Biden's out. What's the party politics view?

There will be a new candidate. But party politics largely remains the same.

Was this the move of a strong party or a weak one?

Jonathan has been bugging me about this for as long as I can remember now, and it’s certainly true that Democrats operate differently than Republicans. Back in 2020, I wrote that they have both a stronger party and a more difficult job in terms of coordination. And a strong party would never have let things get to this point, not because of anything specific to Biden, but because it would not be so automatic that parties line up behind incumbent presidents. Besides the presidency-centric aspect, there are two other elements of party weakness, though I’m not sure how much blame to pin on the Democrats. The nomination process requires a great deal of informal coordination, and what we seem to be seeing how is a series of endorsements for Vice President Harris to run at the top of the ticket. In order to avoid appearing “in disarray,” this has to happen. For example, it seems clear to me now that AOC and Bernie Sanders endorsements of Biden staying in were part of a strategy to keep down calls for a progressive candidate (possibly one of them) and pave the way for Harris endorsements. (Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) has endorsed Harris as of Sunday afternoon, as has Elizabeth Warren – AOC and Sanders have not.)

But looking coordinated is in direct tension with a process that looks open and legitimate. Admittedly, this is a unique circumstance. But any nominee could become incapacitated mid-summer – people have strokes, accidents and heart attacks. The formal rules of the party are fine for this, and the informal rules seem to be working as well, but the legitimacy problems are lurking on the (mostly left) edges, as people comment about this being a “coronation.”

I don’t blame Democrats for responding to the “disarray” narrative that has for some reason become a central news media frame for understanding party politics. I do blame them for letting the tension between coordination and legitimacy/competition fester, and for not taking steps to improve legitimacy by emphasizing party leaders as elected officers, bolstering local parties, etc.

What happens now?

Well, it looks like the party is coordinating around the obvious candidate: the vice president. If this looks like the party has been coordinating and getting into line over the past three weeks, that’s almost certainly because that’s true. A top priority will be making the Chicago convention as boring as possible, because no one wants to ignite the 1968 comparison. Macarena vibes only.

I could be wrong about this, as the news is only a few hours old. But it certainly looks this way now. And she’ll need to pick a vice president.

Let’s talk veepstakes

If Harris is the nominee, then the big decision going forward will be her running mate. The subtle but consistent importance of the vice presidency is really going to be apparent in this cycle. A vice president, chosen by a former vice president, will be picking… anyway, here we are.

Harris was a highly expected, but somewhat unusual pick. It’s not just that the demographic profile for presidential candidates has been almost as narrow as it has for presidents. Harris was also unusual in that her Congressional voting record put her to the left of Biden (though she was hardly the darling of the left during the 2020 primary). One thing that William Adler and I have found is that when you look at these kinds of metrics of VP ideology, Democrats tend to balance to the center while Republicans choose running mates who pull the ticket (even further, in some cases) to the right and seem aimed at pleasing the party base.

As a (presumably) Harris ticket tries to recreate the Biden 2020 coalition, we’ll see this dilemma play out in real time: will she choose someone aimed at bolstering the party’s flagging support on the left? Or try to reassure moderates and Lincoln Project types? It’s not guaranteed that an ideological appeal will work on voters, but it will reveal something about the fluctuating balance of power in the party.

The other consideration for a running mate is someone who will draw brief, relatively dull media coverage. People who aren’t as well known nationally are a risk here. As would be Pete Buttigieg, who is nationally known, but would be the first openly gay person on a national ticket and just generally has kind of an interesting bio and draws media fascination. These are good things in general, but probably not for these circumstances. After weeks of chaotic news cycle, Democrats want someone who is good on the stump, but doesn’t attract media scrutiny or drive a big, dramatic news cycle. Mark Kelly might fit these criteria, as someone who is nationally known and unquestionably qualified. I hate that the demographics matter for this, but they probably do, and even more with a Black and Asian-American woman at the top of the ticket. (Assuming this happens).

This is big news, but the bottom line is that the campaign is more than the candidate, and the campaign is probably more important than the candidate. The tone of the campaign will almost certainly be worse because of racism and sexism, but at least some of that was true in 2008 and 2012 - and Obama still won. Republicans haven’t won the national popular vote in a presidential contest since 2004. But neither party enjoys a stable majority, and so everything and anything – not just the candidate – could matter.