Biden casts a ballot he once wanted to vote on

CNN
—

When President Joe Biden entered a voting booth in Delaware on Monday to cast his early vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, it wasn't necessarily the moment he had planned a few months ago.

Biden, of course, once hoped to vote for himself, a final opportunity to check the box next to his own name after half a century in the political arena.

Instead, he voted for his chosen successor – a moment of pride that, of course, came sooner than he wanted.

Instead of a major campaign rally — as likely would have been had he still been the candidate — his trip to a polling place in Delaware was a low-key affair compared to the turbulent presidential campaign taking place without him.

Biden stood in line for 37 minutes with members of the Wilmington, Delaware-area community where he is likely to return when a new president takes the oath of office in January.

He pushed an elderly woman in a wheelchair, talked to someone on the phone, smiled for a photo with a baby and cracked jokes with his fellow citizens.

He stood in line next to a man wearing a red “VOTE THAT MOTHER****** AGAIN” hat, and a stray protester shouted “Let's go, Brandon,” but other members of the line cheered his presence . When he got to the front of the line, he dug into his bag for a photo ID.

Then the president went behind the curtain, cast his vote and received an “I Voted” sticker to display on his lapel. A little over three months after he left the top of the electoral roll, he had cast his vote for the candidate he immediately supported.

When CNN asked as he left the polling station if the moment was bittersweet, Biden focused on the positive

“No,” he said, “just sweet.”

With Election Day still eight days away, the president's schedule this week does not reflect a high-demand surrogate. After indicating in September that he would regularly campaign for Harris in recent months, Biden largely stayed away from the campaign in the final stages.

His weekend union rally in Pittsburgh offered an opportunity to attack Donald Trump and bolster Harris — but the appearance was not heavily promoted by the Harris campaign, unlike more prominent rallies with the Obamas.

Biden has some “campaign calls” planned this week in which he hopes to mobilize various groups behind Harris by telephone. He will attend a union rally in Philadelphia on Friday, but it will be an official event rather than a Harris campaign rally.

For now, the rest of his week before the election is devoted to official duties: briefings on hurricane recovery, a Diwali reception in the East Room, remarks in Baltimore about infrastructure, trick-or-treating in the South Portico.

This is the existence of an unpopular incumbent on the way out. He joins a club that includes Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, as the presidents have largely stayed away from the campaign trail as their party tries to turn a new leaf.

After so long in politics, Biden is fully aware of the delicate decisions that define a campaign season. He has long said – mostly in jest – that he would be willing to run for or against his favorite candidate, “whichever helps the most.”

But that doesn't make it any easier to watch the party move forward without him. Biden believes he could be of use to Harris among white, working-class voters in the blue wall states where he retains power.

It's also not lost on Biden – or anyone in the White House – that he depends heavily on the outcome. The outcome of next Tuesday's election will either burnish his legacy or invite harsh accusations that he left the side too late.

As Biden spoke at the voting event in Pittsburgh on Saturday, he appeared to acknowledge that his time on the national stage was coming to an end.

“We still have a lot of work to do, Kamala and I,” he said, before quickly adjusting: “Kamala is doing it.”

When asked after his vote whether his former candidate would win the candidacy, he answered with the collective voice.

“I think we will,” he explained.

This story has been updated with additional developments.