Nancy Pelosi got Joe Biden to resign. Can she get Democrats to come together and win?
Nancy Pelosi got what she wanted. The former Democratic House Speaker, longtime California congresswoman and lifelong cold-blooded strategist was a key player in forcing President Joe Biden ARRIVE dropped his re-election bid..
Pelosi started off quite subtly, with appeared on MSNBC where she inferred that Biden should reconsider his determination to remain the Democratic nominee. And when that didn’t work, she is said to have made the phone call to Biden. The momentum she created—in just 11 days—forced the president to resign.
Pelosi certainly isn’t the only factor. “I’ll tell you why they’re going to wake up. It’s not going to be polling. This campaign is really going to run out of money,” a Bidenworld insider who spoke to major donors told me days before Biden dropped out. “Donors feel like there are people who know the president is weakening and keeping it a secret. That’s why they’re angry.” At least $90 million was withheldand as of June 30, Donald Trumpcampaign has been Additional $32 million in cash more than Biden—and that was before the attempted assassination.
The money crisis combined with the steady trickle of senior Democrats—Sen. Jon Check And Sherrod Brown, Congressman Jamie Raskin—support for Biden’s withdrawal, coupled with declining poll numbers in battleground states, made the president’s decision all but inevitable. Still, the timing was a surprise: a letter suddenly posted on social media on Sunday afternoon, followed a few minutes later by a statement hand over the baton ARRIVE Who is Kamala Harris?
Or try to give it back anyway. Pelosi has had a warm, friendly relationship with Harris so far. The two of them made history together in 2022, when they became the first two women to stand behind a president during the State of the Union address. Last year, though, Pelosi ducked when CNN Anderson Cooper request-twice—if she thinks Harris is Biden’s best choice for a 2024 running mate. And on the same day Pelosi went on TV to make a big suggestion to Biden about resigning, she told members of the California congressional delegation that if that happens, she would support an open contest to replace Biden as the nominee—rather than immediately switching to Harris.
On Sunday, many politicians and delegations—including Florida, New Hampshire and North Carolina—in support of Harris, Pelosi has been conspicuously silent. “Nancy likes to play five-dimensional chess,” said a Democrat who knows Pelosi well. “So part of it may just be, ‘I’m putting pressure on you to rise to the occasion.’ But that’s not a very helpful external message right now.”
But by Monday afternoon, Pelosi had given her enthusiastic endorsement. “My enthusiastic endorsement of Kamala Harris for President is official, personal and political,” she said. wrote in a statement praised the vice president’s “strength and courage as a champion for working families, especially in fighting for a woman’s right to choose.” She added: “I have known Kamala Harris personally for decades, and her strong values, faith, and commitment to public service. Politically, make no mistake: Kamala Harris is incredibly smart as a woman in politics—and I have every confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.”
Pelosi concluded her endorsement by calling on Democrats to “unite and move forward to resoundingly defeat Donald Trump and enthusiastically elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States.”
Indeed. This time, the Democrats need to be more like the Republicans, or at least the Trump MAGA version of the Republicans. If the real priority is to defeat Trump—and this is politics, and that’s not the real goal for those looking to maximize their leverage or preserve their chances for a 2028 White House run—then the rest of the Democratic Party needs to keep quiet about an open convention or make it appear that passing to Harris is a secret deal. She’s the second-highest elected official in the country, making her the next in line in every sense. She’s earned this opportunity, having run and lost miserably in 2020 and suffered, never complaining publicly when some Biden loyalists downplayed her skills; and Harris has improved as a politician.
