While Americans spent the better part of a year preparing for a second matchup between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, those expectations have been scrambled.
Biden has given in to intense pressure from members of Congress and from major donors to drop out of the campaign following his faltering debate performance last month. His withdrawal immediately shifted the focus to who will replace him atop the ticket.
Vice President Kamala Harris is the clear front-runner and logistically would be the easiest substitute, though some Democrats have pushed for an entirely new candidate, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Harris.
Biden backed Harris to replace him, offering “my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.”
On policy, a Harris candidacy would look much like Biden’s. “There isn’t much daylight between Biden and Harris on policy issues,” Isaac Boltansky, BTIG’s director of policy research, said before Biden disclosed his decision.
Harris supported more progressive policies than Biden during their previous candidacies. But when Biden became president, the White House itself moved further left, which means a Kamala candidacy would be pretty much a wash, Boltansky said.
“There is good reason to believe that a Harris administration would be substantively similar to a Biden administration in every policy area of consequence,” he said.
But a Harris administration could bring about a shift in priorities and personnel, said Beacon Policy Advisors senior research analyst Owen Tedford. Biden allies currently running agencies could be more apt to step down at the end of his term.
Biden, for example, has supported bolstering American manufacturing with a combination of business subsidies and tariffs. That emphasis probably wouldn’t change much with Harris, Tedford said, but other areas, such as foreign policy, might go further down the priority list.
His comments also came before the Sunday news.
With Harris atop the ballot, it’s also more likely that whoever becomes president will be dealing with divided government. Biden’s struggles have caused many Democratic politicians to fear that core voters wouldn’t turn out in November, hurting their own chances of winning seats in the House and Senate even though their poll results have been much better than Biden’s.
While Harris’s numbers have been mixed, lately she has generally polled better than the president. A NYT /Siena College poll earlier this month had her leading Trump among all likely voters in a head-to-head matchup by one point, while Biden trailed by less than a point. She also bested Biden in the swing state of Pennsylvania, though still trailed behind the former president.
Biden’s decision to leave the ticket is likely to allay concern that Democratic voters simply won’t show up. Democrats would have a much higher chance of taking over the House, even if they lose the Senate or presidency.
Divided government under a Trump presidency would nix attempts to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden climate bill that gave a big boost to electric vehicle makers and other clean-energy companies. Even without Congress, Trump and his agency heads could rewrite rules to the benefit of oil-and-gas companies and big banks, making them potential winners, Evercore ISI policy analyst Sarah Bianchi in a recent research note.
On the other hand, a second Biden term could benefit cannabis companies and renewables even if Republicans hold the House or Senate, Bianchi wrote.
In an election that has proven anything but predictable, divided government might be investors’ best bet if Harris takes the top of the ticket.
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