How political cartoonists drew Biden’s historic exit and Harris’s rise

Within 24 hours of the Biden bombshell, many artists homed in on three satiric questions: How should they characterize the president’s exit from the campaign? How should they depict the fresh focus on Harris as his likely replacement? And how should they anticipate and frame the GOP response?

Adam Zyglis, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the Buffalo News, saw Biden’s decision as a noble one of putting country over self, so he drew the president holding the door for Lady Liberty as he says, “After you.”

“I chose this concept in part because Joe Biden represents old-fashioned grace and decency, especially in stark contrast to former president Trump’s crass and self-serving rhetoric,” Zyglis said. “The simple act of holding a door open for someone is a metaphor for selflessness.”

He rendered Lady Liberty stepping forward to connote “democracy first” and “left her faceless to hint at a strong woman taking the lead from here,” Zyglis said, adding that the caption “plays off the disingenuous language of the right to illustrate what it really means to put the country first. Biden’s move was a great act of patriotism in a political age that often lacks such humility.”

Jack Ohman, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist drawing for Smerconish.com, also paid tribute to Biden, who was in Delaware recovering from covid. Ohman depicts Biden being showered with thanks next to the caption, “Out of isolation.” “I was going to draw the president in isolation in a darkened room looking out at a crowd calling for him to leave,” Ohman said. “Then he left, and the emotional outpouring for this man moved me to draw him out of isolation and basking in what he rightfully deserves: applause for a great job.”

Al Goodwyn of Creators, by contrast, believed that it was high time for Biden to exit, so he drew a dazed president recognizing the writing on a wall that’s telling him to withdraw. His cartoon about “the drastic change in Biden’s stature was a natural mashup of two elements,” Goodwyn said. “One: Biden finally seeing ‘the writing on the wall.’ The other: his fate as Humpty Dumpty after locking up the Democratic Party’s nomination [and] taking a tumble from that same wall. In reality, he was aided by a heavy nudge.”

Nick Anderson, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the RA News-Tribune, satirized what he views as the forces behind Biden’s announcement; spinning the president’s own words, he drew Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as party power broker strongly urging him out. “I’m certain there were many voices that persuaded Biden to make this decision,” said Anderson, who called this outcome the right move, “but I doubt any loomed as large as Nancy Pelosi’s.”

Many artists deployed the visual metaphor of Biden passing the torch to Harris. In the eyes of the Chicago Tribune’s Scott Stantis, though, Biden held the torch too long. From the 2020 campaign, Stantis understood Biden’s position to be, “I’m going to serve one term, [then] the torch is going to be passed,” Stantis recalled, adding: “That’s what should’ve happened.”

Some satirists, including Anderson, lampooned how the Trump campaign painted Biden as the older-seeming candidate in this race — and how that dynamic shifts if Trump runs against Harris. “I tweeted a joke saying that now that Biden has exited the race, Trump is too old to be president, especially when comparing him to” Harris, said Lalo Alcaraz, the Herblock Prize-winning cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication. “I saw how viral that went, so I decided to make it into a cartoon.” Alcaraz depicts Trump with hate symbols as criticism of what he views as “Trump’s racist and authoritarian language,” which the artist says is “alarming and a real threat to myself, immigrants and other people of color.”

Liza Donnelly and Clay Bennett were among the artists who chose to tout Harris as a promising pick to be the Democratic nominee. “Harris has been and is a powerful advocate for women’s rights, and it is exciting to see her candidacy for president take off with such strong support from the Democratic base,” said Donnelly, who draws for Medium, adding: “It is a different world than when Hillary Clinton ran for president, and I believe that our country is ready for a woman president.” (Donnelly is working on a film about female cartoonists.)

Bennett, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, drew Harris as a boost of electric energy to a party that had been running low and “wallowing in pessimism for weeks.” Seeing how quickly Harris “had energized the Democratic Party’s confidence, it wasn’t much of a leap to compare her to the charger I look for every time my phone is low on power,” Bennett said. “Hopefully the Democratic Party can hold a charge longer than my cellphone is able to.”

Ann Telnaes, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for The Washington Post, drew why she sees a choice between Harris and Trump as a no-brainer. The rise of Harris also has Telnaes reflecting on three decades of media coverage of Clinton: “It wasn’t just the Republicans who attacked her. The news media was also guilty of using sexist narratives and labels they would never use with a male politician. I’m not talking about legitimate criticism of policies, but the personal attacks just because she is a woman.”

“The Trump campaign has already started this tactic,” Telnaes added. “We’ll see if the news media will follow suit or stick to the facts of each candidate.”

In a similar vein, Pedro X. Molina of Counterpoint Media depicted a crazed GOP elephant in a MAGA cap pivoting from ageism to racism and chauvinism among its file of “hate tactics.” Biden’s decision to withdraw is causing nervousness and “discontent on the MAGA side, which will now have to recalibrate its ‘strategy’ of disqualification against its new opponent,” Molina said.

In a visual nod to the comic strip “Bloom County” and its bedroom closet of anxieties, Whamond drew Trump facing the prospect of Harris. “My immediate thought was this is Trump’s worst nightmare: having to face off against a strong, powerful woman of color. A prosecutor versus a felon,” Whamond said. “Now Trump is the tired, old candidate, and Harris is the young, vibrant new kid in town.”

And Darrin Bell, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for King Features Syndicate, drew a Harris foe using artificial intelligence prompts to find racist and misogynistic insults.

“Benjamin Banneker. Frederick Douglass. Thurgood Marshall. The civil rights movement. Stacey Abrams. Letitia James. Alvin Bragg. And now, potentially, Kamala Harris. Black Americans have always been instrumental in helping to course-correct this country when it’s strayed away from its founding principles,” Bell said. “And that really ticks off those who want the country to stray from its founding principles. It was obvious that racist and sexist attacks against Harris would accelerate as soon as Biden withdrew.

“The transition to Kamala Harris is exciting, especially to younger voters,” Bell continued. “After Biden’s historically awful debate, it’s an enormous relief.”

Michael Cavna is a former Post staff writer and the creator of its “Comic Riffs” column.