On Politics: A campaign that started slowly gets its inevitable upheaval
A campaign that started slowly gets its inevitable upheaval
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Remember a month ago? This time in June, the presidential race was a dug-in contest between two elderly men who have already won presidential elections. The candidates were familiar. The polls barely moved. And if that (and my inbox) was any indication, the campaign felt to many voters like a dull trudge to the finish line. So much for that. Over the course of three and a half weeks in June and July, at a time when presidential campaigns are usually on cruise control before the conventions, American politics have been upended by three stunning turns that historians will parse for years to come: a disastrous debate for President Biden, the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, and now, the withdrawal of the incumbent just three and a half months before the election. "I know it's been a roller coaster," Vice President Kamala Harris told her campaign staff on Monday, making something of an understatement. When it comes to presidential campaigns, change often comes slowly and then all at once, with unscripted, consequential events tumbling one after the other. In 1968, just days passed between President Lyndon Baines Johnson's decision to bow out of his re-election campaign and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which touched off a wave of protest and grief around the nation and reshaped the election. In September 2008, an economic crisis turned the race upside down — an opportunity that Barack Obama, then a young Democratic senator, seized to portray himself as in charge. In October 2016, a videotape showing Trump speaking crudely about grabbing women's private parts rocketed around the world. Weeks later, a letter surfaced from the F.B.I. director reopening his investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails just days before the election. Now we are living through our own summer of political upheaval, one that has forced the presidential race to be reborn as a brand-new contest, and the first race since 1976 without a Clinton, a Bush or a Biden on the ticket. It has turned into a fight between a Republican former president who has the complete devotion of his party and, in all likelihood, a Black woman whose candidacy will make history and seems likely to jolt her party with energy that Democrats were desperately lacking a month ago. How what seemed boring really was notI have felt from the start that this race was fascinating and thoroughly consequential — and some of the characteristics that made it seem boring at the outset planted the seeds for the tectonic changes of the past month. The advanced ages of the candidates made the campaign seem tired, but Biden's age, in particular, turned out to be a weakness he could not overcome after his listless debate performance raised questions about his fitness that he was unable to tamp down. And, on the Democratic side, the utter lack of drama around the primaries, with the party rejiggering its nomination calendar and swiftly coalescing around Biden's re-election effort, set the table for a crisis for a party that had refused to reckon with a fundamental weakness in its nominee. To be sure, it's entirely possible that President Biden's withdrawal will do little to change the overall contours of this election, which Trump is favored to win. Harris has trailed Trump in nearly all national and battleground state polls this year, my colleague Nate Cohn pointed out in his excellent newsletter, The Tilt. He also noted how many voters view her unfavorably — which means this election could still be replete with double-haters. A rerun no moreBut what started as a rerun has now turned into an election unlike anything this country has seen. Harris, whose 2020 presidential campaign sputtered before anyone cast a single vote and who has struggled to define herself during her vice presidency, has a second chance to lead her party, and she is moving quickly to seize it. Trump, who has largely coasted through a campaign season that did not require much of him, is now a convicted felon who seems likely to run against a former prosecutor. The country is about to see if we can do a whole presidential election in a little more than 100 days (something we should maybe consider repeating in the future, if this works out). And the stakes of this race may now be even higher. A former president who has been found liable for sexual abuse, and who celebrated hyper-masculinity as he took the stage and accepted his nomination in Milwaukee last week, appears likely now to be running against the country's first female vice president, a figure who made the protection of the constitutional right to abortion — which Trump has bragged about rolling back — central to her time in office. Harris is seeking to be the first Black female president at the very moment Trump is trying to make inroads with Black men. If Harris becomes the nominee, she is likely to detail a vision for this country that is as starkly different from Trump's as Biden's was. Just last week, the former president used his acceptance of the Republican nomination to rail about what he falsely said was "cheating" in the 2020 election; he has cheered for a Supreme Court decision that would vastly expand his power in a second term and called for the jailing of his political opponents. This moment is uncertain and unscripted, weighty and confusing. It is certainly not boring.
One thing to know about four possible running matesWith Vice President Kamala Harris looking increasingly likely to claim the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago next month, Washington is abuzz with chatter over whom she might pick to join her on the ticket. The conversation has centered on several governors. I asked my colleagues around the country to tell us just one thing to know about four names that keep coming up. Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro lost a race for student government when he was in high school. He hasn't lost a race since, and when he won the 2022 governor's race, he became "the highest vote-getter in Pennsylvania gubernatorial history," according to his office. He is quite popular in Pennsylvania — so much so that David McCormick, the Republican Senate candidate, recently posted a picture of himself shaking hands with Shapiro. — Katie Glueck Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky The simple fact of Andy Beshear's election in a state that Trump won by more than 25 points was enough to make him a Democratic rising star. But getting re-elected in 2023 by an even larger margin assured his place in the Democratic firmament. He pulled this off by focusing largely on practical issues, most notably the response to a grim run of natural disasters in his first term that included deadly floods and a catastrophic tornado outbreak. — Campbell Robertson Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina Cooper is the king of the split-ticket voter. He won his races for governor in 2016 and 2020 — two elections when Trump carried the state as a presidential candidate. Many people here attribute that success to his moderate brand and his focus on fostering a strong businesses environment. But conservatives argue that he is more liberal than he seems, and that he has effectively been powerless in his tenure because of the Republican-controlled General Assembly. — Eduardo Medina Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois Pritzker, a billionaire in his second term who unseated a Republican, has made expanding abortion access a focus of his tenure. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Illinois has had a significant uptick in abortions as women have traveled there from parts of the Midwest and South, where the procedure is banned or severely restricted. — Mitch Smith Other names are floating around, too, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. But, earlier today, when a reporter asked if she would take the role if offered, she flatly said no. "I'm not leaving Michigan," Whitmer said. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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