Biden has ended his reelection bid. What comes next?

President Joe Biden finally announced Sunday that he would not seek reelection weeks after a disastrous debate performance against former president Donald Trump that laid bare Biden’s physical and mental decline. As most things in life do, Biden’s exit from the presidential race happened slowly and then all at once. A few Democratic pundits and relatively small-time elected officials expressed grave concerns about Biden’s ability to carry on immediately following the debate, but it took weeks longer for top Biden allies — such as former speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Obamas and the Clintons — to privately reason with and publicly leak damaging information about their ol’ buddy Joe. This outcome was inevitable. Post-debate, the genie could not be put back in the bottle.

In Biden’s letter announcing his decision, he notably avoided mentioning anything about his health. Instead, he wrote, “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.” The letter also came directly on the heels of a positive update from the White House physician on Biden’s battle with Covid-19. The president, the doctor affirmed, is doing well. This seems intended to shield the president from Republican assertions that he should be removed under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment of the Constitution because, as vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance explained, if Biden isn’t fit to run for reelection then he isn’t fit to be president. The Democrats will have to pretend this is all about Biden’s electability and nothing to do with his poor health. But that comes with other complications; if nothing has changed about Biden since the time he was nominated besides polling, then the Democrats are explicitly rejecting the informed vote of the primary electorate.

Shortly following the release of his letter, Biden announced his intention to give his full support to Vice President Kamala Harris. She is wildly unpopular, but it would have been bad optics to pass over the first black female VP and the last thing the Democrats need is more disunity amid the chaos. A contested convention just a couple of months before Election Day would be a disaster. Plus, even if the Democrats still lose in November, they can just scapegoat Harris and effectively kneecap her political future. “She had her shot and failed,” will be the narrative.

As for the Republicans, they are certainly reveling in the Democrats’ disarray and feeling vindicated at their decision to limit explicit mentions of President Biden during last week’s convention. Former president Donald Trump’s nomination acceptance speech was light on references to Biden beyond “the current administration,” and his newly anointed VP pick, J.D. Vance, refused to commit to a debate against Harris.

 “We don’t know who the Democrat nominee for vice president is going to be, so we can’t lock in a date before the DNC,” Trump campaign senior advisor Brian Hughes said last week. “To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom (California governor), J.B. Pritzker ( Illinois governor), Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan governor), or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate.” Word is that Harris is also considering Arizona senator Mark Kelly to be her running mate, in order to chart a path through the Sun Belt as an alternative to Biden’s Rust Belt.

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley claimed in an interview with The Spectator just ahead of the convention that the GOP’s strategy will not change even if Biden is not the nominee. “It doesn’t change our approach,” he said. “We need to talk about our vision… and so that’s not going to change no matter who the nominee on the other side is.” Of course the campaign should continue to focus on hitting its messaging, but as I said on our Thunderdome podcast at the end of the convention, it would be silly to not make some adjustments to properly bombard your new opponent.

So far, Trump has responded in an interview with CNN and on TruthSocial. “He is the worst president in the history of our country. He goes down as the single worst president by far in the history of our country,” Trump said of Biden, adding that he thinks Harris will be even easier to defeat than the incumbent. Will his words make the Democrats immediately second guess their decision to push Biden out?

Whatever happens next, next month’s Democratic convention in Chicago is sure to be a lot more interesting.