The 24 Seven: Known Unknowns Edition
24sight News’ daily newsletter highlighting the most important story shaping the race for the White House
1. The Race Right Now
The polls say that if the election were held today, former president Donald Trump would win – with a high degree of confidence, plus-minus a few percentage points, regardless of the historic margins of error. (Read 538’s aggregate here.)
The race for the White House is still heavily focused on whether President Joe Biden will remain the Democratic nominee, following a bruising debate performance a week and a half ago. But the race is also refocusing on Trump and what he would do if he wins, with that focus sharpened first by the Supreme Court granting expansive new powers to the office of the president and a new focus on Trump’s proposed policies. (More on that in the following item).
Calling this race unprecedented, with the criminal cases, a landmark Supreme Court interpretation of presidential power and the heightened concerns about Biden, feels like it would be understating the case.
But America has been through a lot (a couple of World Wars, one Civil War, a Revolution, to name a few events) and pushed through elections in spite of the chaos and uncertainty.
With the prospect of Biden being replaced still looming – he’s stuck to his stance that no way is he leaving the race – Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin offered some historical context on what could happen on CBS’ “Sunday Morning.”
On the one hand, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who Biden often cites as his ideological forebear, was attacked by his Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, as being too old and frail to continue as president in the 1944 race. He won re-election, then died a few months later, leaving the reins to Harry Truman.
The second example DKG cites is Lyndon Baines Johnson, who withdrew himself from consideration for the Democratic nomination in March 1968, amid the downward spiraling of the Vietnam War. The Democrats selected Hubert Humphrey to replace LBJ, and with a strong 3rd-party run by segregationist George Wallace, lost to Richard Nixon.
2. Project 2025/GOP Platform
The Republican Party’s platform is done and, according to the copy sent by the Trump campaign, which controls the official party apparatus, looks and reads a lot like Project 2025, Trump’s campaign speeches and other policy pronouncements made throughout the campaign (despite protests by Trump’s team that said policy proposals were not official.)
After Project 2025, a detailed policy plan put together by Trump’s top advisers and allies stormed into the mainstream over the last few weeks, Trump roundly denied he has anything to do with it. This despite his top advisers and allies crafting that very plan.
3. Not going anywhere
Congress returns this week after a July 4th recess which didn’t feel very much like a break.
The one-two punch of President Joe Biden’s lackluster debate performance a few weeks back followed by his ho-hum interview with ABC News last Friday has left Democratic leaders reeling as calls to force him out of the 2024 race pile on from nervous lawmakers who no longer feel he can win in November.
But Biden has vowed to soldier on – no matter what.
“I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,” the defiant president warned his detractors in a letter released on Monday.
“The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it’s time for it to end,” Biden wrote.
In case you missed it, 24sight News friend Chris Cillizza
ticked through Biden’s call-in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning here.4. Time to go
Meanwhile, a group of Democratic activists who say Biden needs to bow out now for the good of the country have launched a pressure campaign dubbed Pass the Torch.
“President Biden has achieved great things. But Donald Trump is an existential threat, and we need the strongest possible ticket to maximize our chances of defeating him,” the organizers wrote of their mission.
Should Biden step aside to allow for a new Democratic nominee this year, the PTT crew pledges to rally around his replacement “whoever that is” – though the group praises “a vice president who made history once and could do it again” as well as “governors who’ve proven their ability to win critical swing states,” without naming any preferred standard bearers – and that they’ll give everything they’ve got to the revamped ticket.
“We are committed to making our biggest contributions yet of both money and time to support a new Democratic ticket,” the change seekers wrote.
5. NATO Concerns
With the member nations of NATO in Washington in town for the NATO summit, much of the race has turned to whether the U.S. will remain a dominant force on the world stage – and if longrunning alliances between the U.S. and others will change. Politico and the German news outlet Welt bring this deep dive into how European leaders are bracing for a possible Trump return.
Of note, 24sight friends at Global Situation Room have added longtime Democratic national security hawk Leon Panetta as co-host of their One Decision podcast. Panetta and the GSR team are taping their latest episode live at The Spy Museum with a focus on the future of NATO tonight.
6. Listening Tour
Britain’s leftwing coalition listened to voters’ concerns and it worked in returning the Labour Party, under Keir Starmer, to power. In the snap French election, the centrist and leftist parties did something truly diabolical to rig the election and yank the country away from the nationalist right: they banded together. Legislative seats are still being tallied, but the move seems to have denied the extreme right Marine Le Pen’s party control.
Meanwhile, as the Democratic Party’s centrist and leftist wings continue fracturing, the NeverTrump arm of America’s pro-democracy coalition seems to be gelling, with AT The Bulwark growing its roster and The Lincoln Project becoming more active – their latest attack on Trump foresees what a Trump dictatorship would look like.
7. Conventional Wisdom
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In the run-up to the Republican convention this week, we’ll be including this item, “Conventional Wisdom” in our daily newsletter.
The Trump campaign announced Monday its programming for next week and it sounds a lot like a cleaned-up version of Trump’s authoritarian-tinged 2016 acceptance speech, often referred to as “American Carnage”.
Like the campaign, but not Trump, the presentation of Trump’s nationalist populism has been cleaned up and distilled into four topics across four days: “Make America Wealthy Once Again”, “Make America Safe Once Again”, “Make America Strong Once Again”, “Make America Great Once Again”.