The Door Has Flown Wide Open

It's increasingly clear that it's a matter of when not if Joe Biden drops out of the 2024 presidential campaign

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For MSNBC, I wrote about how the 2024 RNC has completely erased the Republican Party’s past. It’s basically Year Zero in Milwaukee.

In general., I don’t have much to add about the RNC so far. JD Vance’s speech last night was a paint-by-numbers snoozer, and I expect Trump’s acceptance speech tonight to be more of the same.

Unfortunately, I’ll be out of town tomorrow for work, so there will be no Zoom chat this week. However, I’ll send along my thoughts on Trump’s speech … though I expect more big news on the 2024 election coming soon.

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Just when it seemed the clamor about dropping Joe Biden from the Democratic ticket had died down … this happened.

On Wednesday, Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, a candidate for Senate in the state and a top ally of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, called on Mr. Biden to drop out of the race.

“Our nation is at a crossroads,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November.”

Then this happened:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, in separate private meetings with President Biden last week, told him that his continued candidacy imperils the Democratic Party’s ability to control either chamber of Congress next year.

And this …

And this …

And this …

Former president Barack Obama has told allies in recent days that President Biden’s path to victory has greatly diminished and he thinks the president needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy, according to multiple people briefed on his thinking.

Oh, I did mention that Biden now has COVID,

I know I’ve gone back and forth on this for the past three weeks, but we now have the top elected Democratic officials in the country—and a popular former president who picked Biden as his running mate—saying that Biden needs to withdraw. Two-thirds of Democratic voters say they want a new nominee.

I don’t know if Harris is a better bet to beat Trump in November (though I find compelling the argument that, at this point, she is a stronger nominee), but Biden has lost the Democratic party, and I don’t see how he can survive this. At this point, it's largely a question of when Biden drops out, not if.

As I noted a few weeks ago, there’s no place in politics for sentimentality — not when the Republican nominee is such a direct threat to American democracy.

If you’re a Biden-stan, don’t kill the messenger. I’m not expressing a personal preference here, but it’s pretty clear that the Democratic party has decided that sticking with Biden will cost them the election, and he needs to go.

Can Harris Win?

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