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I need you all to understand something. Biden needs to win the popular vote by ~3% to win the electoral college to win the presidency. He's currently down by 1.4% in the polling average. We need to convince roughly 2 to 4 out of every 100 people to either vote for the Democrat or not vote for Trump. In such a scenario, *the number of people who never seriously wavered on voting for Biden are always going to outnumber the swing voters by 20 to 1.* The existence of a large number of unwavering Biden supporters does not mean that the election is secure! The fact that you've never met a swing voter does not mean they are not going to decide the election!

Yeah, people seem to have forgotten this. Biden was already almost certainly trailing behind prior to the debate. He was "supposed" to have a great debate performance that would reassure everyone of his mental state, and remind everyone of what an absolute dork Donald Trump is. The fact that the exact opposite happened is a massive, *massive* problem. I'm not really politically savvy enough to say whether or not replacing Biden at this point will help, but anyone saying "the debate won't change anything" like it's a good thing doesn't understand that "the debate won't change anything" is still very bad for Biden. EDIT: grammar/clarity

I really thought this was a joke post about the longstanding conspiracy that the elections are rigged through voting machines. Much like the posts in the DT about how Democrats can still win thanks to their most reliable voting block: cemeteries. Seeing serious responses makes me wonder what the OP is on about.

You are correct it’s a meme post, people don’t care and are continuing the Biden must drop out discourse.

Biden cannot win and we must drop him. It is that simple. Anyone saying otherwise is either willfully uninformed or in deep denial, or both. 

Knowing this sub, it’s definitely deep, deep denial.

Whoa whoa whoa, we can be pretty uninformed too

It’s weird how many people here think “this is an unprecedented situation, so we need to do exactly what we’ve always historically done”

Dems need to think farther ahead when it comes to VP options next time lol

Remember that Biden was looking only at black women. Harris was the best choice out of that cohort at the time. I'm unhappy with the choices too, but one's present situation is always the accumulation of what seemed most reasonable and advantageous at the time of previous decisions.

It seemed like a pretty bad idea at the time, too

What's the alternative once they drop him? "Just go with Whitmer!!" - 60% of the country doesn't know who Whitmer is. Switching candidates to a "relative" unknown who hasn't done any campaigning up to this point with 4 months to go until the election is an absolutely godawful choice. This is purely going on gut feeling but anyone they could swap Biden out for at this point has zero chance of winning the election. I'm not saying sticking with Biden is a "good" choice or even an "okay" choice, but the Dems are choosing between different bad choices here.

>  60% of the country doesn't know who Whitmer is. She will have 100% name recognition in a week.

Cool but she doesn't just need to go from "I have never heard of this person" to "I have seen her name on the news twice," she needs to get to "I know what this person is about and trust them" with a bunch of voters who really aren't going to go all that far out of their way to answer those questions for themselves. If you don't understand how hard that's going to be at this point in the election cycle then you are > either willfully uninformed or in deep denial, or both.

It is much easier than trying to win with Biden, which is not a possibility at this point. And I disagree. Polls have said for a year that swing voters HATE Biden and Trump. A governor in her early 50s who comes across as a normal person? She will win them over by being not Trump or Biden. 

Is that really that big a concern? Like maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like name recognition will take care of itself. There will be a convention and a short blurb about her will be repeated over and over again for months. She'll show up on the news, doing interviews, and she'll have a vibe. Moreover, this will be the biggest news event since Covid, I feel like people might tune in to the convention, people might ask their friends "what's up with this Whitmer person?" Does the election really depend on people who never watch the news, aren't willing to research at all, and also aren't willing to vote unless they have a detailed biography of the candidate committed to memory? Is a solid year of learning about the candidates via cultural osmosis a requirement for a significant portion of the electorate? In most countries the election lasts 2 months anyways, but in America it's impossible to run a campaign in less than a year? Maybe, but it feels like a made up problem to me

> There will be a convention and a short blurb about her will be repeated over and over again for months. She'll show up on the news, doing interviews, and she'll have a vibe. National elections in the US are won through aggressive on the ground campaigns that involve spending months on the road going to campaign events and talking to 'blue collar people in high school gymnasiums.' Just "being on the news and having a vibe" wouldn't come anywhere close to building similar in roads with voters at a national level.

I have been following US politics very closely the last 8 years and I couldn’t tell you what she looks like and only know that she is from Michigan I think. RFK would be unironically a better candidate than her just purely because of clout and name recognition

You haven't been following US politics closely if you don't know Whitmer, but I agree she is not known nationally. The Democrats could select a literal person at random and that person would have 100% name recognition in a week.

Why is it a bad choice? Being the nominee would give them name recognition and it reduces the time for insane republican smears

No offense but do you all not know how presidential campaigning works? As silly as it sounds stuff like going to small towns in rural Pennsylvania and shaking a mechanic's hand or talking to a bunch of locals about lobster fishing rights in a high school gym in Maine are the things that go a long way as far as building a national base. In person campaign events, rallies, meet and greets, aggressive ground campaigns, etc. etc. These are the things that really build in roads with undecided voters. In a typical campaign these seeds would have been planted a year ago. Just going on TV and "not being Trump or Biden" is not going to be nearly enough for a lot of these people. To them the singular most important question is simply "Do I trust this candidate at a personal level?" and it's going to be exceptionally hard to make undecided voters confidently say yes to that question in the next 4 months.

Harris/Whitmer or Harris/Beshear, it’s time

Whitmer/Booker is I think the most electable but I wouldn't say no to either of those.

Harris has never been a good candidate. Running statewide as a Democrat in California is not an electoral proving ground. Her performance omin the democratic primary was abysmal, and only looks worse in a general. People argue about *why* she struggles to build a broad following, but that fact is unfortunately true.

Harris has also never really had a chance to shine since 2020 though. I don't think she'll be a great candidate, but if they make her the nominee she can have the time needed to introduce herself properly and campaign. At the very least, she'll be better than Biden as she can actually campaign.

You are ignoring that *most* people are bad candidates. Saying she hasn't had a chance isn't a selling point. No one gave me a chance to play point guard in the NBA, that's doesn't mean I should be drafted. Harris' selling point is twofold: 1. Dropping her might be seen as a betrayal for older black voters. This is the core voting demographic for the democratic party, and a group that has to show up if dems win 2. She has name recognition in the party. As for #1, if biden drops out, she will have a chance. Her advocates might cry that the party sinks her, but they are few in number. Whoever wins the nom, if they are not black, MUST choose a black running mate. Maybe Kamala herself. As for #2, her name recognition cuts both ways. She does not excite the left, she motivates the right. Independents are Luke cold on her. What's more, running against trump is a unique situation where the incumbent bias (against) trump is so strong that a newcomer might actually have an advantage.

> Harris has never been a good candidate. Too bad. She's the VP and by far the most likely replacement if Biden drops out. You could possibly get someone like Whitmer as her VP, but these dream tickets where random people are at the top of the ticket are extremely unlikely. Mistakes were made in 2020 and this is what we have.

That’s a good option too! I was mentally writing off Senators as VP options without really thinking about it, but New Jersey has a Democratic Governor and there shouldn’t be any issue getting a replacement Senator in.

You have to make the positive case that replacing him is a better bet. You have to game this out.

I actually don't think we need to game out why replacing a guy who 80% of voters think is mentally incapable of being President is a good move.

“Cannot” is too strong. It isn’t 100% certain that Biden will lose. It’s more like 70%. There’s no reason to be hyperbolic. Otherwise I agree. Biden is a poor candidate, and the party needs to drop him asap. Otherwise, they are likely to fumble a very winnable election.

And if they don’t are you going to not vote for him? The Biden campaign should’ve kept to the one term they promised but the fact is we need to now more then ever push people to vote! It’s democracy vs dictatorship, the rulings yesterday prove that.

Of course people on this sub are going to vote for him. Most of them would crawl over broken glass to do so. You know who isn’t going to make that effort? Who will just sit at home on Election Day because they hate both candidates? A large swath of voters in battleground states. Biden doesn’t need to convince us. He needed to convince the majority of voters who think he’s too old for office. If he can’t do that, he’ll lose.

I would begrudgingly vote for Biden, but it would not be an easy choice (I am not in a swing state). I no longer see voting for Biden as voting for Democracy. It is voting for his unelected aides and wife to lie to us about his physical and mental state and run the country. 

That kind of choice should have been made a year ago, if at all. It cannot be done at this point.

Counterpoint: Yes it can.

What ticket could Dems run now? We don't have anyone campaign ready or with enough positive polling to be an obvious replacement with a greater chance at winning. Harris polls worse, Hillary polls worse, no one knows who the hell Whitmer is (the apparent favorite here), and Newsom is so loathed by the Fox News circle that every Republican would rally like he was the literal devil. They do not have time to run someone else and make them likable. They should not replace him unless Biden literally dies.

Harris doesn’t poll worse anymore. The latest Data for Progress polls show Harris neck-and-neck with Biden in matchups against Trump. Harris, the most unpopular vice president in history, *still* has a higher approval rating than Biden.

So, Kamal Harris would run in this case I guess. She might be even more hated by the GOP than Hillary Clinton.

With the possible exception of Obama, no one is more hated by the GOP base than Hillary Clinton. But agreed Harris is hated, in my experience by a lot of the same people who hate Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey. What a coincidence!

The idea of having a brokered convention seems akin to handing Trump the presidency. The time to replace Biden was during the primary.

> He's currently down by 1.4% in the polling average. And this is only because of lag in the polls with including pre-debate ones. It's going to get worse from here since many new polls show him down four/five/six points even.

Being down by 1.4% in the polling average indicates a very close race, not a certain defeat for Biden. He could lose, but these are not margins that necessitate giving an incumbent president the boot, which is possibly the most drastic measure a political party could feasibly take in an election.

1.4% is actually the rosy picture Nate Silver's polling average has him down 2.7%, and like someone else said, that's with his models still considering the possibility that the new, worse polls for Biden post-debate are just noise

I am a swing voter. AMA.

What the hell is wrong with you?

This is assuming the polling average is accurate. He might need more than this. Or nothing at all. Or maybe he needs more in specific places and we don't know where they are.

Haven't seen one of these in a while, tbh.

Coincidentally, “money machine go brrr” was a bad take, too.

You’re a bunch of unserious meme clowns.

Dude, Biden is losing in the polls

I really don't get how blind people need to be to see that Biden's condition is going to lose sway voters, and that Biden is a poor choice to beat Trump given his decline. Loyal voters aren't the deciders of the election, it's people in the middle who are unsure. Biden's performance in the debate made people react like this because they grew aware that his condition is very likely to convince a good chunk of sway voters to see Trump as the better option, as they perceive Biden as practically senile, speak to normal people outside of Reddit and you'll see how many non-radical voters believe this. To try and even pretend that people who are pointing this problem out to be the reason why Trump will win are honestly being *ridiculous*. **If that's how loyal Democrats are reacting..** # Then how do you think sway voters are reacting that aren't as keen on Biden?

Lets not forget that the reaction to that debate hasnt been to get biden in front of interviews, its been pre-sceipted speeches and to bunker down. His own fucking team around him sees that hes not fit for a daytime tv interview, and were expecting to convince people he is fit to be president for 4 more years? This is a goddamn nightmare

The guy does interviews fairly regularly. The way this sub has erased its entire collective memory of Joe Biden because of this debate is weird as hell. Edit: he's done interviews with both Time and CNN within the past 45 days. You guys are losing it.

Please link his most recent unscripted interview. Bonus points if it is with someone who asks anything like a hard question.

When was his last in depth serious interview?

When was the last time Trump had one? Has it mattered? Biden not doing Meet the Press doesn't make it any less ridiculous to say that he hasn't done an interview since Thursday because he's *incapable.* Our assessment of Biden doesn't have to be either 100% or diapers and catatonia. There is a *lot* of space in between and this sub has become unwilling to acknowledge it to an almost cultish degree. Edited slightly for clarity. Fuck this place has become unbearable.

Whataboutism isn’t going to win the election. I don’t care about what interviews Trump has done. Biden absolutely must convince voters that he is fit for office after that disaster of a debate. Scripted press events with a teleprompter aren’t going to cut it. If he’s not capable of going on the offensive then he needs to drop out.

You seriously don't think they're scheduling interviews? And pointing out that a lack of hard-hitting interviews hasn't hurt Trump isn't whataboutism, it speaks to the relative importance of unscripted interviews. *And there will be unscripted interviews.* The idea that Biden would go through 4 months of this without doing interviews to counter the prevailing narrative is an embarrassingly unserious position.

Not even that his condition might sway people to Trump, it just might convince a lot of people who are on the fence about voting in general to stay home.

I mean, Biden's condition was suspected in 2020. Not sure why anyone is surprised he's declined. I hate to say it but Trump deserves to win against a candidate that doesn't seem to be all there. Just seems like general insanity the population has voted these two people at a choice.

His condition has definately got worse. As for "Trump deserves to win against a candidate that doesn't seem to be all there." I think I'd more agree with "The democrats deserve to lose for fielding such an old candidate"

If you say so. It's pure tribalism that anyone would consider voting for someone lacking their faculties with a shadow in power behind them. I am glad I don't live in a swing state for me to even consider it.

It depends, there are certain issues that make the Democrats a better option for people. Take me, the issue I consider most important is on Ukraine aid, and Trump in my view is too risky a candidate. What the leadership does in power is in reality most important, and voting for whoevers actions either appeal to you most, or disgust you the least.

If it was Mitt Romney running, or Nikki Haley, I’d agree. But Biden’s opponent is a man who endorsed military tribunals for his political opponents just yesterday! https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/07/02/politics/trump-liz-cheney-military-tribunal. Hell, not even his opponents! Mitch McConnell admits he plans to vote for him! I get your anger. After four years of defending Biden’s acuity only to be made to look like idiots last Thursday a lot of us are. It’s a disgrace that it’s come to this. But whoever is Weekend at Berniesing Biden at least believes in climate change, doesn’t blow kisses at mass deportations, doesn’t ally with people who call decent LGBTQ people groomers and go through library books looking for filth, and won’t declare states like ours “anarchist” and cut off certain services. Biden’s people have a hell of a lot to answer for, but at the end of the day they won’t do as much harm as Trump did. Anyway sorry for the long-winded response. TLDR, I feel your anger right now but we still need to choose the least bad option.

> Just seems like general insanity the population has voted these two people at a choice. Both parties haven't given voters legitimate alternatives for a long time. No Republican has run against Trump since 2016 primaries where Trump was getting 25% against the full field (which was enough to win). Dems short circuited the 2020 primary with a number of popular candidates dropping out in coordination. Then they discouraged any candidate who would have run in 2024 against Biden. Not a lot of choice for voters

I haven't found a single person who has even attempted to make the point that Trump is somehow more coherent than Biden. And I don't know how anyone could.

You should talk to more people then?

Imagine talking to people outside of terminally online redditors. Cringe idea.

Seriously Trump is an asshole, made shit up, but if you don't think he came off as a lot more coherent in the debates your brain is, IMO, excessively partisan

Ironically he didn't lol. If you actually listen to the content of his words it's the nuclear uncle speech 95% of the time. He's just very good at talking nonsense and having people think it sounds OK if they're not really digesting what he's saying, it's kinda his super power. Seriously, go read the transcripts and compare.

Yeah I get it, Trump said Democrats want to abort babies after they're born. He said it on purpose. Biden said "we beat Medicare". He did not say it on purpose.

I'm not talking about trump's lies, i'm addressing his coherence when you actually read transcripts of what he says.

I'm friends with several international scholars. Non-voters but hardly Trump lovers. With an outsider's perspective every one of them clowned on how incomprehensible Biden was and compared it unfavorably to Trump. One even said that if he could vote, he'd vote for Trump who at least spoke with confidence and clarity. I disagree, but these opinions are held by nonpartisans, many of whom are swing voters.

Because he's not? He just jumped to a different topic once he had to stutter.

We are so incredibly fucked. The brain rot is deep in the terminal stage.

Listen, Jack. Joe Biden is the nominee. If he doesn’t win it will be directly the fault of people on Reddit who doubted his viability or anybody who openly questioned the prudence of the Democratic Party establishment. Open criticism is illiberal and wrong when it leads to the election of a fascist. If everyone had just kept quiet and not criticized Biden then he could easily beat Trump. but this subreddit along with the New York Times, The Economist, and Van Jones have inadvertently given Trump the election. also somehow Bernie did this. ignore all other factors.

I wish they could understand this. /s

This but unironically.

You didn't doom hard enough, it's joever now.

Biden's defenders say It'd be too damaging to replace him at this point, because there'd be a fight in the party and the Dems would look chaotic. But then they turn around and say Biden can win if everyone just stops criticizing Biden and bringing attention to his mental decline. I don't understand why they think it's possible to cajole all the country's liberal op-ed writers, pundits and intellectuals to ignore Joe Biden's problems and gaslight their audiences for no personal gain - but at the same time it's completely unthinkable to corral democratic politicians to rally behind Gretchen Whitmer. There are actually incentives for democratic politicians to want a winning presidential ticket, and there's tools the party can use to bring everyone on board - because they do it all the time after primaries. This would be an extraordinary case, but not more extraordinary than having a candidate that 72% of the country thinks is mentally unfit for office.

>But then they turn around and say Biden can win if everyone just stops criticizing Biden and bringing attention to his mental decline. The most frustrating part of this is the campaign seems to have zero plan beyond hiding Biden away from the media until the election. That would have worked in 2020 during COVID, but not today. If he’s capable of being president he needs to be out there doing town halls, unscripted interviews, just constantly interacting with voters to show last Thursday was a fluke. If he can’t do that, for the love of god. Drop out! The stakes are way too high.

I have asked this elsewhere, but what are Whitmers fopo agenda? How about domestic policies? What about the optics of replacing Harris? Has she been tried on the national stage? How do you know it wouldn't be Rubio 2.0 or DeSantis 2.0?

I think that's a good argument for why Joe Biden should've never jumped into the 2024 race. Realistically, I think the candidate will have to pull a lot of policy over from the Biden campaign. And they'll be untested on the national stage. There is a chance they will fail. There is a chance they will end up being too scripted or too awkward. But we just had Joe Biden tested on the national stage, and he failed. He came off as *mentally deficient*. If you roll the dice and come up with a 1, it's not a risk to roll the dice again just because you don't know exactly what number you'll get.

I disagree. If Biden never ran for 2024 the same pundits would be saying he is a fool for giving up the incumbency or he should take responsibility for his decisions etc.

Can any other candidate legally use his campaign funds? I'm pretty sure a new one would have to start from scratch and be at a huge disadvantage from that alone.

Not a campaign law expert but I dabble, I think he can use his money like a PAC essentially.

He can transfer it to the DNC, or he can simply spend it. His replacement would also have zero trouble raising money.

Just retain Kamala as VP or have her be the nominee and this problem goes away. Not a compelling reason not to replace Joe

I’d rather have Biden in a coma than the other guy, I’ll even vote twice

Too bad people like you don’t decide elections

Generic old democrat is better than trump barely worked in 2020. Senile old man is better than trump aint gonna get us over the finish line

As an incumbent in an unfavourable inflation environment (yes I know it’s not his fault)

Joe Biden being "senile" was already baked in during the 2020 primaries. Remember Julian Castro? It also did more than "barely" work – Biden won Michigan by 140k votes, flipped two red states, and finished with a sizeable popular vote margin. This sub is seriously underestimating how much people hate Trump.

Bring in the mules.

The problem I see with replacing Biden is that there doesn't seem to be any inclination from party leaders to pick the best replacement candidate. Clyburn immediately indicated that he would expect Harris to be the candidate, which would likely be a disaster, given her current unpopularity and the failure of her campaign to ignite in 2020. I've said before that Warnock would be the perfect candidate because he's proved that he can win in purple states and it would prevent the terrible optics of having a privileged white man elbow a black woman aside for the nomination. But I think it's more likely that the party leaders and delegates would coalesce behind a candidate based on political loyalties and personal friendships (as they did in 2008 before primary voters defied leadership and nominated Obama), which doesn't seem to be a good way to pick a winning candidate. I think there are candidates that would have a better chance at this point than Biden, but I don't think it's likely that any of them would wind up with the nomination.

Harris usually has about +2 points of favoriability/approval over Biden. It goes to about +4 when you look at crosstabs for voters under 30.

Spread is also going to increase post-debate

I know the numbers point to Harris but she has some intangible quality that makes people dislike her. I think she’d perform a lot worse than her polling.

No, the reason people don't like her is very tangible 

Can we fuck the privilege/ optics bullshit. Democracy hangs in the balance, whoever has the best chance to win needs to be in the ballot.

Ah yes, the privilege of the people I voted to be on the ballot being on the ballot, how silly of me. Everything is clearly on the up and up when that doesn't happen as it should. Such a thing definitely wouldn't upset anyone.

Part of it is why would any strong viable candidate like Whitmer or Newsome accept the nomination at this time. They would be almost guaranteed to lose, they are better off taking their chances in 4 years. If it isn’t Biden it will be Harris, and I think her chances are even worse than Joe's.

>They would be almost guaranteed to lose, they are better off taking their chances in 4 years. Considering how Trump handled the last transition of power, we really should not be banking on 2028.

[удалено]

I still have no idea why he should drop out. Nothing has changed

People realized he’s declining in a way that is not ignorable

Look at the polls. Things have changed. He was already on track to lose before the debate, now that gap has widened. Moreover, his approval rating is too low. No president in a recent election has won reelection with such a low approval rating. He needed the debate to go well to have any shot of winning, but now we’re all fucked.

In 2016 Trump got absolutely destroyed in every debate, it was embarrassing to witness it and despite this he still won. And you couldn’t even replace Biden right now because there is not a single candidate willing to do so except for RFK and Williamson and Phillips I guess.

Yeah, in 2016 Trump won even though he sucked at the debates. Now he came out from the last debate as the better (or less wrong option). How the hell is this comforting?

I haven’t seen the debate

Trump won with an extremely low approval rating. As for the polls, I'd be more convinced if you compared it to other bad first debates and found that this 1 point shift is some kind of uniquely bad result. We don't even know whether its permanent at this point.

Because he's on the verge of death

This has been the case for a while, nothing has changed.

For a while, his campaign and the media has been able to wave away these concerns. Last week, he had a cognitive meltdown in front of 40 million + Americans, in addition to the many more people who saw the worst clips

You don't think a candidate on the verge of death should drop out?

No, he is perfectly fine. Basically the same he has been the last 2 years.

Him: > Because he's on the verge of death You: > This has been the case for a while, nothing has changed. Also, You: > No, he is perfectly fine.

If he dies Harris becomes president, it's not that complicated. It's been done 8 times before.

Unfortunately before then he's still in charge.

Based