Former US President Joe Biden, his sister Valerie Biden, and his son Hunter Biden exit the White House on July 26, 2024. Photo / Demetrius Freeman, The Washington Post
Former United States Vice-President Kamala Harris is promoting a book about her losing 2024 presidential campaign, leaving the door open to another White House bid in 2028 and building a group that would enable her to hit the trail for fellow Democrats in the Midterms.
Former President Joe Biden is set to deliver a speech in Chicago today as campaign books, congressional hearings, and occasional sparring with President Donald Trump have kept his tenure and questions about his health and acuity in the White House in the news.
And his son Hunter Biden has been settling scores on podcasts, lashing out at political consultants, influencers and actor George Clooney for criticising his father - to the dismay of Democrats who believe the younger Biden’s legal troubles hurt them in 2024.
Democrats are eager to turn the page on their 2024 losses - but their central figures from the last election keep stepping back into the spotlight, complicating their efforts to forge a new identity.
Many in the party are wary of elevating the people who led them to defeat in 2024 and exasperated to see the drama of that election repeatedly relitigated when they want to keep the focus on pushing back against Trump’s second-term agenda and identifying new leaders.
“The shadow of 2024 is long, and I think all perspectives in the mix believe we need something fresh,” said longtime Democratic consultant Donna Bojarsky.
Many Democrats do not blame Harris for what went wrong in the last cycle, she said, “But nobody’s saying, let’s go back to 2024”.
Plenty of other Democrats are building their profiles and making moves to lead the party forward.
Governors such as Andy Beshear of Kentucky and JB Pritzker of Illinois and members of Congress such as Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego are taking their pitches around the country in early jockeying for 2028.
A little-known state lawmaker, Zohran Mamdani, has emerged as a prominent new voice for the left after winning an upset victory in the New York City mayoral primary.
Biden’s decision to run again in 2024 at age 81 has hung over Democrats even as he has kept a relatively low profile, appearing periodically in public settings.
Books scrutinising the election have brought bursts of new attention to Biden’s physical and mental state in office, with one casting the former President’s choice to seek re-election as the Democratic Party’s “Original Sin”.
Potential 2028 presidential candidates continue to face questions about Biden and whether Democrats were wrong to downplay his age.
The 2028 hopefuls need to tackle those questions honestly or risk compromising their credibility, said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic group Third Way.
“If you say anything other than the guy was not up to the task of running again, and our party made a mistake in not making that clear … voters are going to think you’re lying,” he said.
And “no one needs to hear from Hunter Biden”, Bennett added. “Literally no one.”
A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment on his post-presidency and other Democrats’ desire to move on from their 2024 ticket. A representative for Harris did not respond to requests for comment.
Biden has rejected claims he experienced mental decline in office: “They are wrong,” Biden responded on The View this spring. “There is nothing to sustain that.”
After announcing yesterday that she would forgo a campaign for governor in her home state of California, Harris revealed on social media today that she is publishing a book - 107 Days - on September 23 that will give a “behind-the-scenes look” at her experience “leading the shortest presidential campaign in modern history”.
Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket after a disastrous debate against Trump in which Biden repeatedly appeared to lose his train of thought.
Harris will also appear on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert today to give her first interview since the election.
She plans to dive into the 2026 Midterm elections and travel the country to campaign on behalf of Democrats in tough races as she shapes a political organisation of her own, according to aides and confidants familiar with her plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss projects that are still in formation.
Though some Democratic strategists and candidates are eager for Harris to help them in Midterms, there is more scepticism about her running for the White House again in 2028 - an option she has not ruled out.
“I think most Americans are grateful for the service and contributions of the last generation of officeholders,” said Cooper Teboe, a Silicon Valley-based Democratic strategist.
“But 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.”
Harris did well with the voters whom the party needs to turn out in 2026, when highly engaged supporters could play an outsize role, some strategists said, and she would be a formidable candidate in 2028 with high name recognition.
However another White House run would also mean dealing with uncomfortable questions about 2024.
Republicans said they were also happy for Harris to hit the trail. “In fact, we’d offer to pay for her plane ticket to any swing district in the country,” said Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for House Republicans’ campaign arm.
Biden is set to speak at a closing gala for the National Bar Association’s convention in Chicago, where, a spokesperson said, he will discuss “the cause of justice in America” before the group of mostly black judges and lawyers.
The former President has occasionally emerged to give interviews defending his pardons and his decision to run again.
Former Biden aides argued the ex-President would not be a focal point for voters at election time and that it was important for the ex-president to push back publicly on certain attacks, such as Republicans’ claims that he was not in control of clemency decisions because they were signed with an autopen.
“[In] 2026 voters will be outraged that Republicans are raising the costs they promised to lower … not focused on honourable people,” said Andrew Bates, a former Biden spokesperson.
Democratic strategist Steve Schale said he was concerned earlier in the year about Biden’s appearances “trying to relitigate his presidency”. Now he thinks Biden has pulled back: “Him going and giving a speech at the bar association, I don’t have a problem with that”.
But other events have kept Biden in the news. Republicans, who control Congress, have been calling Biden aides to testify about their ex-boss’s fitness for office.
The Democratic National Committee is working on an election after-action report that has been criticised by some party insiders because it is not expected to delve into Biden’s decision to drop out as he faced persistent concerns from voters about what they perceived as his cognitive decline.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin has also drawn criticism for deciding that the after-action report would not examine whether Democrats could have been more successful if they had held an open process to determine Biden’s successor as the nominee after he announced that he was abandoning his quest for the nomination in the summer of 2024.
Martin said in an interview yesterday that he believed there was little that the party could learn from those two decisions - circumstances that were unique to the 2024 cycle and are unlikely to occur again.
“Do I have a time machine? No. So what good does it serve me or anyone of answering the question, should Joe Biden have stepped down? Can’t change it,” Martin said.
“I’m not trying to protect anyone. I’m trying to save us spending a lot of time and energy on a question that really doesn’t help me win elections.”
But Martin sought to clear up what he said was a misperception that the after-action report will not look into Democrats’ spending decisions and tactics - including how billions of dollars were spent by outside groups and why that effort was unsuccessful in helping Harris win.
“We have to look at everything. The campaign is on the table; the parties are on the table - everything,” Martin said.
Schale, the Democratic strategist, said the resurfacing of 2024 drama is unavoidable and compared the moment to the aftermath of John Kerry’s loss in 2004. “Things were pretty rudderless for a while,” he said. Then Barack Obama emerged.
“I don’t think there’s a lot we can do to turn the page until we have a fight over who gets to turn the page,” he said. “And that will be the 2028 primary fight.”