Biden was a drag to the Democrats, but might Kamala Harris be even worse?

If this isn’t a contradiction, the news that Joe Biden is pulling out is simultaneously shocking, but not in the least surprising. America seems to specialise in this.

But reading through his letter announcing that he is leaving November’s presidential race – a decision that had been forced on him by the money drying up, the poll numbers tanking and the questions about his health mounting – it is what you would expect: a long list of his achievements, that he couldn’t have done it without the American people and the support of those around him.

There was praise for his veep, Kamala Harris – but there was one sentence conspicuously absent. I reread the letter twice to check. There was no endorsement of her to be his successor. Nothing.

And given how much focus there would have been on this most salient point, and how many drafts the letter would have gone through before being released, it was notable. And here’s the problem.

The reservations about Kamala Harris run deep – and not just among Republicans. Very recently I was with a senior US diplomat and I asked how Kamala Harris was doing as vice president. The response was telling: ‘Oh, she’s doing a little better, you know.’ If the phrase damning with faint phrase means anything…

Biden quickly followed up his initial letter with a statement saying he fully backs Kamala to succeed him, and that he wants her to be the Democratic Party’s nominee. I think a lot of the big guns will follow on his lead.

The problem for the party at this agonising moment is there are probably better candidates – most notably the governors of California and Michigan, Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer respectively – but to get from Biden stepping down to one of those winning the nomination would