Owing to the Presidential election, US politics has resembled a roller coaster over the past two months. For much of the past year, the contest looked like a dispiriting rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. The latter was trailing his opponent not just nationally, but in most of the key swing states where American elections are ultimately decided.
The overriding consideration for many Americans was Biden’s age: at 81, he would be the oldest president ever seeking office, and many voters indicated they did not like either choice. While Republicans had always said Biden was too old, Democrats began to realize they might be right following his disastrous debate performance on June 27.
Then came the assassination attempt against Trump on July 13 by a 20-year-old man, Thomas Crooks, whose motives are unclear to this day. Then suddenly, the momentum reversed on July 21 when Biden announced that he was dropping out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him. The Democrats’ luck was amazing.
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Some in the party had been advocating an open election process. But the prolonged effort to convince Biden to step down exhausted the party and led them unexpectedly to coalesce within 48 hours around Kamala Harris’s candidacy. Harris actually was ideally suited to oppose Trump. She was a prosecutor in San Francisco and the attorney general of the country’s biggest state, California, before becoming senator and then Vice President.
The outcome of the November election remains very uncertain. A reelected Trump would pose a severe threat to other American institutions. Harris’s choice of Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, is a safe choice. He is not an elite product of a top university, but a former high school teacher and coach who might better appeal to middle-class voters.
Kamala Harris has a big opportunity to redefine herself and move clearly from being a progressive Democrat to a tough former prosecutor in the center of US politics. Donald Trump and his campaign have been floundering as he becomes the oldest candidate in history to seek the presidency. He looks increasingly desperate as he tries out one attack after another against a young and energetic opponent.The Reuters/Ipsos polls have now shown Harris erasing the edge that Trump once held over Biden. Given the US electoral college, the Democrats have to pull ahead by several percentage points to actually win the presidency, but this now seems entirely possible. In short, American politics could be unstable for some time!
