because he no longer had the support of his party.
Biden was well aware that Pelosi was his main adversary in his battle to stay on the ticket, which is no surprise. My sources tell me that she had spoken directly to him more than once in the past week to paint a picture of how things would play out if Biden refused to do what she was convinced was the right thing for his party and the country. As of Friday night, according to CNN, Biden was seething at her.
Whether that was or still is true at this hour, I don’t know. But I will say this: Nancy Pelosi worked closely with Joe Biden for a very long time; they accomplished a great deal together. She respects him. She feels for him. She loves him. But, in the end, she put all of that aside to do what she thought was necessary for Democrats to have any chance of preventing Donald Trump from retaking the White House. One dearly hopes that, in the fullness of time, Biden will come to see Pelosi’s actions through that prism and not as a personal betrayal, and that whatever damage has been done to their relationship can and will be mended.
IV. Kamala in the Catbird Seat
What happens next, as a formal and practical matter, is very much up in the air. Among many of the Democrats regretfully but incontrovertibly convinced that Biden standing down was the only plausible path forward, there had been a reluctance to start making concrete plans for choosing and/or ratifying a new nominee until it was clear that he would demur. Now that he has, the central choice facing the party boils down to this: coronation or competition.
Over the past three weeks, a variety of party panjandrums, including the aforementioned Carville—and, more significantly, Jim Clyburn—have floated various ideas for a sort of “mini-primary” consisting of a series of town hall meetings or debates among small groups of Democrats (with the criteria for and method of selecting that group very much T.B.D.) around the country, culminating with an open, contested convention in Chicago. The alternative, of course, is that the party forgo all of that jiggery-pokery and rally quickly, forcefully, and decisively around Biden’s natural heir and chosen successor, V.P. Harris.
In the hours since Biden’s withdrawal, the party is vibing hard toward the coronation option. But in the end, according to an array of party insiders pelting me with texts, the two potential approaches may simply collapse into one: an open competition in which no one except Harris steps forward to compete. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, two of the top theoretical rivals to Harris for the nomination, have endorsed her, and while other big-name governors with their eyes on the Oval Office—J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan—have stopped short of backing the V.P. as of this writing, there’s a strong possibility that they and other prospective challengers will reach the conclusion that the long-term political risks of challenging her outweigh the advantages, and decide to take a pass as well.
Having undertaken the unprecedented operation of replacing an incumbent commander-in-chief at the top of the presidential ticket a month shy of the party’s nominating convention, Democrats appear to be unusually unified in their desire to pile in behind Harris, whose political liabilities are, to be sure, considerable and well-understood, but whose political assets are equally clear and compelling. Aside from her youth, vigor, and prolific role as the Biden administration’s primary champion of women’s reproductive rights—no small credential, that, in the post-Dobbs era—Harris has run for president and been vetted by the national press; the likelihood of undiscovered skeletons being dragged out of her closet is close to nil (something that can’t be said definitively about any of the other extant possibilities).
In this, she arguably represents the safest vessel to carry Democrats across the viciously choppy waters ahead. She also offers a ready-made framing of the fight against Trump that will excite a party beset by a lack of enthusiasm all throughout this presidential cycle: The Prosecutor vs. The Criminal. Imagine that on a bumper sticker, and you’ll see the case for Kamala in a nutshell.
