A summer to remember: Political experts unpack Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race and its effects on young voters

Summer 2024 may very well go down in history.

Though political tensions were rising throughout the season, three historic events — the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris being the first woman-of-color U.S. presidential nominee — occurred in the span of nearly one month, potentially sending ripples throughout American politics for decades to come.

Ohio State professors provide an analysis of each of these political happenings, offering their perspectives on how such consequential events may resonate with college-aged voters, affect their voting habits and even leave a lasting mark on their political outlooks.

After weeks of speculation and controversy, President Biden officially withdrew from the 2024 presidential race via a letter posted on his X — formerly known as Twitter — account July 21.

The decision came after “ leading members of the Democratic Party raised alarm over Biden’s performance against former President Donald Trump at the June 27 presidential debate, his ability to win the election and his impact on the ranks of Democrats in Congress,” according to previous Lantern reporting .

When analyzing the current impacts of Biden’s withdrawal, Wendy Smooth — an Ohio State professor in the Department of Political Science, Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and the John Glenn School of Public Affairs — and David Steigerwald — an Ohio State professor in the Department of History — said historical precedent is key.

Specifically, Steigerwald cited Lyndon B. Johnson as an instance of the Democratic Party choosing its nominee at the Democratic National Convention in 1964, and said Vice President Kamala Harris’ nomination to the ticket shortly after Biden stepped down is, by comparison, “not late.”

As the end of Johnson’s first presidential term approached in 1968, the former president anticipated receiving the Democratic Party’s nomination a second time, according to the Bill of Rights Institute . However, after then-senator Eugene McCarthy nearly beat Johnson in the first presidential primary and, shortly after, then-senator Robert F. Kennedy announced his bid for the Democratic nomination, Johnson announced March 31, 1968 that he would not be seeking the party’s nomination anymore.

Smooth said though Johnson hadn’t gone through the Democratic primaries before his withdrawal as Biden did, this piece of history can be considered representative of how the Democratic Party selects its nominees.

According to the U.S. News and World Report , a Democratic candidate needs to have the support of more than 1,990 delegates to win the nomination. Though the delegates themselves are distributed during primaries and caucuses, the nominee is formally selected at the Democratic National Convention.

The Associated Press reported Aug. 6 that Harris had received support from enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee after the party conducted a virtual roll call, with results confirming Harris had the backing of 4,563 delegates.

Steigerwald said the controversy surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and Harris’ nomination was “really badly informed, especially by people who know better.” In response to claims made that this process was unconstitutional, Steigerwald said such comments are rooted in ignorance.

“The Constitution says nothing about political parties,” Steigerwald said. “In fact, the framers loathed the idea of political parties, and so there’s nothing in the Constitution about it. The political parties are technically private corporations that make up their own rules. They’re governed by a web and a network of federal election law, but that’s really it.”

Christopher McKnight Nichols — the Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, as well as a professor in the Department of History — agreed.

“In actuality the U.S. Constitution includes no provisions and regulations whatsoever for nominating presidential candidates nor any prescriptions for how parties or primaries should function,” Nichols said in an email. “That is because, the framers did not expect the development of political parties​, nor did they envision delegates, primaries, or a system for selecting candidates that might or might not include average voters.”

For voters who may not be as familiar with party-nomination processes, such as college-aged individuals, Smooth said it’s crucial to navigate trustworthy news sources and obtain information from multiple platforms.

“In honesty, I had to — as a political scientist for a lot of years — go back into the kind of textbooks to think about, ‘Wow, what is the nomination process for each of the parties? And how do they make the rules for each presidential cycle?’” Smooth said. “That’s a lot of nuance, and I don’t expect everyone — like I said, I’m a wonk — to do that, but when things come up in your news feed that make you raise your eyebrows, pursue it and don’t just consume it.”

Nichols agreed.

“I would hope all voters would look into such claims and see them as the false propaganda that they are or even use this as a moment to learn about some of the flaws in the current elections system, some of which go back to the founding era,” Nichols said.

Despite political contention circulating as these processes unfolded, Thomas Nelson — an Ohio State professor in the Department of Political Science with research expertise in political psychology and American politics — said he thinks Harris’ nomination has resulted in more enthusiasm within the Democratic Party than it has skepticism or distrust.

“There was a lot of talk in the news about — I don’t know if they used the word ‘malaise,’ but — a kind of a resignation among Democrats,” Nelson said. “I think a lot of Democrats just thought, ‘Yeah, I’m going to vote for [Biden], but I don’t think he’s going to win.’ So for all the appearance of chaos and turmoil — and it wasn’t just the appearance, right, there was genuine chaos and turmoil — I think most Democrats are pretty happy with the way things turned out.”