(The Center Square) – A presidential nominee has never before dropped out of a presidential race this close to an election, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said after twice predicting that President Joe Biden would drop out of the race.
On Sunday, a statement was posted on X with an electronic signature of President Joe Biden stating he was not running for reelection. He has not made a public appearance since, but is scheduled to Wednesday night.
The statement was posted 106 days before Election Day.
“It has never happened in the history of our nation that one of the two major nominees has dropped out anywhere close to the general election,” Cruz said on his podcast. “It’s never happened that 106 days out we have no idea for sure who the Democrat nominee will be. That is a big deal. That is terrifying for Democrats, but it is also exceptionally dangerous for Republicans.”
As of Tuesday morning, Vice President Kamala Harris had secured enough support among Democratic presidential delegates to secure the nomination if the delegates vote as they say they will.
Biden dropping out was “inevitable” after his disastrous June 27 presidential debate, Cruz said. But it “would have happened regardless” because he’d already lost the confidence of the American people.
In August 2023, an Associated Press poll found that 77% of likely voters “said Biden was too old to be effective for four more years,” including 89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats.
Since then, The Center Square Voter’s Voice Polls have shown declining confidence in the president on the economy, inflation, border security and others. One poll found 66% of Democrats would pick someone else as their nominee if given specific choices; another found 32% of Democrats would vote for a nominee 20-40 years younger. Others found 56% of voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, 65% say the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Over the last month, dozens of Democrats “lined up against Joe Biden,” Cruz said. “He did not go willingly.” Citing a list of Democrats who “came out against him” he said they did so “out of self-interest. Democrats in Congress were looking at their polls saying, ‘holy cow’ we’re about to lose and they all lined up against him.”
They include the actor, “George Clooney, representing Hollywood, abandoning him, … the corporate media uniformly pushing him out … and donors;” and “the pressure became too much to bear. … Biden didn’t have a choice.”
Cruz compared the current Democratic crisis to that of 1968 at the height the Vietnam War when public outrage escalated against President Lyndon B. Johnson. In March 1968, Johnson announced he wasn’t running for reelection, paving the way for Democrats to hold an open convention. The convention was held in August in Chicago as it is this year.
“Joe Biden will not be on the ballot – that has never happened before,” Cruz said. “The closest analog is the 1968 Democratic Convention, which was in Chicago as well. That is the last time you had an incumbent Democrat president” not run for reelection. LBJ didn’t run because “he lost the support of the American people,” Cruz said.
The 1968 election has been described by many as “incredibly contentious.” Democrat Robert F. Kennedy ran for president and won the California Democratic primary two months before the convention. He was assassinated in June and “was, for a period, the rising star” of the party, Cruz said.
In August, LBJ’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, won the party’s nomination. Meanwhile, a Democrat and pro-segregationist governor from Alabama, George Wallace, ran as an independent. In November, he won five southern states, pulling votes away from Humphrey, enabling Republican Richard Nixon to win the presidential election.
With “rabid protesters” creating chaos at the 1968 Democratic convention, “engaged in violence and rioting,” Cruz said. “I think we may literally be seeing history repeating itself.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said as much at a press conference. Like Wallace, the lifelong Democrat is running as an independent, 56 years after his father and Wallace ran for president. Like Wallace, Kennedy argues there’s no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties.
Drawing parallels to his father’s era, he said, “We’re living in a very dynamic situation now.
“It’s unprecedented in American history. In fact, the closest thing to this … is the 1968 primaries in which my father participated and was killed.
“The Democratic Convention this year is being held once again in Chicago. In 1968, the Democratic Party fixed that convention with [Chicago] Mayor [Richard J.] Daley basically anointing Hubert Humphrey, who was that DNC’s choice. There was chaos that erupted that destroyed the Democratic Party for a decade. I think we have a lot to learn from that history. I think Mark Twain said, ‘history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes’ and it’s really rhyming right now.”
