How did Trump win the 2024 election? That momentous presidential election was shaped by a series of calculated decisions—and miscalculations—that began long before voters cast their ballots. At the center of it all was a single choice: Joe Biden’s decision to seek reelection despite mounting concerns about his age and fitness for office.
Read more to understand how Biden’s choice—and his team’s efforts to shield him from scrutiny—set off a chain reaction that ultimately paved the way for Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
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Image credit: American Strategies. License. Image cropped.
How Trump Won the 2024 Election
In their book Original Sin, Tapper and Thompson argue that, despite the elaborate system designed to protect the president from scrutiny, the truth about Biden’s condition couldn’t be hidden indefinitely. When it finally emerged, the consequences were catastrophic for the Democratic Party. The June 2024 debate exposed Biden’s decline in a way that couldn’t be explained away or controlled, starting a cascade of events that led to his withdrawal from the race and enabled Trump’s return to the presidency. We’ll trace the sequence of events from the debate through Biden’s withdrawal, examine the rushed Harris campaign that followed, and see how the authors connect the dots to explain how Trump won the 2024 election.
The Debate Disaster
Tapper and Thompson recount that the June 27, 2024 debate was the moment when Biden’s carefully managed public image finally collapsed. The debate had been scheduled early in the campaign season partly because Biden’s team believed it would give them time to recover if things went poorly—a calculation that, according to the authors, revealed the team’s awareness of the risks involved. Tapper had firsthand experience of the debate, serving as co-moderator alongside CNN’s Dana Bash. Biden arrived late to the venue, having initially refused to do a walkthrough that every other candidate routinely performs, which the authors characterize as a sign of overconfidence despite his limitations.
| What Happened at the Debate? The June 27, 2024 debate took place at CNN’s Atlanta studios, moderated by anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. The format was designed to give each candidate the best opportunity to make their case: There was no live audience, candidates had two minutes to answer questions with one minute for rebuttals, and—crucially—microphones were muted when it wasn’t a candidate’s turn to speak. The Biden campaign had specifically requested the muted microphones to prevent Trump from interrupting, as he’d done repeatedly in their 2020 debates. The moderators took a hands-off approach, rarely fact-checking false statements or pressing the candidates to answer questions more fully. Despite these favorable conditions, Biden’s performance was poor. His voice was hoarse and raspy, he frequently lost his train of thought mid-sentence, and he stumbled over basic words and facts. In one early moment, while trying to discuss health care policy, Biden trailed off incoherently, ending with “we finally beat Medicare.” He appeared to confuse Trump with Putin when discussing Ukraine and seemed to mix up immigration and abortion issues. His mouth often hung open while Trump spoke, and he appeared unfocused throughout much of the evening. The contrast with his more energetic performance just four years earlier was stark, leading many observers to conclude this was evidence of significant decline. |
The authors report that Biden’s performance was immediately recognized as disastrous by those watching behind the scenes. According to their account, this wasn’t a bad night or the result of a cold, as Biden’s team later claimed, but rather the natural result of putting someone with serious cognitive limitations in an uncontrolled, high-pressure situation. Tapper and Thompson contend the debate’s impact on Biden’s public perception was so severe because it contradicted the carefully constructed narrative about his fitness to run for reelection. Many viewers, including Democrats who’d been willing to give Biden the benefit of the doubt, could no longer rationalize what they were seeing and were shaken by his performance.
(Shortform note: The authors’ emphasis on the narrative surrounding Biden is emblematic of a larger trend in American politics: namely, that individual policy issues have become less important than overarching political narratives. The immediate recognition of how badly Biden was performing in the debate shows how quickly such narratives can collapse. Biden had defined himself by being “not Trump,” implying that that alone made him the more qualified candidate. His poor performance cast that in doubt, and replaced the old narrative with a new one: that the Democrats were a party in turmoil while their opponents’ messaging remained consistent and confident during the following news cycle.)
The Pressure Campaign
Tapper and Thompson document that Biden’s inner circle tried to control the damage. The campaign blamed external factors—Biden had a cold, he was tired from travel, it was just an off night. But pressure began building from multiple directions. First came the donors who had been kept at arm’s length. George Clooney, who had seen Biden’s decline at the fundraiser, felt that the debate confirmed what he had seen privately. Clooney wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling for Biden to step down, arguing that he couldn’t effectively serve another term. Other major donors and Democratic figures began speaking out after Clooney broke the silence.
(Shortform note: The pressure against Biden was intensified by the media’s disproportionately negative coverage, which exposed how differently Americans saw Biden and Trump: When Trump spoke incoherently, audiences saw it as passionate or as part of his “chaotic” style, but when Biden did the same, they saw it as evidence of cognitive decline. In the week after the debate, The New York Times published 192 stories about Biden’s age, but fewer than half as many about Trump, who was only 3.5 years younger than Biden. Before the debate, two-thirds of stories about candidates’ mental acuity focused exclusively on Biden, while only 7% focused exclusively on Trump.)
Next came pressure from Democratic members of Congress, who faced the reality that they might lose their own elections if Biden remained on the ticket. Tapper and Thompson explain that many legislators suddenly found themselves under pressure from constituents and colleagues and privately expressed their concerns to party leadership. Finally, senior Democratic leaders applied pressure. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer worked behind the scenes to convince Biden to step down—though they were careful to avoid public criticism that might appear disloyal or destructive to the party.
| The Democratic Party’s Identity Crisis Made Biden’s Position Untenable The sequence in which pressure built against Biden, from donors to Congress members to party leadership, reflected the Democratic Party’s struggle to position itself. Since the 1970s, it’s transformed from a working-class party into a coalition of competing interests, espousing everything from finance-friendly fiscal policies to progressive redistributionism. The party’s critics assert that the preferences of the party’s current professional-class base conflict with those of working-class voters, who have drifted toward Republicans. Critics also point out that, in 2024, the Democratic Party couldn’t decide whether it stood for or against the status quo. Wealthy donors, many of whom had joined the party after Trump’s disruption of traditional conservatism, expected stable leadership that could maintain their interests. Congressional Democrats worried about losing both professional-class suburban supporters and working-class constituents. Senior leaders such as Pelosi and Schumer tried to hold together a coalition that lacked a clear, unifying vision beyond opposing Trump. The speed with which this coalition fractured after the debate exposed the underlying precarity of the party’s position—and what critics saw as its difficulty determining how to move forward. |
Biden’s Withdrawal
Tapper and Thompson write that two key factors ultimately convinced Biden to withdraw from the race. The first was Chuck Schumer’s revelation about the lack of Senate support: Schumer told Biden that in a meeting between Democratic senators and Biden’s top aides, only five out of 51 Democratic senators still supported Biden’s candidacy. This information shocked Biden, who took it to mean that his inner circle hadn’t been honest with him about the extent of the opposition within his own party.
(Shortform note: The quick collapse of Biden’s viability as a candidate illustrates how the systems meant to shield him from negative information also kept him from making informed decisions about his future. Schumer had been concerned about Biden’s electability for months, sometimes receiving calls where Biden forgot why he had called. Yet Schumer felt trapped: If he expressed his concerns privately, they might leak and weaken Biden’s chances, but staying silent enabled the problem to continue. Even during the crisis, Schumer publicly vouched for Biden while privately gathering polling data and urging senators not to act. The debate forced conversations that Schumer later said should have happened earlier.)
The second decisive factor came from DNC manager Minyon Moore, who’d established a “What If Committee” to prepare for various contingencies, including the possibility that Biden’s nomination might be challenged. This committee had been monitoring delegate sentiment and warned Biden’s team that while he could still win the nomination, it would require an ugly floor fight. Tapper and Thompson report Biden’s decision to withdraw was driven by his realization that staying in the race would require a bitter battle that would split the party. He accepted that the political cost of remaining had become too high, though he continued to believe that he could have won the election if he’d stayed in the race.
(Shortform note: Moore was responsible for orchestrating a four-day television production meant to unite the party around a presidential candidate, a task that typically involves months of careful choreography around a known nominee. But Moore had to prepare contingencies for multiple scenarios simultaneously, including assessing the possibility that Biden’s nomination might be contested at the convention, which hadn’t happened in the Democratic Party since 1968. Given her decades of experience managing Democratic politics, Moore was uniquely positioned to present Biden with the reality of the situation ahead of the convention: Step aside gracefully or risk the kind of chaos that could fracture the party regardless of who won.)
The Harris Campaign’s Impossible Task
Tapper and Thompson argue that Kamala Harris’s elevation to the top of the ticket was doomed by the circumstances of her nomination. She inherited the baggage of the Biden administration, including voter concerns about the economy, immigration, and foreign policy—with only 107 days to define herself as a candidate and distance herself from an unpopular administration. She was also constrained by her loyalty to Biden and her role as his vice president. She couldn’t fully embrace Biden’s unpopular record, but she also couldn’t repudiate it without undermining her own position. This prevented Harris from effectively addressing voter concerns about the Biden administration’s performance.
(Shortform note: The 107-day constraint wasn’t necessarily fatal—Harris’s campaign mobilized hundreds of thousands of volunteers and generated massive fundraising numbers—but made it difficult for Harris to overcome the double standard she faced against Trump specifically. While Harris was expected to demonstrate substantive policy knowledge, articulate comprehensive plans, and thread the needle between defending Biden’s record and establishing her own platform, Trump succeeded by simply projecting an image of confidence as a political outsider who nonetheless had figured out everything he needed to know to govern effectively.)
The rushed nature of Harris’s campaign also prevented the kind of rigorous preparation that normally occurs during a full primary process. Tapper and Thompson suggest that Harris’s own limitations as a candidate, which had been apparent during her failed 2020 primary campaign, remained problematic. She continued to struggle with unscripted interactions and policy discussions, leading to a campaign that relied heavily on celebrity endorsements and scripted events rather than substantive policy debates.
| The Primary Process: Building Voter Buy-In Tapper and Thompson argue that Harris was doomed partly because she missed the preparation that goes with participating in the primary. But the deeper issue may be that primaries don’t just prepare candidates—they build voter acceptance and enthusiasm that Harris missed the chance to earn. Experts note that presidential primaries serve a crucial legitimacy function: They convince a party’s voters to embrace their nominee through a democratic process. Even when voters’ preferred candidate loses the primary, they’ve had time to see their eventual nominee tested, refined, and validated through months of campaigning, debates, and questioning. Primaries force candidates to refine their messages under pressure, prove they can unify groups with different political motivations, and earn broad acceptance from voters—exactly the kind of validation that could have built genuine voter confidence in Harris, rather than necessitating voters’ acceptance of her as Biden’s appointed successor. But Harris got the nomination without anyone having voted for her in the primary. This meant the nomination felt like it was “less democratic” than it should have been. Many voters believed the decision to replace Biden with Harris had been made by party elites, and voters already skeptical of political establishments saw her nomination as confirmation that ordinary citizens have little say in the process. One analysis observed that the support around Harris came together so rapidly that it raised questions about whether other candidates even had an opportunity to compete. |
The Ultimate Consequence: Victory for Trump
Tapper and Thompson conclude that Biden’s decision to run for reelection led to Trump’s victory. They argue that, if Biden had announced after the 2022 midterms that he wouldn’t seek reelection, the Democratic Party could have held a proper primary. This could have produced a candidate who wasn’t burdened by the Biden administration’s unpopularity or the questions about age and fitness that had dominated the conversation. Democratic officials believed that Biden’s selfishness and his inner circle’s enablement had handed the presidency back to Trump.
(Shortform note: Political analysts offer mixed perspectives on whether Trump’s victory could have been prevented. Writing in April 2024, Chris Stirewalt observed that polling data suggested Trump wasn’t gaining new voters but that Biden was losing his 2020 supporters, making it Biden’s election to lose rather than Trump’s to win. After the election, analyst Nate Silver (The Signal and the Noise) argued that the outcome wasn’t predetermined: He suggested a more moderate Democratic candidate such as Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer might have performed 1.5 to 2.5 points better than Harris, enough to potentially change the result. In January 2025, Silver argued more directly that Trump might have lost if Biden had exited the race earlier.)
Beyond the immediate electoral consequences, the authors argue that the alleged cover-up damaged the Democratic Party’s credibility and undermined public trust in democratic institutions. They suggest that the party’s insistence that Biden was fully capable of serving, followed by his obvious failure at the debate, created a broader crisis of confidence that extended beyond the presidential race. Tapper and Thompson conclude that the “original sin” of Biden’s decision to run again, combined with the systematic effort to conceal his limitations, represents not just a political miscalculation but a fundamental failure of democratic accountability that had far-reaching consequences for American politics and governance.
| Were Voters Really Surprised by the Debate? Tapper and Thompson argue that the alleged concealment of Biden’s decline damaged Democratic credibility and represented a failure of democratic accountability. But extensive polling and media coverage suggests that Americans weren’t actually deceived about Biden’s condition—concerns about his age and fitness were openly discussed long before the June 2024 debate. Even during the 2020 campaign, journalists were already asking whether he was “too old” to serve, with major outlets regularly examining his “physical stamina” and “verbal skills.” By 2022, polls showed 61% of Democrats wanted someone other than Biden to be the presidential nominee, with age as the top reason. Throughout 2023 and early 2024, majorities of Americans (and majorities of Democrats) consistently told pollsters Biden was too old for a second term. These numbers remained stable: Polls showed 74% of Americans and 60% of Democrats agreeing Biden was “too old to work in government” in January 2024. Rather than revealing hidden information, the debate may have simply confirmed what voters already suspected. One poll found the share of Americans calling Biden’s age a “big problem” didn’t even increase after the debate—it was 56% before and 56% after—suggesting that concerns had plateaued. Some observers noted a distinction: Biden’s age appeared to be more of a campaign problem than a governing problem. A former Biden administration official said that officials inside the White House, as well as political opponents such as Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, saw Biden as effective and competent. This suggests that rather than hiding Biden’s governing limitations from voters, Democrats may have been deceiving themselves about his electability. |
Explore Further
To get a better understanding of Biden’s decline and the cover-up that the authors believe ultimately led to Trump’s 2024 election victory, read Shortform’s comprehensive guide to Original Sin.
