In June 2021, at the end of a two-day trip to Guatemala, the vice president sat down with the NBC anchor to discuss Biden’s immigration agenda. Harris had recently become the administration’s lead on the so-called root-causes element of border policy, working with Central American countries to alleviate the violent and impoverished conditions that lead many migrants to flee north to the U.S. in the first place. The questions should have been easily anticipated—such as whether Harris had any plans to visit the border itself, where crossings had surged. Yet when Holt did ask that question, Harris threw up her hands in evident frustration. “At some point, you know, I—we are going to the border. We’ve been to the border. So this whole, this whole—this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.” Holt corrected her: “You haven’t been to the border.” Harris became defensive. “And I haven’t been to Europe,” she snapped. “I don’t understand the point you’re making.”
I think the plan was to hand it to Harris.
But then they realized she was almost as unpopular as Biden, so Biden wanted to hang on.
The alternative is Biden was always going to step down and he was just stalling till there wasn’t time for it to be anyone else.
Primaries help Dems feel involved and increases turnout, being told someone the voter base is the candidate and we don’t have a choice is how Republicans become presidents.
I’ve heard this argument before, but the primary that got us Biden was also a shit show where a candidate that was deeply unliked eventually became the nominee as other candidates strategically dropped out to make room for him.
I heard way fewer complaints about Kamala being selected to replace Biden than I ever heard about Biden being the nominee in 2020. Nobody felt like the primary had nominated the most popular candidate.
I also don’t buy the conspiracy theory that Biden always planned on dropping out, and deliberately did so after a chance for a Primary had passed to hand the nomination to Harris by default. That just doesn’t check out strategically. Biden is clearly in cognitive decline and they knew that he was basically unrunnable, but swapping out an incumbent is a risky move.