BREAKING: Top Biden Aides Believe President Will Drop Out of Race, Axios Reports
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/breaking-top-biden-aides-believe-president-will-drop-out-of-race-axios-reports/
EXCERPT: President Joe Biden could be dropping his reelection campaign as soon as this weekend, several top Democrats told Axios. In a stunning report, Axios’ Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei write, “We increasingly hear top Biden aides, including ones who initially urged him to fight on after his disastrous debate on June 27 — 21 days ago — are saying it’s now when, not if, Biden announces he’s not running.”
Multiple Democrats spoke anonymously with Axios and said “rising pressure” from congressional Democrats and “close friends” are making Biden dropping from the race a matter of when and not if.
Biden has insisted he’s remaining in the race amid concerns about his age and stamina. He is currently self-isolating in Delaware with Covid.
“His choice is to be one of history’s heroes, or to be sure of the fact that there’ll never be a Biden presidential library. I pray that he does the right thing. He’s headed that way,” a “close friend” of the president told Axios.
According to an Associated Press poll released this week, nearly two thirds of Democrats back Biden dropping from the race.
TITLE: July 2024 Swing State Polls
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/july-2024-swing-state-polls/
EXCERPT: New polling conducted July 15-16 by Emerson College Polling and sponsored by Democrats for Next Generation finds former President Trump leading Biden in seven swing states and in a national poll.
In the July 15-16 national poll, 46% of registered voters support Trump, and 42% support Biden; 12% are undecided. There has been a two-point drop in Biden’s support since earlier this month, where 46% supported Trump, and 44% supported Biden.
Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said, “Recent polling shows Biden losing support more significantly than Trump gaining it since the attempted assassination. This raises questions about whether Biden’s decline is still influenced by the debate or if Trump has reached his support ceiling.”
When third-party candidates are added to the ballot test, Trump either maintains or extends his advantage in the national poll and 6 of 7 swing states.
Arizona: Trump 46%, Biden 36%, other candidates 8.2%
Georgia: Trump 44%, Biden 39%, other candidates 9.3%
Michigan: Trump 43%, Biden 40%, other candidates 8.3%
Nevada: Trump 43%, Biden 40%, other candidates 9.2%
North Carolina: Trump 47%, Biden 38%, other candidates 8.7%
Pennsylvania: Trump 46%, Biden 40%, other candidates 6.3%
Wisconsin: Trump 46%, Biden 43%, other candidates 6.5%
National: Trump 44%, Biden 38%, other candidates 8.4 %
Since March 2024, Trump has gained one point in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and two points in Arizona, while he has lost a point in Michigan.
TITLE: These 4 Democrats outpace Biden by 5 points against Trump in key states: Memo
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4777222-biden-replacement-democrats-battleground/
EXCERPT: Four prominent Democrats would perform significantly better than President Biden in key swing states if they replaced him as the party’s presumptive nominee, according to a memo from a Democratic-funded polling group.
The BlueLabs draft memo, first acquired by Politico, found that “nearly every tested Democrat performs better than the President” in the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
The memo singled out four Democrats who bested Biden’s results by roughly 5 points overall across the battleground states: Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Vice President Harris also outperformed Biden in polling but by a smaller margin than the top four, according to the memo.
“Voters are looking for a fresh face. Those more closely tied to the current administration perform relatively worse than other tested candidates,” according to the memo.
TITLE: Kamala Harris: The Future Is Now
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/kamala-harris-the-future-is-now
EXCERPTS: One of the reasons Harris is the most viable alternative is message and vision. Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer might be better political talents, but you cannot come up with a rationale for a presidential campaign overnight.
Every campaign has a rationale, a raison d'être, that can be condensed into an elevator-pitch. The rationale is a combination of an idea, a vision, and a person. It has to be timed correctly. The messenger for it must make sense. This is all infinitely harder than it sounds.
What is the rationale for a Whitmer or Shapiro campaign? It doesn’t exist beyond: I’m a popular governor in a must-win state.
That’s pretty thin stuff. And while either of these politicians might be able to come up with a compelling rationale for why they should be president over time, they aren’t going to be able to do that work between now and November.
The only Democrat who has a compelling rationale—right now—is Kamala Harris.
What is it?
Kamala Harris: The future is now.
The Harris campaign should be insurgent, not incumbent. She should run against everything from the recent past: Against the fractions, broken promises, and lingering hatreds of the Obama years. Against the revanchism of the Trump years. And against the weariness of the Biden years.
Her rationale is that she is the candidate to turn the page on all of it. If you are sick and tired of the last decade of politics, Harris is the candidate to wipe the slate and begin anew.
“The Future Is Now” implicitly acknowledges the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency nature of her nomination. It aggressively puts COVID and January 6th and inflation in the rearview mirror.
Kamala Harris is the candidate who can say, “We are tired of fighting about vaccines and the insurrection and Trump’s crimes. Together, we will make a clean break from all of that and start a wholly new era.”
Harris is a credible messenger for this pitch because she is a black woman who is a generation younger than Trump and Biden. She embodies change from the status quo. But simultaneously, she has enough experience to play as tested. She’s been a senator and a vice president. Her candidacy does not ask voters to take a chance on a young, untested quantity.
Properly positioned, Harris doesn’t ask voters to merely vote against Trump, because she frames all of Trump’s problems both as dangers and as emerging from the bowels of history.
Trump becomes both a danger and the incumbent from a despised period in the past.