LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – This is a day that will be embedded in American history — when President Biden dropped out of the 2024 race for the White House.
“No president has stepped out of the race this late. Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman both did it fairly early in comparison.”
Michael Green, Ph.D. — a professor and chair of UNLV’s history department — said a president giving up his shot at re-election this close to November is historically unusual. However, not having an established nominee at this point is not.
“Parties have come to conventions this time of year not knowing what the ticket would be when they went on to the general election,” said Green. “So this is one of those situations where if you don’t know any history, you think no one has ever dealt with this kind of uncertainty before. Uncertainty has been the name of the game more often than certainty has.”
“It’s funny because we’ve gotten so used to conventions essentially being coronations that we forget that 100 years ago, Democrats at their convention went through 103 ballots,” he added. “For a long time, we went into nominating conventions having no idea who it was going to be or claiming that we knew who it was going to be and getting some surprises.”
We asked about his prediction for who will step into the race for president.
“I do not see how you don’t nominate Kamala Harris at this point. Not only because she is the sitting vice president, but the constituencies you are likely to offend if you don’t,” he said. “If Kamala Harris is the nominee coming from California when she had a relationship with Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, it makes Nevada even more interesting in all of this.”
Green said this move will impact America’s political system for decades to come — a pivotal chapter in our history books.
“There’s the old joke about may you live in interesting times. These are among the more interesting times we have ever had in our political system,” he said.
Some Republican leaders have also said President Biden should resign from his post before the election, but Biden has vowed to serve out his term.
“The speaker of the House has said that Biden should resign,” said Green. “Well, be careful what you wish for because in that case, Donald Trump would be running against President Kamala Harris, which sounds a bit more impressive than Vice President Kamala Harris.”
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