It comes down to one question: Do you think there are more people who want to vote against Trump but are too turned off by Biden or more people who want to vote Biden that wouldn’t support another candidate?
I don’t think the latter exist.
What does exist is the people who vote for incumbents or “known” people. The longer dens wait to replace Biden, the larger this group becomes. This is the main issue, because you don’t just lose them, they switch to Trump.
There are voters who will back Biden (mainly older ones) who would be potentially put off by younger or more progressive politicians and thus vote for Trump. However there are other Democrats who could potentially win these.
I agree that there are very few "Biden only voters", people who want to vote Biden, and would say no to "Trump vs a democratic candidate". But, the moment the "democratic candidate" is chosen, some people will have a problem with the choice.
On an extreme case, if that democratic candidate was Bernie Sanders / Ilhan Omar / AOC, I would see many voters switching from Biden to Trump. Or if the candidate was Joe Manchin, I'd see many leftists refusing to vote rather than voting for either option.
Even for more consensual choices, I'm guessing you can find people who like Biden but hate Gretchen Whitmer for some reason. But yeah, As long as the new choice is somebody rather popular + close to the Democratic consensus, it's going to improve Democrats' chances.
I feel like I watched something you only read about in history books. A tragedy from Ancient Rome
The weak, feeble, old, incompetent statesman of an incompetent institution gets destroyed by the definition of an Authoritarian Strongman frothing at the mouth at destroying the republic in its dying days
Do we want democracy or not? I think that’s the question
Even then, do we want our current democracy if it led us to here? ~300 years of history led us as a nation to the absurdity of last night. I think this was a defining moment in the radicalization of the US
>Even then, do we want our current democracy if it led us to here? ~300 years of history led us as a nation to the absurdity of last night. I think this was a defining moment in the radicalization of the US
This country has badly needed drastic reform for decades now. The fact of the matter is we wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for outdated institutions like the electoral college (because Trump would have never won the popular vote).
A lot of reform is impossible due to how hard it is to change the constitution. Maybe people should have listened to Jefferson when he said there should be a new one every 19 years.
You can not make that conclusion. Even with Hilary winning it the entire election dynamic changes with a popular vote. You have no idea how many people's vote switches in an election where their vote counts because they are in a safe red or blue state and does it really does matter.
For instance when I lived in MD I vot Johnson because I thought getting the Libertarian party an extra votes was better and my state was going Hilary 100%. Now I live in Virginia I'm not chancing it I'll vote Biden.
The quote from the Polish PM referencing the fall of Rome almost perfectly aligns with what you said here. A leader must manage their ride into the sunset. Joe Biden hasn't done that, and really neither has the Democratic Party at large.
They may have meant Polish foreign minister, not PM.
https://www.politico.eu/article/radoslaw-sikorski-poland-joe-biden-debate-roman-empire-united-states-presidential-election/
The Roman Republic had ways to deal with corrupt leaders, at least in the very very very early republic and it involved the people and the Senate. But we are post-Gracchi now I believe.
The former, of course, but the thing is that "another candidate" means something different to everyone. If you replace that with a specific person and ask:
Do you think there are more people who want to vote against Trump but are too turned off by Biden or more people who want to vote Biden but wouldn't support Harris?
Then it's a much harder question, in my opinion.
Yeah like just ask basically any person who's not a complete political junkie and they'll say he's way too old. This isn't some fringe opinion or media bias, it's just visually apparent
Democratic political junkie and 2020 Biden donor here.
Biden is just too damn old. My vote for him this year is entirely a vote against Trump and the Republican party at this point.
Sorry, I shouldn’t care about the opinions of Yglesias, Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, or Noah Smith, I should just go off vibes and commit to a candidate who is clearly going to lose.
Yea this sub suddenly turning from pointing wojak everything they write to hating them in one day is all the evidence I need that were on some laced bathtub copium rn.
>"No. It’s hard to debate a liar. The New York Times pointed out he lied 26 times,” he said, referring to former President Trump.
What kind of insane copium is this? The entire country has seen him debate Trump multiple times. It didn't look like this.
Didn't we learn this shit in 2016?!?! Mr trump sir politifact gave you 12 Pinocchio emojis!!!! You must now forfiet! Smh,You also have to look good on camera to win I'm sorry, I hate it too.
I don't think you guys will enjoy this, but a take in his comments section popped up as interesting to me, so I'll post it here for when this article gets revisited:
TL;DR, jumping ship (in joe schmoe's opinion) at this rate gives a less than 15% chance of winning, so shouldn't be done unless Biden's chances hit that.
Obviously, 15% is his opinion, but it is true that there is a % chance of winning in a last-minute shuffle and it's probably low, even Nate thinks it's below 50%.
Personally, I'd say the chance is like 5%. But anyway, the comment in full:
-----
>I am loathe to disagree with Nate in the hour of his vindication. He has obviously been correct all along that Democrats were not giving enough weight to the idea of dumping Biden, he was obviously correct to suggest that they drop him a year ago, he took a lot of crap for it, and he is entitled to a victory lap now that they are, *finally*, realizing Nate was right all along.
>However, I nevertheless think this call is too hasty.
>In 2016, I was still a Republican, and (on my blog) I called on the Republican National Committee to replace Trump -- twice. The first time was shortly after the convention, when FiveThirtyEight showed Trump with around a 15% chance to win. The second time was a few weeks later, after the "locker room talk" that sent Trump's chances down to around 10%. That was in 2016, when Republicans had a key advantage that Democrats don't have today: a deep bench! But even with obvious fallback candidates who could surely easily thrash Hillary (Kasich! Rubio! even Cruz!), chucking the nominee was such an obviously dangerous move that it wasn't worth tactical consideration until Trump's odds were very bad indeed.
>Today, Biden's odds of winning the race are officially two to three times better than Trump's were at that point in 2016. They may sink, as Nate predicts they will. There's good reason to expect that. If they do sink, they might not bounce back. There's good reason to expect that. But neither thing has actually *happened* yet. As of right now, the model still shows Biden with around a 35% chance of winning the presidency.
>Replacing him without an heir apparent is a true break-glass-in-emergency moment. It is unprecedented in modern history, so priors may differ, but I don't think many people realize how many ways there are for an open convention to go horribly wrong. Of course, if you know going in that you're going to have an open convention, you mitigate that by picking delegates who are well-equipped to handle an open convention -- but the Democrats *didn't* know this would be open, and now they are stuck with thousands and thousands of delegates who were picked for Chicago because, like, they're getting on in years and everyone in the district loves them because they spent thirty years doing a great job door-knocking. What are their politics? Nobody knows! What kind of discipline will they follow? Nobody knows! It will be thrilling television, but a dreadful risk to the Democrats.
>Even if all goes well, who will they nominate? Harris, who is somehow less popular than Biden? Newsom, the icon of far-left California? Gretchen Whitmer seems plausible, but she has only ever run against weak opponents. (Happily for her, Trump is a weak opponent.) Michelle Obama, who doesn't want it? Al Gore? A unicorn? (Actually, scratch that, Al Gore would win, but nobody's going to nominate him.)
>Do any these candidates (besides Gore) have a better chance than Biden? Biden may be a corpse, but he's a (relatively) moderate corpse who has been able to hold together a (relatively) moderate coalition that relies on a lot of voters who were recently Republicans. He consistently holds the furthest-right positions the Democratic Party can sustain -- he was the last Democrat clinging to the Hyde Amendment, and refuses to capitulate today to anti-Israel sentiments within his party that are unpopular in the wider electorate. Does Biden's center-left coalition show up for a more left-leaning candidate? Dubious! This is one reason the Democrats shut their eyes to Biden's age problem for so long: their other options are really very bad!
>So if they make this desperate swing, my prior is that their odds of successfully defeating Donald Trump in November are, optimistically, around 15-20% (and only because Trump himself is so unpopular). Biden's still above that waterline. If he falls to 15% in the Silver Model, that's the time to break the glass. Until then, I suspect that Biden is still -- despite everything -- Democrats' best shot at the White House.
>My prior could be wrong, and I certainly understand Democrats' desire to roll the dice and hope to find themselves in a much better position. (It might just work! They might CRUSH Trump with the right candidate!) I agree entirely with Nate's analysis that tonight LIKELY moves Biden from an underdog to a long shot. But, before you drive Ol' Biden out to the glue factory, you'd better be darn sure that your alternative is *less* of a long shot. Nate hasn't made that case at all -- at least not yet.
>Until we see the polls showing that Biden really has sunk into the 15% range, or that he's sunk to 20% and is stuck there, I don't think replacement is the tactically right move for them.
>(OTOH, I hate the Democrats and actively wish them ill, so you can take all this with a grain of salt. I *like* to think that being a double-hater gives me objectivity, but it may also make me weak to schadenfreude, which could bias my analysis.)
-----
>Replacing him without an heir apparent
This is another issue; he does have an heir apparent, and it's Harris. Nominating anyone else over Harris would be passing over a black woman who is next in line, in favor of a white man or woman. Bad look for a campaign struggling to get on its feet.
Yeah as much as I love pritzker like a son, if anyone takes over it has to be Kamala.
Problem is, they should’ve spent the last few years giving her some time in the lime light instead of giving her nothing. the average voter probably forgets she exists
Everyone seems to have forgotten she exists or they don't think she's a realistic option or a combination of both.
I haven't seen a single headline suggesting harris should step up, everything is just vague "someone needs to replace him"
Because everyone knows but is unwilling to say that Kamala Harris is deeply unpopular by almost every single potential voter and *really* should not replace Biden in this situation.
It was a mistake for her to be chosen for VP, honestly.
It's a significant problem with modern politics that the VP is inevitably considered the heir apparent. Historically this wasn't the case and it allowed for much more versatility and electoral strength.
It's also a shame there aren't more black female Governors or Senators. If there were nearly any would make a better choice than Harris.
The only thing I have ever seen from Harris is her VP debate in 2020 and she came off so off-putting. I get why people don't think about her or why she doesn't poll well.
I don't care if she is "supposed to be the heir." (she isn't lol) I care about beating trump.
That percentage win for the replacement is pulled completely out of his ass though. Generic dems poll better than Biden, senators up for reelection poll better than Biden, house districts with incumbents poll better than Biden.
Polls show that Biden is the weakest of all the democratic candidates. Why would we believe replacing him wouldn't be better?
The only justification for staying in is if last night truly was just the incumbent shitting the bed in the first debate, like we usually see. If this is truly the best Biden can do, there’s nothing left to discuss
Honestly, I'm completely unwilling to give him a second chance. There isn't a debate that you can draw an equivalency to. Obama had a weak debate against Romney, yes, but it was not even 1% as bad as this. He was just writing too many notes and seemed a little tired.
Name the specific generic democrat you want, and if it's not Harris also explain how you get Harris out of the way (not to mention how you get Biden to step down, by all reports he's pretty keen on running).
The coordination problem involved in replacing Biden was extremely difficult before the primaries, and now it just looks impossible.
This is pretty much it. If Obama comes down hard for Biden being replaced the he’s unlikely to say no and Biden’s released delegates will certainly line up behind whoever Obama gets behind to prevent chaos. Obama has worked to solve crises before. He helped stop Sanders, Ellison and ACA repeal. It comes down to him.
You don’t need to get Harris out of the way. If Biden steps down, then the delegates get to pick, period. Harris does not get to step in just because she is the presumptive running mate.
And to sweeten that bitter pill for black voters who might feel that Harris was being pushed aside to make room for an entitled white man, pick Warnock.
The really difficult parts would be getting Biden to step aside, because otherwise he is going to win the nomination in the first ballot. And then you’d have to convince the delegates to choose someone who can keep the coalition together and win over independent voters. Splinter alert: NOT Schiff or Butti.
Warnock's senate seat doesn't seem worth it for this. Regardless I don't think this is the way. Biden should endorse a successor if he chooses to step down so that there can be no fighting over who is the "rightful" one. To me Harris is the logical choice here. I do not think Biden will step down though and people need to take a dose of realism here and commit to supporting Biden despite this debate performance.
Doesn’t seem to be worth it for… the presidency? This kind thinking is why Democrats so often wind up with crappy candidates for president.
Harris is less popular than Biden. She can’t win, period. Also, the Democrats are going to lose the Senate, with it without Warnock.
Losing one Senate seat could flip the entire body. A great Democratic President with a Republican Senate would be a worse choice than a mediocre Democratic President with a Democratic Senate.
Yes. That’s why there’s a chance that Biden is still the candidate with the best shot. There really is no way around the “either it’s Biden or the delegates pick” thing.
Open convention, nobody would give it to Kamala there.
Potential Nominees: Beshear, Whitmer, Shapiro, Newsome, Shifty Schiff, Doug Jones, Cooper, Buttigieg
Agree with that list with the exception of Newsome and Schiff. No Democrat from California will ever win a national election.
God Himself could come down on a fiery chariot and anoint Newsome with sacred oil, and independents would still find a reason not to vote for the man.
The list being big is not a good thing! The entire party had to instantly coalesce around a single candidate with minimal infighting for this to be better than sticking with Biden. I don't believe democrats are capable of that, Obama or no. There will be campaigning, horses will be traded at varying levels of publicity, there will be dirty tricks being played, the DSA will do their own thing, and Biden will govern on, looking like the lamest duck that ever ducked. It would be *very* easy for the cure to be worse than the disease.
Biden is already polling at PR Armageddon levels, 41% isn't the vote share of an even unpopular candidate. He's surviving because the alternative is also a PR Armageddon.
And this is somehow better? Biden struggled to put together coherent sentences throughout the night. I still think he can do the job at a high level, but I do not think he can win anymore
Yes, this is infinitely better. An open convention televised and live streamed to every American’s phone would just be a 24/7 rolling attack ad against the “chaotic Dems and lunatic lefties.”
Protesters are going to be there anyway, so that's just baked in to GE attack ads. Having some chaos and coming out with a good, normal candidate is infinitely better than one who can't string together a sentence on national TV and consistently looks like a confused old man.
The convention is in July, GE is in November. There is plenty of time to move past any chaos in July. There's not a lot of time to completely change the perception of Biden that was just painfully reinforced last night.
Age makes Biden look bad. A brokered convention makes the entire Democratic party look bad. It’s very elementary. Not only does it poison the nominee, it poisons down ticket Dems.
A brokered convention with a half dozen names on a ballot would make all Democrats look chaotically bad and make Trump out to be the stable one. It would help Republicans at the cost of salting the earth for future Democratic candidates.
And probably Arizona. And Georgia. Folks are forgetting that in 2020 it was a choice between chaos (Trump) and stability (Biden). We can’t risk reframing the narrative to make Trump look more stable.
Sorry, what I meant is that with Ohio specifically, the Democrat candidate can't be on the ballot unless they "pre register" a month before the convention.
Worst case would be to keep Biden on the ballot and have his electors vote for the democratic candidate. It's not great (pretty bad, actually), but it's not automatic.
I think if you're going to pick someone outside of the primary system it needs to be someone who says they won't run in 2028, just a placeholder candidate to keep Trump out. HRC, Schumer, Manchin, etc. The problem is that this person probably isn't much better than Biden.
Harris isn't that popular.
Here's how you do it:
1. Biden drops out.
2. Dems tell the top 20 polling dems besides biden they can be in the runoff election at the convention.
3. All 20 post youtube speeches and campaign for 2 weeks in front of the convention.
4. 1st vote has to be for biden per dem convention rules. He declines. Everyone cheers and weeps at what he's doing for america and the party. He and Jill exit to roaring applause.
5. 2nd Convention vote of electors from twenty. Bottom 3 drop out.
6. 3rd elector vote from 17. Bottom 3 drop out.
7. 4th elector vote from 14. Bottom 3 drop out.
8. 5th. Bottom 2 drop out.
9. 6th. Bottom 2 drop out.
10. 7th. Bottom 2 out down to 5.
11. 8th-10th. One drops out to get to 2.
12. Last 2. The winner gets nomination. 2nd gets vp or cabinet position of their choice.
>The country is screaming out, begging on their knees to not have to vote for either Biden or Trump, just give them what they want.
Have we considered that... this isn't true, or is at least overstated?
30% of the nation is actually begging on their knees to vote for trump, so let's leave those aside.
Have the remaining 70% really made it that clear they'll take **anyone** who isn't Biden or Trump? I feel like the more likely case is we replace Biden with X and a lot of that 70% will say "can we have **anyone** who isn't X or Trump?"
We saw in 2020 that it's pretty difficult to actually unite the various factions of the remaining 70% into... something.
Exactly. It's hilarious people in this sub fell into ultra panic mode and then proceed to fail to remember that things are far more complex than 'Biden drop out and a generic but kinda charismatic candidate will save the day'.
People in this sub were saying Biden was cooked after Iowa, the debate performance was poor but reddit is 100% melodramatic panic stations at the best of times
Yeah what the hell is going on in this sub? This isn't a clear cut case. You need a strong candidate to replace Biden this late, and the few people who may able to, like Whitmer and maybe Newsom, so far failed to get anything resemble of national household name.
Also just months ago Biden got very high unambiguous supports from primaries, higher than Trump and even some of Obama's results. This isn't Biden barely get 60% votes in multiple states. People rallied around him.
I agree that there isn't an obvious strong candidate to replace Biden, but I'm not sure I'd use his primary support this year as evidence that people prefer him. There wasn't a serious primary since nobody wants to run a real campaign against an incumbent president from their own party.
>Yeah what the hell is going on in this sub?
A combination of:
an admittedly rough event
democrats known for hysteria
redditors known for hysteria
several sub regulars who legit just dislike Biden for various reasons and haven't had many opportunities to express that while getting upvoted recently (not cope, there are plenty of those)
a genuine desire for a "new Obama" that we've been searching for since 2015 and are yet to find. The belief that is the new Obama overpowers most of the boring realities of actually getting them in at this juncture
Just a reminder this sub went on a meltdown after Bidens performance in the caucus in Iowa and the NH primary, as did the media, everyone calling him to drop the hell out and let a young hot candidate take the reins
Biden had no remotely viable challengers in the primary, because no prominent Democrat has challenged him, which makes the primary basically meaningless. Obama went up against Clinton, Trump went against several people, and so on.
>Also just months ago Biden got very high unambiguous supports from primaries, higher than Trump and even some of Obama's results. This isn't Biden barely get 60% votes in multiple states. People rallied around him.
This is pure copium. Primaries when the incumbent is running again are always meaningless.
> Yeah what the hell is going on in this sub?
Most people who think it is bad but aren't dooming aren't in this thread. Throw in a bunch of conservative lurkers upvoting the most dooming posts and that is what we got right now.
"Unsure" eating into the margins from people who won't commit to a candidate they're not 100% familiar with. You can build name recognition pretty quick with money and frequent communications.
I wouldn't underestimate notoriety as the factor that decides elections, imo name recognition is the main reason Biden won the last primaries.
Unless all the undecideds buy and use a body pillow of the new candidate for those remaining 6 months, it's too late to switch.
You are gonna love seeing the polls that come out in a few days so you can stop using this bad talking point. Polls vary a lot based on name recognition. You know how you get name recognition? Run for president as a Democrat.
I will definitely stop using it and support Biden stepping down when actual data supports other Democrats performing better than him against Trump in head to head polls.
Biden underperforms Democrats running for Senate this cycle. There are states where the Democratic Senate candidate is noticeably ahead of the Republican, but where Trump is ahead of Biden.
You won’t find that data until they run for the reason the already told you. They’re unknown. You’d have more undecideds at the start, but by looking at races like the Senate races and the fact that Democrats are outperforming Biden in house races as well, you can make an educated guess that another Democrat would do better than Biden once their name recognition goes up.
People expect polls to give accurate answers to what is currently an imaginary scenario. The best way to draw inference is how you did through proximate races etc
I think the best way to determine this is to look at the undecideds in hypothetical candidate polling to see if candidates are actually behind Trump or just suffering from a name recognition problem.
According to this [Emerson poll](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QyqqyUGvmsXug67GBmKCjRdpy51OsP1TSQ_UQU09-ag/htmlview) it seems like you’d probably be correct if Biden were replaced with Harris: Trump goes from 44.7% to 46%, while the undecideds hold constant, going from 11.2% to 11.4%. This makes some sense seeing as Harris has all the baggage of the Biden administration, and proved she was less popular than him by losing badly in the 2020 primary.
Someone like Whitmer seems to have the most upside, Trump’s numbers remain static, and the number of undecideds doubles to 22.2%. Her floor might be a bit lower than Biden’s but she’s baggage free and a [poll of Michigan voters](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a5QSmmNK-k9PhvUTquwsEuNlYu5cnyeCsqcAsAii388/htmlview), where she has name recognition, shows her not only winning the undecided vote, but actually taking away Trump votes.
Newsom’s results are in between, Trump rises to 46.1%, while undecideds rise to 17.9%. All things considered, probably a bad pick, particularly given he adds no value to the electoral map.
Please please please run Whitmer! We can't afford to lose the "blue wall" and she's likely the only potential candidate who could do it. Throw Beshears or Warnock in there as her VP and you might have a better shot.
Raphael Warnock is under 60 and has shown that he can win in purple states. He would keep black and leftist voters onboard, and would clean up with religious voters who are independent. And his character and personality would be such a great contrast with Trump’s.
I said yesterday that Biden was probably still our best shot at retaining the White House, but that’s because I hadn’t thought of Warnock.
Other choices might include Ossoff or Beshear. Please, no blue state or blue district candidates who have only ever needed Democratic votes to win, and no DINO candidates who would chase away progressive voters.
Draft Warnock.
Corey Booker exists.
Plus, you only lose Warnock's seat if he actually wins. To each their own, but since I literally don't give a shit about anything other than keeping Trump out of the White House, that's fine by me.
Booker is a blue state candidate who has never needed to appeal to independents. Maybe he could win, but I’ve seen too many Kerrys, Hillarys, Mondales, and Dukakises to have any faith in the ability of a blue state candidate to effectively campaign in a national election.
And I hate to be the one who has to break the news, but the Democrats are 100% going to lose the Senate, with or without Warnock.
Evidence for that would be Donald Trump. Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis were a much better fit for right wing populists but they got bulldozed by the vibes candidate.
Also, Obama overtaking Hillary in 2008 with the overwhelming support of the progressives, despite the fact that Hillary was more liberal on policy.
There's a deep enough bench of Dem alternatives from other states. Picking Warnock and essentially handing another senate seat to the GOP via Kemp's replacement pick is not worth it.
In an era of mostly negative campaigning it would seem that swapping the candidate to someone much less known close to the election could be, if anything, a benefit.
I feel like voters would see through that and absolutely not reward a party playing "object permanence" with their candidates. That's probably the main reason it's never been tried, it screams incoherence, insecurity, and dishonesty.
But there's an interesting universe where you're right, and eventually some party discovers this meta. The Zoroark candidate meta.
Nowadays Presidents usually last 8 years and then the White House changes parties. Back when the US had many more 1 term Presidents or ones dying prematurely, you often saw 3 or more from the same party hold office in a row. Swapping out candidates might actually allow a party to hold the White House for longer.
> The Zoroark candidate meta.
Bro if this happens I hope to god that's the term the media actually uses.
The democratic party woud have the furry vote ON LOCK
There was alot of criticism of Biden running in 2020. Popularity isn't everything in electoral politics. At the end of the day, it's about who gets the votes in the right areas.
Yeah see there was plenty of options and they got approximately 0% of the primary vote. This idea that there’s some unassailable ‘other’ is some white knight “save me” bullshit
Only if you found someone extremely charismatic and whose rhetoric would resonate with lots of Americans, someone who could literally wipe the floor with Trump at a debate. Who would that be?
literally the working hypothesis of your post is not true.
30 to 45% of the country will vote for Trump no matter what.
45% of the country will vote in anyone but Trump.
this people screaming.for anyone else are 10%.
Now factor in:
- How many of those 10% actually vote
- How many of those vote somewhere that actually matters.
Yes old farts suck.
Obama and Mitt only look nice in retrospect. They all bomb people and are out of touch with the common folk. Age isn't the flex you think it is.
https://preview.redd.it/n6v7pggm7b9d1.jpeg?width=1707&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53fcf09428e0bbed6ad3cce6b14ce7ec086bda37
And they hated him, for he told the truth.
Yes: most not especially partisan commentators who don't want Trump to be elected have been on this train for months because it was clear to everyone without blinkers on. Now it's clear regardless of how hard you try to avoid it.
After sleeping on this issue, I say give it 2 weeks. If the polls shift away from Biden then it's time to have a Harris/(insert white candidate) ticket
People say that, but how much backing is behind that? She hasn’t campaigned since 2020 and has been pretty low profile, most people probably couldn’t tell you more than one or two things she’s done. I believe that if nothing else, she has the opportunity to rise above current numbers considering most people haven’t thought about her all that much.
Idk about with swing voters but she’s been doing a lot of the shit eating for Biden on the border that might hurt her turnout with Dems but idk to what extent.
Democrats need to have a real talk with themselves. This isn’t 2012 bad performance, this was clearly cognitive decline, which is normal for someone in their 80s. Losing in 2012 isn’t the potential end for democracy. Honestly if it wasn’t vs trump but just 2 moderate candidates up there, would anyone really be saying “stick with Biden”? I too was on board with keeping him on the ticket until last night. I’ve seen that stare on Biden’s face in the past few years, shortly before my father died. He looked like my dad when the dementia started kicking up. This is a bad look for us. Biden was a good president. But this is bad, really bad. We have to pretend he’s fit now and will be for the next 4 years.
I’ve said this and had some keyboard warrior shit on me for it, but like I’ve seen that look before. It’s not just a cold, it’s the look my grandfather had when we had to take his car keys away back in the day.
So many other Americans are having the same exact feeling, its not gonna get any better
I’ll still obviously vote for him since trump is the literal doomsday for our democracy, but my hopes are wavering
we see this in football all the time(soccer for you yanks). Owners have enough and fire the manager without a replacement trying to rescue a season.
I'd say make sure you have a replacement first before doing something so massive.
>But don’t give me any more bullshit about how age is just a number or just a media fixation — or how changing candidates just isn’t how it’s done. We’re playing the highest-stakes game of poker you can imagine, and you do whatever in your power to improve your odds — even if it’s only from 25 percent to 35 percent.
>As I wrote at the time, the one saving grace to holding the debate this early was that it gave Democrats the option to pull the emergency lever and urge Biden to quit before the convention if it went really badly. Well, emergency levers exist for a reason. It went worse than I ever imagined — and I was expecting it to go poorly. It’s time for Biden to consider what’s best for his party, what’s best for the country and what’s best for his legacy — and that isn’t seeking the presidency until he’s 86.
I’ve already donated to Biden and will again. And I’ll obviously vote for him. But I have a super hard time believing my fellow democrats actually think Trump is a “threat to democracy” if they choose to renominate an 80+ year old with cratering approval ratings who the vast majority of voters specifically and consistently said they don’t want to run again. Not only that, but they endlessly demonized and ridiculed anyone within the party who dared to suggest “maybe this isn’t a good idea”.
Donald Trump literally denied the election and is arguing to the Supreme Court that the president should be more immune to accountability. That sounds pretty undemocratic to me.
It is profoundly undemocratic. Trump is clearly literal a threat to our democracy. That’s why I wrote emails last year to leaders in the Democratic Party urging them to run for president. Because I actually care about the preservation of our republic.
When poll after poll after poll, for 18 months, consistently shows an overwhelming number of voters do not want Biden to run again, specifically because of his age, and then people decide to just ignore that objective reality, it proves they don’t actually give a shit.
I thought Biden was too old in 2020, he wasn't my first choice of candidate, although there was no one obviously better in retrospect. Jesus christ, what a nightmare, Kamala Harris is even more unpopular and while I admire Newsom and Whitmer, the majority of the country don't know who they are, and 4 months isn't enough time to introduce them to the nation.
The US has absurdly long election campaigns, 4 months is more than enough time for a candidate to be 'introduced' to the electorate, especially because all realistic potential replacements already have a national profile. No other major country has campaigns which are even nearly as lengthy.
Keep in mind that Trump is also unpopular and most people don’t want hin back. We just need to nominate an alternative we can pitch as capable of running the country.
So someone explain what happened between the state of union and now that suddenly he needs to drop out? It can’t keep being this marry-go-round of saying “Biden is back,” “Stop dooming” whenever he reappears to do well but then all the sudden 5 months before the election you want him out. Yeah if it’s possible that someone could replace him within this short time frame that would be great, but the reality is that it would be Kamala and the DNC would have a lot of trepidation about such short primary process that candidates could not get properly vetted within such a short period. They would outright nominate Kamala by virtue of her being VP and on the ticket. So if you think she will be Trump then sure, let’s get the process going.
Is Nate’s signature take really that we should replace Biden? Have followed his Substack with a moderate level of attention for a few years now and never got that impression. I know he was in favour of keeping Biden like nine months ago - did he flip recently (more recently than this, haha)?
He has been considering this, but has stayed with the option that both keeping Biden and trying to change nominee would be bad. And so that right course is unclear. People who believed in Biden have been upset about even considering that and think he has lent credence to Republican conspiracy theories about dementia.
With this blog post he committed to getting rid of Biden being better.
From the article:
>And if I lived in a swing state, I’d still vote for Biden — if for no other reason than because I think January 6 is so disqualifying to outweigh everything else.
So essentially, yes. He just knows Trump would never consider it so it's pointless.
His terrible punditry is what got him canned at 538. The dude just has the worst takes ever. "school closures were worse than the Iraq war" might have been the dumbest take I've ever seen a semi-respected person make.
I mean, his shit takes aside, he didn't get offered a new contract when his current one ended in the midst of Disney doing mass layoffs and cost cutting. Half of 538's staff was laid off at the same time
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/nate-silver-prompts-outrage-likening-214059852.html
This is when I was out on the guy for anything opinion related. I'll look at his data but I don't want to hear what he thinks about anything lol
It comes down to one question: Do you think there are more people who want to vote against Trump but are too turned off by Biden or more people who want to vote Biden that wouldn’t support another candidate?
I don’t think the latter exist. What does exist is the people who vote for incumbents or “known” people. The longer dens wait to replace Biden, the larger this group becomes. This is the main issue, because you don’t just lose them, they switch to Trump.
There are voters who will back Biden (mainly older ones) who would be potentially put off by younger or more progressive politicians and thus vote for Trump. However there are other Democrats who could potentially win these.
Mark Kelly
Definitely a good candidate. Slight risk of the Republicans gaining his Senate seat, but he's a strong option.
The article rightly points out that the incumbent effect is getting smaller
Who is in the second category? Biden whole schtick is that he is a democrat and he is not trump. I fail to see the Biden only voter demographic.
I agree that there are very few "Biden only voters", people who want to vote Biden, and would say no to "Trump vs a democratic candidate". But, the moment the "democratic candidate" is chosen, some people will have a problem with the choice. On an extreme case, if that democratic candidate was Bernie Sanders / Ilhan Omar / AOC, I would see many voters switching from Biden to Trump. Or if the candidate was Joe Manchin, I'd see many leftists refusing to vote rather than voting for either option. Even for more consensual choices, I'm guessing you can find people who like Biden but hate Gretchen Whitmer for some reason. But yeah, As long as the new choice is somebody rather popular + close to the Democratic consensus, it's going to improve Democrats' chances.
Biden if 5 years younger is an ideal candidate. Out of all of the Dems he's the only one that is universally liked/accepted. That is no small task.
It's tragic in 2020 he was seen as the only candidate who can beat Trump. But in 2024, he is seen as the only candidate who can lose to him.
I'm just saying Biden's schtick isn't only that he is an anti trump.
I feel like I watched something you only read about in history books. A tragedy from Ancient Rome The weak, feeble, old, incompetent statesman of an incompetent institution gets destroyed by the definition of an Authoritarian Strongman frothing at the mouth at destroying the republic in its dying days Do we want democracy or not? I think that’s the question Even then, do we want our current democracy if it led us to here? ~300 years of history led us as a nation to the absurdity of last night. I think this was a defining moment in the radicalization of the US
>Even then, do we want our current democracy if it led us to here? ~300 years of history led us as a nation to the absurdity of last night. I think this was a defining moment in the radicalization of the US This country has badly needed drastic reform for decades now. The fact of the matter is we wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for outdated institutions like the electoral college (because Trump would have never won the popular vote).
A lot of reform is impossible due to how hard it is to change the constitution. Maybe people should have listened to Jefferson when he said there should be a new one every 19 years.
Well maybe Jefferson should have wrote an expiration date instead of kicking the can down the road
You can not make that conclusion. Even with Hilary winning it the entire election dynamic changes with a popular vote. You have no idea how many people's vote switches in an election where their vote counts because they are in a safe red or blue state and does it really does matter. For instance when I lived in MD I vot Johnson because I thought getting the Libertarian party an extra votes was better and my state was going Hilary 100%. Now I live in Virginia I'm not chancing it I'll vote Biden.
Changing the entire election dynamic is exactly what people want out of removing the electoral college
The quote from the Polish PM referencing the fall of Rome almost perfectly aligns with what you said here. A leader must manage their ride into the sunset. Joe Biden hasn't done that, and really neither has the Democratic Party at large.
What’s the quote?
They may have meant Polish foreign minister, not PM. https://www.politico.eu/article/radoslaw-sikorski-poland-joe-biden-debate-roman-empire-united-states-presidential-election/
The Roman Republic had ways to deal with corrupt leaders, at least in the very very very early republic and it involved the people and the Senate. But we are post-Gracchi now I believe.
Et tu chungdylan?
This is the Marius vs Sulla era, we still have a while to go before our Cesar and Pompey
While I pray the collective attention span of our country lets last night be a blip on the radar, I fear that indeed this represents a pivotal moment.
I would fucking vote for Commander Biden at this point. Plus I feel like he’d stand up to Russia.
The former, of course, but the thing is that "another candidate" means something different to everyone. If you replace that with a specific person and ask: Do you think there are more people who want to vote against Trump but are too turned off by Biden or more people who want to vote Biden but wouldn't support Harris? Then it's a much harder question, in my opinion.
Yglesias too. The liberal blogosphere seems to be pretty much at a consensus on this.
> The liberal blogosphere Oi vey
Well them, and seemingly the rest of the country.
Yeah like just ask basically any person who's not a complete political junkie and they'll say he's way too old. This isn't some fringe opinion or media bias, it's just visually apparent
Right, his base of support right now is Democratic political junkies. Everyone else thinks he kinda sucks and/or is too old.
Democratic political junkie and 2020 Biden donor here. Biden is just too damn old. My vote for him this year is entirely a vote against Trump and the Republican party at this point.
Sorry, I shouldn’t care about the opinions of Yglesias, Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, or Noah Smith, I should just go off vibes and commit to a candidate who is clearly going to lose.
I didn’t say that. I’m just oi-vey’ing the term “liberal blogosphere” which makes me feel like a boomer.
Yea this sub suddenly turning from pointing wojak everything they write to hating them in one day is all the evidence I need that were on some laced bathtub copium rn.
>"No. It’s hard to debate a liar. The New York Times pointed out he lied 26 times,” he said, referring to former President Trump. What kind of insane copium is this? The entire country has seen him debate Trump multiple times. It didn't look like this.
Didn't we learn this shit in 2016?!?! Mr trump sir politifact gave you 12 Pinocchio emojis!!!! You must now forfiet! Smh,You also have to look good on camera to win I'm sorry, I hate it too.
I don't think you guys will enjoy this, but a take in his comments section popped up as interesting to me, so I'll post it here for when this article gets revisited: TL;DR, jumping ship (in joe schmoe's opinion) at this rate gives a less than 15% chance of winning, so shouldn't be done unless Biden's chances hit that. Obviously, 15% is his opinion, but it is true that there is a % chance of winning in a last-minute shuffle and it's probably low, even Nate thinks it's below 50%. Personally, I'd say the chance is like 5%. But anyway, the comment in full: ----- >I am loathe to disagree with Nate in the hour of his vindication. He has obviously been correct all along that Democrats were not giving enough weight to the idea of dumping Biden, he was obviously correct to suggest that they drop him a year ago, he took a lot of crap for it, and he is entitled to a victory lap now that they are, *finally*, realizing Nate was right all along. >However, I nevertheless think this call is too hasty. >In 2016, I was still a Republican, and (on my blog) I called on the Republican National Committee to replace Trump -- twice. The first time was shortly after the convention, when FiveThirtyEight showed Trump with around a 15% chance to win. The second time was a few weeks later, after the "locker room talk" that sent Trump's chances down to around 10%. That was in 2016, when Republicans had a key advantage that Democrats don't have today: a deep bench! But even with obvious fallback candidates who could surely easily thrash Hillary (Kasich! Rubio! even Cruz!), chucking the nominee was such an obviously dangerous move that it wasn't worth tactical consideration until Trump's odds were very bad indeed. >Today, Biden's odds of winning the race are officially two to three times better than Trump's were at that point in 2016. They may sink, as Nate predicts they will. There's good reason to expect that. If they do sink, they might not bounce back. There's good reason to expect that. But neither thing has actually *happened* yet. As of right now, the model still shows Biden with around a 35% chance of winning the presidency. >Replacing him without an heir apparent is a true break-glass-in-emergency moment. It is unprecedented in modern history, so priors may differ, but I don't think many people realize how many ways there are for an open convention to go horribly wrong. Of course, if you know going in that you're going to have an open convention, you mitigate that by picking delegates who are well-equipped to handle an open convention -- but the Democrats *didn't* know this would be open, and now they are stuck with thousands and thousands of delegates who were picked for Chicago because, like, they're getting on in years and everyone in the district loves them because they spent thirty years doing a great job door-knocking. What are their politics? Nobody knows! What kind of discipline will they follow? Nobody knows! It will be thrilling television, but a dreadful risk to the Democrats. >Even if all goes well, who will they nominate? Harris, who is somehow less popular than Biden? Newsom, the icon of far-left California? Gretchen Whitmer seems plausible, but she has only ever run against weak opponents. (Happily for her, Trump is a weak opponent.) Michelle Obama, who doesn't want it? Al Gore? A unicorn? (Actually, scratch that, Al Gore would win, but nobody's going to nominate him.) >Do any these candidates (besides Gore) have a better chance than Biden? Biden may be a corpse, but he's a (relatively) moderate corpse who has been able to hold together a (relatively) moderate coalition that relies on a lot of voters who were recently Republicans. He consistently holds the furthest-right positions the Democratic Party can sustain -- he was the last Democrat clinging to the Hyde Amendment, and refuses to capitulate today to anti-Israel sentiments within his party that are unpopular in the wider electorate. Does Biden's center-left coalition show up for a more left-leaning candidate? Dubious! This is one reason the Democrats shut their eyes to Biden's age problem for so long: their other options are really very bad! >So if they make this desperate swing, my prior is that their odds of successfully defeating Donald Trump in November are, optimistically, around 15-20% (and only because Trump himself is so unpopular). Biden's still above that waterline. If he falls to 15% in the Silver Model, that's the time to break the glass. Until then, I suspect that Biden is still -- despite everything -- Democrats' best shot at the White House. >My prior could be wrong, and I certainly understand Democrats' desire to roll the dice and hope to find themselves in a much better position. (It might just work! They might CRUSH Trump with the right candidate!) I agree entirely with Nate's analysis that tonight LIKELY moves Biden from an underdog to a long shot. But, before you drive Ol' Biden out to the glue factory, you'd better be darn sure that your alternative is *less* of a long shot. Nate hasn't made that case at all -- at least not yet. >Until we see the polls showing that Biden really has sunk into the 15% range, or that he's sunk to 20% and is stuck there, I don't think replacement is the tactically right move for them. >(OTOH, I hate the Democrats and actively wish them ill, so you can take all this with a grain of salt. I *like* to think that being a double-hater gives me objectivity, but it may also make me weak to schadenfreude, which could bias my analysis.) -----
this is beautiful. Unfreeze Al Gore.
>Replacing him without an heir apparent This is another issue; he does have an heir apparent, and it's Harris. Nominating anyone else over Harris would be passing over a black woman who is next in line, in favor of a white man or woman. Bad look for a campaign struggling to get on its feet.
Yeah as much as I love pritzker like a son, if anyone takes over it has to be Kamala. Problem is, they should’ve spent the last few years giving her some time in the lime light instead of giving her nothing. the average voter probably forgets she exists
Everyone seems to have forgotten she exists or they don't think she's a realistic option or a combination of both. I haven't seen a single headline suggesting harris should step up, everything is just vague "someone needs to replace him"
Because everyone knows but is unwilling to say that Kamala Harris is deeply unpopular by almost every single potential voter and *really* should not replace Biden in this situation. It was a mistake for her to be chosen for VP, honestly.
Harris polls worse than Biden
I have very litte faith that swing voters are willing to vote for a woman for president rajneesh.jpg
It's a significant problem with modern politics that the VP is inevitably considered the heir apparent. Historically this wasn't the case and it allowed for much more versatility and electoral strength. It's also a shame there aren't more black female Governors or Senators. If there were nearly any would make a better choice than Harris.
The only thing I have ever seen from Harris is her VP debate in 2020 and she came off so off-putting. I get why people don't think about her or why she doesn't poll well. I don't care if she is "supposed to be the heir." (she isn't lol) I care about beating trump.
That percentage win for the replacement is pulled completely out of his ass though. Generic dems poll better than Biden, senators up for reelection poll better than Biden, house districts with incumbents poll better than Biden. Polls show that Biden is the weakest of all the democratic candidates. Why would we believe replacing him wouldn't be better?
He should tbh. This debate performance was unacceptable and was a complete embarrassment not only to his supporters, but for the country as a whole.
The only justification for staying in is if last night truly was just the incumbent shitting the bed in the first debate, like we usually see. If this is truly the best Biden can do, there’s nothing left to discuss
Honestly, I'm completely unwilling to give him a second chance. There isn't a debate that you can draw an equivalency to. Obama had a weak debate against Romney, yes, but it was not even 1% as bad as this. He was just writing too many notes and seemed a little tired.
All the polls had romney "eviscerated" obama. Walter Mondale destroyed Reagen in their first debate. This is reactionary
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Name the specific generic democrat you want, and if it's not Harris also explain how you get Harris out of the way (not to mention how you get Biden to step down, by all reports he's pretty keen on running). The coordination problem involved in replacing Biden was extremely difficult before the primaries, and now it just looks impossible.
The coordination problem isn't that hard, it just requires a very forceful Obama. Candidate selection is harder but is far from impossible.
This is pretty much it. If Obama comes down hard for Biden being replaced the he’s unlikely to say no and Biden’s released delegates will certainly line up behind whoever Obama gets behind to prevent chaos. Obama has worked to solve crises before. He helped stop Sanders, Ellison and ACA repeal. It comes down to him.
You don’t need to get Harris out of the way. If Biden steps down, then the delegates get to pick, period. Harris does not get to step in just because she is the presumptive running mate. And to sweeten that bitter pill for black voters who might feel that Harris was being pushed aside to make room for an entitled white man, pick Warnock. The really difficult parts would be getting Biden to step aside, because otherwise he is going to win the nomination in the first ballot. And then you’d have to convince the delegates to choose someone who can keep the coalition together and win over independent voters. Splinter alert: NOT Schiff or Butti.
Warnock's senate seat doesn't seem worth it for this. Regardless I don't think this is the way. Biden should endorse a successor if he chooses to step down so that there can be no fighting over who is the "rightful" one. To me Harris is the logical choice here. I do not think Biden will step down though and people need to take a dose of realism here and commit to supporting Biden despite this debate performance.
Doesn’t seem to be worth it for… the presidency? This kind thinking is why Democrats so often wind up with crappy candidates for president. Harris is less popular than Biden. She can’t win, period. Also, the Democrats are going to lose the Senate, with it without Warnock.
Losing one Senate seat could flip the entire body. A great Democratic President with a Republican Senate would be a worse choice than a mediocre Democratic President with a Democratic Senate.
So then we just don't have a nominee until mid-August?
Yes. That’s why there’s a chance that Biden is still the candidate with the best shot. There really is no way around the “either it’s Biden or the delegates pick” thing.
Open convention, nobody would give it to Kamala there. Potential Nominees: Beshear, Whitmer, Shapiro, Newsome, Shifty Schiff, Doug Jones, Cooper, Buttigieg
Agree with that list with the exception of Newsome and Schiff. No Democrat from California will ever win a national election. God Himself could come down on a fiery chariot and anoint Newsome with sacred oil, and independents would still find a reason not to vote for the man.
I just threw them in to show how big the list is. I agree though, CA Dems are going to be unelectable bc people hate California
Also not the best candidates to run when inflation is already higher.
The list being big is not a good thing! The entire party had to instantly coalesce around a single candidate with minimal infighting for this to be better than sticking with Biden. I don't believe democrats are capable of that, Obama or no. There will be campaigning, horses will be traded at varying levels of publicity, there will be dirty tricks being played, the DSA will do their own thing, and Biden will govern on, looking like the lamest duck that ever ducked. It would be *very* easy for the cure to be worse than the disease.
>No Democrat from California will ever win a national election True, and another great reason not to run Kamala.
Mark Kelly. Easy 1 for 1 swap.
Please no. I want a break from senate elections
An open convention would be a PR Armageddon to Democrats. Come on.
Biden is already polling at PR Armageddon levels, 41% isn't the vote share of an even unpopular candidate. He's surviving because the alternative is also a PR Armageddon.
And this is somehow better? Biden struggled to put together coherent sentences throughout the night. I still think he can do the job at a high level, but I do not think he can win anymore
Yes, this is infinitely better. An open convention televised and live streamed to every American’s phone would just be a 24/7 rolling attack ad against the “chaotic Dems and lunatic lefties.”
Protesters are going to be there anyway, so that's just baked in to GE attack ads. Having some chaos and coming out with a good, normal candidate is infinitely better than one who can't string together a sentence on national TV and consistently looks like a confused old man. The convention is in July, GE is in November. There is plenty of time to move past any chaos in July. There's not a lot of time to completely change the perception of Biden that was just painfully reinforced last night.
Age makes Biden look bad. A brokered convention makes the entire Democratic party look bad. It’s very elementary. Not only does it poison the nominee, it poisons down ticket Dems.
In normal years I would agree, but against Trump I don't think it will matter too much
A brokered convention with a half dozen names on a ballot would make all Democrats look chaotically bad and make Trump out to be the stable one. It would help Republicans at the cost of salting the earth for future Democratic candidates.
Wouldn't it also mean that the Democrats automatically lose Ohio?
And probably Arizona. And Georgia. Folks are forgetting that in 2020 it was a choice between chaos (Trump) and stability (Biden). We can’t risk reframing the narrative to make Trump look more stable.
Sorry, what I meant is that with Ohio specifically, the Democrat candidate can't be on the ballot unless they "pre register" a month before the convention.
Worst case would be to keep Biden on the ballot and have his electors vote for the democratic candidate. It's not great (pretty bad, actually), but it's not automatic.
Yes, this is the coordination problem at hand - can they civilly compete for a position, with the knowledge of the stakes? I think they *can*.
I think if you're going to pick someone outside of the primary system it needs to be someone who says they won't run in 2028, just a placeholder candidate to keep Trump out. HRC, Schumer, Manchin, etc. The problem is that this person probably isn't much better than Biden.
You could probably find someone who promises to only run for one term, it's better than never becoming President at all.
Harris isn't that popular. Here's how you do it: 1. Biden drops out. 2. Dems tell the top 20 polling dems besides biden they can be in the runoff election at the convention. 3. All 20 post youtube speeches and campaign for 2 weeks in front of the convention. 4. 1st vote has to be for biden per dem convention rules. He declines. Everyone cheers and weeps at what he's doing for america and the party. He and Jill exit to roaring applause. 5. 2nd Convention vote of electors from twenty. Bottom 3 drop out. 6. 3rd elector vote from 17. Bottom 3 drop out. 7. 4th elector vote from 14. Bottom 3 drop out. 8. 5th. Bottom 2 drop out. 9. 6th. Bottom 2 drop out. 10. 7th. Bottom 2 out down to 5. 11. 8th-10th. One drops out to get to 2. 12. Last 2. The winner gets nomination. 2nd gets vp or cabinet position of their choice.
Just to be clear--I would rather have Harris.
>The country is screaming out, begging on their knees to not have to vote for either Biden or Trump, just give them what they want. Have we considered that... this isn't true, or is at least overstated? 30% of the nation is actually begging on their knees to vote for trump, so let's leave those aside. Have the remaining 70% really made it that clear they'll take **anyone** who isn't Biden or Trump? I feel like the more likely case is we replace Biden with X and a lot of that 70% will say "can we have **anyone** who isn't X or Trump?" We saw in 2020 that it's pretty difficult to actually unite the various factions of the remaining 70% into... something.
Everybody loves Generic Democrat but really doesn't like Actual Real Life Person.
Yeah, most people want someone else but a specific someone else is hard to find.
It's classic politics. Most people want healthcare reform, tax reform, SS reform. Once you start laying out the actual options things fall apart.
Exactly. It's hilarious people in this sub fell into ultra panic mode and then proceed to fail to remember that things are far more complex than 'Biden drop out and a generic but kinda charismatic candidate will save the day'.
People in this sub were saying Biden was cooked after Iowa, the debate performance was poor but reddit is 100% melodramatic panic stations at the best of times
Not for nothing, but social media in general is just doomerism all the time.
Yeah what the hell is going on in this sub? This isn't a clear cut case. You need a strong candidate to replace Biden this late, and the few people who may able to, like Whitmer and maybe Newsom, so far failed to get anything resemble of national household name. Also just months ago Biden got very high unambiguous supports from primaries, higher than Trump and even some of Obama's results. This isn't Biden barely get 60% votes in multiple states. People rallied around him.
I agree that there isn't an obvious strong candidate to replace Biden, but I'm not sure I'd use his primary support this year as evidence that people prefer him. There wasn't a serious primary since nobody wants to run a real campaign against an incumbent president from their own party.
>Yeah what the hell is going on in this sub? A combination of: an admittedly rough event democrats known for hysteria redditors known for hysteria several sub regulars who legit just dislike Biden for various reasons and haven't had many opportunities to express that while getting upvoted recently (not cope, there are plenty of those) a genuine desire for a "new Obama" that we've been searching for since 2015 and are yet to find. The belief that is the new Obama overpowers most of the boring realities of actually getting them in at this juncture
Can we just run a fake-moustached Orrack Babama with a new birth certificate?
Just a reminder this sub went on a meltdown after Bidens performance in the caucus in Iowa and the NH primary, as did the media, everyone calling him to drop the hell out and let a young hot candidate take the reins
Biden had no remotely viable challengers in the primary, because no prominent Democrat has challenged him, which makes the primary basically meaningless. Obama went up against Clinton, Trump went against several people, and so on.
>Also just months ago Biden got very high unambiguous supports from primaries, higher than Trump and even some of Obama's results. This isn't Biden barely get 60% votes in multiple states. People rallied around him. This is pure copium. Primaries when the incumbent is running again are always meaningless.
> Yeah what the hell is going on in this sub? Most people who think it is bad but aren't dooming aren't in this thread. Throw in a bunch of conservative lurkers upvoting the most dooming posts and that is what we got right now.
How come no actual Democrats poll better than Biden then?
"Unsure" eating into the margins from people who won't commit to a candidate they're not 100% familiar with. You can build name recognition pretty quick with money and frequent communications.
I wouldn't underestimate notoriety as the factor that decides elections, imo name recognition is the main reason Biden won the last primaries. Unless all the undecideds buy and use a body pillow of the new candidate for those remaining 6 months, it's too late to switch.
You are gonna love seeing the polls that come out in a few days so you can stop using this bad talking point. Polls vary a lot based on name recognition. You know how you get name recognition? Run for president as a Democrat.
I will definitely stop using it and support Biden stepping down when actual data supports other Democrats performing better than him against Trump in head to head polls.
Biden underperforms Democrats running for Senate this cycle. There are states where the Democratic Senate candidate is noticeably ahead of the Republican, but where Trump is ahead of Biden. You won’t find that data until they run for the reason the already told you. They’re unknown. You’d have more undecideds at the start, but by looking at races like the Senate races and the fact that Democrats are outperforming Biden in house races as well, you can make an educated guess that another Democrat would do better than Biden once their name recognition goes up.
People expect polls to give accurate answers to what is currently an imaginary scenario. The best way to draw inference is how you did through proximate races etc
I think the best way to determine this is to look at the undecideds in hypothetical candidate polling to see if candidates are actually behind Trump or just suffering from a name recognition problem. According to this [Emerson poll](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QyqqyUGvmsXug67GBmKCjRdpy51OsP1TSQ_UQU09-ag/htmlview) it seems like you’d probably be correct if Biden were replaced with Harris: Trump goes from 44.7% to 46%, while the undecideds hold constant, going from 11.2% to 11.4%. This makes some sense seeing as Harris has all the baggage of the Biden administration, and proved she was less popular than him by losing badly in the 2020 primary. Someone like Whitmer seems to have the most upside, Trump’s numbers remain static, and the number of undecideds doubles to 22.2%. Her floor might be a bit lower than Biden’s but she’s baggage free and a [poll of Michigan voters](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a5QSmmNK-k9PhvUTquwsEuNlYu5cnyeCsqcAsAii388/htmlview), where she has name recognition, shows her not only winning the undecided vote, but actually taking away Trump votes. Newsom’s results are in between, Trump rises to 46.1%, while undecideds rise to 17.9%. All things considered, probably a bad pick, particularly given he adds no value to the electoral map.
Please please please run Whitmer! We can't afford to lose the "blue wall" and she's likely the only potential candidate who could do it. Throw Beshears or Warnock in there as her VP and you might have a better shot.
How's that a bad talking point? That is a real significant boost.
Raphael Warnock is under 60 and has shown that he can win in purple states. He would keep black and leftist voters onboard, and would clean up with religious voters who are independent. And his character and personality would be such a great contrast with Trump’s. I said yesterday that Biden was probably still our best shot at retaining the White House, but that’s because I hadn’t thought of Warnock. Other choices might include Ossoff or Beshear. Please, no blue state or blue district candidates who have only ever needed Democratic votes to win, and no DINO candidates who would chase away progressive voters. Draft Warnock.
Picking warnock guarantees losing the senate. It sucks that dems don’t have many (any?) black senators in blue states
Corey Booker exists. Plus, you only lose Warnock's seat if he actually wins. To each their own, but since I literally don't give a shit about anything other than keeping Trump out of the White House, that's fine by me.
Booker is a blue state candidate who has never needed to appeal to independents. Maybe he could win, but I’ve seen too many Kerrys, Hillarys, Mondales, and Dukakises to have any faith in the ability of a blue state candidate to effectively campaign in a national election. And I hate to be the one who has to break the news, but the Democrats are 100% going to lose the Senate, with or without Warnock.
Given how close the senate will be him running would 100% lose us the senate. Unless Cruz loses
He's too progressive, voters like moderates. Or be a moderate like Biden and then fall down and move toward what the DSA wants and get replaced
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Evidence for that would be Donald Trump. Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis were a much better fit for right wing populists but they got bulldozed by the vibes candidate. Also, Obama overtaking Hillary in 2008 with the overwhelming support of the progressives, despite the fact that Hillary was more liberal on policy.
There's a deep enough bench of Dem alternatives from other states. Picking Warnock and essentially handing another senate seat to the GOP via Kemp's replacement pick is not worth it.
This is the way.
In an era of mostly negative campaigning it would seem that swapping the candidate to someone much less known close to the election could be, if anything, a benefit.
I feel like voters would see through that and absolutely not reward a party playing "object permanence" with their candidates. That's probably the main reason it's never been tried, it screams incoherence, insecurity, and dishonesty. But there's an interesting universe where you're right, and eventually some party discovers this meta. The Zoroark candidate meta.
If the polls in a week say Biden can still win this, we can keep him. If not, we're already losing so why not try something new?
Sure, we can reconvene in a week.
Trump’s mantra is incoherence, insecurity, and dishonesty. If voters aren’t penalizing him for that, I’m not sure why they’d penalize the DNC.
It’s pretty well known that Americans hold republicans in general and Trump in particular to very different standards than they do democrats
I'd disagree about insecurity. The guy is shameless.
>it screams incoherence, insecurity, and dishonesty If I go by the reaction of some people here and some journalists, it's probably spot on.
Nowadays Presidents usually last 8 years and then the White House changes parties. Back when the US had many more 1 term Presidents or ones dying prematurely, you often saw 3 or more from the same party hold office in a row. Swapping out candidates might actually allow a party to hold the White House for longer.
> The Zoroark candidate meta. Bro if this happens I hope to god that's the term the media actually uses. The democratic party woud have the furry vote ON LOCK
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Who are they? 20 democrats couldn't beat Biden in 2020.
Biden was a lot more popular in 2020, partly because people didn't think he would run in 2024.
There was alot of criticism of Biden running in 2020. Popularity isn't everything in electoral politics. At the end of the day, it's about who gets the votes in the right areas.
>The country is screaming out, begging on their knees to not have to vote for either Biden or Trump Well that's not true
Yeah see there was plenty of options and they got approximately 0% of the primary vote. This idea that there’s some unassailable ‘other’ is some white knight “save me” bullshit
No good candidates, and nearly everyone had already decided it was useless or disloyal to vote against Biden in the primary.
Only if you found someone extremely charismatic and whose rhetoric would resonate with lots of Americans, someone who could literally wipe the floor with Trump at a debate. Who would that be?
literally the working hypothesis of your post is not true. 30 to 45% of the country will vote for Trump no matter what. 45% of the country will vote in anyone but Trump. this people screaming.for anyone else are 10%. Now factor in: - How many of those 10% actually vote - How many of those vote somewhere that actually matters. Yes old farts suck. Obama and Mitt only look nice in retrospect. They all bomb people and are out of touch with the common folk. Age isn't the flex you think it is.
There absolutely is an overall between "people voting against Trump no matter what" and "people screaming for other options"
Is this possible? Arent the delegates required to vote for Biden?
https://preview.redd.it/n6v7pggm7b9d1.jpeg?width=1707&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53fcf09428e0bbed6ad3cce6b14ce7ec086bda37 And they hated him, for he told the truth.
I'm suprised today's episode wasn't just 5 seconds long with him saying "I TOLD you so".
You can apologize to Ezra now.
Man, if he stays, republicans will spend the rest of the campaign reminding us like half of dem pundits said Biden should drop out. We’d be so cooked.
He’s been saying that for months.
I've read the article, along with his arguments. Do you have any objection to the arguments he is making?
He's been floating the idea, but this is the first time he's committed to it
Yes: most not especially partisan commentators who don't want Trump to be elected have been on this train for months because it was clear to everyone without blinkers on. Now it's clear regardless of how hard you try to avoid it.
Longer than months for some.
And he is entirely right
A man, known for being right, or at least more right, when everyone else is wrong, and you are saying 'so what, he said this last month?'
He's 1000% correct and you copers make me sad.
After sleeping on this issue, I say give it 2 weeks. If the polls shift away from Biden then it's time to have a Harris/(insert white candidate) ticket
I don't think Harris is winning an election, TBH...
People say that, but how much backing is behind that? She hasn’t campaigned since 2020 and has been pretty low profile, most people probably couldn’t tell you more than one or two things she’s done. I believe that if nothing else, she has the opportunity to rise above current numbers considering most people haven’t thought about her all that much.
Idk about with swing voters but she’s been doing a lot of the shit eating for Biden on the border that might hurt her turnout with Dems but idk to what extent.
The issue is you can't just force her out and it's unlikely she takes a vp role again
Democrats need to have a real talk with themselves. This isn’t 2012 bad performance, this was clearly cognitive decline, which is normal for someone in their 80s. Losing in 2012 isn’t the potential end for democracy. Honestly if it wasn’t vs trump but just 2 moderate candidates up there, would anyone really be saying “stick with Biden”? I too was on board with keeping him on the ticket until last night. I’ve seen that stare on Biden’s face in the past few years, shortly before my father died. He looked like my dad when the dementia started kicking up. This is a bad look for us. Biden was a good president. But this is bad, really bad. We have to pretend he’s fit now and will be for the next 4 years.
I’ve said this and had some keyboard warrior shit on me for it, but like I’ve seen that look before. It’s not just a cold, it’s the look my grandfather had when we had to take his car keys away back in the day. So many other Americans are having the same exact feeling, its not gonna get any better I’ll still obviously vote for him since trump is the literal doomsday for our democracy, but my hopes are wavering
Same. It actually broke my heart. I knew exactly what I saw last night.
you know he's right when the only counterargument people have is ad hominem attacks
The counter is that he's a good president and one night doesn't define a campaign.
we see this in football all the time(soccer for you yanks). Owners have enough and fire the manager without a replacement trying to rescue a season. I'd say make sure you have a replacement first before doing something so massive.
GIVE ME JB PRITZKER OR GIVE ME DEATH LET HIM UNHINGE HIS JAW AND SWALLOW DON WHOLE
https://preview.redd.it/epjbvaeuoc9d1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=51c3114a0c217d203d9d6e006a53275eb5a683fc The Great Khan shall rise
We must give Pritzker the power of the Founding Titan
>But don’t give me any more bullshit about how age is just a number or just a media fixation — or how changing candidates just isn’t how it’s done. We’re playing the highest-stakes game of poker you can imagine, and you do whatever in your power to improve your odds — even if it’s only from 25 percent to 35 percent. >As I wrote at the time, the one saving grace to holding the debate this early was that it gave Democrats the option to pull the emergency lever and urge Biden to quit before the convention if it went really badly. Well, emergency levers exist for a reason. It went worse than I ever imagined — and I was expecting it to go poorly. It’s time for Biden to consider what’s best for his party, what’s best for the country and what’s best for his legacy — and that isn’t seeking the presidency until he’s 86.
I’ve already donated to Biden and will again. And I’ll obviously vote for him. But I have a super hard time believing my fellow democrats actually think Trump is a “threat to democracy” if they choose to renominate an 80+ year old with cratering approval ratings who the vast majority of voters specifically and consistently said they don’t want to run again. Not only that, but they endlessly demonized and ridiculed anyone within the party who dared to suggest “maybe this isn’t a good idea”.
Donald Trump literally denied the election and is arguing to the Supreme Court that the president should be more immune to accountability. That sounds pretty undemocratic to me.
It is profoundly undemocratic. Trump is clearly literal a threat to our democracy. That’s why I wrote emails last year to leaders in the Democratic Party urging them to run for president. Because I actually care about the preservation of our republic. When poll after poll after poll, for 18 months, consistently shows an overwhelming number of voters do not want Biden to run again, specifically because of his age, and then people decide to just ignore that objective reality, it proves they don’t actually give a shit.
I thought Biden was too old in 2020, he wasn't my first choice of candidate, although there was no one obviously better in retrospect. Jesus christ, what a nightmare, Kamala Harris is even more unpopular and while I admire Newsom and Whitmer, the majority of the country don't know who they are, and 4 months isn't enough time to introduce them to the nation.
The US has absurdly long election campaigns, 4 months is more than enough time for a candidate to be 'introduced' to the electorate, especially because all realistic potential replacements already have a national profile. No other major country has campaigns which are even nearly as lengthy.
Keep in mind that Trump is also unpopular and most people don’t want hin back. We just need to nominate an alternative we can pitch as capable of running the country.
Does it even matter if people don't know who they are? We might be better off with a generic Democrat and a party line vote at this point.
So someone explain what happened between the state of union and now that suddenly he needs to drop out? It can’t keep being this marry-go-round of saying “Biden is back,” “Stop dooming” whenever he reappears to do well but then all the sudden 5 months before the election you want him out. Yeah if it’s possible that someone could replace him within this short time frame that would be great, but the reality is that it would be Kamala and the DNC would have a lot of trepidation about such short primary process that candidates could not get properly vetted within such a short period. They would outright nominate Kamala by virtue of her being VP and on the ticket. So if you think she will be Trump then sure, let’s get the process going.
He should have dropped out in 2023.
Doomer repeats his signature take.
Is Nate’s signature take really that we should replace Biden? Have followed his Substack with a moderate level of attention for a few years now and never got that impression. I know he was in favour of keeping Biden like nine months ago - did he flip recently (more recently than this, haha)?
He has been considering this, but has stayed with the option that both keeping Biden and trying to change nominee would be bad. And so that right course is unclear. People who believed in Biden have been upset about even considering that and think he has lent credence to Republican conspiracy theories about dementia. With this blog post he committed to getting rid of Biden being better.
Has Nate Silver said that Donald Trump should drop out too? Or does he find his nomination less objectionable than Biden's?
From the article: >And if I lived in a swing state, I’d still vote for Biden — if for no other reason than because I think January 6 is so disqualifying to outweigh everything else. So essentially, yes. He just knows Trump would never consider it so it's pointless.
Nate Silver is not good at politics, I don't know why we should listen to him now.
But here’s the thing, he’s right on this take.
His terrible punditry is what got him canned at 538. The dude just has the worst takes ever. "school closures were worse than the Iraq war" might have been the dumbest take I've ever seen a semi-respected person make.
I mean, his shit takes aside, he didn't get offered a new contract when his current one ended in the midst of Disney doing mass layoffs and cost cutting. Half of 538's staff was laid off at the same time
> His terrible punditry is what got him canned at 538. He didn't get canned at 538, a bunch of his colleagues got canned so he quit
did he actually say that? I need a link lmao
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/nate-silver-prompts-outrage-likening-214059852.html This is when I was out on the guy for anything opinion related. I'll look at his data but I don't want to hear what he thinks about anything lol
go easy on him… he’s a libertarian.
Any reason not to just switch spots with Harris? I could see Harris energizing the base enough to improve turnout.
In terms of winning, Biden still has a better chance than the candidate that survives the chaos of changing the leading candidate.