US Politics
Democrats want to move on. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won’t let them
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
Read more
Donald Trump is President of the United States.
Republicans control all three branches of government.
Yet even as Democrats are trying to regroup and claw their way back in next year’s midterm congressional elections, the two people whom many of them blame for that state of affairs.
Former president and vice president, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, continue to dominate the Democratic spotlight — allowing Republicans to highlight their failures instead of letting their party move on and find a way to regain the support that was lost during their time in office.
Harris, who lost all seven of the contested swing states in 2024, recently announced an upcoming book that will focus on the 107-day campaign she waged against Trump after Biden withdrew from the race following his disastrous debate performance that June.
She also revealed that she won’t enter the upcoming race to succeed California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who must leave office in 2027 when his second four-year term ends, leaving open the possibility that she’ll enter what is expected to be a crowded primary race for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.
Biden, whose 11th-hour pardons of his family members and other political allies emboldened Trump to grant reprieves for the violent rioters who tried to prevent his 2020 loss from being certified, is still giving speeches in which he is attacking his predecessor-turned-successor, a stark contrast from how most former presidents have behaved after leaving office.
At one such appearance, an address to the National Bar Association in Chicago on Thursday, Biden accused the Trump administration of “doing its best to dismantle the Constitution,” giving right-wing media outlets plenty of fodder to use at a time when his party is trying to focus on the future and the current government’s policy problems.
And the president’s son, Hunter Biden, is doing his best to stay in the headlines with a series of podcast appearances in which he casts blame for his father’s exit from the race on a broad range of people — but not his father.
The former Democratic ticket’s refusal to fade away after a devastating electoral performance is ruffling feathers among party figures who are tasked with moving forward and figuring out how to escape from the wilderness in next year’s midterms.
A number of popular governors, including Illinois’ JB Prizker and Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, have been making the trek to early primary states with an eye towards 2028, and voters are increasingly eager to elect new faces rather than older establishment figures.
Donna Bojarsky, a Democratic consultant, told The Washington Post that “nobody” in the party is looking to go “back to 2024” as they look for a way forward against the Republicans.
“The shadow of 2024 is long, and I think all perspectives in the mix believe we need something fresh,” she said.
Another strategist Cooper Teboe, said the party’s current predicament stems from a sclerosis that has taken hold on account of incumbents refusing to relinquish power to the next generation.
“The core reason the Democratic Party is in the position it is in today is because no new figures, no new ideas, have been allowed to rise up and take hold,” he said.
But there is a group eager for Biden and Harris to remain part of the national conversation — Republicans.
One GOP consultant who spoke to The Independent said Hunter Biden’s recent profanity-laced podcast appearances and the former president’s speeches are just what they need to keep his failures in the public eye as his party tries to regain the trust of voters.
“Hunter Biden is just what Democrats need more of going into the midterms,” he said, more than a bit sarcastically.
