Well, we got our July Surprise, at last.

My previous post was published around 10am this morning, and in it I noted an apparent lack of developments over the prior 48 hours in resolving the crisis over the Democratic presidential ticket. About three hours later, Biden released a letter via social media indicating that he was dropping out of the 2024 race, while remaining President for the remainder of his term. (The Biden contract on PredictIt immediately went from $0.32 to the minimum value of $0.01, and has since stayed there.) A few minutes after that, he supplemented that letter with a social media post offering his “full support and endorsement” to Vice-President Harris.

My wife and daughter and I were about an hour into the drive from Chicago to Minnesota when the news broke, which meant that we were well-positioned to simply listen to the situation develop over the next several hours. As I’m writing this post, shortly before heading to bed on the same day, it seems extremely likely that Harris will assume the Democratic nomination with little or no opposition. Anyone I can think of who would be a credible alternative candidate to Harris has already endorsed her within the first 8 hours of her candidacy. And the previous “Biden for President” campaign finance committee has already been renamed “Harris for President,” with the prevailing wisdom being that Harris (and only Harris) has the unfettered right to access monies previously donated for the Biden-Harris general election campaign.

I have been critical of Biden for not dropping out two weeks ago. However the way things have played out, maybe this timing worked out for the best. With a weakened Biden remaining in the race, Trump went all in on remaking the Republican party in his image, selecting as his VP candidate an ideologically aligned potential successor. Going with Vance rather than with somebody who could help shore up Trump’s electoral weaknesses was the move of a candidate who wasn’t worried about losing. If Biden had made his move earlier, perhaps Trump would have instead made a different and potentially more productive VP choice, rather than doubling down on the MAGA lane.

Stepping back for a second, it is hard to overstate how unprecedented this all is. The last first-term President to disavow any interest in running for a second term was, apparently, Polk way back in 1848. Truman dropped out in 1952 after losing New Hampshire; LBJ dropped out in 1968 after almost losing New Hampshire to Eugene McCarthy, a sign of weakness which then prompted RFK to enter the race. There’s no precedent for a candidate to have faced only token opposition throughout the primaries, only to then withdraw after their nomination was assured albeit not yet official. That means that, for the first time in the modern era where Presidential primaries have taken primacy over smoke-filled rooms, we will have a major-party candidate who did not actually run in any primaries.

One of the next things to watch will be who Harris selects as her vice-presidential candidate, and when & how that selection is made. There is an emerging consensus that the appropriate partner for a biracial Californian woman on the top of the ticket will be a straight (sorry Secretary Buttigieg) white (sorry Governor Moore) male (sorry Governor Whitmer) from a less liberal state (sorry Governor Newsom, although the 12th Amendment also sends its regards). That train of thought leads to a shortlist of Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro, North Carolina Governor Cooper, Kentucky Governor Beasher, and Minnesota Governor Walz. When a friend had asked me two weeks ago what I thought a putative Presidential nominee Harris ought to do for VP, my top choice was Shapiro, followed by Walz. Another name being bandied about is Senator Kelly of Arizona, although I am leery about the wisdom of potentially creating a Senate vacancy in a swing state.

To quote something that pundit and former Republican political strategist Steve Schmidt had written just this morning: “The 2024 campaign for president exists in a netherworld between being already lost and not yet begun.” Well, that core uncertainty has been resolved, and the cat is alive. We now face a whole host of new uncertainties: how will Harris perform on the trail, how effectively will the party unite behind her, will Democratic fundraising rebound (although early signs there are promising), will there even be any Trump-Harris debates, what will polling tell us and when. The next month will surely be very interesting as both parties adjust to the new reality.

But it’s a new dawn, a new day, and I’m feeling good.