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      The latest US presidential twist throws the race wide open – but what could it mean for Australia? | Arthur Sinodinos

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      The 2024 US presidential election is proof that in America nothing succeeds like excess.The standing down of President Biden is just the latest twist in this extraordinary race – and could be the circuit breaker the Democrats are looking for. It removes age as an issue for them and potentially refocuses the campaign, with Kamala Harris the standard bearer.She is within striking distance of Trump in national polls and involves the least disruptive transition to the Democrat campaign. Trump may seek to ridicule ‘laughing’ Kamala but that could backfire with voters, particularly women. She will need a running mate who can appeal in the swing states and has a compelling personal story. This will inject new energy into the campaign.Undoubtedly, Trump has momentum. The former president’s acceptance speech at the RNC did not chart a new policy direction or presage a kinder, gentler politics. That is not what fuels the Maga engine. Trump has harnessed the anger of those Americans who feel like outsiders in their own country, threatened by rapid change, identity politics and left behind by the widening of income and wealth inequalities.The selection of JD Vance, a smart and articulate convert to Maga is a signal that Trump is not looking to appeal to the ever-shrinking pool of moderates or independents. In Trump’s eyes, Maga is here to stay, and Vance is its tribune.The Democrats’ best strategy now is to turn the election into a referendum on Trump’s negatives, which they define as the chaos of his first term and threat to American institutions. The departure of President Biden provides that opportunity.US elections are determined by turnout. The Maga base is energised by Trump’s ‘resurrection’. Democrats will now have to pick themselves off the floor and push the buttons of various sections of the electorate to motivate turnout.In many ways, this is now a race between Vance and Harris, who is the most likely Democrat nominee. The age issue has been turned on its head. Vance’s views come into focus now that he is only a heartbeat away from the presidency.Many women will vote to send a message on restriction of abortion rights. Vance’s strong views on restricting abortion rights provide a perfect foil for this argument. Harris is best placed to run that argument. Trump has soft-pedalled on the issue in recognition of its lethality to his campaign.What does this mean for Australia and the rest of the world? Do not expect much change in international economic policy from either side of politics.Trump upended trade policy in 2016, forcing Hillary Clinton to disown her administration’s centrepiece trade strategy for the Indo-Pacific, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which dealt a major blow to the US pivot to the region. Since then, market access agreements have been off the table for both sides of politics with more interest in how to tilt the playing field in favour of US firms by imposing higher labour and environmental costs on foreign competitors.Covid 19 and the technological cold war with China are also reshaping industrial supply chains with more reshoring and friend-shoring in the offing. The Aukus capability pact and the Quad focus on critical and emerging tech are leading examples of this trend. Both Trump and a reelected Democrat administration will double down on this, with perhaps more onshoring in Trump’s case.One major point of difference is climate change policy and international cooperation. Trump is likely to again withdraw from the Paris agreement and promises to drill for more oil from day one, further extending America’s energy independence and fossil fuel exports. His industry policy is lower energy costs and less regulation to attract more onshoring.Trump’s tech policy is unclear. He flip-flopped on the banning of TikTok. He is courting the Silicon Valley titans, who are turning Maga in the hope of less tax on capital and no more regulation. Trump’s main beef with big tech is that it restricts free speech (his speech) on social media. Vance is a fan of support for little tech in opposition to big tech, and this appeals to his venture capitalist backers.The Trump mantra of ‘no more wars’ appeals to an electorate exhausted by the blood and treasure expended in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is likely he will follow through on solving Ukraine in one day (by effectively abandoning it), he is encouraging Israel to ‘finish the job’ in Gaza as soon as possible (that is, not on his watch) and the signal to China on Taiwan is very mixed. However, many Republicans are ardent supporters of Taiwan and its right to exist. This could put a brake on Trump sacrificing Taiwan on the altar of a grand bargain with China on trade.Trump is ahead now but we saw over the weekend how quickly things can change. As they used to say on World Championship Wrestling, anything can happen – and probably will.

      Arthur Sinodinos is a former Australian ambassador to the US. He is the partner and chair of The Asia Group’s Australia practice and was a former minister for industry, innovation and science More

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      Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race: our panelists’ reactions

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      Ben Davis: ‘This was the right move’It was the right move. Joe Biden’s dropping out of the race at this late stage is unprecedented and risky. The risks of a Trump presidency are far higher, though. The president was in a position where winning was incredibly unlikely, floundering in the polls, facing a major revolt from his party, and unable to fix the critical concern voters have – his age. A move to a candidate in Kamala Harris who can forcefully make the case against Donald Trump, barnstorm the country, do town halls and press conferences, and inject energy into the political moment offers Democrats a chance to catch up and beat Trump.Had Biden done these things, he could have held on after his shocking debate performance. But the fact that he was unable to make his case publicly and energetically confirmed people’s fears in the first place. Both Biden’s defensive posture over the last few weeks and the oftentimes shambolic slow-motion movement against him by party elites caused great harm. Biden bowing out and endorsing Harris may mean that episode is soon forgotten.Endorsing Harris, rather than entertaining ideas for some sort of “blitz primary”, was also the smart move. It allows the party to start campaigning vigorously again immediately. It puts the kibosh on any sort of “donor coup” that would result in a more conservative candidate that many progressives feared. Currently, Trump is still the favorite in this election, but a Harris campaign gives Democrats a much higher ceiling than the Biden one did. Trump is still deeply unpopular, and Harris has a great chance to capitalize. We will see if she takes it.

      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington, DC
      Richard Wolffe: ‘This election is now about old versus new’The Trump campaign can pretend like they have a plan to run against Kamala Harris, but there are no plans that are worth the pixels they’re written on.Nobody in politics or the media today has any working experience of the presidential nomination process in the era of smoke-filled rooms, party bosses, or any kind of convention that wasn’t already locked up before the delegates arrived.Nobody except for Joe Biden, who just secured his legacy of an epic lifetime in honorable public service by voluntarily relinquishing the nomination.Whoever becomes the Democratic presidential nominee has already turned the Trump narrative on its head.Instead of strength versus weakness, this election is now about old versus new. No amount of Trumpy bleating about the Democratic primaries, or Biden’s record, will change that.For Democrats, it will be hard – but not impossible – to seek to draw the greatest possible contrast with Donald Trump. And the greatest contrast to an old racist misogynist is a woman of color.The drive to lock up the nomination for Kamala Harris will be swift and intense. But it is unlikely to happen without Harris proving herself on the public stage. The process will be a messy mixture of high-minded rhetoric and low-minded horse-trading.There will be debates, and speeches, and endless blather on social media. The last Harris campaign did not excel at any of those tests.Is there enough time for an orderly process? You betcha! The Biden meltdown lasted all of three weeks, and the outgoing president was accused of dragging things out. The Trump assassination attempt was all of one week ago, and it might as well have been last year.Back in the 1960s, when they still had open conventions, the British prime minister Harold Wilson famously said that a week was a long time in politics.There is a month before the end of the Democratic convention, which is more than enough time for several candidates to rise and fall before the balloons drop on the party’s presidential nominee.

      Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist
      Lloyd Green: ‘Harris must now reunite her party’On Sunday, Joe Biden declared that he would no longer seek reelection, an announcement that should have instead been made soon after the 2022 midterms. “If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race,” Biden told George Stephanopoulos of ABC little more than two weeks ago. The good Lord apparently works in mysterious ways.Biden’s exit throws a wrench into Republican hopes of painting Donald Trump’s opponent as old or addled. Kamala Harris, 59, his likely adversary, is nearly two decades younger than the former president. Come the fall, the contrast will be stark.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCongressional Democrats must also be heaving a sigh of relief. Hours before Biden’s withdrawal, a poll published in the Detroit Free Press showed Trump with a seven-point ahead in Michigan, a do-or-die battleground for the Democrats. The same poll, however, reported Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, three points ahead (43%-40%) of Republican Mike Rogers, a former Michigan congressman.With Biden out, Democrats again have a chance of flipping the House and a prayer at retaining the US Senate. Nationally, polls show Harris running marginally better than Biden.She must now unite her party. Already, Biden, Bill Clinton and the Congressional Black Caucus have endorsed her. Still, convention delegates expect to be wooed. Expect abortion to reemerge as a key issue.Likewise, whom she picks as her running mate will be scrutinized. A swing-state governor or senator could wind up on the ticket. Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and Arizona’s Mark Kelly all come to mind. For that matter, so too does Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, a Democratic governor in a ruby-red state.The US is staring at uncharted waters. The race will be one for the ages. How it all shakes out is anyone’s guess.

      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York
      Osita Nwanevu: ‘Harris can win. She must’The paeans being written to the heroism and courage of Biden are extraordinary ⁠– it’s rare to see history being so quickly and blatantly rewritten. The truth is that today marks the end of one of the more shameful and ridiculous sagas in American presidential politics ⁠– a crisis made and extended by the fecklessness and inertia of the Democratic party as an institution and the bullheadedness of a man who should have understood his own limits and the risks a re-election campaign would pose to the country years ago.It’s been reported that Biden’s own staffers were informed mere moments before his decision to withdraw was publicly announced on X ⁠– one final illustration of the remarkable insularity the last month has revealed within the White House and Biden’s inner circle.For weeks they charged ahead, questioning the integrity of their critics and ignoring all contrary data until Biden’s position became fully untenable. And one has to wonder now the extent to which their behavior has been reflective of how this administration has handled substantive policy matters behind the scenes, perhaps most especially the war in Gaza, which Biden has backed with an implacability that has baffled and troubled even experts who’ve become accustomed to American deference to Israel. Well before June’s fateful debate, that war fundamentally tarnished what might have been remembered, on the basis of Biden’s domestic policy record, as a respectable and even transformative presidency. Unavoidably now, Biden’s arrogance and solipsism will be part of his story.If she obtains the nomination, as seems likely, what will Harris’s story be? Thanks substantially to the administration’s own efforts to sideline her, we know very little about her as a leader. Thanks to her time as California’s attorney general, her record in the Senate and her last presidential run, we know a bit more about the policies she’d probably support in office ⁠– all told, she offers progressives both much to hope for and much to be wary of.A key test in the weeks ahead will be how she handles the Gaza question ⁠– substantively, a break from Biden there is absolutely necessary. And politically, she could do with an even broader break ⁠– the public has been down on this administration for ages and the campaign’s efforts to refocus attention on Trump’s negatives and the threat he poses to democracy simply hadn’t been working.It’s unclear what will, but removing Biden from the ticket has given the Democrats the opportunity for a full reset. Donald Trump has never won the support of even a plurality of the American public in an election. He has never been viewed more favorably than unfavorably. And he’s never looked more beatable than he did at this year’s Republican national convention. Harris can win. She must. Here’s hoping she does.

      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Joe Biden has given Americans a fighting chance to defeat Donald Trump | Moira Donegan

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      The best time for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race would have been several weeks ago, in the panicked days after his disastrous debate performance. The American public saw on that stage a man incapable of prosecuting a vigorous campaign against Donald Trump, a would-be dictator, and who was either unable or unwilling to make a reasoned, principled defense of abortion rights, the Democrats’ strongest issue.The weeks that followed have been filled with hand-wringing from the pundit class, backbiting and dueling leaks to the press from the president’s allies and those Democratic party insiders who wanted him to drop out, and anxiety from the party base and the public, who saw the Democrats’ descending into infighting rather than posing a meaningful alternative to Trumpian authoritarianism. The best time to drop out would have been before all this, when the depth of the concern for Biden’s electoral viability became clear. He could have spared his party, and his country, these weeks of chaos.The second best time is now. In withdrawing from the presidential race, Biden has given the country a fighting chance to defeat Trump and avert the worst of what the far right has planned for America. He has chosen to preserve the prospect of a Democratic victory in November even at the expense of his own ego, even at the cost of what must be a profound personal humiliation. Many politicians – most conspicuously Trump himself – have made it clear that there is nothing they value more than their own aggrandizement. Biden has shown that there is something he prizes more highly than himself. Whatever you think of Biden the man, it is an honorable gesture that he made on Sunday.It was also, clearly, not an easy sacrifice to make. The speed and tenor of leaks from both pro- and anti-withdrawal camps within the Democratic party over the past weeks have made it clear that Biden deeply wanted to stay in the race; that he was, for some time, in evident denial about his electoral prospects and resentful about the calls for him to drop out. He withdrew to his beach house over the weekend, where he was reportedly stewing in resentment. It could not have been easy: a confrontation with his own mortality, with the injustice of age, and with the cruel pragmatism of electoral politics.The welfare of the country relied upon his choice to make this sacrifice, and it is not always clear that he was. In a post-debate interview with George Stephanopoulos, which was meant to bolster Biden’s credibility in the wake of his horrible performance, the news anchor asked the president how he would feel if he stayed in the race and lost. Would he feel he had helped to usher in another Trump administration? Biden’s answer was revealing; he spoke not of the nation, but of himself. “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did as good a job as I know I can do, that’s what it is about,” he said.But that’s not what it is about: a Trump victory would yield untold suffering and indignity for Americans: the immigrants he is promising to deport, the women he is promising to deprive of their access to abortion, the millions who deserve to breathe clean air, drink clean water and access education and medical care. In 2020, Biden had won the party’s nomination in part because of his single-minded focus on defeating Trump, on his promise to fight off the threat of authoritarianism before all other priorities. Here, egotism seemed to eclipse that promise. It is clear that he was tempted to do the wrong thing. It is to his credit that he did the right one.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShortly after announcing his withdrawal from the race, Biden issued a statement endorsing his vice-president, Kamala Harris, for the top of the ticket. The move was canny, avoiding a chaotic contest, cutting off bizarre and destructive fantasies of a so-called “blitz primary” and effectively sealing Harris’s nomination ahead of the convention in Chicago next month. The move will also allow the new ticket to claim credit for Biden’s accomplishments – like a fundamentally strong economy, a cap on insulin costs, an explosion in green energy production, and a broad and popular climate and jobs bill – while being able to pivot away and recalibrate on some of Biden’s most unpopular or morally indefensible choices, like his support for Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza.The move also reverses the role that the vulnerability of age plays in the race. At 59, Harris is not a young woman, but she is downright spry by the standards of elite American politicians. Trump, by contrast, is 78, a rambling, largely incoherent speaker, and visibly weaker than when he first began running for president nearly 10 years ago, in 2015. Trump has always practiced a politics of masculine domination, and his petty little virility displays – like looming over Hillary Clinton in the third presidential debate in 2016 – have long led liberals to fear that a woman could not defeat him; this, too, was part of Biden’s pitch to voters in the 2020 primary.But Trump is not the figure he once was. He is tired and diminished, less focused and energetic, burdened by bad press from lawsuits (like the one in which he was found liable for the sexual assault of E Jean Carroll) and prosecutions (like the one in which he was convicted of 38 felonies). He is burdened, too, by bitterness and grievance, devoting good chunks of most public appearances to enumerating the various people he hates and how he has been wronged. He is unpopular, unpleasant, undisciplined and unappealing. He is the reason why Roe v Wade was overturned, and he wants to be a dictator. He is eminently beatable. And finally, Democrats may have a nominee who can beat him.Most importantly, with Biden out and Harris stepping up to the plate, the Democrats may now have a candidate who is an eloquent, comfortable and active advocate for an issue that Biden was never able to persuasively campaign for: abortion rights. Biden shied away from abortion, and his discomfort was dragging Democrats down, leaving a public health crisis, a civil rights emergency and a crucial Republican liability on the table. With that issue now squarely on the agenda, the race will be dramatically changed. More

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      Who will replace Joe Biden as Democratic nominee? Here are six possibilities

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      Joe Biden’s catastrophic showing at the debate with Donald Trump last month was the worst kind of milestone for the US president – it marked the beginning of the end of his bid for re-election. Trump was formally nominated for the Republicans at the party’s convention, held in Milwaukee, last week, and now Biden will be out of the race.So who will be at the top of the Democratic ticket against Trump now?Biden won the Democratic primaries earlier this year but would not have officially become the party’s candidate for president until endorsed at the 2024 Democratic national convention in Chicago, which takes place from 19-22 August. And it has all fallen apart a month before that.There was no formal mechanism to replace him as presumptive nominee, and such a move would have been the first time a US political party had attempted to do so in modern times. With Biden ultimately quitting of his own volition, he will hope to make the process to choose his replacement smoother. But it will not be straightforward and the immediate road ahead is not clear.On Sunday afternoon, Biden followed his announcement – that he was staying on at the White House as president but stepping aside from his re-election campaign – by saying he now endorses his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to become the Democratic nominee for president.She is the first female US vice-president and would become the first female president of the United States if she is officially nominated by the party at its convention and beats Trump in November. Not long after Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton also endorsed Harris for the top spot, issuing a “statement from President Clinton and Secretary Clinton”.Hillary Clinton almost became the first woman to be US president, seeking to shatter what she called “the hardest, highest glass ceiling” and was the first female nominee from either of the two major parties in history. But she failed to win it for the Democrats and for women in 2016 as Trump took a shock victory for the Republicans.Biden’s endorsement of Harris will carry weight with delegates at the convention but is not binding.The Chicago convention was supposed to be a highly choreographed event, a formality, for the Biden-Harris ticket. Now things are up in the air.The Democratic National Committee’s chair, Jaime Harrison, said in a statement that the party would “undertake a transparent and orderly process” to select “a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November”.So who are the most likely candidates to head the Democratic bid for the White House in November?Kamala HarrisView image in fullscreenBiden’s vice-president was always the most logical pick, as someone already deputizing for the commander-in-chief. But now Harris is the obvious frontrunner for the nomination. However, she has been widely criticised for not carving out more of her own role in the Biden administration and has poor polling approval ratings, suggesting she would struggle against Donald Trump in the glare of an election campaign. The 59-year-old was backing Biden after the debate. Then support for him drained away, and now the spotlight is being trained firmly on Harris. The most senior party leadership, in the shape of the Democratic House speaker emerita, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, reportedly privately agreed with dozens of members of Congress who have been publicly calling on Biden to quit the race. That number continued to grow over the weekend, until Biden did as they were urging. But few until Biden on Sunday specified who should replace him. Harris was chosen as Biden’s running mate when she was a US senator for California, having been attorney general of the state and previously a district attorney based in San Francisco. She ran an unsuccessful campaign for the presidential nomination in 2020 that never made it to the primaries. As vice-president she was given difficult briefs including immigration but has most assuredly found her footing defending reproductive rights, in the wake of the US supreme court overturning Roe v Wade in 2022.Gavin NewsomView image in fullscreenThe 56-year-old California governor was in the spin room on the night last month after the first presidential debate of the 2024 election, talking down any alternatives to Biden as nominee, saying it was “nonsensical speculation”. He had a prime-time debate last year with the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, which could be a presidential match-up of the future, and has made a point of supporting Democrats in elections away from his home state, which looked, at times, like a shadow White House campaign. Now he will be examined closely as a candidate for the nomination.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJB PritzkerView image in fullscreenThe 59-year-old governor of Illinois would be one of the wealthiest of possible picks. He can flourish his credentials of having codified the right to abortion in Illinois and declaring it a “sanctuary state” for women seeking abortions. He has also been strong on gun control, and legalised recreational marijuana.Gretchen WhitmerView image in fullscreenThe Michigan governor, 52, was on the shortlist for VP pick for Biden in 2020, and a strong showing in the midterms for the Democratic party was in part attributed to her governership. She has been in favour of stricter gun laws, repealing abortion bans and backing universal preschool.Josh ShapiroView image in fullscreenThe Democratic governor of Pennsylvania has been a rising political star in this crucial swing state for years but shot to national prominence in fall 2022 when, as state attorney general, he won the gubernatorial race over an extreme Trumpist Republican. His name has been on lips of late and the reckoning since Biden stepped aside is if Harris wins the nomination, Shapiro would be a strong pick as her running mate. Alison Dagnes, a professor of political science at Shippensburg University in southcentral Pennsylvania, told the USA Today media network that Shapiro generating buzz because he’s shrewd, tech-savvy and a proven winner in the battleground state with the most electoral college votes.Pete ButtigiegView image in fullscreenHe’s Joe Biden’s perky transportation secretary and a one-time rival the US president beat in the 2020 primaries. Back then he was known most widely as “Mayor Pete” after coming to prominence as the successful civic leader of South Bend, Indiana. His lightning sharp mind and record as a war veteran got him talked about as potentially the first millennial to become president. Buttigieg does not lack ambition – doubling it with a knack for diplomacy and a naturally genial, positive attitude. He was the first publicly gay person ever confirmed to a US cabinet post. That would also be a first for a US president, vice-president or nominee for either of those two slots. More

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      Biden’s selfless decision to drop out sets stage for an entirely different election

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      Legend has it that when King George III heard that George Washington, the first US president, had decided to retire after his second term, he remarked: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”Joe Biden, 81, holed up at a Delaware beach house with a bad cough after a Covid-19 diagnosis, ended his presidential re-election campaign on Sunday. It was a selfless decision that put the country’s interests before his own – an act of grace that many see as vividly contrasting with the narcissism of his opponent Donald Trump.It also sets the stage for a completely different sort of election in November as top Democrats rapidly rushed to endorse Kamala Harris, which the president himself did. Now the Republicans will have to deal with issues of mental competence and an ageing candidate.Although many fellow Democrats had lost faith in Biden’s mental acuity and capacity to beat Trump, they had no mechanism to oust Biden, who won a mandate in the party primary and continued to enjoy the support of Black and progressive voters. Although he had spent decades striving for the crown, and sincerely believed he could finished the job, Biden ultimately realised that it was not about him and never had been.Opinion polls strongly suggest that he would have lost in November to Trump, a twice-impeached felon and instigator of the January 6 insurrection. To cling on and go down in flames, returning the White House keys to Trump, would have destroyed his legacy. He would have been remembered as the man who saved democracy in 2020 only to sacrifice it at the altar of his own ambition in 2024.Instead, whatever happens now, the 46th president will be remembered for steering America’s recovery from the Trump presidency and the coronavirus pandemic, delivering legislative achievements that will long outlast him – and giving his party a fighting chance to beat Trump again.His withdrawal was “one of the most stunning acts of patriotism of my lifetime”, Norm Eisen, a former diplomat, wrote on Twitter/X. David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, added: “History will honor him for his many extraordinary accomplishments as president AND for the terribly difficult and selfless decision he made today.” Comedian Jon Stewart tweeted simply: “Legend.”Biden’s announcement, via social media, was the latest drama in a month that has shaken US politics: his hapless debate performance on 27 June, a supreme court decision to grant broad presidential immunity on 1 July, an attempted assassination of Trump on 13 July, the collapse of the classified documents case against Trump selection of JD Vance as Trump’s running mate on 15 July.Future historians will surely look back at the first of those, the debate, as one of the most spectacular own goals in campaign history. For months Biden’s decline had been mostly concealed from the public as he stuck to teleprompter speeches and conducted fewer interviews or press conferences than his predecessors.If this was a conspiracy, it was an inept one: it was Biden’s own campaign that sought a presidential debate much earlier than usual to awaken the nation to the danger of Trump. Instead the incumbent’s halting, doddering showing had the opposite effect, shining a harsh light on his own flaws. From that moment, the writing was on the wall.By Sunday 36 congressional Democrats had publicly called on Biden to drop out of the race. Party heavyweights such as a Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and even his old boss, Obama, had sent powerful signals. Yet Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others continued to rally around him. The final excruciating decision was Biden’s alone.It immediately scrambled the race for the White House and potentially threw Trump on the back foot. Suddenly he, at 78, find himself the oldest major party nominee for president that the US has ever seen – his gaffes and name mix-ups will be in the spotlight.The lesson of elections in Britain and around the world this year is that anti-incumbent sentiment is high. If the US is also on course for a change election, Trump is no longer the change candidate. A man who has spent his media and political entire career as a limelight-hogging disrupter will now have to respond to disruption on the other side.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden immediately threw his weight behind Harris, for the nomination. It is surely her race to lose. Some will back her with enthusiasm, pointing to the historic nature of her candidacy and how, since the fall of Roe v Wade, she has found her voice on the issue of abortion rights.Tim Miller, who was communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, told the MSNBC network: “If you want to sum up a contrast, a prosecutor versus a convicted criminal, a woman who wants to protect your freedoms versus an old man that wants to take them away.”Others will make a pragmatic case that to bypass the first woman, and first Black woman, to serve as vice-president would be disrespectful, offensive and self-defeating.Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster and strategist, said on MSBNC: “If the Democrats want to give the White House back to Donald Trump, let them go into an open nomination process and disrespect and step over the first Black woman vice-president of this country and they will be committing absolute suicide. That is a surefire way for Donald Trump to become president again.”The events of the past month, and the past eight years, have taught us to expect the unexpected – an open nominating process and Democratic melee is still impossible. But Bill and Hillary Clinton were quick to endorse Harris and there will be more to come. Having witnessed last week’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Democrats understand the value of unity.They are also aware that Trump’s entire political career has been built on divisiveness over race and sex, starting with the lie that Obama might have been born outside the US and gendered attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016. As Biden, Prospero-like, drowns his book, the election of Harris, a Black woman, would provide this era’s last word in poetic justice. More

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      Joe Biden withdraws from presidential race after weeks of pressure to quit

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      Joe Biden has withdrawn from his presidential re-election race and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of their party’s ticket, an extraordinary decision upending American politics that plunges the Democratic nomination into uncertainty just months before the November election against Donald Trump – a candidate Biden has warned is an existential threat to US democracy.“While it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a letter announcing his decision.Biden thanked Harris in his letter and later endorsed her as the Democratic nominee for president in a tweet. He said he planned to speak to the nation in more detail later this week.“My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as president for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice-president. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,” he said.“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats – it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”Harris thanked Biden in a statement “for his extraordinary leadership as president”. She also said “with this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else.“I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” she said. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic party – and unite our nation – to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.“We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”The president made the stunning announcement after a weeks-long pressure campaign by Democratic leaders, organizers and donors who increasingly saw no path to victory so long as the embattled incumbent remained on the ticket. More than 30 Democratic members of Congress had called on Biden to step aside. As recently as Friday, his campaign had insisted he was staying in the race. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday found that 60% of Democrats believed he should end his run. The same poll found that nearly 76% of Democrats would be satisfied with Harris as the nominee.Biden’s decision to withdraw appears to have been abrupt. The president told his senior staff on Sunday afternoon that he had changed his mind about staying in the race, and campaign officials were still reportedly on the phone with delegates asking if they could count on their support.In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Biden “was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was!”Biden “only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement”, Trump said. “All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t.”Trump went on to list a series of falsehoods about immigration, concluding: “We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”Minutes after Sunday’s announcement, Trump told CNN that he believed it would be easier to defeat Harris than it would have been to beat Biden.It is unclear if any other Democrats will try to challenge Harris for the nomination. And it is still not clear whether she is better positioned to beat Trump. An NBC News poll from earlier this month showed Trump leading Biden and Harris by 2 points, which was within the survey’s margin of error.Barack Obama, the former president who selected Biden as his vice-president for both of his terms, released a lengthy statement on Sunday praising Biden’s decision. There had been reporting in recent days that there was tension between the two men over Biden feeling like Obama and other Democrats were trying to push him out.“Joe Biden has been one of America’s most consequential presidents, as well as a dear friend and partner to me,” said Obama, who won the presidency in 2008. “Today, we’ve also been reminded  –  again – that he’s a patriot of the highest order.“I also know Joe has never backed down from a fight. For him to look at the political landscape and decide that he should pass the torch to a new nominee is surely one of the toughest in his life. But I know he wouldn’t make this decision unless he believed it was right for America. It’s a testament to Joe Biden’s love of the country – and a historic example of a genuine public servant once again putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own – that future generations of leaders will do well to follow.”Obama, who stopped short of endorsing Harris, said Democrats would be navigating “uncharted waters in the days ahead”. He added: “But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.”Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who in recent days had become a major figure signaling concerns among Democrats Biden would be able to win the race, spoke glowingly of his decision on Sunday.“President Joe Biden is a patriotic American who has always put our country first. His legacy of vision, values and leadership make him one of the most consequential presidents in American history,” she wrote.Bill and Hillary Clinton endorsed Harris in a joint statement. “We are honored to join the president in endorsing Vice-President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her,” the former president and secretary of state said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris’s nomination is not automatic, and there are other Democrats – including the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker – who could seek the nomination. If any of those candidates were nominated in Chicago next month, they would face the monumental task of introducing themselves to voters, crafting a campaign message and defeating Trump – all in two and a half months.Citing sources, CBS News on Sunday reported that neither Whitmer nor Newsom intended to pursue the Democratic nomination. The network added: “There’s no one at this moment preparing behind the scenes to challenge Vice-President Harris.”Whitmer said in a Sunday tweet: “President Biden is a great public servant who knows better than anyone what it takes to defeat Donald Trump. My job in this election will remain the same: doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump, a convicted felon whose agenda of raising families’ costs, banning abortion nationwide, and abusing the power of the White House to settle his own scores is completely wrong for Michigan.”The chair of the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison, said the party would “undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward” to choose a candidate to defeat Trump in November.A disastrous debate performance last month, and his uneven public appearances since, have only exacerbated longstanding voter concerns that the 81-year-old president was simply too old to serve another four years.Democrats immediately praised Biden’s decision, including Chuck Schumer, the majority leader in the US Senate, and one of several Democrats who had been pressuring Biden to step aside.“Joe Biden has not only been a great president and a great legislative leader but he is a truly amazing human being. His decision of course was not easy, but he once again put his country, his party, and our future first,” Schumer said in a statement.The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, suggested during appearances on Sunday talkshows that Republicans would bring legal challenges to attempt to block efforts to change the Democratic ticket. Experts are skeptical those efforts will succeed.Johnson was also one of several top Republicans who called on Biden to resign the presidency – something Biden is almost certain not to do.“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president. He must resign the office immediately,” Johnson said, adding that election day on 5 November “cannot arrive soon enough”.The Ohio senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, made similar comments on Sunday.Biden’s decision to step aside, though remain as president, caps a singular few weeks in American politics, the latest stunning episode in an unusually tumultuous election season.Trump, the former president and Republican nominee, narrowly survived an attempt on his life during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania that bloodied his ear and left one spectator dead. Biden, after appealing for calm in the wake of attack, had returned to the campaign trail last week determined to salvage his candidacy and once again prove his doubters wrong.In media appearances, the president was defiant, insisting that he would remain the party’s standard-bearer in November. On Wednesday, before delivering remarks at a conference in Nevada, he tested positive for Covid.The president’s withdrawal pushes the Democratic party into largely uncharted waters, with its national convention scheduled to begin on 19 August in Chicago. The nominee will also have a tight window to choose a running mate to take on Trump and Vance. It is not clear how Democrats will choose a new ticket.After serving as Biden’s vice-president, Harris, 59, has the largest national profile of any Democratic candidate, and delegates may view her as the safest option. Campaign finance experts also say that Harris would have the most straightforward legal argument to keep the Biden campaign’s fundraising haul, while another nominee might have to forfeit that money. As of late May, the Biden campaign had $91.6m in cash on hand. More

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      Trump and Vance speak in Michigan at first rally post-assassination attempt – live updates

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      Trump says a Trump-Vance administration will rapidly reverse “every single Biden-Harris disaster”, starting from day one, if he is elected.He says he will end the “inflation nightmare”, that he will “crush migrant crime”, that he will give people an additional tax cut and that energy prices will be brought down “very quickly”.
      America’s enemies will fear us. The United States will again command the respect that it deserves.
      He says “something beautiful” will happen, and that he will bring back the American dream, and that it will be “bigger, better and bolder than ever before”.Trump says Democrats have been trying to make him sound “like I’m an extremist” but says that he is actually a person “with great common sense”.He says he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025. “I don’t know what the hell it is,” he says.
      They keep saying [I’m] a threat to democracy. I’m saying: what the hell did I do for democracy? Last week, I took a bullet for democracy. What did I do against democracy?
      Trump says he will “never stop working to deliver a magnificent future for our people”, as he notes that the upcoming November election will be the “most important election in the history of our country”.
      We will fight, fight, fight and we will win, win, win.
      Trump says there are other things he could be doing that would be “a lot easier”, although he says he would rather be campaigning today than “sitting on some gorgeous beach watching boring waves”.Trump then talks about the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, saying there has never been a convention with so much “unity and love”.“There’s never been anything like it,” he says, noting that it was “really an amazing thing to see” with “so many great people”.Trump, still referring to the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, says it was an “incredible” time.
      Nobody’s seen anything like it, and hopefully they never will again.
      He thanks Texas representative Ronny Jackson, his former physician, who has been treating him since the attack. Trump calls him an “outstanding” doctor, saying: “I love that guy.”Donald Trump says he wants to thank Americans nationwide, including those attending today’s campaign rally, for their “extraordinary outpouring of love and support” in the wake of the “horrific” event last weekend.He says the assassination attempt took place “exactly one week ago today, almost to the hour, even to the minute”. “What a day it was,” Trump says.
      I stand before you only by the grace of almighty God. I shouldn’t be here. Maybe JD or somebody else would be here, but I shouldn’t be here right now.
      Trump says he wants to thank everyone at Butler memorial hospital and the citizens of Butler, Pennsylvania.Donald Trump begins speaking at the campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he appears to no longer be wearing the large white bandage on his injured ear from last Saturday’s assassination attempt.“This is like a Michigan football game over here,” Trump said, before thanking his running mate, JD Vance, whom he says will be a “fantastic” vice-president.Trump says he chose Vance “because he’s for the worker”.Ohio senator JD Vance is back on stage at the campaign rally at Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he makes a brief speech to supporters before introducing Donald Trump.Vance says Trump was a great president who “knew instinctively what this country needed and how to put the interests of the citizens of this country first”.“We had a hell of a four years with President Donald J Trump, didn’t we?” Vance says before Trump walks on to the stage.Standing in line, Isaiah White, a 25-year old from Hudsonville, Michigan said he was “very excited” for another chance to see Donald Trump. The last time Trump came to Van Andel Arena, White got in line too late and had to watch on the jumbotron outside the venue.Betsy Gatchell Goff, who came to Van Andel Arena from her home town of Benton Harbor, Michigan, said she thought Trump was “a unifying figure for our country.” Gatchell Goff hoped that with Trump back in office, “we’ll have a president who does more than sleep all day,” a disparaging reference to Joe Biden.Joe Attard, a worker at a factory that makes sheds, made the drive from Southgate, Michigan, to Grand Rapids hoping to catch a glimpse of Donald Trump, who was appearing in the crucial battleground state after being formally anointed as the Republican presidential candidate and hitting the campaign trail with his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance. Attard said:
      There’s a real feeling of community here, everybody in the same mind. It’s a great feeling.
      Other than a lone man across the barricades holding a Deport Trump sign, Attard seemed to be right. There were few people around without some kind of Trump-branded apparel.Perhaps in keeping with a party that has fully unified around Trump after the shocking attempt on his life, most people seemed excited to be at the rally.A man in an army baseball cap pointed people towards the ADA-accessible line. People waved and cheered for the Secret Service officers and mounted police patrolling the street. More

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      Pity US voters their choice of leaders. Surely democracy is better than this? | Simon Tisdall

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      What a shambles! What a shame! With less than four months to go, America’s presidential race, global democracy’s showpiece event, has boiled down to a choice between a crook, a codger, a cheerleader and a charlatan. Four folks who, for varying reasons, are barely fit.Voters deserve better. Or perhaps, by applauding and rewarding bad behaviour, they really don’t. Friends and allies look on aghast. Chinese and Russian online election trolls sneer with delight. No worries, guys. The US is busy screwing itself.First, the psychopath mansplaining atop the Republican ticket. The word, by definition, denotes a personality characterised by impaired empathy and remorse, narcissism, superficial charm, manipulativeness, dishonesty and an outward appearance of normality. Sound about right? Yup. Except it’s worse than ever. At 78, his chronic condition is deteriorating rapidly.Sanctimonious, sentimental, self-pitying, vicious, ignorant – addressing the Republican convention, Donald Trump showed he hasn’t changed a bit. Yet now, unbelievably, this sleazy liar, convicted felon and wannabe dictator, this serial sexual abuser, faux-Christian and closet racist reckons he holds the moral high ground. And all because some poor fool took a shot, elevating him to martyr status.The Pennsylvania assassination attempt was the perfect advertisement for Trump’s favourite role of victim-saviour. He is persecuted. He suffers for you. Now he’s born again. Trump likened his recent New York court tribulations to Jesus in the wilderness. And he claimed God helped him dodge the killer bullet. Joe Biden’s earlier, inept appeal to place “a bull’s eye” on Trump’s back inadvertently fortified the fable.Trump’s disciples raised their arms in salute. “The devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle. But an American lion got back on his feet and he roared!” proclaimed lackey senator Tim Scott, mangling metaphors. Divine intervention had saved Trump – in order that he save America.Trump’s unprepossessing son, Donald Jr, claims the near-death experience has fundamentally altered his pa. Baloney. American lions don’t change their spots, as Scott might say.Trump, sensing electoral advantage in a new, insincere guise of national unifier, will exploit the notion ruthlessly. Yet, if re-elected, all bets are off. Revenge and score-settling will be prioritised as before, alongside the hard-right, democracy-shattering Project 2025 agenda.Trump is sick. But so too, sadly, is America’s other main presidential contender, in different ways. Biden has an illness to which those exercising great power often succumb: a delusional belief in his own indispensability. Only he can beat Trump, he insists. It’s nonsense, of course. Biden may be the only Democrat who can’t beat him. Reports suggest the old stager may be finally recognising that reality.Hubris, vanity, pride and a first lady living life vicariously: all influenced Biden’s stubborn hanging on. Now he has Covid again. Of all these ills, old age is the most unforgiving. There’s no fighting the clock. And politically, at 81, Biden’s game is up. Latest polling suggests two-thirds of Democrats think he should quit. About 70% of all voters doubt his mental capacity to lead for another four years. Time to go, Joe.Panicky squawking in the Democratic henhouse is barely contained at this point. There is no agreed party mechanism to remove an incumbent, nor for replacing one. Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have mostly kept their heads down, muttering off-mike. They never really rated Biden. Yet he turned out a better president than either. Do they secretly hope he crashes and burns? Like age and pride, envy and legacy also poison the well.The unfitness of Trump and Biden throws a sharper spotlight on their understudies. So who’s next in line? Kamala Harris, vice-president since 2021, is on Democratic pole. But familiarity has not translated into popularity. Her favourability rating averages minus 15 points. While she notionally fares better than Biden against Trump in some swing states, her claim to the crown is unpersuasive.Harris, 59, is unfairly criticised, perhaps because she is the first female vice-president – a California liberal with black and Asian American roots. She’s led on issues such as abortion, climate, education and voting rights. But opponents dismiss her as a lightweight White House cheerleader who failed in her main task of repelling border illegals.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAttacks on Harris notably increased at the Republican convention – a pre-emptive strike strategy, hedging against a Biden departure. But it’s unclear who among more than half a dozen potential Democratic candidates might get the nod. Names like California’s Gavin Newsom, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and former transport secretary Pete Buttigieg are tossed around like racecourse betting tickets. If the call comes, Harris will need to toughen up and wise up fast – or risk being shouldered aside.Intriguingly, the same fate could befall Trump one day, given his telling choice of the unpleasantly hard-right, white nationalist-populist senator JD Vance as running mate. Despite his privileged background and wealth, Trump portrays himself, against all evidence, as a champion of the working man. Vance, in contrast, is arguably the real thing, warts and all – a self-styled hillbilly throwback with a chip on his shoulder the size of Ohio.Vance, 39, is the least-known member of 2024’s electoral quadrumvirate. A shameless opportunist, his fiercely stated loyalty to Trump, whom he once compared to Hitler, looks confected and expedient. He’s already casting himself as the Maga heir apparent. How long before he usurps the throne? No one knows what he truly believes, except perhaps his wife, Usha, the brains behind the drone.Vance’s extremist, intolerant views on abortion, immigration, isolationism and protectionism, plus his inflammatory, divisive rhetoric, typify America’s hugely self-destructive 2024 election. The choice on offer ranges from the sick and dangerous to the crudely rabid or banal. Democracy is better than this. Four months remain to rescue America – or else it ends in tears. Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s Foreign Affairs CommentatorDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk More