Tim Alberta“Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race this afternoon – his surrogates had insisted hours earlier that he was still running – is the culmination of a stunning pressure campaign launched after his disastrous June 27 debate defeat and aimed at forcing the president into retirement. On the Republican side, it marks the culmination of a frenzied four months in which the Trump campaign went from being overconfident about Biden’s shortcomings to fearing his ouster, to being stunned by a letter he suddenly wrote that Republicans thought he would never do.”
“Some of the Republicans I spoke to today were still hungover from what felt like victory night celebrations in Milwaukee, and the news of Biden’s withdrawal came as a shock to them. Party leaders had left town believing the race was all but over. Now they are faced with the reality of rebuilding a campaign that was optimized in every way to beat Biden, against a new and unknown challenger…”
“In talking with Wiles and LaCivita for months, I was struck by how worried they were about the possibility of a dramatic change — that Democratic leaders might oust Biden and nominate a younger candidate. They told me the Trump campaign was preparing contingency plans and studying the weaknesses of alternative candidates, including Vice President Kamala Harris. But by the time of the debate, they believed the Democrats’ chances were all but closed.”
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