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Louise Thomas
Editor
Donald Trump will have harboured hopes of winning a landslide US election victory against Joe Biden, who was the opponent he would have “prayed for”, the UK’s former ambassador to Washington has suggested.
The 81-year-old incumbent announced on Sunday that he would cede to calls to end his re-election bid, which had reached a fever pitch over the 25 days since his disastrous TV debate against Mr Trump sparked concerns about his mental fitness.
With just 105 days left until the election, all eyes are now on who will replace Mr Biden as the Democratic Party nominee set to face up against an increasingly feverish Trump campaign, which is in the ascendancy after his defiant reaction to an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.
Endorsed by Mr Biden, vice president Kamala Harris has emerged as the most likely frontrunner. But others have called for a wider contest to be decided at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on 22 August – a selection process abandoned more than 50 years ago in favour of primaries and caucuses.
Sir Kim Darroch – who was forced to resign as the UK’s ambassador in 2019 after leaked cables showed him labelling Mr Trump an “incompetent” and “inept” president – urged Democrats on Monday not to “rush to a decision” on anointing Ms Harris as their candidate.
The ex-diplomat said: “The tide at the moment is flowing strongly with Kamala Harris. I’m not sure if it’s sensible to rush to a decision on that, because what the Democrats have to do is look at three key swing states – Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – and think ‘who is the best placed Democrat to take those?’.
“So they need to just pause a little bit and think about this.”
Speaking to LBC, Lord Darroch said he believed it had been “a mistake” for Mr Biden, already the oldest president in US history, to initially insist on putting his name forward for a second term in the Oval Office.
“I wish, having had such an extraordinary career, he’d decided earlier not to run in 2024, because then he would have retired in a blaze of glory. There’s still a glow about him because he’s had such an extraordinary career, but it was a mistake to put his name forward for this term,” he said.
Lord Darroch continued: “It was a surprise really when he decided to run for a second term. There were huge doubts about whether he was mentally sharp enough or physically robust enough to do it – and we know the answer now.”
While Mr Trump still outperforms Ms Harris in recent polling despite her marginal improvement upon Mr Biden’s head-to-head ratings, Lord Darroch suggested Sunday’s developments mean things “have got a bit trickier” for the Republican candidate.
“Because I think that following that debate performance, Joe Biden was sort of the candidate they prayed for and they thought that it might even become landslide on the back of that disaster,” he said.
