The news that the US Democratic President Joseph Biden, after several weeks of internal party pressure, decided to withdraw from the election race put an end to the story that, along with the assassination of the Republican Donald Trump, was the main topic in the American public in recent weeks. At the same time, Biden's decision raised the question of whether he will be replaced as presidential candidate by Kamala Harris, the current vice president of the United States of America (USA), as well as whether the Democrats have enough time to reorganize the campaign and increase the chances of winning in November.
After announcing his decision to withdraw, Biden soon supported Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate, and by Sunday evening, many other influential members of the Democratic Party had also done so.
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The experts with whom the Voice of America spoke say that Biden could have "timed" the final decision about appearing on the ballot differently, as well as that they expect an even more intense campaign in the coming months, but also that new faces could now get a chance in the Democratic Party. .
"Over the past weeks, the pressure on the president gradually increased, from members of his party, people from the House of Representatives, senators, governors, members of other institutions. Polls that not only showed that Biden is lagging behind Trump nationally and in key states also contributed to the decision. but, equally important, that the majority of Democratic voters have come to the point that they want him to withdraw from the race," Alan Abramovic, professor emeritus of political science at Emory University in the US state of Atlanta, told VOA.
In the letter, published on the X social network, Biden stated that he will remain president and commander-in-chief until the end of his term in January 2025 and that he will address the nation during the week.
Harris, a former California senator and attorney general, said in a statement that she is honored to have Biden's support and that she intends to "earn and win" the Democratic nomination.
"Most of the Democratic likely candidates will support Harris, as a gesture of goodwill. But behind closed doors — if there's significant disagreement about whether she can win or if there's agreement that she can't win or probably can't, then "You're going to see secretive efforts by some, especially governors, to offer their candidacies. The next few days will be crucial in terms of how far Democratic officials and donors will get behind Harris," Gary Schmidt, a senior fellow at the conservative to the "American Enterprise" Institute (American Entrepreneurship).
For Charles Kapchan, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Biden's decision is "brave, difficult, but also necessary," as pressure from party members and donors mounted and the issue of his age dominated the news.
"My assumption is that since Biden has endorsed her, Harris will emerge as the new presidential candidate. She will choose the governor of one of the key states to be her vice presidential candidate. That will be ratified at the Democratic Convention. And we have a race to November. ", explains Kapčan.
He assesses that the campaign will now become "increasingly fierce and that states that may have been firmly in Trump's column will now return to uncertainty."
Kapčan also believes that there will be a fight between Republicans and Democrats for undecided voters, especially in key states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with the assessment that Republican Donald Trump announced this by choosing Ohio Senator JD Vance as the vice presidential candidate.
"Americans now have a good, clear choice in front of them. Vance and Trump, they are much more neo-isolationist. The Democrats, regardless of who ends up on the ticket, are much more internationalist, pro-alliance, pro-Ukraine. And now I think we're going to see a kind of fierce, direct competition that the Americans deserve," Kapčan believes.
Despite the Democrats' concern that he does not have the mental capacity for a second term, and the growing lag behind Trump in the polls, Biden insisted until yesterday's announcement that he would remain in the race.
According to a source cited by Reuters, Biden told aides on Saturday night that he planned to stay in the race, only to change his mind on Sunday afternoon.
For Anne Danehy, a professor of strategic communication at Boston University, Biden's decision was inevitable, but she believes that it is bad for the Democratic Party that intra-party disagreements have been made public almost unfiltered in the previous weeks.
"I think he really had no choice anymore, not only because of the pressure from people in the party, but also because of his understanding of what was happening, the covid, the debate. I don't really understand why the party publicly announced calls for him to withdraw and I don't know what happened behind the scenes," Danehi explained.
If they choose Harris as their presidential candidate, the Democrats will find themselves in a similar situation as in 2016, when Hillary Clinton competed in the race for the White House and lost to Trump.
"I think there were several reasons why Clinton lost, and I don't think the fact that she was a woman was the cause of her defeat. And I don't expect it to be a problem for Kamala Harris either," Danehi answers when asked if American society is ready for a woman. head of state.
Four days before the announcement that he was withdrawing from the presidential race, Biden tested positive for covid for the third time, which forced him to cut short his pre-election visit to Nevada and return home to Delaware, where he is in isolation. So far, more than 35 Democratic members of Congress have called on him to drop out of the race.
"It would have been better if he had made that decision earlier, perhaps after the congressional elections in 2022, which would have given time to hold primary elections with real competition, where more Democrats would have run, including Vice President Harris. But it's too late for that now. The situation is not ideal, but I think there is still enough time for Harris, since she will inherit the organization of the Biden campaign and the large amount of money that has been collected," assesses Professor Alan Abramovic.
He adds that it seems to him that the prevailing opinion among Democrats is that, despite all of Biden's weaknesses after the debate and the polls in which Trump is leading, the Republican candidate is within reach.
"They see that he has significant weaknesses, and that — while he's very popular with the Republican base — that base isn't big enough to win a presidential election. What we saw at the convention, especially with Trump's speech, was that he didn't make a lot of attempts to appeal to voters outside their base... Nothing is certain, but I think the Democrats will feel better about their chances, now that Biden has retired," Abramovic believes.
By deciding to withdraw, Biden certainly wrote the pages of American history, as he became the first current president to give up his candidacy for a second term since Lyndon Johnson did it in March 1968.
"This will be a significant point in history, although voters have short memories and some things are quickly forgotten as they unfold day by day," says Professor Anne Danehy.
In his first reaction to Biden's decision, Trump told CNN that he thought it would be easier to beat Harris than Biden.
"I think politics in general will become more important in the campaign because so far the news has been almost entirely dominated by Biden and his candidacy. Now that that's settled, we're going to have an issue-focused campaign where Democrats and Republicans can put forward their platforms and debate directly. Given the stakes of the November elections, this is the kind of debate and clear choice that the American people deserve," says Kapčan.
During the party's primary, Biden won nearly 3.900 delegates who are expected to formally select a presidential nominee at the party's convention in Chicago in August. Just a few hours after the current US president announced his decision to retire, messages of support for Harris began to arrive from party colleagues such as California governor Gavin Newsom, who was even mentioned by the media as a possible rival for the position, as well as former head of state Bill Clinton and of his wife, Hillary Clinton, who was the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016.
"We don't know exactly how things are going to play out in the coming weeks. They might do an unofficial poll before the Democratic convention. I think we're going to see the Democratic Party come together pretty quickly, which is important because the party is not ideologically unified. There are very progressive and very centrist wing. The last thing Democrats want is an unorganized discussion, which turns into an ideological debate within the party. That's why it's important that Biden supported Kamala Harris," Kapčan says.
It is to be expected, in the continuation of the campaign, predicts Professor Anne Danehi, that Harris will get much more space in the media, but will also be a more frequent target of criticism from Donald Trump and the Republicans.
"Biden's strategy basically was to say to the voters - don't elect Trump. It was no longer about why some people think Biden is a better candidate. It was really about voting against Trump. And I think that was the strategy that was for them needed," analyzes Danehi.
He believes that the strategy of the Democrats could now turn around, if Harris really becomes a candidate for president.
"They're going to have to introduce Harris to the voters because even though she's the vice president, she hasn't been super visible and I don't know how well the voters know her. Also, if it comes to that, I expect a very interesting debate. She's a prosecutor and she could attack Trump a lot more for his comments On the other hand, I expect the Republicans to attack her even before the Democrats make her official and define her as a candidate," Danehi concluded.
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