Residents, political analyst weigh in on President Biden's election dropout
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BATON ROUGE - Two Baton Rouge residents said they are relieved that President Joe Biden is ending his campaign for re-election and supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.
"I've been talking to a lot of friends and family. They said that they're not voting at all if Biden is on the ticket. Now I think this gives Democrats the opportunity to get out and vote," Tyler Legendre said.
"I think it's the right call. It seemed that the big focus of the campaign was going to be attacking Biden and his age. Now we can move on from that and have a campaign about issues, ideas and what's best for this country," Patrick Downs said.
Political analyst James Hartman says he is not shocked about the announcement and Harris is the obvious choice for a Democratic candidate. Hartman said the Biden-Harris campaign has amassed more than $240M in campaign funds, and that money cannot be transferred to any other candidate. He added that if a different candidate were to be nominated, it would alienate African-American and female voters.
"The biggest asset that she brings to this is what President Biden is lacking and that's youth and energy," Hartman said.
Although a Democratic nominee has not been chosen yet, Republicans in each state may sue other state officials to keep President Biden on the ballot.
"The Republicans were looking at easily beating President Biden in November. A few months ago, I would've told you that Biden had a chance at beating former President Trump. Then there was the debate, then there was the Stephanopoulos interview," Hartman said.
Hartman says that as long as the vice president presents herself well, she has plenty of time to improve her popularity among voters. Both Legendre and Downs say that they want quality candidates worth voting for.
"Eighty percent of voters said [Biden] was too old and he was unqualified to run and he listened. That's democracy," Legendre said.
"I just hope we have two really good choices for the office," Downs said.
The nominee will be announced at the Democratic National Convention that runs from Aug. 19 to Aug. 22.