Kamala is the Favorite

Going through the current state of our new race.

For roughly three weeks, a large contingent of people fought with all of their might against the calls for Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential election. This contingent included some of the most well-known and prestigious names in all of modern American liberalism. They were professors, authors, columnists, campaign veterans, historians, elected officials, the President of the United States himself and all of his top advisors. Standing at the breach and calling upon all of their credibility, they declared that there was no conceivable alternative to asking Americans to give an 81-year-old a second term. Any claims to the contrary could only come from ignorance, naïveté, or a sense of spite towards Joe Biden himself. The adults in the room had it all under control. You, who thought what you were seeing was clearly untenable, had no role to play other than shutting up and getting in line.

And then, in the span of just a few hours, they were proven completely, utterly wrong.

It’s impossible to come up with any comparisons with what has transpired since Kamala Harris took the Democratic nomination from Joe Biden, and that’s because there aren’t any. Never before in the history of this country have we seen a switch this late, to say nothing of how dramatic the differences between the candidates are. All we can do to measure what we’ve seen over the past few days is compare it to what the Last of the Brandonites said would transpire if their dear leader were to call it quits. To go through their warnings in order:

Was the Democratic Party rendered hopelessly divided like it was the last time a sitting president quit the race? Absolutely not. The entire party, including those who insisted they would only accept Biden, rallied behind Harris the second she announced her candidacy. Was the party’s base outraged that the man they voted for in the primaries was removed from the contest? Again, no. In fact, they were so overjoyed that they no longer had to vote for the oldest man alive that it broke fundraising records. Did removing “the only man to ever beat Trump” hurt the party’s chances electorally? Not even close. Despite the RNC having finished only a week ago, the polling we’ve seen has shown a Democratic surge, both nationally and in key swing states.

It has been nothing short of remarkable. Even for those of us who have never been big fans of the Vice President, it’s hard not to feel a sense of possibility—even outright optimism—about this election. After a grueling 15 months of white-knuckling under someone with no real plan to win, it has been nothing less than a revelation to watch a Democratic candidate who can actually. You know. Campaign. An election that once seemed to be heading towards an unstoppable Trump landslide now appears more wide open than it ever before. With so many things changing at such a rapid pace, it can be hard to get a sense of where the race actually stands right now. And while we don’t know what will happen between now and election day (I don’t need to tell you that the events of just the past month would have been impossible to predict beforehand), we can use the information we have right now to get a sense of where things are, and where they might go. So, now that this year’s matchup is finally set, here’s where the race stands—and why Trump may already be on the road to a second straight defeat.

AP Photo/Brendan Smialowski

Campaigning, Unburdened