Q&A: LSU's Robert Hogan on the Future of the 2024 Election After Biden Steps Down

On Sunday, July 21, President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the upcoming presidential race, a decision that has been both anticipated and speculated upon in recent weeks. Following a widely criticized debate performance and growing concerns about his fitness for a second term, Biden's exit has sent shockwaves through the political landscape.

With notable Democrats publicly urging him to step aside and an assassination attempt on former President Trump diverting national attention, Biden's departure marks a significant moment in the current election cycle. LSU's Political Science Department Chair and Professor Robert Hogan sheds light on the potential impacts of Biden's decision on the Democratic Party and the broader implications for the upcoming presidential election.

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What was your reaction to President Biden dropping out of the race?

Well, this is something that we've been anticipating for several days now. It seems like there was an inevitability that this would occur, which is to know when it would happen.

There's been significant speculation since his debate a little over three weeks ago, in which he performed very poorly, and many people have started to call into question his fitness for running for a second term of office. So I think there's been much talk, but there's also been a lot of his fellow Democrats coming out and saying publicly that he should step aside, including members of Congress, both in the House and the Senate.

So this has been building steam. I think the assassination attempt on Trump took much attention away from this issue, but in recent days, it has gathered steam. With so many Democrats calling into question his fitness for running for a second term, I think this would happen at some point.

What do you think about President Biden supporting Vice President Harris as the new nominee?

This has the potential to energize the party, especially if you look at Kamala Harris; she's an African American woman, and we have never had someone with those characteristics at the top of the ticket. This is something that I think will get much attention, and there will be many moderates and independent voters in these key swing states, particularly in the Midwest, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, that are critical for Democrats' success or potential success.

They will look very hard at Kamala Harris and what she has to offer. They're going to look to see who she chooses as running mate. That's going to be another big decision that has to be made. So there's much attention. The Democrats are in disarray, dealing with a very new issue. It will get people's attention, and it has the potential to energize their party in a way that Biden's continued candidacy would have needed to have.

How does this impact the Republicans’ strategy and efforts?

Polls have shown that the Republicans are doing very well with Trump in head-to-head contests with Joe Biden. Trump was doing very well, especially in those key swing states, so that was one of the things that pushed Biden out of the race. I think Republicans will be waiting to deal with whatever candidate the Democrats agree upon.

Keep in mind that Republicans, for the most part, have their strategy crystallized on Joe Biden and his age, his inabilities, and his perhaps mental capacity issues. They have focused on those issues. Their whole approach has been based on that. They will have to replace that with the strategy of going after whoever the new nominee will be.

Robert Hogan, LSU's Political Science Department chair and professor 

They will be asking whoever the nominee is going to be, especially if it's Kamala Harris, what she knew about Joe Biden's mental capacity. Was it what it needed to be to execute the powers of the presidency as they should be executed? Was she part of some attempt to shield Biden from the press? There are some real, important, legitimate questions here that are going to be brought up. Still, it's also a part of the Republican Party’s strategy to discredit whoever the nominee will be.

We see this in presidential politics, and we have seen it for many decades, or perhaps since we've had a presidency and presidential elections. So, I think Republicans are going to be focusing on the process. I think some of them, and we've already started to see, even before this announcement came, questions about, well, you know, the Democrats had had this long, drawn-out process, primary caucus process, of choosing delegates to figure out whom they wanted to be pledged to.

At the last minute, the nominee withdraws his name. How fair is that to those participating in the Democratic caucuses and primaries this past year? So I think that's going to be their strategy in the future. But keep in mind that Republicans, for the most part, have their strategy crystallized on Joe Biden and his age, his inabilities, and his perhaps mental capacity issues. They have focused on those issues. Their whole approach has been based on that. They will have to replace that with the strategy of going after whoever the new nominee will be.

How will this impact the upcoming election?

Well, I think that this is going to affect turnout in participation. One of the things that campaigns often do is that they focus attention on issues and the people in campaigns. And if we were going back to what we were planning on, we were expecting to see Trump versus Biden again; many people saw that movie before they knew what to expect. They understood where the candidate stood on issues. They understood the personalities involved.

However, the fact that there is some drama and some uncertainty about who the Democratic nominee is going to be is going to get a lot more attention. It has the potential for this attention as whoever the nominee will be, Kamala Harris, if that's who it is. People know her. She's the vice president, but they don't know much about her. One of the things is that so much attention gets focused on who the president is; we only know a little about her, their family, her background, and that kind of thing.

There's going to be an enormous level of scrutiny put on that. The Republicans will put a tremendous amount of scrutiny on it, and I think it can potentially involve the public in a way that they haven't been involved or wouldn't have been involved had it just been Trump versus Biden. If it is Kamala Harris, the fact that she is of a different generation, will all depend on who she chooses as her vice president; it will be up to her to make that decision. There will be even more new information that people will have to learn about. So I think this has the potential to energize the Democrats as well as the Republicans, I might add, going forward.

We are really in unchartered waters. It has been a long time since going into a convention that the nominee, who ultimately became the nominee, didn't have a majority of the delegates sewn up going into the convention. So this will be real drama that we see playing out in real-time. What are other Democrats who thought about running but didn’t run because Joe Biden was incumbent, or maybe a few that did run? Will they jump in, throw their hat in the ring, and create a contested, democratic process? I think over the next few weeks, we'll see if that plays out.

But they only have a little time, right? There needs to be more time. This is a historic time, and we haven't seen anything like this, I would say, since 1968, when Hubert Humphrey ultimately became the nominee. He had not entered a single caucus or primary but was Lyndon Johnson's vice president. So I think, and strangely enough, the Democratic National nominating convention that year was in Chicago, and this year, it will be in Chicago, too. So, we are living in a very historic time, and it will be interesting to see how these things play out.

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