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Important news about money and politics in the race for the White House
The author is Dean of Public Humanities at the University of London and author of The Wrath to Come.
The volatility of the 2024 US election season should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention. With pro-Trump Republicans willing to tear up the rulebook and stoke anger as election strategies, the only certainty this year is extreme uncertainty, and it has proven to be so. After President Joe Biden further rocked things with his decision to withdraw his candidacy on Sunday, critics called the situation unprecedented and argued that it exponentially increased the stakes of the election.
But predictions that the convention would be a fierce battle were premature, to say the least. Kamala Harris secured the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination within a day. As always in American politics, money was the deciding factor. The vice president has access not only to the funds of both Biden and Harris, but also to their campaign infrastructure in the battleground states that will decide the election.
A president’s decision not to seek reelection was unprecedented and did not cause any uproar: no other presidential candidate had ever dropped out just before a national convention, but James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Calvin Coolidge all chose to serve one term, while incumbents Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson both announced in March of an election year that they would not run.
Until the 1970s and 1980s, these changes were less destabilizing because US election cycles were shorter and more dynamic than today’s major election campaigns, but in recent years US elections have become a multi-year process that has made them significantly less predictable.
That’s all changed. For the first time since 1976, this is an election in which neither Bush, Clinton nor Biden are running, and Trump is suddenly the oldest candidate in U.S. history. His decision to choose another white man as his running mate, whose reactionary stance on reproductive rights puts him well out of touch with younger voters, looks all the more foolish. And Harris’ choice of running mate becomes even more important.
Harris, the first black woman nominee, would undoubtedly choose a white male governor as her running mate. Democrats need a candidate who can attract independents and Republicans, and California Governor Gavin Newsom is unlikely to join Harris on the ticket. Josh Shapiro could energize the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Or there’s Arizona’s Mark Kelly, the former astronaut married to Gabrielle Giffords and seriously injured in an assassination attempt in 2011.
The combination of the first black woman and a former astronaut could be a big winner, but smart investors are keeping their eye on Kentucky Democrat Andy Beshear, who has a 64 percent approval rating in Trump-supporting areas. Beshear has a strong record as attorney general and speaks compassionately about his Christian faith while acknowledging the rights and vulnerabilities of others, including reproductive rights.
Abortion is a key issue in the 2024 election, and pro-abortion activists have won every election focused on reproductive rights since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Harris would undoubtedly make this a central pillar of her campaign. Ads should feature Harris questioning Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh about whether he knows of any laws that allow the government to interfere with men’s bodies.
But what may be the real game-changer is a hint from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, the other vice presidential candidate. In response to reports that he expects to “run for something,” Pritzker posted a witty remark: “Do you think I just fell out of a coconut tree?” He was referring to a plethora of memes on social media that have quickly recaptured and transformed the right’s efforts to denounce Harris’s hilarious and outlandish comments, including one that Harris’ mother loved: that no one ever falls out of a coconut tree (or, as Harris clarified, everyone has context).
She gained instant support from young voters who recognized the underlying prejudice in mocking a black woman’s bright individuality and her use of multiracial language. Literally overnight, they injected a burst of positive energy into what had seemed a hopeless replay of a decades-old battle between emaciated old white men.
Trump supporters may be regretting months spent insisting that aging baby boomers were unfit to be president, while Harris is a black Gen X woman who is fast building a Gen Z fanbase with her historic candidacy. The story is still murky, but it’s suddenly starting to look more like the future than the past.
