On June 27th, 2024, America saw during the Biden-Trump debate an “emperor has no clothes” scenario. Biden’s terrible state in that debate was something that even his staunchest of supporters in the media could not explain away or spin. The game was up, the truth was before everyone’s eyes. With the money for the Democrats threatening to dry up if Biden stayed on and after publicly denying he was dropping out, he dropped out on Sunday. While dramatic, this event is not unprecedented, and the president who dropped had won his term by a far greater margin than Biden had in 2020.
The 1964 election brought a sweeping victory to President Lyndon B. Johnson, with Goldwater only winning Arizona and the Deep South. This, plus a staunchly liberal Congress that came with it, resulted in the most activist liberal Congress since the days of FDR. This Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 among other sweeping measures. However, with a profoundly productive Congress came a backlash to the policies of the Johnson Administration, a slowing economy, and adding fuel to the fire were numerous “ghetto riots”. The Great Society backlash of 1966 was a portend of trouble for Johnson. Presidents have come back from bad midterms before (Truman, Clinton, Obama), and since Johnson had not served a full two terms, he was Constitutionally allowed to run again in 1968. The greatest trouble he was having, however, was with his own party’s base over the Vietnam War, and Johnson needed to first be renominated. In 1967, liberal activists Allard Lowenstein and Curtis Gans started the “Dump Johnson” movement over the Vietnam War. Lowenstein visited several prospective Democrats to try and talk them into the race, including Senators Bobby Kennedy of New York and George McGovern of South Dakota. However, the first person he was able to recruit into the race was Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.) (Britannica). At first, he seemed like a candidate with a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Johnson, but youthful enthusiasm was with him. Many college students volunteered for McCarthy’s campaign and campaigned throughout New Hampshire for him. LBJ was expected to win the New Hampshire primary through write-in votes as he hadn’t filed, and did on March 12th. However, he only did so with 48% as opposed to 42% for McCarthy. This elevated McCarthy from a lesser challenger to a greater challenger. Johnson’s deteriorating political position wasn’t the only thing on his mind. Another factor Johnson considered was his health, as he had believed for some time that his death was not far off. In 1967, Johnson secretly had a study done into his life expectancy based on the males in his bloodline, and predicted that based on his heart issues and the history of the Johnson men that he would die at the age of sixty-four, a prophecy that came true (Janos). My how times have changed!
On March 31, 1968, Johnson announced that he would “neither seek nor accept” the Democratic nomination (Glass). The New Hampshire primary showed both Johnson and the public the sorry state his presidency was now in. Unfortunately for McCarthy, this gave bigger figures in the Democratic Party the permission they needed to enter the race, with Bobby Kennedy and Vice President Hubert Humphrey both entering the primary. Kennedy was largely considered the favorite, but was tragically assassinated after winning the California Democratic primary. Thus, the path was open for Vice President Hubert Humphrey to clinch the nomination in the disastrous and chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention. He would narrowly lose that year to Richard Nixon, but the race would likely have been worse for Humphrey had George Wallace not been in the race to grab up most of the Deep South states. This event in itself actually seems less dramatic than Biden’s dropping out for a number of reasons. First, the timing. March 31st was early enough for Democratic candidates to fully form campaigns and participate in major primaries. Second, the election is less than four months away with Biden’s departure. Third, the event that took Biden down was so much more revelatory and dramatic than Johnson winning by considerably less than expected in the earliest primary.
References
Allard K. Lowenstein. Encyclopedia Britannica.
Retrieved from
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Allard-K-Lowenstein
Glass, A. (2016, March 12). McCarthy nearly upsets LBJ in New Hampshire primary: March 12, 1968. Politico.
Retrieved from
Janos, L. (1973, June). The Last Days of the President. The Atlantic.
Retrieved from
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1973/07/the-last-days-of-the-president/376281/
Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 