Coming off the heels of President Joe Biden’s historic announcement that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsing his running mate, The Durango Herald asked La Plata County residents: “How do you feel about President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris potentially becoming the Democratic nominee.”
Residents had mixed opinions about whether the announcement would help or hurt the Democrats’ chances of winning come November. They also questioned the enduring usefulness of the two-party system and how the decision will affect Biden’s legacy in the history books.
Here are their answers:
“I think they’re both awful. I think Trump’s awful, I think the state of American politics is just beyond salvageable. Harris running is going to make sure Trump’s a winner. Harris is very inexperienced, she doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials. I just don’t think she’s up to the task. There were a lot of people who were on the fence that are going to now vote for Trump because Harris isn’t qualified. And just so you know, I’m a Nikki Haley fan.”
“I think it’s what was required for us to move forward and have Donald Trump not be president. Biden was just getting too old and we need some younger people in there. Trump’s too old himself. I’m not sure if she’s strongest, but I don’t know what else they could do at this point in time.”
“I feel positive. I would have voted for Biden, but I definitely feel he’s declined in the past year. A lot of people say, ‘How come you now like Harris? You never see her?’ Well, if you don’t follow her you’re not on that algorithm, but she’s everywhere. She’s out talking to people, meeting people. She’s met world leaders. I feel really strongly that she does have a presence even if the ‘right’ obviously doesn’t follow her. I heard this morning that she already raised $50 million after Biden endorsed her, and we were behind after Trump’s assassination attempt, so that’s positive. But I think her VP pick will be crucial, and because there’s still misogyny in this country, I do feel like she should pick a man.”
“Well, I’m kind of sorry because Harris probably has a chance now against Trump and I was hoping that Biden would stay in and then lose. I’ve lived in this country for 40 years, I went through the Reagan era, great prosperity, etc., then I went through Clinton and Obama and I see this country increasingly have problems, inflation, internationally, etc. Then when Trump came in, this country was doing great.”
William Bridges, 21, Durango
“It’s kind of just like another day for me. It’s just Monday. There are a lot of challenges the Democrats still have to face, like not going through the nomination process democratically and having a cherry-picked candidate. But I think anyone who voted for Biden in 2020 probably thought that Kamala might get the presidency because Biden was old as (crap). I’m more of a leftist of the political spectrum so I think the current American two-party system doesn’t favor the American people.”
“I think it was time for Biden to step down, so I think he’s doing the right thing but I’m a little bit weary. I like Kamala Harris but I don't know if she's done anything that shows us she’s presidential yet. We certainly haven’t heard much about what she’s done as vice president. I’m also not happy with what’s going on with the border. I’m still waiting to see if they put up some other candidates to compete with her. I do like her, but I’m not sure if she’s the one that’s going to take us where we need to be as a country. I’m unaffiliated, so I don’t vote straight Democrat, but I definitely can’t vote for Trump based on what I’ve seen so far, and Project 2025 is terrifying.”
“We kind of saw it coming with all his stumbling around; seems like he’s close to senile anyway. I don’t think having Kamala Harris run could hurt (the Democrats) chances but it seems like they’re both different sides of the same coin. All the Democrats love women so I’m sure they’re going to eat that up, but I don’t know if everybody’s ready yet. I also don’t necessarily think it has to be a man or a woman, it should be whether they’re the right person for our country. It would be nice to have a woman but whether that should be Harris is hard to say considering how hard she was on crime in the beginning of her career and how hard she was on people.”
“I’ve never met either personally, so I can only really conjecture based off what I’m shown by the media. But you can just see how they’re watering things down more and more, like look at Disney, with all the diverse characters now and everything like that at the cost of actual storytelling. It’s also taking place in politics, and Kamala Harris is the best example of that. It doesn’t need to be said but obviously this isn’t working, the two-party system is insane. It’s completely useless. Well, it’s not useless unless you want to create division and establish a culture of division like we have now.”
“I feel like it’s kind of scary that it’s this close to the election. Maybe it will be hard for people to rally around her in the four short months that are left. I feel like Biden has honestly done a good job and she’s (Harris) been there alongside him but it’s just shaking things up too much with so little time left. ”
“I think it was the right thing to do. As far as Harris coming in as the new nominee, well, nobody knows anything about her. She’s been in for four years and I’ve only heard her name a few times. One thing I do know about her is that she was in charge of the border wall and she did nothing, she didn’t even go down there. (Fact check: Harris visited the border in June 2021.) Hardcore Democrats are going to vote for her no matter what. But people on the fence? They don’t know enough about her and Trump gave such a great speech at the convention that I think was enough to swing people. Harris really could have been something. She was their (the Democrats) next superstar, but they didn’t groom her. These last four years they didn’t do anything with her.”
