If, at 8:45 p.m. on June 27, 15 minutes before a debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, someone learned of everything that would occur in American politics over the next 55 days, they would have been overwhelmed with shock and confusion.

Expectations were not that Biden would struggle to articulate his own policies and fail to bring the energy and vigor prosecuting a case against Trump requires. He had performed well at the 2024 State of the Union, even drawing praise from conservative columnists like the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan. 

But on that night, the Joe Biden who picked Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan apart in the 2012 vice-presidential debate was nowhere to be found. Or the Biden who powerfully made the case for then-President Obama at the 2012 Democratic National Convention: that because of Obama’s “courage in his soul, compassion in his heart, because of the calls he made, the actions he took, and the unparalleled bravery of our special forces… we can now proudly say Osama Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive!”

Nor was it the energetic Joe Biden who forcefully declared at the 2016 Democratic National Convention that America is “not only the largest, but the strongest economy in the world… [that] we never bow, we never bend, we are America, second to none, and we own the finish line!” In his June debate against Trump, Biden spoke with a hoarse voice and reignited the fears of a president in his mid-80’s occupying the White House. He struggled to give coherent answers at a time when he needed the most to demonstrate lucidity to a public anxious about his age. 

In the middle of the Biden campaign’s downward spiral, there was an assassination attempt against Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The resulting investigation into security failures by the secret service drew bipartisan outrage, leading to the resignation of Kimberly Cheattle, the head of the Secret Service. 

This performance was so damaging that by July 17, 65% of Democrats wanted Biden to drop out of the race, according to an Axios poll. A pressure campaign, led by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi aimed to convince Biden halt his re-election effort. Despite claiming on July 5 that he would stay in the race, falling poll numbers and Democratic leaders led Biden to put his country before ego and ambition.

It may seem difficult to imagine now, but it was not a guarantee that the Democratic party would unite around Vice President Kamala Harris. Former President Barack Obama held off from endorsing Harris, wanting an “open process” to choose the nominee. Reporting from Politico showed that Pelosi urged fellow Democrats to support that same process.

But in one of his final acts of political acuity, Biden displayed the loyalty to his Vice President that Obama didn’t show him when he favored Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, privately telling Biden not to run. Immediately after Biden suspended his campaign on July 21st, he issued a complete endorsement of Harris, which led to the rest of the Democratic party rallying around Harris. No challenger would emerge, and within 48 hours, she secured the majority of the support required to guarantee the Democratic nomination. 

Harris was then faced with an important decision: who to pick as her vice-presidential nominee. The major candidates included Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and the relatively unknown nationally Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. After a process of interviews and vetting, she decided on Walz. 

Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard, coached his high school to a football state championship and, as a teacher, started a Gay-Straight alliance in 1999, five years before Massachusetts became the first state to make same-sex marriage legal. Walz has brought a Midwestern charm and humorous dad-like energy to the ticket, echoing the “joy” that is a theme of their campaign against Trump.

The Democratic National Convention began in Chicago and has been a stark contrast from the divisiveness and chaos that occurred in 1968, in the same city and under similar circumstances. In 1968 when an unpopular incumbent, Lyndon Johnson, announced he would not seek re-election, the Democratic Party split themselves into pieces. In 2024, they appeared focused and united behind their goal of electing Kamala Harris and preventing the damage to democracy they argue a second Trump term would inflict on America.