BULLETIN: NEW INTERNAL SWING STATE POLLS, PELOSI COMMENTS, MAY MAKE BIDEN WITHDRAWAL INEVITABLE - 7.2.24

it has changed. I think the president is going to stand aside and Kamala Harris will replace him as the Democratic nominee. And I think there is a fifty to fifty chance that he will further resign his office before the election. Again, this is not a report, it's an assessment.

I also do not think any of this is imminent, but it is based on two things, principally that have happened during the day Tuesday comments by Nancy Pelosi which read to me as a signal to President Biden to act while it is still entirely in your own control. And secondly, these internal Progressive polls leaked to Puck News about the fall in mister Biden's support in the swing

states and more importantly, the new reality. They reflect that there are now after the debate, as many as six new swing states that were solidly in Biden's camp a week ago. Today that New Hampshire is now Trump by three, Virginia is Trump by one and a half, that the President now has leads of half a point or less in New Mexico, in Maine, in Minnesota, that Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and the Nebraska second are all Trump by

four or more. And it's seven in Michigan and Pennsylvania right now, that in the three days after the debate, Joe Biden's support dropped by roughly two percentage points in all twelve of these states I've just mentioned, and also in Colorado and Minnesota. And what this internal polling done for Democrats says is that if Joe Biden cannot recover all of that, the Democrats are looking at an election

loss by at least one hundred electoral votes. Pucks Peter Hamby says the polls are from open Labs, the progressive nonprofit that does not survey for public consumption, but instead for a variety of democratic organizations and is linked directly to future forward a Biden campaign super pack. Open Labs has also done a lot of work for the Democratic Senatorial Committee. Hamby also caveats that their national picture barely

changed at all after the poll after the debate. But if it is one thing that we learned in twenty sixteen, after we learned it and forgot it in two thousand, it is that the national polls don't matter a dam, and that literally the swing state polls are truly parts that are greater than the sum. Open Labs also reports a seismic shift in a deep interior number in the polls. In May, one quarter of Biden's twenty twenty voters surveyed

said he should drop out. Now open Labs reports the number after the debate has ballooned to forty percent, forty percent of those who supported Joe Biden in twenty twenty telling them he should drop out. The company also surveyed potential substitute candidates in the swing state the vice president, Governor's Newsom and Wittner, and Secretary Buddhage Edge. And they all Paul better than does Joe Biden against Trump. And they all Paul better than Joe Biden does in all

of the swing states. There is also a c ann poll. I'm not attaching nearly as much credibility to it as I am to these open labs numbers, but it is confirmatory. It says today, of all voters of all parties, three quarters say the Democrats would have a better shot of retaining the White House if somebody other than Biden runs. Then there are the comments, and as I mentioned, principle among them from Nancy Pelosi on MSNBC. I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or

is this a condition? When people ask that question, it's completely legitimate of both candidates. Pelosi went on to reveal she has not spoken to the president, but quoting again, it's not a question of not having an opportunity to make our concerns known or have some questions answered. She also says others are speaking, and their assessments conflict. Quote. Some are alike, well, how can we subject the process to what might be possible? Others are Joe is our guy.

We love him, we trust him. He has vision, knowledge, judgment, integrity. I trust his judgment on quote. I don't think you have to know Nancy Pelosi very well to know that much of that sounds like code. I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? If there were anything she could say that would do less to contain all of this, I am hard pressed to guess what it could be. She also talks about subjecting the nominating process to what might

be possible. And we have Jim Clyburn, one of Biden's oldest and most loyal supporters, saying he quote will support Kamala Harris if Biden steps aside. The Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett has explicitly today called for Biden to step aside.

Says that as the debate, instead of reassuring voters, the president failed to effectively defend as many accomplishments and expose Trump's many lies, and he should step away and to add insult to last week's injury to democracy at his hands, CNN Jake Tapper reported then partially retracted and changed a story about a teleconference among Democratic governors Monday led by

Minnesota Tim Walls to discuss the ticket. He says, the unnamed governors, we don't even know how many of them there were were surprised to learn that the President had spoken to none of them. Yet there now will be some kind of meeting with the governors and the White House, presumably with the President tomorrow and the last thrust of

history's dagger. Experts at the Campaign Legal Center are telling the website The American Prospect that if Biden does withdraw, then there is only one way for the new nominee and the Democratic Party to smoothly spend all the money that has been raised by the Biden for President campaign committee, and as of May thirty one, that was two hundred and twenty million dollars, another thirty three million raised since

the debate, probably much more in the coffers. The only way that committee could seamlessly spend all that money without restrictions, without firewalls, without labyrinths, spend it on the new candidate

is if the new candidate is Vice President Harris. As to the other thing I suggested about Biden possibly actually leaving office, that is a pure hunch on my part, built out of several ideas, primarily the one that if the President were to agree or be convinced that he has to bow out of the ticket now that he would also see the almost priceless value of immediately attaching

the title of the incumbent to Kamala Harris's name. Running as the president instead of as the vice president, Kamala Harris's support would necessarily rise by how much is entirely speculative? How much does it need to be? Obviously I said here in the latest full podcast on Tuesday morning. It is also inarguable that if the president has to drop out because he is not up to discharging the office six months and eighteen days from now, he's probably not

up to discharging the office right now either. The argument for not resigning but leaving the ticket is more ethereal more philosophical. Could Joe Biden staying in office while withdrawing from the ticket ennoble this process. Here is the man giving up the most powerful position in the world, the man who beat Trump, giving up the office he spent his entire life trying to reach, and giving it up

solely to ensure that America beats Trump again. And here standing beside him is the public servant, the vice president, who he has selected and who he now endorses. Is that worth her not being the incumbent in November again? There is plenty of new material on the table to sift through. Nothing has happened. I don't believe anything will happen imminently. I'm just saying the vibe changed. My vibe changed.

I'll be back with the regular edition of the podcast late Tuesday night early Wednesday morning to assess the new material on the table and what could be new developments in the rest of the day. And again my caveat, this is an assessment. This is the kind of recalculation you go through in your head as you judge anything that has one hundred factors in it, or you look at a patient or a job and say, I don't think this is going to last much longer. There is

no source reporting behind what I am saying. I take no pride whatsoever in saying any of it. I just think that while it is my job here to express opinions and try to influence events, as unlikely as that really is, my primary purpose is to tell you what is fact, what I have heard, and just as importantly, what my assessment of all these facts and hearings is. And my assessment is Joe Biden will leave the ticket,

presumably not imminently. Let me close with the perfect phrasing, but exactly what I feel is going on today, and it is from my friend for more than half a century, from the days when I was the editor in chief and he was my ace news reporter on our high school newspaper, Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer. It does feel, Will says, like an energy shift in the force. This has been a countdown bulletin podcast. I'm Keith Olrumantown with

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