President biden passes the torch

Published July 26th, 2024

By Josh Montagne, Director of Political Affairs

On Sunday, July 21, President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek a second term. This was not only a historic decision, but one that several members of his party had been discussing both publicly and privately for weeks.

Once word got out, many people started speculating who the party’s nominee would be. Just moments after dropping out of the presidential race, President Biden endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris. Soon after, many Democrats and celebrities online announced their endorsement of the Vice President as well.

Just a few days later, over half of the delegates for the Democratic National Convention — including the entire Indiana delegation — announced their support for Vice President Harris. Now, it should be noted that she is not the official party nominee, as that is not declared and accepted by the nominee until the convention, which will be later in August. The Vice President could have opponents at the convention, though that is unlikely.

With Harris being the presumptive nominee, it could lead to a lot of firsts if she is elected. She could be the first woman president, the first woman of color and the first south Asian president. She is likely to be only the second woman after Hillary Clinton to be a presidential nominee on a big party ticket.

A great deal of speculation has surrounded who the Vice President will pick to be her running mate. There are rumors that it could be someone like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, or North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. Yet the two most commonly circulated names are those of Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

Kelly was a fighter pilot in the Gulf War before being an astronaut then running for senate in 2020. Shapiro served as Attorney General of Pennsylvania before being elected Governor in 2023. He holds high approval ratings, with polls showing his support to be in the low 60s.

The key thing here is that both candidates represent swing states. Arizona generally tends to vote for Republicans but flipped for Biden in 2020. Conversely, Pennsylvania has generally gone blue in Presidential elections, but was flipped by Donald Trump in 2016. Thus, the thinking goes that picking one of these candidates could help her win in those swing states, as Arizona has 11 electoral votes and Pennsylvania has 20.

Another appealing quality of these candidates is their (relative) youth, with Harris being 59, Kelly being 60 and Shapiro being 51. This could help the Democrats win over tons of voters who see both Trump and Biden as too old to run for another term.

At the end of the day, we thank President Biden for his decades of service to this country and are eager to see who our next president, Kamala Harris, chooses to be her second in command.