By SHANNON O. WELLS

Like many who took in President Joe Biden’s shaky performance in the June 27 debate with Donald Trump, Chris Bonneau knew something fundamental would have to change if the Democratic party was to be a true contender in the 2024 campaign against the former president.

“The one thing that is not going to change is the march toward death,” the Pitt professor of political science said of the 81-year-old Biden and his halting, uncertain demeanor during the televised debate. “And so we have no reason to think there are more good days than bad days ahead, after seeing what we saw.”

In the weeks that followed, Bonneau admitted wondering why Biden stood firm as long as he did before conceding it was time to pass the torch to a younger candidate. Biden subsequently endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, who was officially chosen by party delegates during the Democratic National Convention held the week of Aug. 20.

“I was a little surprised he waited so long,” Bonneau said. “Looking back, it made a lot of sense: Let the Republicans nominate their VP. Let them have their thing where all they do is rip Joe Biden. Then Joe Biden says, ‘I’m done,’ and one, you’ve stomped on their convention. You’ve taken away any bump they get, and you’ve insulated Harris from being insulted for four days on the stage. So actually, the timing was quite brilliant.”

Bonneau, immediate past president of the University Senate, shared his perspectives on the already history-making 2024 presidential campaign. So far, it’s produced an assassination attempt, a dropout of the incumbent president, who immediately endorsed his vice president, who happens to be a Black woman and former prosecutor.

A Harris win on Nov. 5, therefore, would make history. Even for a veteran political science professor like Bonneau, who has seen his share of weird election cycles, this one’s been a head-scratcher. But while this roller coaster summer has been manna for the news media, Bonneau wouldn’t mind a touch of normalcy.

“I think I would have preferred Biden to announce he wasn’t running and then have an open primary,” he said.

The support and momentum Biden saw in in 2020 in his first matchup with Trump was somewhat conditional.

“People voted for Biden because they wanted to stop Trump. And that worked,” Bonneau said. “I don’t think anybody was excited for Biden to run again. At the time it was widely assumed that he was only gonna be a transitional president, a one-term thing.”

Then, when he announced a second run, “there was something like 75% of the American public that did not want to see this rematch. And that’s what we were getting, which is interesting now, (when) there’s only one party giving them the same candidate. It’s not Democrats, right? And all of a sudden, it’s Trump who’s kind of stale, as opposed to Biden, because Biden’s now out.”

An amazing contrast

Although Bonneau said he can’t assess if Harris — who ran for president in 2020 — is the absolute best candidate under the circumstances, he acknowledges she “is the candidate that we have, and she is eminently qualified.”

And unlike her failed 2020 presidential bid, he noted, the energy and momentum feel different this time.

“I’m not sure what her political instincts are, but I think she’s run an absolutely flawless campaign: The energy, the enthusiasm, the positivity. It’s just a sharp contrast, where you see (Harris) out there having fun, smiling and interacting with people. And you see Trump telling everybody, you know, ‘Everything is s**t.’ It’s just … an amazing contrast.”

Trump’s and running mate J.D. Vance’s campaign angle, that the American people are suffering deeply under a failed Biden administration and only they can fix it, Bonneau said, now falls rather flat compared to the effervescence of the Harris campaign, which now includes Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

“When people are down on their luck, what they don’t want to hear is how down on their luck they are,” he said, paraphrasing GOP political consultant Mike Murphy. “They want hope. They want optimism …

“If people are miserable, they don’t necessarily want someone in office who’s more miserable than them. Because what’s that gonna get them? Just more misery.”

And despite the perception by some — including the Trump campaign — that Harris was forced onto the ticket at least partly because of few viable Democratic Party alternatives emerging, Bonneau said an open primary would’ve told a different story. 

“I don’t think it’s right to look at how the candidates emerged here and say that there’s a dearth of candidates. The Democratic bench is young and deep,” he said, noting that an open primary would’ve likely seen high-profile candidates including governors Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan), Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania) and Andy Beshear (Kentucky), and Sen. Cory Booker (New Jersey), among others. “There are a host of amazing candidates that are gonna be around for the next 15 to 20 years.

“I think you have a lot of energy, a lot of younger Democrats who are in this for the long haul,” he added. “Just because they all said they weren’t going to challenge Harris in the short-term window I don’t think means that there’s a lack of candidates coming forward.”

Willing fighters

Bonneau admitted he was “biased” in his appreciation of Shapiro — who reportedly was on Harris’ short list of vice presidential running mates — and praised him as having “an incredible upside (who is) able to reach across the aisle.”

That said, he’s OK with Tim Walz ultimately getting the nod.

“I think Walz is fine. He’s funny, he’s affable, he’ll be a pit bull,” Bonneau said. “The interesting thing about him is no one had ever heard of him until he started going on the (news talk) shows defending Harris and everything else. Essentially, he kind of auditioned for the job. But so far, I’ve liked what I’ve seen. … He complements her. I think it was a good pick.”

Bonneau said he’s less certain about Trump’s choice of J.D. Vance, a junior U.S. Senator representing Ohio, and author.

“If anything, (Trump’s) getting somebody who’s willing to be a fighter, who’s willing to mix it up, who’s willing to be bombastic, who’s willing to engage in insults and so on,” he said. “I don’t think he’s gaining anything politically from that. But the public generally doesn’t vote for vice presidents anyway.”

Vance, he added, is particularly difficult to pin down or pigeonhole.

“You could tell 10 different stories about him and have evidence, based on things he said, and they’d be true,” he said. “That’s he’s a compassionate conservative, that he actually cares about the downtrodden. Or that he, you know, hates poor people. I mean, you have all these different things, right?”

Close call coming up

The Trump-era trend of frequently denying things they said despite written and recorded evidence to the contrary, Bonneau noted, also makes it difficult to objectively assess what the Trump-Vance ticket truly stands for.

“It’s hard to attack them or criticize them, because they just change their mind about saying stuff. Like, ‘What did you mean by that?’ ‘Well, I didn’t say that.’ Yeah, you did.”

“I mean, that’s hard, right? … Most of us have a desire to be consistent. We have a desire to organize our lives in a logically consistent manner. If you don’t have that,” Bonneau asked, “how do you deal with those people?

Noting the broad gulf between Biden touting positive economic statistics and average consumers worn down by inflated grocery and goods prices, Bonneau said the president made a tactical mistake in not acknowledging that palpable pain.

“One of the things you’ve learned, when you’ve been married or in a long-term relationship, is you can’t tell people how they should be feeling,” he said. “If people feel the economy (is challenging), we have to empathize. You have to acknowledge and then you have to work. And (Biden) was just like, ‘Well, no, the economy’s fine.’ ”

When it comes down to it, Bonneau concluded, the approximately 7 million more votes that Biden received than Trump in the 2020 general election are less important than the public’s overall interest and engagement.

“I think the question was never between Trump and Biden. It was between Trump and the couch,” he observed. “Trump doesn’t have to win 7 million more votes. Trump has to get that many people to stay at home. And Biden made that easy to do. Harris is going to make that hard.

“It’s a closely divided country,” he added. “It’s gonna be a close election. Very few presidential elections are blowouts.”

Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.

Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.

Follow the University Times on Twitter and Facebook.