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According to CCTV News, on July 21 local time, US President Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election. Biden said he would fully support and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Biden said in a letter posted on his personal social media platform that day that he had intended to seek re-election, but in the best interests of the Democratic Party and the United States, he decided to withdraw from the presidential race and focus on completing his presidential duties during his term. Biden said he would explain the decision in detail to the country later this week.

The Associated Press analyzed that after Biden withdrew from the election, the Democratic Party must take urgent action to launch the nomination process in the next few weeks and convince voters in a "very short time" that Biden's successor has the ability to defeat Trump.

After Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, Sun Chenghao, an assistant researcher at the Center for Strategic and Security Studies at Tsinghua University, told The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) that after Biden fully supported Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, the Democratic Party would most likely put the overall situation first and support Harris to run for the Democratic Party. However, he also pointed out that with the assassination of Trump boosting the Republican election situation and Harris's qualifications and abilities being questioned by the outside world, the election situation may show a trend that is favorable to the Republican Party in the short term.

Biden endorses Harris, can she defeat Trump?

"It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president. Although I intend to run for re-election, I believe it is in the best interests of the Democratic Party and the country for me to withdraw from the presidential race and focus on performing my presidential duties for the remainder of my term," Biden said in an open letter on July 21.

Regarding Biden's decision to withdraw from the election, Sun Chenghao said that the Democrats, including Biden, should have evaluated the current election situation before making the decision to withdraw from the election. "The reason why Biden withdrew from the election is not only because of his age and health problems exposed in the debate with Trump. In my opinion, the more fundamental problem is that Biden has been lagging behind Trump in the national average polls and polls in key swing states since September last year. Of course, Biden has occasionally been ahead of Trump during this period. But in any case, Biden's advantage as the current president is obviously not reflected in the polls, which is also a core reason why Democrats have lost confidence in him." Sun Chenghao analyzed.

According to a previous report by POLITICO, a U.S. political news website, public and private polls show that Harris's poll data is slightly better than Biden's, and she has an advantage among black voters than other potential competitors in the party. Harris's supporters and allies believe that once she runs for the Democratic Party in the future, voter support for Harris will increase.

A new AP-NORC poll found that about 60% of Democratic voters believe Harris would do a good job as president, while about 20% do not believe she can do it and 20% say they "don't know enough." However, as for American voters in general, they are "skeptical" about Harris' performance as vice president. Overall, among such voters, only about 30% of respondents believe Harris is qualified for the presidency. About half say Harris is not qualified for the position, while 20% say they "don't know enough" about it.

"Harris is not like Biden, who has enough leadership to unite the party. Some people are skeptical about her leadership ability and believe that Harris does not have enough experience and achievements to serve as president. In addition, from Harris' overall resume, her performance as vice president was not very outstanding and she did not achieve satisfactory results. Looking back at the 2020 Democratic primary, Harris's performance was mediocre and she withdrew from the primary at an early stage, which is enough to show that her influence in the party is relatively limited." Sun Chenghao believes that as a minority female politician, Harris has a strong symbolic significance in terms of gender and ethnic identity. However, as a presidential candidate, she also has certain shortcomings, which is why many analysts were not optimistic about her before.

The Democratic Party still faces multiple challenges despite the change of leadership

Currently, former US President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have publicly expressed their support for Harris. In addition, although former House Speaker Pelosi expressed her approval of Biden's withdrawal from the election in her statement, she did not express her support for Harris. Previously, Pelosi had said that she was more inclined to start the public nomination process to select the Democratic candidate.

In addition, former US President Barack Obama said in a statement that he proposed an open primary election process to select candidates at the Democratic National Convention next month. "I am very confident that the leaders of the Democratic Party will be able to create an election process that selects outstanding candidates." It is worth mentioning that Obama did not mention Harris in his statement.

As of 0:00 Eastern Time on July 19, at least 20 Democratic congressmen, 2 Democratic senators, and party fundraisers have publicly called on Biden to withdraw from the election, and the attitudes of party leaders have also changed.

Sun Chenghao believes that if the Democratic Party fails to reach a consensus on the successor in the short term, voters who support the party may question the stability of the Democratic Party, and this weakness may be exploited by the Republican Party. "Trump himself and his supporters will definitely attack the current situation of the Democratic Party's 'disorganization', coupled with the previous shooting incident, these factors are favorable to Trump's election in the short term. During the transition or adjustment period when the Democratic Party finalizes the candidate, Trump's election situation is likely to continue to rise." Sun Chenghao analyzed.

After Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race, several Republicans, including Trump, immediately began publicly calling for Biden to resign from the presidency immediately.

Trump wrote on his social platform Truth Social: "Biden only got the presidency by lies, fake news and not leaving the basement. Everyone around him, including his doctors and the media, knows that he is not capable of being president, and he really is not." House Speaker Mike Johnson said: "If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to be president, and Biden must resign immediately."

Meanwhile, Trump's main political action committee, Make America Great Again, has prepared an ad attacking Harris. An official said they are working to air the ad on major media platforms in Pennsylvania, Georgia and other regions. The ad claims that Harris "is involved in covering up Biden's mental decline."

Sun Chenghao believes that after the Democratic Party "changes its leaders", it may become a huge challenge for the successor or the Democratic Party to choose a better strategy to face Trump head-on and prepare for the second presidential debate that may be held in September.

"The first challenge is whether Harris is able to quickly establish her prestige and recognition within the party and among voters. The second challenge is whether the Democratic Party can have a better strategy to attack Trump after the 'change of leadership'. It is worth noting that the Democratic Party fiercely criticized Trump during the campaign, accusing him of being a 'criminal' and of 'undermining democracy'. However, after the assassination, Republicans believed that such criticism was the primary cause of the assassination, which also largely prevented the Democratic Party's campaign approach from continuing to be effective in the short term."