Making an adversary for Trump in a hurry
A sniper's shot from a sniper with his mental wiring out of whack changed everything. By a mere 6 mm, the bullet that he fired with great precision at Trump's head did not lift the top of his head, but only grazed his right ear, enough to make him bleed and rise above the cloud of Secret Service agents who were supposedly using their bodies to prevent a new bullet from finishing off the job.
In a split second, Trump went from the front-runner in the polls to unbeatable, whether they put him up against Biden or whoever he wanted to be. This predictable victory finally convinced the most important leaders of the Democratic Party that such a prediction would mean not only the loss of the White House but also of the Senate, which is being renewed by a third, and of the House of Representatives, which is being renewed in its entirety. There was panic about a defeat that would send the Democrats into opposition for a long time to come. The choice of the energetic JD Vance to join Trump on the Republican ticket cleared up Trump's weakness regarding his advanced age. As an eligible vice-president, Vance would ensure the persistence of Trumpism even if Trump had to step down at the end of his hypothetical four-year term or in any other contingency. Too much power, then, was at stake for the Democratic Party to resign itself to losing by failure of a solid opponent to Trump, so that the entire machinery of the heavyweights, and above all the party's big donors, made it abundantly clear to Biden that he had better withdraw gracefully from the race before they had to resort to even more unbearable pressures on his broken health.
Simultaneously with the announcement of his withdrawal, Biden has given his logical endorsement to his vice-president, Kamala Harris. She has every legitimacy for the votes of the 4,000 delegates attending the 19-22 August Democratic convention in Chicago to cede to Harris the votes they were charged with giving to Biden. That is now likely but not so clear. The convention is now an open conference, from which unexpected candidates may be elected. That is at least the theory, although the party machinery is already working on the preparation of the most potentially favourable ‘ticket’, to take it to the conference already cooked.
Kamala Harris, currently also far behind Trump in the polls, could nevertheless be consecrated as the Democratic Party's candidate, but on the condition that she is given a vice-presidential running mate who is politically and personally solid, something like another JD Vance, but with firm progressive convictions.
The party's big gurus, ranging from former President Obama to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as well as the plethora of governors and big donors, are already scrutinising the CVs of the possible aspirants, if not to beat the Trump-Vance pairing, at least to limit the possible big wreckage and at least not lose positions on Capitol Hill.
If Kamala Harris were to become the presidential candidate, her partner would be, in addition to that person with the ideological characteristics described above, a man and white, which would rule out the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, who has won in 2018 a state in which Trump had previously triumphed.
By contrast, both California Governor Gavin Newson and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker could give a strong boost to Kamala Harris, whose womanhood and Indian roots give her an undisputed ascendancy among the female half of the population and a good part of the racial minorities.
In any case, there are barely three weeks left to shape that ‘ticket’, which at least demonstrates to voters that Trump already has an opponent. Moreover, the party's communication and propaganda brains will have to work hard to make this ‘ticket’ sufficiently attractive, and to counteract the aura given to Trump by the ‘miracle’ of having survived an attack that a lone insane perpetrator or one directed by others - that remains to be known with certainty - intended to radically remove him from the electoral race.