After President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid on Sunday amid increasing questions about his age and mental acuity, he effectively passed the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris, just a few months before Election Day.

Biden’s decision to drop out of the campaign against former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, created what University of Akron professor David B. Cohen called an “unprecedented” situation in modern American politics. 

Cohen is a professor of political science, director of the Applied Politics Program, and fellow of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. 

He spoke with Signal Akron’s Doug Brown about Biden’s decision and the battle for the presidency – the exchange was edited lightly for length and clarity.

Signal Akron: How significant was Sunday’s news in the context of American history? 

Cohen: It’s pretty unprecedented, to be honest. Certainly, we have not seen a major party’s presumptive nominee get out of the race this late. The last time the presumptive party nominee got out, I think, in the calendar year of the election was Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and even then, it was March and there were still lots of primaries to go. The primary election season is over in 2024, so this is completely unprecedented like so much of our current history is unprecedented.

As a reporter, I tend to overuse the word “unprecedented.” But is this really unprecedented?

Oh it is, it totally fits, it’s completely unprecedented. The whole election. We’ve never had an 81-year-old presidential candidate who had gotten their party’s nomination, as well as a 78-year-old who got the other party’s nomination. And in the modern era, we’ve never had a former president who has reclaimed their party’s nomination for a presidential election. It’s all unprecedented.

We’ve never had a presidential debate occur in June in modern history — that was unprecedented. Normally with the debates, both major party candidates accept the invitation from the Commission on Presidential Debates, which was formed in the 1980s, and there are usually three debates sometime between September and October of the election year. Both candidates and campaigns agreed this year to essentially bypass the commission and negotiate with each other directly. 

The Biden campaign, obviously with hindsight, unwisely agreed to a June debate in hopes that President Biden would be able to put to bed the rumors that he was not up to the task of running a campaign at this point. That obviously backfired. 

But for the Democratic Party, that was a good thing because had the Democrats gone into the fall with clearly a flawed candidate — one that may have gotten crushed in the fall debates — it would have been, of course, too late to replace him. It backfired on the Biden campaign but in the long run, it really helped the Democratic Party be able to field a competitive candidate.

So you’re saying that because Joe Biden performed so disastrously in the June debate, that it was more beneficial for the Democratic Party?

It was a blessing in disguise, it really was. At the time, it was painful for Democrats, certainly, but it was a real blessing because if that didn’t happen, Biden as a candidate would be continuing to tread water, and if he got past the convention, the Democrats would be stuck with him. Based on the polling, there really was no path for him to win reelection. 

It seemed like, especially after the debate, every day that he didn’t drop out it would be worse for the Democrats. 

Oh, for sure. All the attention was on them, and that prevented the Biden campaign and Democrats from pointing at the other guys, pointing out all the flaws in Donald Trump and his campaign, and all the crazy stuff that he says on the campaign trail. It really took a lot of the focus off the Trump campaign which was a real help to Trump. The thing is, he really hasn’t benefited in the polls, so I think that Democrats realized that Trump has a pretty hard ceiling that he’s already maxed out at. 

The thing that was really depressing Biden’s numbers was the fact that a strong majority of Americans felt that he was too old to be running for another four years and there are real legitimate questions about his mental acuity. The longer he stayed in the race, and if he stayed in the race until the end, every time that he would have a public event, he would be under a microscope. He would never be able to escape those questions and concerns. 

Speaking of Donald Trump’s polling, I’m wondering about the assassination attempt and the impact that it could have on this race.

We don’t really know what the impact will be. One thing I was surprised by: I thought he would get at least a short-term, pretty significant bump in the polling and his approval ratings and we just haven’t seen that. Any real sympathy he may have gotten out of that, I’m not sure it’s translated into polls. 

Also, the Trump campaign and Republicans love to talk about Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt was a former president running as a third-party candidate and in 1912, he was shot in Milwaukee after an appearance outside of a hotel. He went on to deliver his speech with a bullet lodged into his chest. 

A lot of people are comparing Trump to Roosevelt — the thing they don’t talk about is that Roosevelt ended up losing. There’s probably not a better example of a politician trying to use an assassination attempt like Roosevelt did — bleeding, with a bullet in his chest, delivering a long speech — and it still didn’t matter. 

We don’t really know if the assassination attempt is going to have any impact at all but, again, I am surprised we haven’t seen an uptick in Trump’s polling since the incident. 

I only know a surface-level amount about the 1968 election, but like you said about Johnson dropping out and Bobby Kennedy getting killed, is 2024 the weirdest or most unprecedented since ’68?

I think it is. We’ve never had a major party candidate drop out and, listen, he’s the president of the United States. It’s not just that he was the challenger, Biden’s the president. The fact that you have an incumbent president voluntarily stepping aside after the primaries have happened to let someone else secure the party nomination is absolutely unprecedented. It’s going to have a major impact on this race. 

The Trump campaign has been gearing up for a year or more to face Joe Biden as the opponent and to question his age, and question his cognitive abilities, et cetera. Well, you know what, Biden’s gone, and now Trump becomes the oldest candidate in the race and he has had his own cognitive abilities questioned even going back to when he was president. 

It’s a very interesting time to be alive. It would be super entertaining if the stakes weren’t so high.

Now that Biden has dropped out, what happens next? From what I’m reading, Kamala Harris is clearly going to be the candidate, so what’s the process for actually getting on the ballot?

The Democratic Party is right in the midst of figuring that out because originally when Biden was going to remain at the head of the ticket, they were going to have a virtual roll call, I believe on Aug. 1, in which they would officially nominate him. 

There’s a lot of speculation they may cancel that roll call and simply do the roll call at the convention like what normally happens. That is a huge public relations event and it’s a way to get Democrats and maybe some independents excited about the nominee’s candidacy by doing that roll call. They may do a combination where they do kind of the official (process) in a low-key manner and kind of a replay at the convention. 

I’m not sure, they’re working it out. One thing we can say, for certain, is Kamala Harris is going to be the Democratic nominee. Now it’s for her to figure out who she wants as her running mate. We probably won’t know that until shortly before the convention. She has to consider these people, she has to meet with them, and the campaign has to vet them to make sure there are no skeletons in the closet that would embarrass the campaign. There’s a lot that goes into this.

Is there any chance she’s not the candidate?

There would have to be something crazy to happen.

So like only through scandal …?

Scandal or assassination attempt, illness. Something like that. Absent all those things, she’s the nominee. The party very quickly coalesced around her, they’re embracing her, all the political heavyweights have endorsed her at this point. She’s the nominee. 

It was very shrewd of the Democratic Party to try to make sure, very quickly, they embraced her. The heavyweights in the party endorsed her. That was important because you don’t want the shit show to continue. You just don’t want that. Once all the dust settles, they will be able to turn their attention to Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Project 2025. 

I wonder how this will impact everyday voters who know of Biden but not much about Harris and haven’t been paying attention to politics closely.

Democrats are excited. For people who haven’t been paying attention to politics and swing voters [who] both parties are desperately trying to get, this is a news-making opportunity. This kind of news is positive news and it puts it on peoples’ radars. People who are not paying attention to politics are, all of a sudden, they’re reading about President Biden stepping aside, Kamala Harris being the presumptive nominee, and it allows them the chance to really reevaluate what they think about the election and think about Vice President Harris. They may start paying attention now, they may have been tuned out.

Frankly, there are a lot of people who tuned out because they didn’t like either party’s nominee. Polls have shown this for a couple of years: people do not want a Trump-Biden rematch. Guess what, people get their wish.

Now some of the people who, as young people say, “peaced out” – did I say that right?

Well done.

The people who “peaced out” might say “hey, I may actually vote in November.”

Do you think just the optics of going from an old white man to a younger Black woman might shift votes one way or the other?

Gen Z and Millennials are going to be pretty jazzed about this. Obviously, you do have some conservative Millennials and Gen Zers but they were voting for Trump anyway. What you have is a lot of younger people, especially Gen Z, [who] are angry about the war in Gaza, and other issues, all of a sudden I think they’re going to pay attention again and getting excited again. The Democratic Party needs those voters if they want a chance to win. 

It’s also going to energize Black voters in this country. President Biden had the support of the Black community but Kamala Harris, I think, is going to have the enthusiastic support of the Black community. I think the Black community is going to rally around her and be an important part of the campaign machinery going forward. 

It’s going to be crucial in battleground states to get urban voters to the polls, in places like Philadelphia. You can see this all across the country in terms of battleground states: Kamala Harris being on the ballot means that Georgia is back in play. Urban voters in places like Atlanta, Macon, and other places like that become incredibly important during this election and those voters know it. 

I think it’s a new day for the Democratic Party with Biden stepping aside. 

You clearly believe the Democrats are in a stronger position this week than last week.

Oh, much stronger, it’s night and day. There’s no comparison. Before Biden made the announcement, there was no enthusiasm on the Democratic side. In 24 hours, that dread turned into enthusiasm. How do I know this? We can measure it in campaign donations. The Harris campaign raised $50 million in one day and that’s as much as the Trump campaign raised in the entire month of July. 

If the Democrats are in an obviously better position now, why do you think this didn’t happen long ago?

Every time in modern American history that an incumbent president has run for re-election and got a serious challenge in the primary, that incumbent president has gone on to lose. Every single time. You can go all the way back to the 1970s to see it.

There’s a fear that if an incumbent president is challenged, even though they may not be a great candidate for whatever reason, they’re still going to land the nomination but they’re going to be damaged and they’re going to lose in the general election. You also don’t want to be the person who challenges the incumbent president in the party primary because you will be viewed as a traitor and your political career will be over. 

Who do you think will be Harris’ running mate?

If you’re Harris, you want somebody who’s going to be a good partner, who’s qualified, and competent to be president. Too often, presidential candidates and nominees forget to ask the question of if this person is qualified and competent. It also has to be someone who can help them in the battleground states. It should be someone who counterbalances you in terms of, maybe, your ideology, maybe your gender, maybe your race or your ethnicity.

I think it’s going to be a white male from a battleground state or from a state where that person could still campaign well in those battleground states.

I’ve seen Mayor Pete (Buttigieg) talked about a lot.

Yeah, it’s not going to be Mayor Pete. He’s an incredible public speaker and he was a very good candidate when he ran for president in 2020. Mayor Pete will have his day, but newsflash: Mayor Pete is gay. And Kamala Harris is Black and also of South Asian descent. I don’t think Harris is going to go with somebody that is not a straight white male. I just don’t think it’s going to happen, if that makes sense. 

Stuff like that, his orientation, is still an issue to this day?

Oh, for sure, especially based on the fact that discrimination still exists. There are a lot of people that are prejudiced and a person’s sexual orientation is certainly near the top of people’s prejudices. 

Speaking of vice presidents, obviously Trump picked J.D. Vance as his vice president. I’m wondering what that means for Ohio if they were to win?

If the Trump-Vance ticket wins, Vance will have to resign his Senate seat and then Governor DeWine will appoint his replacement. He’s got a pretty deep bench to choose from and there are a lot of candidates that are already positioning themselves to run for governor, or Secretary of State, or attorney general and this would allow DeWine to maybe take one of those people and put them in that Senate seat and maybe have a primary for those other offices not be so contested. 

It also depends, of course, on the Sherrod Brown and Bernie Moreno outcome as well because if Brown wins and Moreno loses, and let’s say Trump and Vance win, will DeWine feel pressure to appoint Moreno to a Senate seat even though he just lost? It will have all sorts of implications if Trump and Vance win this election. 

(Editor’s note: If DeWine appoints a replacement, that person would serve until December 2026. The winner of a special election in August 2026 would take over the seat at that time.) 

And if that happens, is Moreno the most likely person? 

I don’t think so. DeWine has kind of telegraphed a little bit that he wants somebody that, if you read between the lines, DeWine is saying he wants a serious politician and not a MAGA politician. Someone [who] can get things done. Translation: Somebody who can actually be effective in terms of policy and work across the aisle. I think he’s talking about somebody in the mold of a younger Mike DeWine when he was in the U.S. Senate, or like Rob Portman, or George Voinovich. 

My guess is, I think DeWine would appoint Matt Dolan.

Oh, really?

Yes, that’s who my money would be on. 

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