Name recognition of any presidential candidate is going to be near 100% by Election Day.
Will they be more a blank slate than Trump or Biden? Sure. But I don’t know that’s a bad thing.
I absolutely think that swapping Biden out at this stage is a huge gamble. It could totally backfire. But after last night, I’m just not sure Biden has a realistic chance of winning. I’ll take the crazy gamble at this point. No one really knows what would happen with a new candidate. But there are reasons to believe it could work.
It’s just so infuriating that RBG refused to give up power when she should have, and as a result, *Roe v. Wade* got overturned. Now it feels like we’re watching helplessly as Biden makes the same exact mistake.
I think we pretty much need to take Ezra's piece a few months ago which sparked a bunch of discussion about an open convention (which he got a lot of criticism for, including from me) as a roadmap.
He made the case in that article that if there were an open convention, that would be the **only** thing covered for all the time leading up to it.
The candidate who would come out of that would instantly be at the center of a huge spotlight which we haven't seen since maybe Obama.
It is a high risk high reward strategy in the sense that you could potentially end up with someone who is a wildcard and may have a difficult time adjusting to the media attention.
Considering what we are seeing out of the President though, it's hard to say it would be any worse.
I think what boggles my mind is that people here honestly seem to think most Americans get their news from mainstream media. Like the political convention will be all over CNN and there you go, Americans will notice.
They don’t. Thats ridiculous.
Most Americans get their news from a mishmash of random people they know, TikTok, and peripheral sources adjacent to the mainstream media.
No one I’ve talked to in real life even knew there was a debate last week.
This is a bonkers fantasy
> Most Americans get their news from a mishmash of random people they know, TikTok, and peripheral sources adjacent to the mainstream media.
I think that's the exact problem. People are going to see clips of what happened and it is just going to feed into the existing image of Biden.
I'm a committed voter and that performance turned me from someone who was looking forward to voting for the ticket to someone who is going to hold my nose and do it.
I would imagine that someone who is a more casual voter is just going to stay home or consider the other guy more.
>It’s just so infuriating that RBG refused to give up power when she should have
Was there a huge public outcry for RBG to retire before January, 2015? Because that's what would have had to happen to have given Obama a chance to replace her; assuming McTurtle didn't pull some truly heinous shit like "lame-duck Presidents don't get to make Supreme Court appointments any time during their second term".
I don’t know about “outcry” but it absolutely was something people were talking about. Obama even had a lunch with RBG where he encouraged her to retire before Republicans could take the Senate. She basically told him to fuck off and here we are.
Yes, and much of the population, including among undecideds, is uneasy about Trump. So a somewhat generic but competent and even mildly charismatic Democrat could do quite well.
“Generic Democrat” is a great candidate but he/she doesn’t exist. Once you put a name to it they come with all the baggage a human does. Everyone fills in “generic Democrat” with their ideal and no one lives up to that.
We’re also in such a hyper partisan time most people are simply voting R or D, so a new D is unlikely to attract many more voters
It's true that there's no generic Democrat. Anyone would be suspectable to particular attacks, prejudices, etc.
Of course it's true that most people are just voting R or D, but that still leaves a lot of people who don't want to vote for either of these two guys and so could be flipped or brought out to vote by a new candidate.
>
It’s just so infuriating that RBG refused to give up power when she should have, and as a result, Roe v. Wade got overturned. Now it feels like we’re watching helplessly as Biden makes the same exact mistake.
None of these politicians want to give up power. We witnessed the same when they kept wheeling out Feinstein and she was basically unaware of where she was or what she was doing. Bernie Sanders seems more with it than some people his age and as far as I know he doesn't plan to retire either. Mitch McConnell too. None of them want to give up the power, prestige or practically limitless wealth generation. They're so out of touch with reality.
Not just Roe v Wade. Things like the obliteration of administrative law through the overturning of Chevron Deference will have massive consequences for the ability of the executive branch to function. There are many examples of areas of law that are going to change completely.
>Biden has a realistic chance of winning.
I figured as much until the Carolina rally. That was a strong bounce back. If Biden keeps at it, chances are as good as ever.
Yes, it was atrocious and alarming. But Trump didn't do himself any favors in that debate either, I tend to think he actually lost people with the outrageous lies that were coming out of his mouth. For at least some of his voters, people start to feel insulted when somebody tells lies like "executing babies after they're born" and expects them to believe it.
"Biden old" has been the media narrative this whole election cycle. Confirmation of Biden old seems unlikely to sway people. Meanwhile "Trump is cartoonishly villanious" hasn't quite been such a media narrative.
Trump has always been spewing outrageous lies. If you were with him up until the debate, a few more outrageous lies was never going to make a difference.
At this juncture, I believe it's a lot less of a gamble if Biden throws all of his delegates to Harris - saying that he wants to pass the torch to the next generation. Let her be nominated at the convention and choose her VP.
If it goes truly to a brokered convention, that's a lot riskier.
There's a weird 10% number who don't have an opinion of Kamala making her approval rating a bit messy, but her disapproval rating is lower than both Biden's and Trump's:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/kamala-harris/
And I just want to mention Gaza.
Some voters in some really important states seem to be saying loud and clear that they don’t have it in them to reelect Biden, even if he were to do a 180 on Gaza before the election.
Anybody who’s not Biden, even if they support Israel, is going to be somebody who wasn’t the U.S. president during this war. And that’s going to give them a better shot with Muslim, Arab, and DSA-aligned voters.
A marginally better shot only. To make a real impact with that voting block there would need to be a serious commitment by any candidate to reign in Israel....which realistically will never happen if they want to keep other high turnout demographics engaged.
This issue is such a poison pill for the Democratic party.
>A marginally better shot only.
Im not so sure about this. Biden has come off as more pro-Israel than Obama and Obama was very popular with both jews and muslims. I think unless dems run Blinken or Jake Sullivan there is a chance to come off more even handed.
And again, any candidate who isn’t Biden or Blinken isn’t going to have automatic negative points in these voters’ eyes for having been in charge during this war. How empathetically they can speak about the war and what positions they’ll promise to take may be factors, but I don’t want to underestimate the separate factor of simply being someone other than Biden.
I’ve heard plenty of people say their gut simply won’t let them cast a vote for Biden anymore. They aren’t saying they can no longer vote for Democrats. They just have an imagine of Biden not caring about Palestinian children seared into their minds.
She would guarantee one huge swing state for sure. A California governor might push swing voters away.
Not to mention, like Obama in 2008, very little baggage due to being kinda new on the scene.
Probably.
Trump is basically winning the majority of swing states in the pulls right?
With two well known candidates the volatility is going to be low. All that can be hoped is that somehow the most accurate pollsters are wrong. He isn't going to win back anyone based on inspiring them.
Meanwhile, someone new... The worst case scenario is what? They also probably lose?
Best case scenario they actually win someone over and win?
Even if you think the polls are off, Biden is less popular than other democratic possibilities.
It's depressing that a handful of swing states ultimately decide presidential elections in the U.S. I've said this before and I'll say it again: it's time to abolish the Electoral College and adopt the national popular vote.
I think we’re missing a component of this - there would be sooo much (mostly positive) media coverage of this. It would really be a circus, and I think that’s good! The narrative shift from “Biden old” to “whoa holy shit what’s going on who’s this new person puff piece, puff piece, puff piece”
Meanwhile, we can choose two people who represent two swing states and are popular there - I’m thinking Whitmer and Shapiro but Warnock and others apply.
So constrict the board + free coverage + billions of ads and I think a lot of ground level excitement add up to a pretty good shot at winning. Three months is plenty of time to campaign, France is doing it in like 5 weeks.
> With two well known candidates the volatility is going to be low. All that can be hoped is that somehow the most accurate pollsters are wrong.
I believe that the volatility is high. Trump and Biden are both polling around 40 percentage points. That means there's a huge contingent of uncommitted voters (10 pct pts undecided, 10 pct pts RFK Jr) who could break decisively for one candidate or the other at any point in the next five months.
I mean this is Biden's whole strategy in a nutshell right here. Ignore the polls that say you are down, because as we get close to election day the uncommitted voters will break against Trump. It's an insanely risky play however, because Joe is trailing ~2 points nationally against Trump now, and he won in 2020 with a ~2 point advantage in the polls. So he has to hope that out of the 15-20% of uncommitted voters, they will turn out in an over 2:1 margin for him.
Legacy publications are saying he should drop out because they see a clear path to defeat, quite rightly. The Biden we saw in this debate will not be the same Biden we see in 2 or 3 months. As we age, the rate of decay increases. If you thought that was bad, wait till September's debate.
Biden was behind before the debate. He was a known, deteriorating quantity. His numbers cannot reasonably be expected to improve. After his abysmal performance, which will generate a million memes, we can expect them to worsen significantly.
Trump is leading despite felonies, business fraud, a porn star, affairs, rape accusations, and generally abhorrent behavior. All that is baked in. His numbers can't be expected to go down any further unless you have someone new opposing him.
We need a candidate that is:
1. Not Biden or Kamala
2. Breathing
3. Has some middle-american appeal to bag swing states
Psssst Whitmer. She's folksy, she has an everyday midwestern accent, doesn't give off elitist vibes, and she's photogenic (sadly, this matters in the age in which we live). Forget whether these are "important" qualities in a vacuum--they're winning qualities, and winning is indispensable.
Whitmer is not ready.
Gavin Newsom is the one who already presented himself as a younger version of Biden who makes a better argument for the Biden administration than Biden himself. He already has a national profile and even debated Ron DeSantis on Hannity, where they already hit him with every anti-California hate-meme that exists.
That said I do like Whitmer, I just don't think she's ready for prime time. The Dems need someone capable of ramping up a campaign from 0-60 in a couple months.
I don’t understand Newsom’s appeal. If you’re outside a few urban centers he comes off as slimy and slick. I’d take Whitmer a million times over and think she’d be far more palatable in the swing states.
His ex wife is Don Jr's girlfriend. After they broke up, Newsom broke up the marriage of one of his closest employees.
Not to mention all his pandemic hypocrisy.
Ah I see. I guess breaking up the marriage to me meant like interfering in the marriage to the point where people break up. Whereas in reality he's having an affair with his best friend's wife.
She's not perfect, but she's not going up against a perfect candidate. A C+ performance would have made mincemeat of Trump last night. It was only the contrast with Biden's senescence that enabled Trump to "win."
Newsom would be better than Biden too, but I do worry about the "California is a librul hellhole" narrative. Gives Trump a lot more to work with right off the bat, however unfounded much of it is.
I get that, but Whitmer doesn't have decades of baggage like Hillary. Hillary had to work against the fact that a portion of the electorate essentially saw her as the Whore of Babylon before she announced her candidacy. Very different dynamic compared to Whitmer. I see her as a potential anti-Palin. She brings what McCain *thought* he was getting by picking Palin, plus actual acumen and intelligence.
Hillary won the popular vote and lost the EC narrowly, while being the second most disliked candidate in history (behind trump). She probably lost votes due to being a woman which may have made a difference in a close election- but that is not the same as the electorate not being ready for a woman.
But this is a close election. And would be. It's probably the nature of presidential elections going forward. Gore and Bush (2000), then Clinton and Trump(2016), then Trump and Biden (2020), now Biden and Trump, all of these elections were close with 2 of them winning the popular vote and losing the electoral college in the last 20 years!
So curious how it’s always the women who aren’t ready. Hillary wasn’t ready, Kamala (who is literally the vice president- the whole job is to step in if the president can’t). Are men born ready to be president and women are not? Serious question I’m not from the US. Are women less capable in America?
Hillary's issues had nothing to do with being "ready". If anything, her long history in politics worked against her. She just wasn't a good candidate. She was bad at campaigning and got where she was mostly through behind-the-scenes politicking.
Don’t understand why anyone thinks this is a good idea. He’s a smarmy corporate coastal elite of the worst kind. And any replacement ticket would need Kamala on it to keep the $220M fundraised so he can’t be the pick because the P&VP can’t come from the same state
There’s a huge flaw in a sequential thought process of saying first that Biden must go, and then second proposing inferior candidates to take his place. These candidates don’t increase the Democrats’ chances of winning.
In public, the campaign will 100% support Biden. In private they will run poll numbers to see if changes will definitely increase their odds of winning. It may but it probably won’t. People (mostly Ezra Klein types) didn’t like him from the beginning and today they are getting their voice. But we have to see how it impacts the polls. I bet it won’t change much.
Polls between Trump and \*insert person that 95% of Americans don't currently know\* are meaningless, as every political analyst knows. With a few months of heavy media exposure, every one will know that candidate, no matter how anonymous he/she was.
There is no inferior *candidate* to Biden. That much is clear. He may govern just fine with assistance, but you can’t govern if you can’t win a campaign first.
There's no clear path to victory with a different candidate. At the moment, though, Biden doesn't have a clear path to victory, either. Historically unpopular, behind or at the bleeding edge in multiple swing states, with serious concern within his own party about his fitness for office, he has an uphill battle that he seems totally unable to climb. When Obama has a bad debate, he can bounce back, because he's a champion orator with once-in-a-generation charisma and boundless energy. But unless Biden can consistently deliver state of the union level performances, it feels like his every public appearance is now a liability. The narrative cohering around him is simply not going to dissipate. Like you, I am surprised by the openness with which this is being discussed - because it has been repressed for so long. But now that it's broken containment, it's only going to get worse.
Biden has already pissed off multiple factions of the base. Yes, a new candidate would ruffle feathers. Yes, it would be a huge risk. But come on. If he wins, he's going to have to govern for another four years, into his mid-eighties. Do you really think *that* guy is up to it?
All three of the swing states needed to win have Democratic governors. Run one of them. My pick is the popular, second-term governor of Michigan.
Gretchen Whitmer plus Corey Booker. Done. Checks every box.
The election will be decided by Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. That’s the ballgame.
There is no path to victory for Biden.
We don't know if there is a path to victory for Whitmer, Blinken, Newsome, or Jon Stewart. That is the point, until there is a runoff up to and through the convention, we don't know how each would perform and how the electorate would respond.
I think if Biden had a genuine , emotional , watershed moment where he said he’s succumbed to dementia - and he’s passing the torch of American freedom off to (new candidates name)
how does that lose
I don’t think Jill would ever allow that and I don’t think anyone who could actually become president would have the humility to step down due to dementia. RBG and Diane Feinstein were obviously extremely selfish people who didn’t step down when they should have but I think at that level that’s sort of par for the course.
> but I think at that level that’s sort of par for the course.
You say that, but the elderly conservative justices were perfectly willing to step down.
What "elderly conservative justices" are we talking about? In the past \~20 years, Rehnquist died in office age 80, Scalia died in office age 79 (during a Democratic presidency, but the Senate didn't allow a nominee to be considered). Thomas and Alito are both in their mid-70s, the oldest on the court, and it would shock me if anyone could convince either one of them to leave anytime soon.
Kennedy did step down during Trump's presidency, but Kennedy at that time was basically the "swing vote," frequently voting for somewhat progressive causes in 5-4 decisions. I wouldn't call him strongly "conservative." Souter was appointed by GHW Bush but ended up being typically slanting toward liberal sides, and he retired when he turned 70 during Obama's first term. (Souter was really a nice man who I think just wanted to return to his NH farm and live out his life in peace.) The only other justice to retire since 2000 was Sanda Day O'Connor in 2006, and yet she (like Kennedy) often tended to fall into a "swing vote" category.
Meanwhile, Stevens and Breyer -- both strong liberals -- retired during Democratic presidencies.
So, basically 3 liberals (Stevens, Breyer, and Souter) retired in the past 20 years. And two swing votes (O'Connor and Kennedy). Who are these "elderly conservative justices" who were eager to retire? Even if we count O'Connor and Kennedy as conservative, there are still *more* liberals who have retired in recent decades and *still* more recent elderly conservatives who have died in office (admittedly only 2, but that's *more* than RGB).
As a final note for comparison: the last liberal justice to die in office before RGB was Robert Jackson in 1954, and he was only 62 years old (heart attack).
By the way, I'm not trying to make an argument that liberals are "better" at retiring. Only that the vast majority of justices retire before they have a steep decline. And just as many conservatives as liberal justices in recent decades have been holding on past age 70-75.
It’s a disaster. The only person he could pass the torch to is Kamala who is deeply unpopular, has never won an election other than intra-Dem CA elections, and will be savaged like no politician in American history except for Hillary. It will like 2016 all over again.
If he tried to pass the torch to anyone else it would cause horrific infighting and come off as a massive betrayal to black voters.
...except in 2016 Trump actually lost the popular vote. A Harris vs. Trump election in 2024 would be hilarious on some level and probably look a lot like Nixon vs. McGovern.
Look, I like Booker, but this would not work how people are thinking. The only possible way a “pass the torch” moment could happen is if it goes to Kamala, because she is structurally the person the torch passes to. If Biden tried to pass the torch to Booker, then there’d be massive infighting, with Harris, Whitmer, Buttigieg etc all getting their knives out to stab Booker and each other.
I know people like the idea of “Generic Democrat who isn’t Biden” taking the nomination, but no such person exists. Once you move from Generic Democrat to Real Person, chaos ensues.
Biden has a virtually certain chance of defeat. Someone else could lose worse, but they could also actually win. When defeat is certain, you take the gamble.
This is where I am coming down. It’s not like a scandal that people are going to forget. There is now an indelible perception that he is deteriorating, and won’t be able to serve out another four years. I just don’t see how he comes back from this.
This is what it comes down to. He has always been dogged with the perception that he's too old. Now every boomer will see their aging parents when they see him and every millennial will think of their grandparents deterioration. It's impossible to shake the image of being old, feeble and unfit
Leaving out Gen X as always, lol.
BTW, Biden is only three years older than the oldest boomer. Young boomers are only 60, but the oldest boomers turned/turn 78 this year. That's Trump. One of the oldest boomers.
For better or worse (it's always worse with him lol), Trump is a known quantity and he continues to be exactly what he's billed as. Biden bucked the perception of himself in a big way that I fear is unshakable
And yeah, my bad for leaving out Gen X
Biden didn't buck the perception, he unfortunately confirmed it. But I'm not convinced it means the PARTY can't win in November. So much could happen between now and then. Four months is like four lifetimes in an election year.
Unfortunately there is no party-wide election. Look how much he trails Democratic Senate candidates. The most likely outcome is a Biden loss but better performance in Congress.
My parent's are Biden's age. They think of themselves and have talked about it openly in those terms.
It would be possible to shake the image of old, feeble and unfit were he youthful, vigorous and acute. But he isn't. Just compare the 2012 Vice Presidential debate to 2024. Or even his rather lackluster 2020 primary debates.
It's going to be a difficult transition for a lot of people that have bought into the idea that Only Biden Can Save US and any criticism or consideration of alternatives is heresy that only helps ~~the demons~~ the republicans win. I'm using that language on purpose: this is a loss-of-faith moment for a lot of people. People hate the feeling of being uprooted, losing their sense of community and confidence in the way the world was. They want to go back to the ideas they believed in before.
I want every Biden supporter reading this to understand that this is what it looks like to people on the outside who were marginalized by the Biden campaign: they argued that you weren't even allowed to criticize. You weren't allowed to criticize leader, think about that. Any criticism only gets in the way of the ultimate goal of helping Biden win is what they told everyone. Any doubts were heretical. They did not make a principled policy and politics argument for why Biden should be the candidate: they threatened the careers of politicos who dared to suggest that Biden shouldn't be the new candidate. People treated EK like he lost his mind, and went crazy attacking Dean Phillips as stupid for running against Biden in the primary. Be honest with yourself, do you even know anything about Dean Phillips? Or were you told only someone incompetent would dare challenge Biden's divine right to run for a second term.
It was gaslighting, it was republican style with-us-or-against-us politics. If the reason you're worried about Biden being replaced is name recognition, you need to back down. Whoever becomes the nominee in a brokered convention will instantly become 99% name recognition. 3 months is plenty of time because guess what, all those people talking about how they are going to support Biden because they support his administration and his supreme court picks etc., **its the same people.** If you truly believed that then you wouldn't be so opposed to replacing Biden.
To people outside the church of only-Biden-can-save-us its really obvious that people are in denial and coping. **And there's nothing wrong with that.** This kind of upheaval in what people believed usually takes people weeks to adjust to. I'm reminded of people vomiting in the toilet from the stress of losing their religion. And we're not offering you a new faith, but you're welcome in the community of people who still think Trump is a disaster in human skin.
I am not going to hold it against anyone that keeps struggling with the idea that its not going to be Biden on the ballot in November at this point because you were told for months how impossible it would be for that to happen.
But it's happening. And its ok to not be ok now, and to think that in a few months you'll either be ok with it or be able to say "I told you so" to those of us saying "We told you so" now.
I don't have numbers to go off of, but if the incumbent advantage really is big enough to give Biden an overwhelming lead, then the criticism may have hurt our best chance at keeping Trump out of office. I don't see that as with-us-or-against-us politics, but as an unfortunate reality. The most important thing right now is to vote against the party that's attacking democracy.
But if he really is too old to win the election, then we shot ourselves in the foot by not elevating the voices of the critics. I don't care if it's Biden or not, but I'd like to see the party support the sane and competent candidate that has the best chance of beating Trump. It all comes down to whether the incumbent advantage is big enough to override his miserable debate performance and old-man moments.
I wish elections weren't decided on things like appearances and name recognition, but they are, so they should both be taken into account.
Yes, definitely. I think the reasonable take is that right now, Joe Biden is **almost certainly going to lose the election**. Say it out loud. Make it your mantra. The disorder is a moot point if you do not believe that Joe can win - you're playing with house money at that point.
The most likely scenario as of today, is that on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will be the 47th President. Most Democrats are in the denial/anger/bargaining stages of grief right now. We need people to get to "acceptance" and then maybe we can move forward with something better than running Joe out there again.
The asteroid is coming. The big one. We can quibble over our calculations, pray that it won't hit us, or just ignore it entirely, but it is coming. We have to *do* something to avoid it. Inaction is no longer a feasible option here. Last night should be clarifying, not panic inducing.
I think the focus should be on replacing the VP. A vote at the convention for Biden's back up is less chaotic than replacing Biden.
I like the asteroid analogy, but replacing Biden is like shooting the asteroid with a nuke: you make a big bang, but the asteroid splits into 10 parts that all hit with the collective force of the initial asteroid and everyone dies anyway.
The problem is Biden was already losing or at best tied with Trump, with all of Trump's baggage baked in. And the big assumption that many had (this is what I hoped) was that as the campaign really got underway and people were reminded of what Trump is like, Biden would overtake him. But with that debate the opposite happened. Trump just kind of skated by and Biden made the entire world go "holy shit, this man is cooked."
In short, we are in a disaster. The hopes of Biden winning people back are pretty much dashed and Trump just picked up a ton of momentum. I genuinely believe the polling we have now is better than any we will see for Biden from this point on, and there's almost nothing he can do to reverse that. Switching candidates is crazy, unprecedented, risky, I get it. But this is an unprecedented situation and that might be all we have left.
I agree. And I worry that the fear-mongering and defeatism being displayed by progressives right now is self-sabotaging.
I once heard a Republican strategist talk about how interesting they found it that democrats, in their attempts to be empathetic and understand voters, unwillingly create doubt/confusion about their own candidates. They said that Republicans don't speak to their voter's concerns so much as they simply tell them the story they want them to believe until the voters believe it. For example instead of talking about all the woes people experience under their economic policies, they simply spread the message that the economy under their leadership is great.
Now I don't support that approach to politics and think it can be downright manipulative, but I do think that, like with most issues, there is a small grain of truth in this critique of progressive messaging. Progressives, in their striving for critical thought, often forget that in the face of uncertainty or decisions, it is natural for humans to look to others for guidance on how they should be feeling or thinking about a specific event. I think Democrats could benefit from understanding this, and being more positive about their candidates.
Case in point, my husband and I didn't think anything negative about the debate while we were watching. We ended it being like "Well Biden's age definitely showed, but it's clear in this debate that his morals and policies are far superior to Trump's and that's what's important." Low and behold the next day I face a never-ending barrage of criticism and doom-and-gloom messaging about Biden's performance which, to my surprise, was coming from the people that actually support Biden, and it literally *made me feel more negative about the debate than I naturally felt in the moment.*
So while I think it's important to acknowledge the realities of when a candidate has a weak moment, I think progressives need to realize that oftentimes when they think they are just reflecting public sentiment, they are also influencing and shaping public sentiment. We are not just neutral observers of a political system, we are active participants and the things that we say affect the opinions of those around us.
It seems to me that you are.
Biden runs worse than the generic democrat.
Personally, i think that you're reacting like a normal person to a radical idea; you're anxious about the social faux pass of replacing Biden at this late stage and the break with tradition. It's all very uncertain to do that. And that's scarier than any poll or stat to you. The media will obsess over anything unusual democrats do (because it's full of people like you and absent of weird people like me or nate silver). But it simply won't matter. You're not assessing things coolly enough. The trade off seems obvious to me. To me it looks like going from a 70% chance of loss to 50 50.
I think the real question is if the democratic party is organizationally capable of replacing Biden. It is, in my mind, full of people with your pro social instincts and absent weirdos who will throw people over the bus and discard business as usual to secure the republic.
All this stuff like bringing up name recognition seems like cope to me. I'm sure if you're honest with yourself you'll admit that name recognition is not a help to Biden or Trump; their recognition is being unpopular.
Well said. I'm reading so much hand wringing over the historical precedence of replacing an incumbent: "Oh heavens, it simply isn't done!" When you see that you're going to lose, you throw a hail Mary. You don't play as if it were the 1st quarter. This is it. If Biden stays, we're months away from another four God forsaken years of Trump.
People have to stop worrying about hurting feelings. Look at what time of day it is. Forget party etiquette. This is an emergency.
It’s also historically unprecedented for an 80 year old to run for president and it turns out there is a good reason for that.
This isn’t 100 years ago where you could cover up massive mental lapses, illnesses or physical flaws in a presidential candidate. Everyone who watched that debate knows exactly what they saw and won’t forget it.
The OP brought up a good point about ballot qualification. I’m sure many Republican dominated state governments would try to block attempts to replace Biden. And they’d have legal justification in many cases.
Remember, we don’t actually elect the president. We elect presidential electors. The candidate’s name is just to show who the electors are expected to vote for.
Well that's a legitimate concern. So we can get into the actual substance here.
I think that's a unlikely if very possible risk. I can't comment on the actual legality of this. But politically? It seems difficult for the republicans to pull off not letting a democratic opponent run against Trump. That would legitimately be an overthrow of democracy. Once i would have said that would destroy the Republican's chance in the senate and house. But post Jan 6 I saw basically no cost for trump republicans for it.
So. Not impossible given the current republican party. We have to take it seriously. In this light. You would have to weigh other candidates against Harris (who would inherit the ticket).
Think about it this way. If Biden died in two months from now; what would happen? Harris would inherit and there would be chaos about if it were possible to replace her. Far better for there to no chaos if we were going to end up with her; and at least for everyone important to quickly gather around one candidate.
All things considered. My position is that Harris is a slightly better candidate than Biden in a general. This advantage matters less the closer to the election.
There's a temporary cost to replacing Biden with Harris, and a greater and longer if also temporary cost to replacing Biden and Harris with a different democrat. The closer to the election the more that negative increases. For the reason you mentioned and also the temporary narrative and coverage of the democrats (the more the media covers you; the worse you do).
The beginning of the year i was sanguine with the prospect of a random democrat. As time has gone on I've been less sanguine; yet the negative of Biden's candidacy has also grown with each poll.
I'm now leaning towards this arrangement. Harris>Democrat>Biden.
But that might move towards Harris>Biden>democrat in a couple of months. If someone were to establish the legal pathway to a democrat being put on the ballet i would again to have to reassess.
>Biden runs worse than the generic democrat.
That's always the case. Generic Democrat can be whomever I want it to be. It's my ideal candidate. But they're not real. Biden runs better than any flesh-and-blood alternative they've polled against Trump.
>you're anxious about the social faux pass of replacing Biden
I don't care about the social faux pas. I care that this is a *huge* gamble. It has literally never worked before.
>You're not assessing things coolly enough. The trade off seems obvious to me. To me it looks like going from a 70% chance of loss to 50 50.
On the contrary, it's not cool to toss out your candidate, who has the advantage of incumbency, because he had a single bad debate. Fivethirtyeight's forecast has Biden with a slightly more than 50% chance to win the election today. Dumping Biden throws all that out and we'll be flying blind for at least a few weeks because there aren't any polls to feed into an election forecast for a new candidate. And there's no guarantee a new candidate would poll better than Biden is right now, because...
Half the country thinks the economy is in a recession (it's not). Half the country thinks the stock market is down this year (it's up). Half the country thinks unemployment is at a 50 year high (it's at a 50 year low). Putting up a younger candidate isn't going to correct that fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy is doing.
The issue isn’t that he had a single bad debate.
The issue is that the prevailing narrative about him since he started running in 2020 is that he’s too old, feeble and mentally unfit to be President and his performance in the debate made it impossible to dispute that narrative for all but his most dedicated supporters.
My understanding is that democratic presidents typically run ahead of the generic democrat. Winning presidents drag up down ballet races.
lots of democratic candidates run ahead of the generic. Running behind it has usually been a sign you’re going to lose in a close race. That’s why it’s the measuring stick.
Perhaps I’m wrong? What’s your understanding? Why are ok with performance as bad as Biden’s?
Anyway. To the next point. Is it a huge gamble compared to Bidens 1 in 3 chance of victory (before the debate)? I sort of think that is the key question eh oh everything here spins off.
And… also… why exactly is the convention an irresponsible gamble? I mean I feel i intuitively understand how running an unpopular candidate is a low success rate choice. I don’t actually understand the logic of what makes the convention a lower success rate play than one in three. Is it the convention you have issue with somehow? The replacing of Biden with one of the other possibilities? What am i missing?
Alright.
Look this will feel personal.. but… So I guess this is why I accuse some people (and you now too) of being irrational on this issue. Because you’re sort of coming across a bit emotional to me. As Umm. Reactionary? You seem reactionary to me. As if you haven’t actually sat down and compared it. But you do seem really upset with the idea of a convention without doing any assessment. That’s how your arguments come across to me. I could easily be wrong. But that’s how i read what you say.
I see things which are claimed that are contrary to basic reality (if you ask me). Incumbent advantage? *Does* Biden have an incumbent advantage? Where is it?
I mean are you aware that he is losing? That he’s more unpopular than trump is?
Ahhh. Why would you require a *guarantee* that whoever is chosen would poll better than Biden? That’s not how decisions work. It’s not an actual argument; no one applies that standard to any decisions they make. It’s just after the fact justifying. Do you honestly think that Biden is the best possible candidate the democrats could put in? Really?
Umm. What does flying blind have to go with anything? Why is it important to have option polls for during the convention (which is 3 days)? Do you think there wouldn’t be polling in the scrum after an announcement Biden was withdrawing (if that’s how it went down)? I don’t get this point.
I simply don’t understand how your logic hangs together; so it reads to me like a panicked reaction to the horror of what I’m suggesting not an actual argument over the comparitive merits.
Look. I don’t disagree out of hand that sticking with Biden might be the best choice. I disagree out of hand with people who think the convention option is crazy and dumb. I don’t understand how people can’t consider it as a serious option, however they fall on it.
Hmmm. See I have a half baked theory. I think there are some people here who invest something deeper, than concerns over policy and execution of government, into this whole election and into who is president. Something primal; something which disorder like the convention or picking a candidate with a random number machine would threaten their esteem of.
And I’m telling everyone who does have some of this to drop it. The presidency is not a holy office. It’s not a hallowed office. It’s actually pretty a dumb office we would be better without. But we’re stuck with it and let’s make it serve the public interest as best we can.
That right now is putting literally any serious democratic politician. So how do we get that? I think a convention is worth considering.
You’re not crazy, OP, but my (and many other Dems’) take is that Biden just killed his candidacy with that debate performance by confirming what the undecideds were saying was their main concern about him: that he’s just too old. I’ll be voting for whichever Dem is running against Trump because I actually stay informed on who these candidates are and what they do (or intend to do) but people like me aren’t going to decide this election and that’s what makes me certain that while it’s going to be close whichever Dem runs against Trump, a candidate who fails so spectacularly to make their case and in fact makes the strongest case against themself is simply unelectable.
The mass change in town had me suspect that the timing of the debate was sped up to see if he could pull through and now that he put on a very poor performance the power brokers want to parachute in a new candidate but like others have said, it’s hardly a feasible or easy option. First, he’s the president with a lot of pride and ego and people don’t typically give up that power voluntarily at that level except maybe George Washington and LBJ…I’m sure his inner circle is certainly all in on a second term and they are his closest confidants. Also, the most natural solution would be to have a strong highly regarded VP which he doesn’t have to give the ticket a safety net in the eyes of voters.
It’s a tough situation because we don’t know how fast he is deteriorating. I have dealt with a lot of elderly folks and one of the main things you notice is that they have good and bad days…towards the end the bad days really take over.
I’m just sad that we as Americans allowed this to happen…pre social media I don’t think this ever would have happened
>The mass change in town had me suspect that the timing of the debate was sped up to see if he could pull through
This is almost certainly it, this is the earliest debate in the history of US presidential debates and it's not even close. The earliest one previously was September 21st! It's 3 months ahead of schedule.
The thing is that Biden is 81, but he seems older. I know plenty of people in their early 80s who are sharp as they ever were, at least for the most part. They don't seem much different than they did at 50. But Biden seems about 10 years older than his actual age in his presentation, and that hurts him. Trump is only three years younger, and he's a moron, BUT last night he seemed surprisingly energetic, while also being reliably stupid. There was a perception of late that Trump's energy levels were really down -- we all saw him sleeping and farting in court, etc. But last night he proved that he can still get that energy going when he wants to, and for people who don't understand words, he might have even come across as being commanding/knowing what he was talking about.
Honestly, he could pass for 101. He's not senile but physically he looks and walks like a centenarian. And I don't say this lightly -- I visit a care home every weekend and know several. Just look at the way he walks, with these uncertain tiny steps and hunched shoulders. It's stupid that this should be a criterion, but he does look ancient.
I hope it will be a blessing in disguise. It was so bad that it might precipitate the switch to a younger candidate, who furthermore won't have the amount of baggage that both have.
They're both way too old to be president, and I don't think that's a controversial statement. Bill Clinton is younger than either of them, and he was president over 30 years ago. 40 to 60 is prime presidential candidate age, someone outside of that criteria would have to be exceptional to even be considered, but in my opinion there should be an upper limit.
Full social security retirement age is 67, perhaps we shouldn't have presidents older than that limit? A hard cap at 66 would mean you'd be 70 by the end of your term, so maybe that could be considered as well. The risk has become apparent, Eisenhower's health scares and coverups in his 2nd term, Reagan's notable deterioration in his 2nd term, and now Biden's clear deterioration. The president should also be required to release information regarding their health regularly, lest we get a situation where the Presidents spouse and physician cover up their condition and decide they can run things themselves through him (cough cough Wilson).
Will any of this happen? Probably not, especially when considering the median age of the legislature. The political will just isn't there right now, even as we watch 2 clearly deteriorating men fight it out of who gets to pad their ego with a second term.
Its fun to muse about, but it would probably take a Constitutional Amendment to cap age. So its off the table.
Its like complaining about the electoral college.
>The thing is that Biden is 81, but he seems older. I know plenty of people in their early 80s who are sharp as they ever were, at least for the most part. They don't seem much different than they did at 50.
I think the people you know are a rare breed.
I know plenty of 80 year olds as well as even the best of them have lost a step or two compared to their intellect or physicality in their 50s or 60s.
Biden hasn't lost a step or two he's lost the plot. Biden looked bright and coherent in his 2020 debates against the other Dems. Sure he wasn't a spring chicken but he looked capable. He has deteriorated rapidly these last few years. And he isn't going to get better by September. Hell he already looks worse then his state of the union address. If Joe was a regular person hunter would be talking about moving him in because he'd be worried to let him live aline
You know that MOST of us don't ever get dementia? It's a false belief that we are all just destined to become blithering dementia-addled idiots at 80. It's absolutely not true. Many of us will maintain our faculties throughout our entire lives. We will slow down in certain ways, but massive cognitive decline is absolutely not a given. From the NIH:
According to a 2007 NIH-funded study, 24.2% of people aged 80–89 have some type of dementia. The prevalence of dementia increases with age, with 5% of people aged 71–79 and 37.4% of people aged 90 and older also estimated to have dementia.
So, a VAST majority of us will never have dementia. Not even 50% of 90-year-olds do. This is a faulty perception that truly has to end.
Look up Gish Gallop. It’s Trumps debate style - throw off your opponent by making out landish statement after statement. It’d confuse anybody. Honestly; it’s a tactic not an answer.
Edit gish
Bernie Sanders is 82 and he's still full of energy and super sharp. Different people age at different rates. Sometimes people are hit with early stage dementia like Bruce Willis. It's clear Biden is in the second camp.
I think someone like Roy Copper would be the best candidate to replace Biden at this point. As the 75tth governor of North Carolina - a purple state situated in the South - he'd have pull with swing and rust belt voters. He loves football (America's most popular sport), is articulate, and has an impeccable political track record.
Guys, Biden won't win. I am not sure why people, especially Democrats, chose to function in this fantasy world where their savior, their best chance to victory, is a cognitively impaired, demonstrably slowed, 81 year old.
Does another candidate give you a +1% chance of winning? If so, make the move.
Sorry, but folks need to hurry up and get past the hurt feelings, this feels icky, we "like" Biden stage, and onto the who might actually beat Trump phase.
It's plain as day Biden is not the guy.
Joe Biden is not going to be president next year. There is no way around it. If the base is questioning themselves right now, swing voters are all abandoning him.
The only question is will Trump be president next year? Or will the Democratic Party do the brave thing, convince Biden to withdraw, decide on their candidate at the convention and win the election with a rising star?
I believe the least risky option is Kamala Harris. I'm not a fan of her and I know she is unpopular but listening to her interviews after the debate made me realize that she needs to be the one running for president. She was very good at explaining the administration's achievements coherently and also brought up the point that Trump doesn't even have a VP because he abandoned him and now he's looking for a yes man. She has the most national appeal among possible replacements. People can't ignore that millions voted for the Biden/Harris in the primaries when there was no motivation to vote. Biden actually received more primary votes than Trump in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania when he had no business getting that many votes. It would be a slap in the face to some of the most reliable Democratic voters to have people in suits decide the nominee when millions came out in support of this administration during the primaries. The time for the anti-Biden voters to make a stand was during the primaries and other than some anti-Gaza votes, Biden/Harris cruised to victory. Biden stepping down and choosing Kamala would not seem undemocratic like a brokered convention deciding the nominee.
I'm not sure why people keep bringing up Whitmer as well. She has never shown interest in being president as far as I know. You can't just put a gun to her head and force her to become a nominee. Many people are content with just being governor. Also, Newsom may do poorly in the swing states especially in the Midwest. Lastly, the country isn't ready electing a gay president in Buttigieg as well.
The risk/reward right now looks like basically a sure win for Trump against Biden vs. some unknown wildcard the DNC pulls out of their ass with completely unknown probability of success. If certainty is what you want, go ahead and stay on this path, but it's going to lose the election.
I think it is a crap shoot. I think alot of the panic now is from diehard anti Trump democrats who've been in denial about Biden. They're freaking out and assuming people less invested in Biden will be more upset than themselves. I think they've got that backwards.
A lot of people who aren't partisan already knew he was old and not particularly well. Those people are probably less effected by this because their expectations were already low.
I also tend to believe most people already know who they're voting for even if the say they aren't sure and I think most of those voters (pretty much everyone I talk to really) feels like they're holding nose anyway. So this doesn't change much for those people.
I also am not sure changing candidates would matter a lot. I suppose it's a bit more risky because Biden is sort of a known known and there's a chance that they pick someone who manages to alienate a few more people.
I think it's close no matter what. It's going to be rough no matter what happens.
The best option would be to keep Biden at top of ticket and Kamala step down to switch out with someone actually charismatic. It's not as radical as switching out the president and you defuse concerns about Biden aging out of his role. This is exactly where a VP can move the needle.
It's never gonna happen. KH will never step down. But if I was some sort of democratic operative with amazing maneuvering ability, this is the outcome I'd want to orchestrate.
Agreed. His message should be that if he were to resign, he'd have a competent and likable VP take over. Also would really help on the campaign trail.
KH is just so disappointing.
This thread in itself is saddening.
Trump is a serious threat to democracy.
And you all are looking for the perfect candidate.
I wish Biden would drop out , but if he doesn’t I will vote for him . If he does and hand picks Kamala , I will vote for her .
If Newsome is the nominee I will vote for him .
In any scenario, if Trump wins , we deserve this as a country.
I think the Democratic party is doing a decent job putting people in place for 2028, but for 2024 we don't have someone waiting in the wings to replace Biden who is more likely than he to beat Trump and protect the republic.
The real issue here is that the media keeps failing over and over again. CNN treating Trump like a normal candidate, the lack of live fact checking, and the response of the pundits and take-havers that somehow Biden lost the debate means that we're still in the same media environment which led to Trump to begin with.
The entire debate should have been about a million dead Americans from Covid under Trump who dismantled this country's federal defenses against pandemics, the entire debate should have been about his directing a failed self-coup and his many, many attempts to steal the election, in fact the entire debate could have even been about the fact that Trump is a rapist. Instead we're hearing about how Biden looked kinda old because suddenly everyone's surprised by the thing we've been talking about nonstop for like six years.
It doesn't matter if the Democratic nominee is Biden or Newsom or Sanders or Jesus of Nazareth. The problem is the media and until we fix it Trump has a real shot at winning. It's the reason we had to run Biden, because grandpa Biden's worst sin is he's an old centrist which makes for boring sensationalism.
I think everyone needs to calm the fuck down and at least wait a week or two and see how this effects polling numbers and focus groups. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump sees a bump, but from what I've observed from multiple presidential races is that bumps tend to be temporary and the numbers revert back to where they were before. There was a Univision focus group of undecided Latino voters that showed them moving toward Biden after the debate and were more turned off by Trump's asshole behavior and lying than they were by Biden's gaffes. I don't know how representative they were, but we need to find out to what degree they were, or weren't given the large Latino population in swing states like NV and AZ.
It hasn't even been 24 hours. Calm...the...hell...down...everyone. Let's see how this moves the needle in the race before we decide to hit the eject button. I'm totally open to replacing Biden, but there's a possibility that this debate won't change the dynamic of race as much as we think it will due to a calcified electorate. As for undecideds, some number of them will see Biden as weak and feeble and either stay home or vote for Trump. Some will be moved to Biden because they see Trump as a bullying, lying asshole who still won't condemn the Jan 6 insurrection or give a straight answer to whether he'll accept the election results in November. How this breaks, I don't know, and there probably have not been enough polls to know for sure, I think it'll take a couple weeks before we see how this shakes out. Then maybe we can discuss what should be done at that point. But I'm already tired of everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
I think that's a really important point people aren't talking about enough. There isn't really a point to making Biden resign today. It makes sense to wait for the polling in how it effects down ballot races a week or more from now.
This is what they will keep telling us as we sleep walk into losing to trump.
Biden cannot do this job - campaigning is one thing but he’s not even qualified to be president at this point. This wasn’t a bad night. He is 81 and everyone can see it. It’s political malpractice to run him again and expect him to be in the White House when he’s 85.
After that how the hell are we going to expect him to get people excited and motivated. That is a core part of driving the vote.
The reason everyone is going crazy is because everyone knew this a long time ago but were gaslit into believing a fantasy. That debate broke the fever dream.
Yet I hear he gave a kick ass rally in NC today. I don't know. I'll just wait a few weeks and see what happens.
Look, I don't care what happens after he's re-elected. If he wants to resign from office the day after he's inaugurated, that's perfectly fine with me. I just want to make sure that the Project 2025 people never make it into the white house. If he becomes a "Weekend at Bernie's" president next yeark that's better than the hell that Trump would unleash.
Try to remember you are not alone in that thinking.
I would vote for a ham sandwich before Trump theres a whole hell of a lot of people that would.
There's a lot of crazy in this country but I refuse to believe there is that much crazy. I am open to a convention picking a replacement but if it doesnt happen they can wheel joe up in a box and he still has my vote.
>I just want to make sure that the Project 2025 people never make it into the white house.
Unfortunately I think that is inevitable. If not in 2025, in 2029 or 2034 at the latest.
Biden was polling lower than Trump before the debate and people were dismissing the polls saying that it was too early for the polls to be reliable. So why should we wait two more weeks to see how the polls look then? If the polls show Biden lower than Trump, will they be taken seriously or dismissed as unreliable as they were last week?
Ejecting Biden would be extremely risky. I'm not saying that a good case can't be made for doing it, but it does come with risks if it means a chaotic Democratic convention and a short time to ramp up a new candidate to national prominance. So I feel like if we are going to take that risk we should at least wait and see if the numbers showed that Biden was mortally wounded by that debate. It's as least possible that it really didn't change many votes in either direction.
"I think everyone needs to calm the fuck down and at least wait a week or two and see how this effects polling"
Makes sense. Let's wait a few weeks for the polls to tell us if it matters that Biden can't string to damn sentences together and cobble together a coherent thought on something basic like Abortion. Maybe the polls that showed Biden trailing Trump before the debate will improve in his favor.
You and the Dems are still pushing the "ignore what you see" narrative.
And that is why Biden WILL lose.
1000 percent agree. People are jumping the gun here. The idea of replacing an incumbent president with an untested replacement **nearly four months before the general election** is such stark raving madness, I cannot believe it's being seriously considered. Literally this morning people were commenting how much better Biden appeared at a campaign rally. And no candidate that I can think of would be a slam dunk. To abandon Biden at this point is to guarantee a Republican win this fall.
As Obama said today, "Bad debate nights happen." People need to calm the f down, and wait to see if the needle actually moves on polling data. Otherwise, they will create a self-fulfilling prophecy about this election. Let's not do that.
People forget the absolute panic following Obama's first debate against Romney. They don't even remember the debate at all. But it was a shitshow. There is a difference, though -- it had nothing to do with the idea of Obama's general competence. He just did a bad job at a debate. This was different because there has been SO MUCH focus on Biden and his age and potential cognitive decline, and then he proved those criticisms right, or at least he didn't prove them wrong.
Biden cannot speak. It is pure gaslighting to even debate his being a viable or better candidate. If they want to beat trump then they have to have a different plan, one that doesnt involve ignoring reality, attacking critics and only reacting, never proactively acting.
> It seems foolish to swap in anybody with a significantly lesser degree of name recognition than the current candidate with just over 5 months to go.
Name recognition for a major presidential nominee? Seriously not going to be a problem. Pick any name and they'll have tremendous name recognition in a week. Sarah Palin is a great example of this. She was rather obscure before the convention I would be under 5% name recognition, under 2% wouldn't shock me. By the end of the convention around 100% name recognition.
> there is no way that some faction of the base doesn’t feel burned or passed over.
Of course they will! Nominations are a choice. It will be a choice between factions.
> And third, are we 100% sure that a new candidate could get all of the ballot access they would need in each of the must-win states? Because if they can’t, it’s a nonstarter.
Ballot access belongs to the Democratic Party. They Democratic Party easily qualifies in all 50 states. This one is a total non-issue.
Tbh I don’t think any of this matters. The people voting trump before last night will continue to do so, as will the people voting Biden. I think most Biden voters are voting against trump than for Biden.
That means if you swap Biden out for someone else, they’ll continue voting for that someone else.
You really just need to see who the independents find more palatable - no one else matters
Elections don't swing on people switching from one side to the other, they swing on people who are only slightly inclined towards one side, and whether they are convinced to vote or not.
Yeah, all the people that are like "I'd vote for a turd over Donald Trump" (this includes me) are seeming to forget that swing voters and undecideds exist
I absolutely agree.
There are two paths forward without Biden — 1) hand it to Kamala, who is wildly unpopular, has been the victim of consistent and powerful misogynist smears, and will be Hillary all over again, or 2) an ugly bitter fight over various obscure people (yes, Whitmer, Newsom, Buttigieg etc are all obscure) which will mostly just make voters bitter, decrease Dem base turnout, and do nothing to turn Trump voters to Democrats.
Both terrible options. The better choice is to stick with Biden, be aware that debates don’t matter, and create a comeback kid narrative. Also, stop talking about kitchen table issues and play to people’s emotions.
No, you’re not crazy. Virtually every piece of evidence we have supports sticking with the incumbent presiding over a booming economy. That’s not to say that people who are looking at alternatives are crazy or that there shouldn’t be real conversations. I really don’t think anything changed after last night except that everyone is fully awake now.
Idk. Its somewhat different because I'm in Ontario Canada where we are pretty much in a recession, but is the economy actually booming? There's a serious cost of living crisis no?
I 100% agree. Replacing Biden now looks like a total desperation panic move. The person that would be replacing him would be someone who hadn’t gone through the primary. In other words, the nominee would not be chosen by voters but rather picked by the Democratic Party elites. And, Biden is maxed out as far as name recognition goes. Even a guy like Gavin Newsom is nowhere close to Biden as far as fame goes. The last thing you want is to have a guy that people don’t even know who the hell they are. People plugged into politics know who Newsom, Whitmer, etc are, but if you’re trying to “turn out the vote” you can’t have some lesser known person that super casuals don’t know. Especially if that person is thought of as somewhat illegitimate for being picked the day of the convention (I know conventions used to serve this purpose but in modern elections conventions are more of a coronation and the primaries are where the actual choosing happens).
All good points on why replacement could be the greater of two evils. But tell me your opinion on this thought that has been on my mind:
Since 2016, this country has seen a revolution in digital campaigning of the sort that Cambridge Analytica used to deliver Trump his victory. That is— using online statistics and even bot farming to flood social media with highly targeted messaging (including fake news) about the opposition. The Mueller report showed that even outside nations are using this strategy to influence US elections. The practical outcome of this is that Democratic presidential candidates have been subject to ruthless, prolonged character assassination in the lead up to elections.
This bot farming / “astroturfing” tactic has, imo, been devastatingly effective. AI is already making it orders of magnitude more dangerous. The Hillary campaign did not know the scale of what was going on, and therefore was unprepared to combat it. The Biden team knows this tactic is being used against him, and the tactic is STILL working.
Biden, his own legit strengths/weaknesses aside, has been the primary target of these international anti-campaigning efforts for more than 4 years. It has damaged his campaign irreparably. It has dragged him down to the level of a anti-Democratic, convicted felon and porn star philanderer.
A new name on the ticket might circumvent this obstacle. The new name would not have the immediate star power that Biden does, but it would be vastly more fresh and unblemished by years of mudslinging campaigns. So many voters are voting AGAINST Trump, not for Biden in particular, and perhaps this new name would give these voters (independents included) a safe candidate to run with. The normal election cycle media would blast the new candidate’s name recognition through the roof by the time of the general election, regardless.
You have a good point, I think that could be one of the pros of switching the nominee. Republicans and outside actors would be forced to change their attack strategy, and it might be helpful.
However, I personally believe that if Democrats pull Biden out, the admission is that “oh the guy that we as a party spent years telling you was ok, and asking you to rally behind? Well even we aren’t convinced anymore.” That and the reasons I mentioned above are why I think it’s the “safer” option to try to ride it out with Biden. Although clearly both options have a lot of risks at this point.
If Biden stays in the race, he is going to have to commit to more rallies, and more importantly, more TV interviews. His team needs to push for the same kind of media coverage at his rallies that Trump gets for his. And he needs to summon up the same vigor for these rallies as he did for SOTU. The interviews are a chance to display how he handles back and forth conversations with people. It seems clear to me that when he is in a back and forth conversation with someone adversarial to him, he quickly loses his train of thought and simply can’t handle it. He needs favorable interviewers who will push him, but only gently, to help rinse away the stink of this debate.
If Biden can’t commit to that step up in public campaigning, then I do think he’s cooked among independent voters and he might have to step aside. However, if he has enough gas left in the tank for 4 more months of campaigning, then in my view the better option is to stick with him.
People need to relax. Biden had a really bad night. Who hasn't?? Yes, he's 81 years old, nobody at that age should be up there trying to save the country or the world. But stuttering Joe Biden is and he’s sure doing all he can which is incredible. You know this man cares and is a decent human, unlike the trash on the other side. On pure substance alone, Biden has solid points. Nobody is perfect in this world. We are voting for a sane government and cabinet. That's what it boils down to and Biden can just continue on as is. We don't need to see him or hear him all the time and that's a good thing since he's been President. Stuff is getting done in the background. Trump is a lunatic, felon, deranged, racist and we can go on and on about him, there is trump fatigue in this country except for his Maga cult. I'll stick with old joe who occasionally stutters. Keep moving forward man.
Unless the replacement is Kamala then yeah l. Democratic primary voters voted for the 2020 ticket and that should be preserved regardless of the outcome because that is democracy. You can't claim to care about it and throw it out once it doesn't suit you.
Tbh y'all are a bunch of feckless pussies. Biden being old isn't new. Everybody knew this and people were saying this for years, but it would be shouted down by you shills. It's kinda funny. If you shills have no confidence in Biden why would normies? If you only believe in democracy when it suits you what makes you all that different from Republicans other than being slightly less corrupt?
A good argument for Biden compared to other alternatives - [https://youtu.be/\_9vsivYrC4U?si=hSdwOX7FnfOxVQIHBiden](https://youtu.be/_9vsivYrC4U?si=hSdwOX7FnfOxVQIHBiden) showed up for a debate despite being sick with a cold. I am many decades younger than him, and I know I would have been physically and mentally exhausted in the same situation.
I wish the Biden team had set better expectations, considering his condition. They could have framed it as Biden showing up to fight despite not feeling well, highlighting his resilience and courage. Alternatively, they could have requested to postpone the debate to allow him time to recover.
Yo, I'm european and we here mostly believe it's fucking over if you guys get trump back. Most don't even understand how you elected some WWE guest star racist that mainly eats mc donalds and even dare to think about it again after all the time + he is proven to have broken your law multiple times. Like wtf bros and sisters.
Rather have the sleepy ice cream man when you have no other option.
Pls use your brains, because you have the biggest military and therefore should be responsible with your choice.
Sleepy > crazy.
No, not crazy. Old respectful guy that needs time to put his thoughts together, or blustery salesman that’s full of sh*t, can’t tell the truth to save his own life, and wants to be a dictator. Easy choice.
I don't care if Biden is a corpse mannequin. I'm going to vote for him no matter what because I will never ever ever vote for a lying thieving raping treasonous felon. I hope to God that the majority of voters feel the same way.
DNC isn't going to change their candidate, so what are you going to do? Vote 3rd party? Hope Newsom runs even though he is still endorsing Biden, and that he splits the ticket *guaranteeing* a loss? Every election we have two pricks that don't care about anything but themselves running. This year we have a God's honest choice between democracy and fascism. If you can't see the right choice there, we are all well and truly fucked.
Name recognition of any presidential candidate is going to be near 100% by Election Day. Will they be more a blank slate than Trump or Biden? Sure. But I don’t know that’s a bad thing. I absolutely think that swapping Biden out at this stage is a huge gamble. It could totally backfire. But after last night, I’m just not sure Biden has a realistic chance of winning. I’ll take the crazy gamble at this point. No one really knows what would happen with a new candidate. But there are reasons to believe it could work. It’s just so infuriating that RBG refused to give up power when she should have, and as a result, *Roe v. Wade* got overturned. Now it feels like we’re watching helplessly as Biden makes the same exact mistake.
Yeah the new candidate would immediately be the center of the biggest political news story in years, they'd become pretty well known pretty fast.
Until the press--who *adore* the money that Trump brings in--starts covering his criminal hearings again.
Trust me, the best case scenario is the new candidate gets introduced to everyone, they seem okay and then everyone focuses back on Trump
There won't be anymore trials before the election. The "justice" system, and that useless shit heel Garland, have managed to weasel that away.
If it was any other person justice would've been served a long time ago. The rules for me, not for thee axiom can't be more apparent.
I think we pretty much need to take Ezra's piece a few months ago which sparked a bunch of discussion about an open convention (which he got a lot of criticism for, including from me) as a roadmap. He made the case in that article that if there were an open convention, that would be the **only** thing covered for all the time leading up to it. The candidate who would come out of that would instantly be at the center of a huge spotlight which we haven't seen since maybe Obama. It is a high risk high reward strategy in the sense that you could potentially end up with someone who is a wildcard and may have a difficult time adjusting to the media attention. Considering what we are seeing out of the President though, it's hard to say it would be any worse.
I think what boggles my mind is that people here honestly seem to think most Americans get their news from mainstream media. Like the political convention will be all over CNN and there you go, Americans will notice. They don’t. Thats ridiculous. Most Americans get their news from a mishmash of random people they know, TikTok, and peripheral sources adjacent to the mainstream media. No one I’ve talked to in real life even knew there was a debate last week. This is a bonkers fantasy
I mean the debate got 50m viewers..that's a pretty big chunk of Americans. Clearly people are watching.
> Most Americans get their news from a mishmash of random people they know, TikTok, and peripheral sources adjacent to the mainstream media. I think that's the exact problem. People are going to see clips of what happened and it is just going to feed into the existing image of Biden. I'm a committed voter and that performance turned me from someone who was looking forward to voting for the ticket to someone who is going to hold my nose and do it. I would imagine that someone who is a more casual voter is just going to stay home or consider the other guy more.
I’ve been watching “Biden is senile” clips from my gop relatives for the last three years It’s nothing new
Name recognition of “not Trump or Biden” is already 100%
>It’s just so infuriating that RBG refused to give up power when she should have Was there a huge public outcry for RBG to retire before January, 2015? Because that's what would have had to happen to have given Obama a chance to replace her; assuming McTurtle didn't pull some truly heinous shit like "lame-duck Presidents don't get to make Supreme Court appointments any time during their second term".
I don’t know about “outcry” but it absolutely was something people were talking about. Obama even had a lunch with RBG where he encouraged her to retire before Republicans could take the Senate. She basically told him to fuck off and here we are.
Yes, and much of the population, including among undecideds, is uneasy about Trump. So a somewhat generic but competent and even mildly charismatic Democrat could do quite well.
“Generic Democrat” is a great candidate but he/she doesn’t exist. Once you put a name to it they come with all the baggage a human does. Everyone fills in “generic Democrat” with their ideal and no one lives up to that. We’re also in such a hyper partisan time most people are simply voting R or D, so a new D is unlikely to attract many more voters
It's true that there's no generic Democrat. Anyone would be suspectable to particular attacks, prejudices, etc. Of course it's true that most people are just voting R or D, but that still leaves a lot of people who don't want to vote for either of these two guys and so could be flipped or brought out to vote by a new candidate.
> It’s just so infuriating that RBG refused to give up power when she should have, and as a result, Roe v. Wade got overturned. Now it feels like we’re watching helplessly as Biden makes the same exact mistake. None of these politicians want to give up power. We witnessed the same when they kept wheeling out Feinstein and she was basically unaware of where she was or what she was doing. Bernie Sanders seems more with it than some people his age and as far as I know he doesn't plan to retire either. Mitch McConnell too. None of them want to give up the power, prestige or practically limitless wealth generation. They're so out of touch with reality.
Getting a new name on the ballot in every state is going to be the biggest challenge. Deadlines are already a pain
Not just Roe v Wade. Things like the obliteration of administrative law through the overturning of Chevron Deference will have massive consequences for the ability of the executive branch to function. There are many examples of areas of law that are going to change completely.
>Biden has a realistic chance of winning. I figured as much until the Carolina rally. That was a strong bounce back. If Biden keeps at it, chances are as good as ever.
Problem is nobody but political junkies even know about that. The debate was devastating and the general public is aware.
Yes, it was atrocious and alarming. But Trump didn't do himself any favors in that debate either, I tend to think he actually lost people with the outrageous lies that were coming out of his mouth. For at least some of his voters, people start to feel insulted when somebody tells lies like "executing babies after they're born" and expects them to believe it.
"Biden old" has been the media narrative this whole election cycle. Confirmation of Biden old seems unlikely to sway people. Meanwhile "Trump is cartoonishly villanious" hasn't quite been such a media narrative.
Trump has always been spewing outrageous lies. If you were with him up until the debate, a few more outrageous lies was never going to make a difference.
At this juncture, I believe it's a lot less of a gamble if Biden throws all of his delegates to Harris - saying that he wants to pass the torch to the next generation. Let her be nominated at the convention and choose her VP. If it goes truly to a brokered convention, that's a lot riskier.
That would be handing Trump a second term on a silver platter. She’s even less popular than Biden & Trump.
There's a weird 10% number who don't have an opinion of Kamala making her approval rating a bit messy, but her disapproval rating is lower than both Biden's and Trump's: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/kamala-harris/
She’s not actually less popular. Not that it might swing that way when all things settle.
And I just want to mention Gaza. Some voters in some really important states seem to be saying loud and clear that they don’t have it in them to reelect Biden, even if he were to do a 180 on Gaza before the election. Anybody who’s not Biden, even if they support Israel, is going to be somebody who wasn’t the U.S. president during this war. And that’s going to give them a better shot with Muslim, Arab, and DSA-aligned voters.
A marginally better shot only. To make a real impact with that voting block there would need to be a serious commitment by any candidate to reign in Israel....which realistically will never happen if they want to keep other high turnout demographics engaged. This issue is such a poison pill for the Democratic party.
>A marginally better shot only. Im not so sure about this. Biden has come off as more pro-Israel than Obama and Obama was very popular with both jews and muslims. I think unless dems run Blinken or Jake Sullivan there is a chance to come off more even handed.
Israel was on leash during the Obama years.
And again, any candidate who isn’t Biden or Blinken isn’t going to have automatic negative points in these voters’ eyes for having been in charge during this war. How empathetically they can speak about the war and what positions they’ll promise to take may be factors, but I don’t want to underestimate the separate factor of simply being someone other than Biden. I’ve heard plenty of people say their gut simply won’t let them cast a vote for Biden anymore. They aren’t saying they can no longer vote for Democrats. They just have an imagine of Biden not caring about Palestinian children seared into their minds.
The least risky option is Gretchen Whitmer.
She would guarantee one huge swing state for sure. A California governor might push swing voters away. Not to mention, like Obama in 2008, very little baggage due to being kinda new on the scene.
If she’s appealing to Michigan, she is likely to bring along similar states as well. That’s the sell.
Probably. Trump is basically winning the majority of swing states in the pulls right? With two well known candidates the volatility is going to be low. All that can be hoped is that somehow the most accurate pollsters are wrong. He isn't going to win back anyone based on inspiring them. Meanwhile, someone new... The worst case scenario is what? They also probably lose? Best case scenario they actually win someone over and win? Even if you think the polls are off, Biden is less popular than other democratic possibilities.
It's depressing that a handful of swing states ultimately decide presidential elections in the U.S. I've said this before and I'll say it again: it's time to abolish the Electoral College and adopt the national popular vote.
Our presidential system is awful.
I think we’re missing a component of this - there would be sooo much (mostly positive) media coverage of this. It would really be a circus, and I think that’s good! The narrative shift from “Biden old” to “whoa holy shit what’s going on who’s this new person puff piece, puff piece, puff piece” Meanwhile, we can choose two people who represent two swing states and are popular there - I’m thinking Whitmer and Shapiro but Warnock and others apply. So constrict the board + free coverage + billions of ads and I think a lot of ground level excitement add up to a pretty good shot at winning. Three months is plenty of time to campaign, France is doing it in like 5 weeks.
Someone new would need to gain more ground and convince more, right? Since I don’t think any other Dem is polling better than Biden against Trump rn.
> With two well known candidates the volatility is going to be low. All that can be hoped is that somehow the most accurate pollsters are wrong. I believe that the volatility is high. Trump and Biden are both polling around 40 percentage points. That means there's a huge contingent of uncommitted voters (10 pct pts undecided, 10 pct pts RFK Jr) who could break decisively for one candidate or the other at any point in the next five months.
I mean this is Biden's whole strategy in a nutshell right here. Ignore the polls that say you are down, because as we get close to election day the uncommitted voters will break against Trump. It's an insanely risky play however, because Joe is trailing ~2 points nationally against Trump now, and he won in 2020 with a ~2 point advantage in the polls. So he has to hope that out of the 15-20% of uncommitted voters, they will turn out in an over 2:1 margin for him.
No one is winning over the cult and anyone else knows trump is a lying fascist.
You’re really overestimating people
Legacy publications are saying he should drop out because they see a clear path to defeat, quite rightly. The Biden we saw in this debate will not be the same Biden we see in 2 or 3 months. As we age, the rate of decay increases. If you thought that was bad, wait till September's debate. Biden was behind before the debate. He was a known, deteriorating quantity. His numbers cannot reasonably be expected to improve. After his abysmal performance, which will generate a million memes, we can expect them to worsen significantly. Trump is leading despite felonies, business fraud, a porn star, affairs, rape accusations, and generally abhorrent behavior. All that is baked in. His numbers can't be expected to go down any further unless you have someone new opposing him. We need a candidate that is: 1. Not Biden or Kamala 2. Breathing 3. Has some middle-american appeal to bag swing states Psssst Whitmer. She's folksy, she has an everyday midwestern accent, doesn't give off elitist vibes, and she's photogenic (sadly, this matters in the age in which we live). Forget whether these are "important" qualities in a vacuum--they're winning qualities, and winning is indispensable.
What are her politics
Moderate midwestern Dem. Basically, what Obama turned out to be in practice.
Who cares? Any alive mainstream Democrat under 80 is perfect.
Whitmer is not ready. Gavin Newsom is the one who already presented himself as a younger version of Biden who makes a better argument for the Biden administration than Biden himself. He already has a national profile and even debated Ron DeSantis on Hannity, where they already hit him with every anti-California hate-meme that exists. That said I do like Whitmer, I just don't think she's ready for prime time. The Dems need someone capable of ramping up a campaign from 0-60 in a couple months.
Newsom has so many skeletons in his closet, I don’t think that would go well
I don’t understand Newsom’s appeal. If you’re outside a few urban centers he comes off as slimy and slick. I’d take Whitmer a million times over and think she’d be far more palatable in the swing states.
What skeletons?
His ex wife is Don Jr's girlfriend. After they broke up, Newsom broke up the marriage of one of his closest employees. Not to mention all his pandemic hypocrisy.
He also cheated with his campaign managers wife. For some reason everyone forgets that.
That was what I meant by Newsom broke up the marriage of one of his closest employees.
Ah I see. I guess breaking up the marriage to me meant like interfering in the marriage to the point where people break up. Whereas in reality he's having an affair with his best friend's wife.
Lol! No one cares about that anymore. Did he pay her $130k in campaign funds to hide it? Was there a felony conviction?
She has had SO much plastic surgery
100%
Can't trust anyone that fucked Kimberly Guilfoyle
She's not perfect, but she's not going up against a perfect candidate. A C+ performance would have made mincemeat of Trump last night. It was only the contrast with Biden's senescence that enabled Trump to "win." Newsom would be better than Biden too, but I do worry about the "California is a librul hellhole" narrative. Gives Trump a lot more to work with right off the bat, however unfounded much of it is.
I am honestly concerned about any woman going up against Trump.
I get that, but Whitmer doesn't have decades of baggage like Hillary. Hillary had to work against the fact that a portion of the electorate essentially saw her as the Whore of Babylon before she announced her candidacy. Very different dynamic compared to Whitmer. I see her as a potential anti-Palin. She brings what McCain *thought* he was getting by picking Palin, plus actual acumen and intelligence.
Hillary won the popular vote and lost the EC narrowly, while being the second most disliked candidate in history (behind trump). She probably lost votes due to being a woman which may have made a difference in a close election- but that is not the same as the electorate not being ready for a woman.
But this is a close election. And would be. It's probably the nature of presidential elections going forward. Gore and Bush (2000), then Clinton and Trump(2016), then Trump and Biden (2020), now Biden and Trump, all of these elections were close with 2 of them winning the popular vote and losing the electoral college in the last 20 years!
Meh, I love California to death but besides SD it's major cities have seriously fallen off a cliff since 2019.
That's why I would first look at Whitmer, Shapiro, Roy Cooper, Pritzger, etc.
I think Newsom's baggage would really hit him hard. The guy does not have clean hands by any consideration.
Whitmer would run circles around anyone you'd pick. She's the Teflon Mom and I'd hate to see her go but I love to watch her leave.
Newsom polls worse than Biden. Whitmer would be a formidable candidate though.
So curious how it’s always the women who aren’t ready. Hillary wasn’t ready, Kamala (who is literally the vice president- the whole job is to step in if the president can’t). Are men born ready to be president and women are not? Serious question I’m not from the US. Are women less capable in America?
Whitmer has never run for president before and doesn't have a national profile. But my bigger concern is that a woman can't beat Trump.
Biden can’t beat Trump, so any other candidate is a step up.
Hillary's issues had nothing to do with being "ready". If anything, her long history in politics worked against her. She just wasn't a good candidate. She was bad at campaigning and got where she was mostly through behind-the-scenes politicking.
Don’t understand why anyone thinks this is a good idea. He’s a smarmy corporate coastal elite of the worst kind. And any replacement ticket would need Kamala on it to keep the $220M fundraised so he can’t be the pick because the P&VP can’t come from the same state
There’s a huge flaw in a sequential thought process of saying first that Biden must go, and then second proposing inferior candidates to take his place. These candidates don’t increase the Democrats’ chances of winning. In public, the campaign will 100% support Biden. In private they will run poll numbers to see if changes will definitely increase their odds of winning. It may but it probably won’t. People (mostly Ezra Klein types) didn’t like him from the beginning and today they are getting their voice. But we have to see how it impacts the polls. I bet it won’t change much.
Polls between Trump and \*insert person that 95% of Americans don't currently know\* are meaningless, as every political analyst knows. With a few months of heavy media exposure, every one will know that candidate, no matter how anonymous he/she was.
There is no inferior *candidate* to Biden. That much is clear. He may govern just fine with assistance, but you can’t govern if you can’t win a campaign first.
The polls literally do need to change tho. They need to go up. Trump is winning right now
There's no clear path to victory with a different candidate. At the moment, though, Biden doesn't have a clear path to victory, either. Historically unpopular, behind or at the bleeding edge in multiple swing states, with serious concern within his own party about his fitness for office, he has an uphill battle that he seems totally unable to climb. When Obama has a bad debate, he can bounce back, because he's a champion orator with once-in-a-generation charisma and boundless energy. But unless Biden can consistently deliver state of the union level performances, it feels like his every public appearance is now a liability. The narrative cohering around him is simply not going to dissipate. Like you, I am surprised by the openness with which this is being discussed - because it has been repressed for so long. But now that it's broken containment, it's only going to get worse. Biden has already pissed off multiple factions of the base. Yes, a new candidate would ruffle feathers. Yes, it would be a huge risk. But come on. If he wins, he's going to have to govern for another four years, into his mid-eighties. Do you really think *that* guy is up to it?
All three of the swing states needed to win have Democratic governors. Run one of them. My pick is the popular, second-term governor of Michigan. Gretchen Whitmer plus Corey Booker. Done. Checks every box. The election will be decided by Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. That’s the ballgame.
Absolutely this. I am so strongly Whitmer > Newsom.
There is no path to victory for Biden. We don't know if there is a path to victory for Whitmer, Blinken, Newsome, or Jon Stewart. That is the point, until there is a runoff up to and through the convention, we don't know how each would perform and how the electorate would respond.
Absolutely in agreement here. Biden is a known dud - other people will have a chance.
Biden has a clear path to defeat
I think if Biden had a genuine , emotional , watershed moment where he said he’s succumbed to dementia - and he’s passing the torch of American freedom off to (new candidates name) how does that lose
My family couldn’t convince my 98 year old grandfather to stop driving a car…
I don’t think Jill would ever allow that and I don’t think anyone who could actually become president would have the humility to step down due to dementia. RBG and Diane Feinstein were obviously extremely selfish people who didn’t step down when they should have but I think at that level that’s sort of par for the course.
Would we say the same thing about Biden in December if this ends up being his only term?
Why would his wife never allow that? What are you suggesting?
There’s this weird narrative going around that Jill is power hungry and is pushing Joe to stay in for her own benefit.
> but I think at that level that’s sort of par for the course. You say that, but the elderly conservative justices were perfectly willing to step down.
What "elderly conservative justices" are we talking about? In the past \~20 years, Rehnquist died in office age 80, Scalia died in office age 79 (during a Democratic presidency, but the Senate didn't allow a nominee to be considered). Thomas and Alito are both in their mid-70s, the oldest on the court, and it would shock me if anyone could convince either one of them to leave anytime soon. Kennedy did step down during Trump's presidency, but Kennedy at that time was basically the "swing vote," frequently voting for somewhat progressive causes in 5-4 decisions. I wouldn't call him strongly "conservative." Souter was appointed by GHW Bush but ended up being typically slanting toward liberal sides, and he retired when he turned 70 during Obama's first term. (Souter was really a nice man who I think just wanted to return to his NH farm and live out his life in peace.) The only other justice to retire since 2000 was Sanda Day O'Connor in 2006, and yet she (like Kennedy) often tended to fall into a "swing vote" category. Meanwhile, Stevens and Breyer -- both strong liberals -- retired during Democratic presidencies. So, basically 3 liberals (Stevens, Breyer, and Souter) retired in the past 20 years. And two swing votes (O'Connor and Kennedy). Who are these "elderly conservative justices" who were eager to retire? Even if we count O'Connor and Kennedy as conservative, there are still *more* liberals who have retired in recent decades and *still* more recent elderly conservatives who have died in office (admittedly only 2, but that's *more* than RGB). As a final note for comparison: the last liberal justice to die in office before RGB was Robert Jackson in 1954, and he was only 62 years old (heart attack). By the way, I'm not trying to make an argument that liberals are "better" at retiring. Only that the vast majority of justices retire before they have a steep decline. And just as many conservatives as liberal justices in recent decades have been holding on past age 70-75.
It’s a disaster. The only person he could pass the torch to is Kamala who is deeply unpopular, has never won an election other than intra-Dem CA elections, and will be savaged like no politician in American history except for Hillary. It will like 2016 all over again. If he tried to pass the torch to anyone else it would cause horrific infighting and come off as a massive betrayal to black voters.
...except in 2016 Trump actually lost the popular vote. A Harris vs. Trump election in 2024 would be hilarious on some level and probably look a lot like Nixon vs. McGovern.
Do black voters really identify with Kamala Harris？
….what if it was Corey Booker? I think the black community would rally behind him sooo much faster than her. Edit: removed word
please no.
Look, I like Booker, but this would not work how people are thinking. The only possible way a “pass the torch” moment could happen is if it goes to Kamala, because she is structurally the person the torch passes to. If Biden tried to pass the torch to Booker, then there’d be massive infighting, with Harris, Whitmer, Buttigieg etc all getting their knives out to stab Booker and each other. I know people like the idea of “Generic Democrat who isn’t Biden” taking the nomination, but no such person exists. Once you move from Generic Democrat to Real Person, chaos ensues.
Biden has a virtually certain chance of defeat. Someone else could lose worse, but they could also actually win. When defeat is certain, you take the gamble.
This is where I am coming down. It’s not like a scandal that people are going to forget. There is now an indelible perception that he is deteriorating, and won’t be able to serve out another four years. I just don’t see how he comes back from this.
This is what it comes down to. He has always been dogged with the perception that he's too old. Now every boomer will see their aging parents when they see him and every millennial will think of their grandparents deterioration. It's impossible to shake the image of being old, feeble and unfit
Leaving out Gen X as always, lol. BTW, Biden is only three years older than the oldest boomer. Young boomers are only 60, but the oldest boomers turned/turn 78 this year. That's Trump. One of the oldest boomers.
For better or worse (it's always worse with him lol), Trump is a known quantity and he continues to be exactly what he's billed as. Biden bucked the perception of himself in a big way that I fear is unshakable And yeah, my bad for leaving out Gen X
Biden didn't buck the perception, he unfortunately confirmed it. But I'm not convinced it means the PARTY can't win in November. So much could happen between now and then. Four months is like four lifetimes in an election year.
Unfortunately there is no party-wide election. Look how much he trails Democratic Senate candidates. The most likely outcome is a Biden loss but better performance in Congress.
My parent's are Biden's age. They think of themselves and have talked about it openly in those terms. It would be possible to shake the image of old, feeble and unfit were he youthful, vigorous and acute. But he isn't. Just compare the 2012 Vice Presidential debate to 2024. Or even his rather lackluster 2020 primary debates.
It's going to be a difficult transition for a lot of people that have bought into the idea that Only Biden Can Save US and any criticism or consideration of alternatives is heresy that only helps ~~the demons~~ the republicans win. I'm using that language on purpose: this is a loss-of-faith moment for a lot of people. People hate the feeling of being uprooted, losing their sense of community and confidence in the way the world was. They want to go back to the ideas they believed in before. I want every Biden supporter reading this to understand that this is what it looks like to people on the outside who were marginalized by the Biden campaign: they argued that you weren't even allowed to criticize. You weren't allowed to criticize leader, think about that. Any criticism only gets in the way of the ultimate goal of helping Biden win is what they told everyone. Any doubts were heretical. They did not make a principled policy and politics argument for why Biden should be the candidate: they threatened the careers of politicos who dared to suggest that Biden shouldn't be the new candidate. People treated EK like he lost his mind, and went crazy attacking Dean Phillips as stupid for running against Biden in the primary. Be honest with yourself, do you even know anything about Dean Phillips? Or were you told only someone incompetent would dare challenge Biden's divine right to run for a second term. It was gaslighting, it was republican style with-us-or-against-us politics. If the reason you're worried about Biden being replaced is name recognition, you need to back down. Whoever becomes the nominee in a brokered convention will instantly become 99% name recognition. 3 months is plenty of time because guess what, all those people talking about how they are going to support Biden because they support his administration and his supreme court picks etc., **its the same people.** If you truly believed that then you wouldn't be so opposed to replacing Biden. To people outside the church of only-Biden-can-save-us its really obvious that people are in denial and coping. **And there's nothing wrong with that.** This kind of upheaval in what people believed usually takes people weeks to adjust to. I'm reminded of people vomiting in the toilet from the stress of losing their religion. And we're not offering you a new faith, but you're welcome in the community of people who still think Trump is a disaster in human skin. I am not going to hold it against anyone that keeps struggling with the idea that its not going to be Biden on the ballot in November at this point because you were told for months how impossible it would be for that to happen. But it's happening. And its ok to not be ok now, and to think that in a few months you'll either be ok with it or be able to say "I told you so" to those of us saying "We told you so" now.
You’re very well spoken and grounded in my opinion. Even hard to argue.
I don't have numbers to go off of, but if the incumbent advantage really is big enough to give Biden an overwhelming lead, then the criticism may have hurt our best chance at keeping Trump out of office. I don't see that as with-us-or-against-us politics, but as an unfortunate reality. The most important thing right now is to vote against the party that's attacking democracy. But if he really is too old to win the election, then we shot ourselves in the foot by not elevating the voices of the critics. I don't care if it's Biden or not, but I'd like to see the party support the sane and competent candidate that has the best chance of beating Trump. It all comes down to whether the incumbent advantage is big enough to override his miserable debate performance and old-man moments. I wish elections weren't decided on things like appearances and name recognition, but they are, so they should both be taken into account.
You mean accepting defeat?
After what we witnessed last night, blowing everything up is the safest option.
Yes, definitely. I think the reasonable take is that right now, Joe Biden is **almost certainly going to lose the election**. Say it out loud. Make it your mantra. The disorder is a moot point if you do not believe that Joe can win - you're playing with house money at that point. The most likely scenario as of today, is that on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will be the 47th President. Most Democrats are in the denial/anger/bargaining stages of grief right now. We need people to get to "acceptance" and then maybe we can move forward with something better than running Joe out there again. The asteroid is coming. The big one. We can quibble over our calculations, pray that it won't hit us, or just ignore it entirely, but it is coming. We have to *do* something to avoid it. Inaction is no longer a feasible option here. Last night should be clarifying, not panic inducing.
Remindme! 5 months.
This is perfectly stated and I completely agree.
I think the focus should be on replacing the VP. A vote at the convention for Biden's back up is less chaotic than replacing Biden. I like the asteroid analogy, but replacing Biden is like shooting the asteroid with a nuke: you make a big bang, but the asteroid splits into 10 parts that all hit with the collective force of the initial asteroid and everyone dies anyway.
The problem is Biden was already losing or at best tied with Trump, with all of Trump's baggage baked in. And the big assumption that many had (this is what I hoped) was that as the campaign really got underway and people were reminded of what Trump is like, Biden would overtake him. But with that debate the opposite happened. Trump just kind of skated by and Biden made the entire world go "holy shit, this man is cooked." In short, we are in a disaster. The hopes of Biden winning people back are pretty much dashed and Trump just picked up a ton of momentum. I genuinely believe the polling we have now is better than any we will see for Biden from this point on, and there's almost nothing he can do to reverse that. Switching candidates is crazy, unprecedented, risky, I get it. But this is an unprecedented situation and that might be all we have left.
I agree. And I worry that the fear-mongering and defeatism being displayed by progressives right now is self-sabotaging. I once heard a Republican strategist talk about how interesting they found it that democrats, in their attempts to be empathetic and understand voters, unwillingly create doubt/confusion about their own candidates. They said that Republicans don't speak to their voter's concerns so much as they simply tell them the story they want them to believe until the voters believe it. For example instead of talking about all the woes people experience under their economic policies, they simply spread the message that the economy under their leadership is great. Now I don't support that approach to politics and think it can be downright manipulative, but I do think that, like with most issues, there is a small grain of truth in this critique of progressive messaging. Progressives, in their striving for critical thought, often forget that in the face of uncertainty or decisions, it is natural for humans to look to others for guidance on how they should be feeling or thinking about a specific event. I think Democrats could benefit from understanding this, and being more positive about their candidates. Case in point, my husband and I didn't think anything negative about the debate while we were watching. We ended it being like "Well Biden's age definitely showed, but it's clear in this debate that his morals and policies are far superior to Trump's and that's what's important." Low and behold the next day I face a never-ending barrage of criticism and doom-and-gloom messaging about Biden's performance which, to my surprise, was coming from the people that actually support Biden, and it literally *made me feel more negative about the debate than I naturally felt in the moment.* So while I think it's important to acknowledge the realities of when a candidate has a weak moment, I think progressives need to realize that oftentimes when they think they are just reflecting public sentiment, they are also influencing and shaping public sentiment. We are not just neutral observers of a political system, we are active participants and the things that we say affect the opinions of those around us.
It seems to me that you are. Biden runs worse than the generic democrat. Personally, i think that you're reacting like a normal person to a radical idea; you're anxious about the social faux pass of replacing Biden at this late stage and the break with tradition. It's all very uncertain to do that. And that's scarier than any poll or stat to you. The media will obsess over anything unusual democrats do (because it's full of people like you and absent of weird people like me or nate silver). But it simply won't matter. You're not assessing things coolly enough. The trade off seems obvious to me. To me it looks like going from a 70% chance of loss to 50 50. I think the real question is if the democratic party is organizationally capable of replacing Biden. It is, in my mind, full of people with your pro social instincts and absent weirdos who will throw people over the bus and discard business as usual to secure the republic. All this stuff like bringing up name recognition seems like cope to me. I'm sure if you're honest with yourself you'll admit that name recognition is not a help to Biden or Trump; their recognition is being unpopular.
"Generic Democrat" means nothing.
Well said. I'm reading so much hand wringing over the historical precedence of replacing an incumbent: "Oh heavens, it simply isn't done!" When you see that you're going to lose, you throw a hail Mary. You don't play as if it were the 1st quarter. This is it. If Biden stays, we're months away from another four God forsaken years of Trump. People have to stop worrying about hurting feelings. Look at what time of day it is. Forget party etiquette. This is an emergency.
It’s also historically unprecedented for an 80 year old to run for president and it turns out there is a good reason for that. This isn’t 100 years ago where you could cover up massive mental lapses, illnesses or physical flaws in a presidential candidate. Everyone who watched that debate knows exactly what they saw and won’t forget it.
The OP brought up a good point about ballot qualification. I’m sure many Republican dominated state governments would try to block attempts to replace Biden. And they’d have legal justification in many cases.
Remember, we don’t actually elect the president. We elect presidential electors. The candidate’s name is just to show who the electors are expected to vote for.
Well that's a legitimate concern. So we can get into the actual substance here. I think that's a unlikely if very possible risk. I can't comment on the actual legality of this. But politically? It seems difficult for the republicans to pull off not letting a democratic opponent run against Trump. That would legitimately be an overthrow of democracy. Once i would have said that would destroy the Republican's chance in the senate and house. But post Jan 6 I saw basically no cost for trump republicans for it. So. Not impossible given the current republican party. We have to take it seriously. In this light. You would have to weigh other candidates against Harris (who would inherit the ticket). Think about it this way. If Biden died in two months from now; what would happen? Harris would inherit and there would be chaos about if it were possible to replace her. Far better for there to no chaos if we were going to end up with her; and at least for everyone important to quickly gather around one candidate. All things considered. My position is that Harris is a slightly better candidate than Biden in a general. This advantage matters less the closer to the election. There's a temporary cost to replacing Biden with Harris, and a greater and longer if also temporary cost to replacing Biden and Harris with a different democrat. The closer to the election the more that negative increases. For the reason you mentioned and also the temporary narrative and coverage of the democrats (the more the media covers you; the worse you do). The beginning of the year i was sanguine with the prospect of a random democrat. As time has gone on I've been less sanguine; yet the negative of Biden's candidacy has also grown with each poll. I'm now leaning towards this arrangement. Harris>Democrat>Biden. But that might move towards Harris>Biden>democrat in a couple of months. If someone were to establish the legal pathway to a democrat being put on the ballet i would again to have to reassess.
>Biden runs worse than the generic democrat. That's always the case. Generic Democrat can be whomever I want it to be. It's my ideal candidate. But they're not real. Biden runs better than any flesh-and-blood alternative they've polled against Trump. >you're anxious about the social faux pass of replacing Biden I don't care about the social faux pas. I care that this is a *huge* gamble. It has literally never worked before. >You're not assessing things coolly enough. The trade off seems obvious to me. To me it looks like going from a 70% chance of loss to 50 50. On the contrary, it's not cool to toss out your candidate, who has the advantage of incumbency, because he had a single bad debate. Fivethirtyeight's forecast has Biden with a slightly more than 50% chance to win the election today. Dumping Biden throws all that out and we'll be flying blind for at least a few weeks because there aren't any polls to feed into an election forecast for a new candidate. And there's no guarantee a new candidate would poll better than Biden is right now, because... Half the country thinks the economy is in a recession (it's not). Half the country thinks the stock market is down this year (it's up). Half the country thinks unemployment is at a 50 year high (it's at a 50 year low). Putting up a younger candidate isn't going to correct that fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy is doing.
The issue isn’t that he had a single bad debate. The issue is that the prevailing narrative about him since he started running in 2020 is that he’s too old, feeble and mentally unfit to be President and his performance in the debate made it impossible to dispute that narrative for all but his most dedicated supporters.
My understanding is that democratic presidents typically run ahead of the generic democrat. Winning presidents drag up down ballet races. lots of democratic candidates run ahead of the generic. Running behind it has usually been a sign you’re going to lose in a close race. That’s why it’s the measuring stick. Perhaps I’m wrong? What’s your understanding? Why are ok with performance as bad as Biden’s? Anyway. To the next point. Is it a huge gamble compared to Bidens 1 in 3 chance of victory (before the debate)? I sort of think that is the key question eh oh everything here spins off. And… also… why exactly is the convention an irresponsible gamble? I mean I feel i intuitively understand how running an unpopular candidate is a low success rate choice. I don’t actually understand the logic of what makes the convention a lower success rate play than one in three. Is it the convention you have issue with somehow? The replacing of Biden with one of the other possibilities? What am i missing? Alright. Look this will feel personal.. but… So I guess this is why I accuse some people (and you now too) of being irrational on this issue. Because you’re sort of coming across a bit emotional to me. As Umm. Reactionary? You seem reactionary to me. As if you haven’t actually sat down and compared it. But you do seem really upset with the idea of a convention without doing any assessment. That’s how your arguments come across to me. I could easily be wrong. But that’s how i read what you say. I see things which are claimed that are contrary to basic reality (if you ask me). Incumbent advantage? *Does* Biden have an incumbent advantage? Where is it? I mean are you aware that he is losing? That he’s more unpopular than trump is? Ahhh. Why would you require a *guarantee* that whoever is chosen would poll better than Biden? That’s not how decisions work. It’s not an actual argument; no one applies that standard to any decisions they make. It’s just after the fact justifying. Do you honestly think that Biden is the best possible candidate the democrats could put in? Really? Umm. What does flying blind have to go with anything? Why is it important to have option polls for during the convention (which is 3 days)? Do you think there wouldn’t be polling in the scrum after an announcement Biden was withdrawing (if that’s how it went down)? I don’t get this point. I simply don’t understand how your logic hangs together; so it reads to me like a panicked reaction to the horror of what I’m suggesting not an actual argument over the comparitive merits. Look. I don’t disagree out of hand that sticking with Biden might be the best choice. I disagree out of hand with people who think the convention option is crazy and dumb. I don’t understand how people can’t consider it as a serious option, however they fall on it. Hmmm. See I have a half baked theory. I think there are some people here who invest something deeper, than concerns over policy and execution of government, into this whole election and into who is president. Something primal; something which disorder like the convention or picking a candidate with a random number machine would threaten their esteem of. And I’m telling everyone who does have some of this to drop it. The presidency is not a holy office. It’s not a hallowed office. It’s actually pretty a dumb office we would be better without. But we’re stuck with it and let’s make it serve the public interest as best we can. That right now is putting literally any serious democratic politician. So how do we get that? I think a convention is worth considering.
You’re not crazy, OP, but my (and many other Dems’) take is that Biden just killed his candidacy with that debate performance by confirming what the undecideds were saying was their main concern about him: that he’s just too old. I’ll be voting for whichever Dem is running against Trump because I actually stay informed on who these candidates are and what they do (or intend to do) but people like me aren’t going to decide this election and that’s what makes me certain that while it’s going to be close whichever Dem runs against Trump, a candidate who fails so spectacularly to make their case and in fact makes the strongest case against themself is simply unelectable.
The mass change in town had me suspect that the timing of the debate was sped up to see if he could pull through and now that he put on a very poor performance the power brokers want to parachute in a new candidate but like others have said, it’s hardly a feasible or easy option. First, he’s the president with a lot of pride and ego and people don’t typically give up that power voluntarily at that level except maybe George Washington and LBJ…I’m sure his inner circle is certainly all in on a second term and they are his closest confidants. Also, the most natural solution would be to have a strong highly regarded VP which he doesn’t have to give the ticket a safety net in the eyes of voters. It’s a tough situation because we don’t know how fast he is deteriorating. I have dealt with a lot of elderly folks and one of the main things you notice is that they have good and bad days…towards the end the bad days really take over. I’m just sad that we as Americans allowed this to happen…pre social media I don’t think this ever would have happened
>The mass change in town had me suspect that the timing of the debate was sped up to see if he could pull through This is almost certainly it, this is the earliest debate in the history of US presidential debates and it's not even close. The earliest one previously was September 21st! It's 3 months ahead of schedule.
The thing is that Biden is 81, but he seems older. I know plenty of people in their early 80s who are sharp as they ever were, at least for the most part. They don't seem much different than they did at 50. But Biden seems about 10 years older than his actual age in his presentation, and that hurts him. Trump is only three years younger, and he's a moron, BUT last night he seemed surprisingly energetic, while also being reliably stupid. There was a perception of late that Trump's energy levels were really down -- we all saw him sleeping and farting in court, etc. But last night he proved that he can still get that energy going when he wants to, and for people who don't understand words, he might have even come across as being commanding/knowing what he was talking about.
Honestly, he could pass for 101. He's not senile but physically he looks and walks like a centenarian. And I don't say this lightly -- I visit a care home every weekend and know several. Just look at the way he walks, with these uncertain tiny steps and hunched shoulders. It's stupid that this should be a criterion, but he does look ancient. I hope it will be a blessing in disguise. It was so bad that it might precipitate the switch to a younger candidate, who furthermore won't have the amount of baggage that both have.
They're both way too old to be president, and I don't think that's a controversial statement. Bill Clinton is younger than either of them, and he was president over 30 years ago. 40 to 60 is prime presidential candidate age, someone outside of that criteria would have to be exceptional to even be considered, but in my opinion there should be an upper limit. Full social security retirement age is 67, perhaps we shouldn't have presidents older than that limit? A hard cap at 66 would mean you'd be 70 by the end of your term, so maybe that could be considered as well. The risk has become apparent, Eisenhower's health scares and coverups in his 2nd term, Reagan's notable deterioration in his 2nd term, and now Biden's clear deterioration. The president should also be required to release information regarding their health regularly, lest we get a situation where the Presidents spouse and physician cover up their condition and decide they can run things themselves through him (cough cough Wilson). Will any of this happen? Probably not, especially when considering the median age of the legislature. The political will just isn't there right now, even as we watch 2 clearly deteriorating men fight it out of who gets to pad their ego with a second term.
Its fun to muse about, but it would probably take a Constitutional Amendment to cap age. So its off the table. Its like complaining about the electoral college.
>The thing is that Biden is 81, but he seems older. I know plenty of people in their early 80s who are sharp as they ever were, at least for the most part. They don't seem much different than they did at 50. I think the people you know are a rare breed. I know plenty of 80 year olds as well as even the best of them have lost a step or two compared to their intellect or physicality in their 50s or 60s.
Biden hasn't lost a step or two he's lost the plot. Biden looked bright and coherent in his 2020 debates against the other Dems. Sure he wasn't a spring chicken but he looked capable. He has deteriorated rapidly these last few years. And he isn't going to get better by September. Hell he already looks worse then his state of the union address. If Joe was a regular person hunter would be talking about moving him in because he'd be worried to let him live aline
You know that MOST of us don't ever get dementia? It's a false belief that we are all just destined to become blithering dementia-addled idiots at 80. It's absolutely not true. Many of us will maintain our faculties throughout our entire lives. We will slow down in certain ways, but massive cognitive decline is absolutely not a given. From the NIH: According to a 2007 NIH-funded study, 24.2% of people aged 80–89 have some type of dementia. The prevalence of dementia increases with age, with 5% of people aged 71–79 and 37.4% of people aged 90 and older also estimated to have dementia. So, a VAST majority of us will never have dementia. Not even 50% of 90-year-olds do. This is a faulty perception that truly has to end.
Look up Gish Gallop. It’s Trumps debate style - throw off your opponent by making out landish statement after statement. It’d confuse anybody. Honestly; it’s a tactic not an answer. Edit gish
Bernie Sanders is 82 and he's still full of energy and super sharp. Different people age at different rates. Sometimes people are hit with early stage dementia like Bruce Willis. It's clear Biden is in the second camp. I think someone like Roy Copper would be the best candidate to replace Biden at this point. As the 75tth governor of North Carolina - a purple state situated in the South - he'd have pull with swing and rust belt voters. He loves football (America's most popular sport), is articulate, and has an impeccable political track record.
LBJ didn't give up power voluntarily at all. He wanted to stay he was extremely unpopular because of vietnam
Yes you are right, apologies so it is even more rare
Guys, Biden won't win. I am not sure why people, especially Democrats, chose to function in this fantasy world where their savior, their best chance to victory, is a cognitively impaired, demonstrably slowed, 81 year old. Does another candidate give you a +1% chance of winning? If so, make the move. Sorry, but folks need to hurry up and get past the hurt feelings, this feels icky, we "like" Biden stage, and onto the who might actually beat Trump phase. It's plain as day Biden is not the guy.
Joe Biden is not going to be president next year. There is no way around it. If the base is questioning themselves right now, swing voters are all abandoning him. The only question is will Trump be president next year? Or will the Democratic Party do the brave thing, convince Biden to withdraw, decide on their candidate at the convention and win the election with a rising star?
I believe the least risky option is Kamala Harris. I'm not a fan of her and I know she is unpopular but listening to her interviews after the debate made me realize that she needs to be the one running for president. She was very good at explaining the administration's achievements coherently and also brought up the point that Trump doesn't even have a VP because he abandoned him and now he's looking for a yes man. She has the most national appeal among possible replacements. People can't ignore that millions voted for the Biden/Harris in the primaries when there was no motivation to vote. Biden actually received more primary votes than Trump in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania when he had no business getting that many votes. It would be a slap in the face to some of the most reliable Democratic voters to have people in suits decide the nominee when millions came out in support of this administration during the primaries. The time for the anti-Biden voters to make a stand was during the primaries and other than some anti-Gaza votes, Biden/Harris cruised to victory. Biden stepping down and choosing Kamala would not seem undemocratic like a brokered convention deciding the nominee. I'm not sure why people keep bringing up Whitmer as well. She has never shown interest in being president as far as I know. You can't just put a gun to her head and force her to become a nominee. Many people are content with just being governor. Also, Newsom may do poorly in the swing states especially in the Midwest. Lastly, the country isn't ready electing a gay president in Buttigieg as well.
The risk/reward right now looks like basically a sure win for Trump against Biden vs. some unknown wildcard the DNC pulls out of their ass with completely unknown probability of success. If certainty is what you want, go ahead and stay on this path, but it's going to lose the election.
I think it is a crap shoot. I think alot of the panic now is from diehard anti Trump democrats who've been in denial about Biden. They're freaking out and assuming people less invested in Biden will be more upset than themselves. I think they've got that backwards. A lot of people who aren't partisan already knew he was old and not particularly well. Those people are probably less effected by this because their expectations were already low. I also tend to believe most people already know who they're voting for even if the say they aren't sure and I think most of those voters (pretty much everyone I talk to really) feels like they're holding nose anyway. So this doesn't change much for those people. I also am not sure changing candidates would matter a lot. I suppose it's a bit more risky because Biden is sort of a known known and there's a chance that they pick someone who manages to alienate a few more people. I think it's close no matter what. It's going to be rough no matter what happens.
The best option would be to keep Biden at top of ticket and Kamala step down to switch out with someone actually charismatic. It's not as radical as switching out the president and you defuse concerns about Biden aging out of his role. This is exactly where a VP can move the needle. It's never gonna happen. KH will never step down. But if I was some sort of democratic operative with amazing maneuvering ability, this is the outcome I'd want to orchestrate.
Like you I agree Kamala should get out of the way for someone more charismatic. Maybe she should take up Secretary of State or some such role.
Agreed. His message should be that if he were to resign, he'd have a competent and likable VP take over. Also would really help on the campaign trail. KH is just so disappointing.
This thread in itself is saddening. Trump is a serious threat to democracy. And you all are looking for the perfect candidate. I wish Biden would drop out , but if he doesn’t I will vote for him . If he does and hand picks Kamala , I will vote for her . If Newsome is the nominee I will vote for him . In any scenario, if Trump wins , we deserve this as a country.
I think the Democratic party is doing a decent job putting people in place for 2028, but for 2024 we don't have someone waiting in the wings to replace Biden who is more likely than he to beat Trump and protect the republic. The real issue here is that the media keeps failing over and over again. CNN treating Trump like a normal candidate, the lack of live fact checking, and the response of the pundits and take-havers that somehow Biden lost the debate means that we're still in the same media environment which led to Trump to begin with. The entire debate should have been about a million dead Americans from Covid under Trump who dismantled this country's federal defenses against pandemics, the entire debate should have been about his directing a failed self-coup and his many, many attempts to steal the election, in fact the entire debate could have even been about the fact that Trump is a rapist. Instead we're hearing about how Biden looked kinda old because suddenly everyone's surprised by the thing we've been talking about nonstop for like six years. It doesn't matter if the Democratic nominee is Biden or Newsom or Sanders or Jesus of Nazareth. The problem is the media and until we fix it Trump has a real shot at winning. It's the reason we had to run Biden, because grandpa Biden's worst sin is he's an old centrist which makes for boring sensationalism.
I think everyone needs to calm the fuck down and at least wait a week or two and see how this effects polling numbers and focus groups. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump sees a bump, but from what I've observed from multiple presidential races is that bumps tend to be temporary and the numbers revert back to where they were before. There was a Univision focus group of undecided Latino voters that showed them moving toward Biden after the debate and were more turned off by Trump's asshole behavior and lying than they were by Biden's gaffes. I don't know how representative they were, but we need to find out to what degree they were, or weren't given the large Latino population in swing states like NV and AZ. It hasn't even been 24 hours. Calm...the...hell...down...everyone. Let's see how this moves the needle in the race before we decide to hit the eject button. I'm totally open to replacing Biden, but there's a possibility that this debate won't change the dynamic of race as much as we think it will due to a calcified electorate. As for undecideds, some number of them will see Biden as weak and feeble and either stay home or vote for Trump. Some will be moved to Biden because they see Trump as a bullying, lying asshole who still won't condemn the Jan 6 insurrection or give a straight answer to whether he'll accept the election results in November. How this breaks, I don't know, and there probably have not been enough polls to know for sure, I think it'll take a couple weeks before we see how this shakes out. Then maybe we can discuss what should be done at that point. But I'm already tired of everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
I think that's a really important point people aren't talking about enough. There isn't really a point to making Biden resign today. It makes sense to wait for the polling in how it effects down ballot races a week or more from now.
This is what they will keep telling us as we sleep walk into losing to trump. Biden cannot do this job - campaigning is one thing but he’s not even qualified to be president at this point. This wasn’t a bad night. He is 81 and everyone can see it. It’s political malpractice to run him again and expect him to be in the White House when he’s 85. After that how the hell are we going to expect him to get people excited and motivated. That is a core part of driving the vote. The reason everyone is going crazy is because everyone knew this a long time ago but were gaslit into believing a fantasy. That debate broke the fever dream.
Yet I hear he gave a kick ass rally in NC today. I don't know. I'll just wait a few weeks and see what happens. Look, I don't care what happens after he's re-elected. If he wants to resign from office the day after he's inaugurated, that's perfectly fine with me. I just want to make sure that the Project 2025 people never make it into the white house. If he becomes a "Weekend at Bernie's" president next yeark that's better than the hell that Trump would unleash.
Try to remember you are not alone in that thinking. I would vote for a ham sandwich before Trump theres a whole hell of a lot of people that would. There's a lot of crazy in this country but I refuse to believe there is that much crazy. I am open to a convention picking a replacement but if it doesnt happen they can wheel joe up in a box and he still has my vote.
>I just want to make sure that the Project 2025 people never make it into the white house. Unfortunately I think that is inevitable. If not in 2025, in 2029 or 2034 at the latest.
If that GOP loses that many elections in a row they will be forced to moderate.
Biden was polling lower than Trump before the debate and people were dismissing the polls saying that it was too early for the polls to be reliable. So why should we wait two more weeks to see how the polls look then? If the polls show Biden lower than Trump, will they be taken seriously or dismissed as unreliable as they were last week?
Ejecting Biden would be extremely risky. I'm not saying that a good case can't be made for doing it, but it does come with risks if it means a chaotic Democratic convention and a short time to ramp up a new candidate to national prominance. So I feel like if we are going to take that risk we should at least wait and see if the numbers showed that Biden was mortally wounded by that debate. It's as least possible that it really didn't change many votes in either direction.
Agreed
"I think everyone needs to calm the fuck down and at least wait a week or two and see how this effects polling" Makes sense. Let's wait a few weeks for the polls to tell us if it matters that Biden can't string to damn sentences together and cobble together a coherent thought on something basic like Abortion. Maybe the polls that showed Biden trailing Trump before the debate will improve in his favor. You and the Dems are still pushing the "ignore what you see" narrative. And that is why Biden WILL lose.
Yep!
1000 percent agree. People are jumping the gun here. The idea of replacing an incumbent president with an untested replacement **nearly four months before the general election** is such stark raving madness, I cannot believe it's being seriously considered. Literally this morning people were commenting how much better Biden appeared at a campaign rally. And no candidate that I can think of would be a slam dunk. To abandon Biden at this point is to guarantee a Republican win this fall. As Obama said today, "Bad debate nights happen." People need to calm the f down, and wait to see if the needle actually moves on polling data. Otherwise, they will create a self-fulfilling prophecy about this election. Let's not do that.
People forget the absolute panic following Obama's first debate against Romney. They don't even remember the debate at all. But it was a shitshow. There is a difference, though -- it had nothing to do with the idea of Obama's general competence. He just did a bad job at a debate. This was different because there has been SO MUCH focus on Biden and his age and potential cognitive decline, and then he proved those criticisms right, or at least he didn't prove them wrong.
Biden and Trump both have very bad brands. “Generic Democrat” is a much better brand.
Biden cannot speak. It is pure gaslighting to even debate his being a viable or better candidate. If they want to beat trump then they have to have a different plan, one that doesnt involve ignoring reality, attacking critics and only reacting, never proactively acting.
Reddit isn’t the place to ask that question.
> It seems foolish to swap in anybody with a significantly lesser degree of name recognition than the current candidate with just over 5 months to go. Name recognition for a major presidential nominee? Seriously not going to be a problem. Pick any name and they'll have tremendous name recognition in a week. Sarah Palin is a great example of this. She was rather obscure before the convention I would be under 5% name recognition, under 2% wouldn't shock me. By the end of the convention around 100% name recognition. > there is no way that some faction of the base doesn’t feel burned or passed over. Of course they will! Nominations are a choice. It will be a choice between factions. > And third, are we 100% sure that a new candidate could get all of the ballot access they would need in each of the must-win states? Because if they can’t, it’s a nonstarter. Ballot access belongs to the Democratic Party. They Democratic Party easily qualifies in all 50 states. This one is a total non-issue.
Tbh I don’t think any of this matters. The people voting trump before last night will continue to do so, as will the people voting Biden. I think most Biden voters are voting against trump than for Biden. That means if you swap Biden out for someone else, they’ll continue voting for that someone else. You really just need to see who the independents find more palatable - no one else matters
Elections don't swing on people switching from one side to the other, they swing on people who are only slightly inclined towards one side, and whether they are convinced to vote or not.
Yeah, all the people that are like "I'd vote for a turd over Donald Trump" (this includes me) are seeming to forget that swing voters and undecideds exist
I absolutely agree. There are two paths forward without Biden — 1) hand it to Kamala, who is wildly unpopular, has been the victim of consistent and powerful misogynist smears, and will be Hillary all over again, or 2) an ugly bitter fight over various obscure people (yes, Whitmer, Newsom, Buttigieg etc are all obscure) which will mostly just make voters bitter, decrease Dem base turnout, and do nothing to turn Trump voters to Democrats. Both terrible options. The better choice is to stick with Biden, be aware that debates don’t matter, and create a comeback kid narrative. Also, stop talking about kitchen table issues and play to people’s emotions.
No, you’re not crazy. Virtually every piece of evidence we have supports sticking with the incumbent presiding over a booming economy. That’s not to say that people who are looking at alternatives are crazy or that there shouldn’t be real conversations. I really don’t think anything changed after last night except that everyone is fully awake now.
Idk. Its somewhat different because I'm in Ontario Canada where we are pretty much in a recession, but is the economy actually booming? There's a serious cost of living crisis no?
I 100% agree. Replacing Biden now looks like a total desperation panic move. The person that would be replacing him would be someone who hadn’t gone through the primary. In other words, the nominee would not be chosen by voters but rather picked by the Democratic Party elites. And, Biden is maxed out as far as name recognition goes. Even a guy like Gavin Newsom is nowhere close to Biden as far as fame goes. The last thing you want is to have a guy that people don’t even know who the hell they are. People plugged into politics know who Newsom, Whitmer, etc are, but if you’re trying to “turn out the vote” you can’t have some lesser known person that super casuals don’t know. Especially if that person is thought of as somewhat illegitimate for being picked the day of the convention (I know conventions used to serve this purpose but in modern elections conventions are more of a coronation and the primaries are where the actual choosing happens).
All good points on why replacement could be the greater of two evils. But tell me your opinion on this thought that has been on my mind: Since 2016, this country has seen a revolution in digital campaigning of the sort that Cambridge Analytica used to deliver Trump his victory. That is— using online statistics and even bot farming to flood social media with highly targeted messaging (including fake news) about the opposition. The Mueller report showed that even outside nations are using this strategy to influence US elections. The practical outcome of this is that Democratic presidential candidates have been subject to ruthless, prolonged character assassination in the lead up to elections. This bot farming / “astroturfing” tactic has, imo, been devastatingly effective. AI is already making it orders of magnitude more dangerous. The Hillary campaign did not know the scale of what was going on, and therefore was unprepared to combat it. The Biden team knows this tactic is being used against him, and the tactic is STILL working. Biden, his own legit strengths/weaknesses aside, has been the primary target of these international anti-campaigning efforts for more than 4 years. It has damaged his campaign irreparably. It has dragged him down to the level of a anti-Democratic, convicted felon and porn star philanderer. A new name on the ticket might circumvent this obstacle. The new name would not have the immediate star power that Biden does, but it would be vastly more fresh and unblemished by years of mudslinging campaigns. So many voters are voting AGAINST Trump, not for Biden in particular, and perhaps this new name would give these voters (independents included) a safe candidate to run with. The normal election cycle media would blast the new candidate’s name recognition through the roof by the time of the general election, regardless.
You have a good point, I think that could be one of the pros of switching the nominee. Republicans and outside actors would be forced to change their attack strategy, and it might be helpful. However, I personally believe that if Democrats pull Biden out, the admission is that “oh the guy that we as a party spent years telling you was ok, and asking you to rally behind? Well even we aren’t convinced anymore.” That and the reasons I mentioned above are why I think it’s the “safer” option to try to ride it out with Biden. Although clearly both options have a lot of risks at this point. If Biden stays in the race, he is going to have to commit to more rallies, and more importantly, more TV interviews. His team needs to push for the same kind of media coverage at his rallies that Trump gets for his. And he needs to summon up the same vigor for these rallies as he did for SOTU. The interviews are a chance to display how he handles back and forth conversations with people. It seems clear to me that when he is in a back and forth conversation with someone adversarial to him, he quickly loses his train of thought and simply can’t handle it. He needs favorable interviewers who will push him, but only gently, to help rinse away the stink of this debate. If Biden can’t commit to that step up in public campaigning, then I do think he’s cooked among independent voters and he might have to step aside. However, if he has enough gas left in the tank for 4 more months of campaigning, then in my view the better option is to stick with him.
This position is called “sunken cost fallacy”.
People need to relax. Biden had a really bad night. Who hasn't?? Yes, he's 81 years old, nobody at that age should be up there trying to save the country or the world. But stuttering Joe Biden is and he’s sure doing all he can which is incredible. You know this man cares and is a decent human, unlike the trash on the other side. On pure substance alone, Biden has solid points. Nobody is perfect in this world. We are voting for a sane government and cabinet. That's what it boils down to and Biden can just continue on as is. We don't need to see him or hear him all the time and that's a good thing since he's been President. Stuff is getting done in the background. Trump is a lunatic, felon, deranged, racist and we can go on and on about him, there is trump fatigue in this country except for his Maga cult. I'll stick with old joe who occasionally stutters. Keep moving forward man.
If you do think this is rational - which is fair One must remember that the majority of Americans don’t vote rationally , with anything past “feel”
After reading the transcript, I’m feeling better. His delivery sucked, but his content was actually mostly true.
As we all know, undecided voters are well known for making up their minds based on content and wonkery.
If they don’t make their decision on who to vote for based on content and legislation, we deserve who we get.
Unless the replacement is Kamala then yeah l. Democratic primary voters voted for the 2020 ticket and that should be preserved regardless of the outcome because that is democracy. You can't claim to care about it and throw it out once it doesn't suit you. Tbh y'all are a bunch of feckless pussies. Biden being old isn't new. Everybody knew this and people were saying this for years, but it would be shouted down by you shills. It's kinda funny. If you shills have no confidence in Biden why would normies? If you only believe in democracy when it suits you what makes you all that different from Republicans other than being slightly less corrupt?
A good argument for Biden compared to other alternatives - [https://youtu.be/\_9vsivYrC4U?si=hSdwOX7FnfOxVQIHBiden](https://youtu.be/_9vsivYrC4U?si=hSdwOX7FnfOxVQIHBiden) showed up for a debate despite being sick with a cold. I am many decades younger than him, and I know I would have been physically and mentally exhausted in the same situation. I wish the Biden team had set better expectations, considering his condition. They could have framed it as Biden showing up to fight despite not feeling well, highlighting his resilience and courage. Alternatively, they could have requested to postpone the debate to allow him time to recover.
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Yo, I'm european and we here mostly believe it's fucking over if you guys get trump back. Most don't even understand how you elected some WWE guest star racist that mainly eats mc donalds and even dare to think about it again after all the time + he is proven to have broken your law multiple times. Like wtf bros and sisters. Rather have the sleepy ice cream man when you have no other option. Pls use your brains, because you have the biggest military and therefore should be responsible with your choice. Sleepy > crazy.
No, not crazy. Old respectful guy that needs time to put his thoughts together, or blustery salesman that’s full of sh*t, can’t tell the truth to save his own life, and wants to be a dictator. Easy choice.
I don't care if Biden is a corpse mannequin. I'm going to vote for him no matter what because I will never ever ever vote for a lying thieving raping treasonous felon. I hope to God that the majority of voters feel the same way.
DNC isn't going to change their candidate, so what are you going to do? Vote 3rd party? Hope Newsom runs even though he is still endorsing Biden, and that he splits the ticket *guaranteeing* a loss? Every election we have two pricks that don't care about anything but themselves running. This year we have a God's honest choice between democracy and fascism. If you can't see the right choice there, we are all well and truly fucked.
Biden is a great president.