Bye Bye Biden. Was It Bucks, Blackmail or Bad Polling?

Joe Biden announced yesterday that he would not accept the nomination he earned in the Democrat primaries to be the party's nominee for President in November.

Interestingly, he mailed it in rather than get in front of the cameras and tell the American people face to face he was stepping aside.

One report I saw suggested that he was so angry over being forced out that he did not believe he could control his anger in front of the cameras.

The decision did not surprise me. I had expected it for a long time.

In January, 2023 I stated that I saw almost no chance that both Trump and Biden would be on the November ballot in 2024.

I clarified the odds at 1% in April, 2023.

I wrote the following in June, 2023 in a blog post titled, "Gradually And Then Suddenly".

The principal reason I placed those odds as low as 1% was not because I believed that Donald Trump would not be on the ticket (although Trump has his own issues to overcome to make it to the 2024 ballot), it was because of a number of risks that could derail Biden.

His age. His physical and mental health. His ineptness. The economy. Any one of these could do him in where the Democrat establishment and /or the mainstream media might turn on him.

Joe Biden did not step aside voluntarily. It did happen gradually and then suddenly.

He was forced out by members of the Democrat establishment and the mainstream media just as I foresaw over a year ago.

Ten days ago I suggested the end was near. A Democrat without the media on their side and no money is not going to survive for long in any campaign. 

How does Joe Biden run a campaign with the media no longer on his side, big donors jumping ship and with increasing risks of more and more Democrats abandoning him each day?

How long before he is forced to say...?

No más.

The question is was Biden forced into doing it because of bucks, blackmail or bad polling numbers?

Or a combination of all three?

As late as yesterday morning his campaign co-chairman stated he had no intention to get out.

Last week a fundraiser hosted by David Letterman to support Biden was put on the calendar for July 29 in Martha's Vineyard.

Did they find out that even in that liberal enclave in Massachusetts  they could not raise money?

We know large Democrat donors were putting the squeeze on Biden. Reports were circulating that new dollars into the campaign had slowed to a trickle after Biden's disastrous debate with Trump.

It was also my guess that Biden had held out as long as he did to get assurances that he would be compensated in some way if he stepped aside. Joe was not going to give up his candidacy out of the goodness of his heart.

Let's face it, I doubt that Biden will be much in demand for those $500,000 speeches that Clinton, Obama and the Bush family were able to get once they left office.

Biden may have made his decision due to the fact he saw that he would have little in money to run the campaign. He may have also gotten those assurances that he would be taken care of financially if he stepped away.

Joe Biden may have also been effectively blackmailed to leave.

Was there a threat to release the Hur tapes?

What other things might be hidden away in. D.C. about Biden after 50 years in Washington?

Of course, as I mentioned several weeks ago in these pages, there might have also been a threat to invoke the 25th amendment and remove Biden from office constitutionally so he could not even serve out the remainder of his term.

Perhaps Biden just came to realize that the polls showed there was no realistic path to win in November.

Biden was simply too far down in the polls and there was little likelihood that he could ever recover from questions about his cognitive abilities.

In the The RealClearPolitics. com poll average you can see that Trump really started to separate from Biden in the last month.

Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-biden

These poll averages also do not yet reflect the full effect Trump might have gotten after the assassination attempt on his life and the successful RNC convention.

The last three national polls conducted after the assassination attempt showed Trump up by 4 and 5 points.

A Detroit Free Press poll in the critical battleground state of Michigan released yesterday had Trump +7 over Biden in that state.

I also find it beyond ironic that heavily Biden, who famously told everyone that they would not get Covid if they were vaccinated, sent the letter out announcing his exit as he was in isolation and unable to campaign or defend himself against his fellow Democrats, with a case of Covid. 

Biden endorsed Kamala Harris shortly after publishing his exit letter but there is still a month to the DNC convention.

Of particular interest is that Barack Obama did not endorse Harris in a statement thanking Biden for exiting the race.

We will probably see most Democrats unite behind Kamala in the coming days in the hope that she can improve on Biden's poll numbers vs. Trump.

However, if the polls over the next several weeks do not show her closing the margin on Trump, we might even see a move to bypass her for someone else at the convention.

It is important to remember that whatever transpires going forward is not a democratic election. It is a Democrat establishment SELECTION. The will of the voters has been totally disregarded.

I also predicted that it would come to this back in February in another blog post, "Wine and Vinegar",  just as the Democrat primaries were beginning. 

Given Biden's declining mental capabilities and poll numbers over the last two years, it is beyond me why the Democrat establishment has not already moved Biden to the sidelines.

The only explantation is that they do not want the rank and file of the Democrat party to decide.

They must prefer to let a couple thousand (Democrat delegates at the DNC convention) or a couple hundred (the Democrat National Committee) decide rather than the voters.

It says a lot about what is supposed to be a "Democrat" party which is arguing that this election is about "protecting democracy". How is that going to play for a party whose main campaign theme is that Donald Trump and his supporters are a "threat to democracy"?

Keep in mind that there is probably no way that Kamala Harris would have won the Democrat nomination if Biden has dropped out before the primaries and she would have had to run vs. other candidates.

My guess is that Trump will start referring to Harris as an "illegitimate candidate" due to the process by which she was nominated. He also will likely not agree to debate her on that basis as long as he remains ahead of her in the polls.

The Democrats are clearly hoping that a reset of the race with Harris gives them the opportunity to retain the White House.

Harris does give the Democrats hope in gaining more traction with younger voters, minorities and women. They need large margins with all these groups to beat Trump.

However, Kamala Harris has a very low favorability rating. Her net favorability score is -18 over the last 102 polls that surveyed this question with voters.

Source: https://elections2024.thehill.com/national/harris-favorability-rating/

By comparison, Biden is currently at -10 on the same net favorability score despite his recent troubles and higher visibility to voters.

Trump is -11 on the same measure.

The Democrats get a reset with Harris but there are other weaknesses behind the low favorability rating she starts with.

Harris will be inextricably linked to failures of the Biden administration on foreign policy, the economy, inflation and the border that other Democrat candidates would not necessarily have to defend.

Harris is particularly vulnerable on immigration as she was supposed to be the "border czar" for Biden but never saw fit to even visit the border.

She is also going to have to explain why she was defending Biden as sharp, engaged and totally in command as recently as days ago.

I would expect that if Harris is the nominee she will look to a VP nominee from Pennsylvania, Arizona Michigan or Wisconsin in that these swing states will be critical if the Democrats are to beat Trump.

Look for Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona to be names that are frequently mentioned as possibilities. They also would be considered more conservative than Harris.

We might also see the name of Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan or Senator Tammy Baldwin in the conversation. Whitmer previously said that she was not interested in the VP spot if Harris replaced Biden. However, the Democrats may believe they need to resort to a "Hail Mary" play with two female candidates from swing states to try and stop Trump. 

Biden may believe taking himself out of the race will save his legacy and let him finish out his term as President peacefully. He probably has a pardon or two that he wants to hand out before he leaves.

However, I suspect that questions about Biden's cognitive ability and fitness for office are going to linger.

Biden may still not make it through the end of his term.

You can be sure that if the Democrats believe that it will help their cause to be able to refer to Kamala as "President Harris" to prevent Trump from getting back in power, Biden may get the bum's rush out the door before the election.

I can confidently say that there has never been a lamer duck than Joe Biden in the history of the United States.

It is important to consider that the Democrats that tell us that all Trump does is lie are also the same people who have said and done all of this over the last month.

Biden a hero? It is clear that the Democrats saw him as nothing more than a useful idiot.

It is both sickening and sad that the American people have been played the way they have.