With Biden out, Virginia Dems pray for new nominee and a boost from the top of the ticket

SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA - JUNE 02: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on gun violence during an event at John R. Lewis High School on June 2, 2023 in Springfield, Virginia. Vice President Harris spoke on the administration’s efforts to reduce gun violence to commemorate the National Gun Violence Awareness day. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Until Sunday afternoon, Democrats in Virginia and elsewhere were in deepening despair over their prospects in the presidential election less than four months down the line. They had two options: worse and worst.

President Joe Biden’s Sunday concession to the ravages of advanced age (already the oldest sitting president in U.S. history, he would turn 82 just 15 days after the election) doesn’t assure the Democrats’ victory on Nov. 5. It does, however, lift the “worst” option, at least for the immediate term, and offers Virginia Democrats a glimmer of hope.

Biden labored under alarmingly poor job approval numbers before his abysmal performance in a June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, which raised profound questions about Biden’s mental fitness and sent his campaign into an unrecoverable death spiral.

As Biden’s polling plunged, Democrats in Congress and Hollywood wrung their hands and differed publicly over whether he should abandon the race. Making things worse, Trump seemed not only invincible but inevitable after a rifle bullet grazed his right ear during a July 13 Pennsylvania campaign rally. Days later, wearing gauze over his wound, Trump was hailed as a mythic hero at the Republican National Convention.

In public polling, the separation grew wider between an ascendant Republican campaign and a Democratic one seemingly disintegrating by the day with donors threatening to close their checkbooks.

If the seeming red wave grew into a tsunami, not only would Democrats likely lose Virginia in a presidential race for the first time in 20 years, it could threaten them in competitive contests for open U.S. House seats their party now holds, wrote Mark J. Rozell, dean of the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.

A poll of 809 Virginia adults conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs from June 24 through July 3 found that 39% favored Trump and 36% supported Biden. The results are within the poll’s margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.8 percentage points, in a survey whose outcome is further clouded because the debate occurred on day four of the 10-day survey. Even so, it’s an outcome that didn’t comfort Democrats in a state Biden won by 10 percentage points over Trump just four years ago.

A landslide Biden defeat that includes Virginia could even imperil the re-election of Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., against a prohibitive and little-known GOP underdog, Hung Cao, Rozell predicted.

Maybe Sunday changed that trajectory. 

A more recent New York Times/Siena College poll of 661 likely Virginia voters conducted July 9-12 found Vice President Kamala Harris (whom Biden endorsed to succeed him as the putative nominee) was the choice of 43% compared with 39% for Trump. That slight advantage is within the poll’s ±4.4 percentage point margin of sampling error. The survey was completed before the July 13 attempt on Trump’s life.

“As long as the narrative focused on Democratic disarray, Biden’s age and doubts about his ability continued, Trump and the Republicans looked unbeatable. Now the narrative changes as the Democrats have a chance to unite and put the focus back on Trump,” Rozell said in an interview Sunday.

Biden’s retreat is “a critical reset opportunity” for Democrats, not a guarantee for success, he noted. That’s a vital distinction, given the Democrats’ demonstrated penchant for squandering opportunities.

“Let’s see what the Democrats make of it. There is always the chance for a different kind of disarray,” Rozell said. “Imagine if there is a strongly contested convention with multiple ballots, for example, and Harris gets nudged out.”

An intramural power play that leapfrogs Harris would rip apart vital elements of the Democratic coalition — women and Black voters — and inflict long-lasting damage on the party as Trump never could. Harris, of Jamaican and South Asian descent and the daughter of immigrant parents, is the first woman ever elected on a national ticket.

If you’re a Democrat in Virginia running in two of the most fiercely contested congressional swing districts — the 7th and 10th districts in the Washington, D.C., suburbs and exurbs — you’re praying for a swift, smooth and enthusiastic alignment behind the chosen successor of the president your party just shoved out of the race.

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