I never worked out a ranking for most of the candidates; New York would have voted relatively late in the process (and will vote even later now), and I was hoping that the pack would thin out some before I had to choose and I also figured that would give me more time to study up on whoever looked like still being in at that point. All moot now – pack thinned out faster than I expected.
I was actually hoping that somebody would show up who I’d like better than anyone who did run; though I can’t name a specific person for that. Somebody with more sense than to get into that scrum, probably. Biden certainly wasn’t my first pick – I was originally hoping that neither he nor Sanders would run. If there’d still been a contest by the time NY got to vote, and presuming she was still in, I expect I would have voted for Warren.
But – yeah. Between Biden and Trump is no contest. And being willing to possibly elect Trump by running third-party is, this year, IMO a disqualification in itself.
My order for 2008 was Biden (if he hadn’t cratered early), Clinton, Obama. Guess who was still my first choice this time around?
It is hard to overcome Biden’s Foreign Affairs committee experience mixed with his foreign policy involvement as VP to get my vote. My criteria in selecting a president generally has most domestic policy considerations falling behind foreign policy concerns. Some usually wedge domestic positions, like abortion, barely even register on my presidential voting radar.
Klobuchar was a solid choice that I would have been happy to vote for. Nobody else made me want to vote for them instead of merely sighing and voting against Trump. Warren, Sanders, and Gabbard bring up the rear in the category where they better be running against Trump, zombie Hitler, or Thanos to have even a slight chance of getting my vote.
As a more moderate Democrat, my list was basically: Biden, Bullock, Buttigieg, Booker, Harris, Klobuchar (or something like that). When Biden cratered I was on Amy’s wagon for a little while, then Mayor Pete’s, but once they dropped out is was clear sailing for Joe. Of the more leftward candidates only Warren really interested me.
Do I think he’d be the best president? No, probably not. But he may have some unique benefits in the general (strength in PA and other upper-midwest states, possibly more enthusiastic support in AA communities, way more “relatable” than Hillary). Or maybe the “senile Joe” crap will stick and we’ll be stuck with four more years of Trump. We shall see.
I couldn’t rank all of the candidates - the non-entities didn’t occupy my attention at all and most of the rest fell more into loose tiers than a ranked hierarchy.
Top tier for me was probably Inslee, Warren and Booker for different reasons.
Biden was firmly mid-tier, purely on name recognition and potential electability - he has more rust-belt cred than some, which might help. I’ve not been particularly enthused about Biden this go around, but I always figured it was his nomination to lose so I made my peace with him a long time ago. At the probable worst he should be an adequately sane and marginally competent do-nothing. I can live with that after these last few years of debacle. At best he might be fairly decent.
Sanders slotted somewhere below that for a few reasons, but a big one is the opposite of Biden’s. I’m in the camp that thinks he was pragmatically a particularly weak candidate for the general. More honest, but more polarizing and his most enthusiastic base, the left-leaning youth, are pretty damned unreliable in elections. Biden’s cranky old and middle-aged moderates are a hell of a lot more likely to bother to vote.
Down quite a ways were the bottom tier( again ignoring the utter non-entities )of Bloomberg and Gabbard. I’d have winced mightily voting for either one. But I would have - they were still better than the alternative.
Pete
Kamala
Warren/Booker as my top 3. Warren sank as my third as I became more impressed with Booker and less with Warren. I wished that both Biden and Bernie would have sat this one out and passed the torch. They didn’t and here we are. I’m voting Biden and will campaign for him in WI as well as everywhere by phone and text banking.
An interesting set of responses, completely invalidated because this Board is not a representative sampling of anyone.
But don’t forget, there are 63 million people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 who are waiting for the Democratic Party to fall apart and justify their voting to reelect him in 2020.
Even speaking as someone whose top two choices were Warren and Sanders, Biden shouldn’t pick either of them as VP. All three of them are very old. Any one of them, if they got the nomination, would have needed to pick a young VP. Ticket-balancing isn’t necessarily always essential, but the VP’s reason for existence is to outlive the President.
Trump came in second place in 2016. I have a hard time believing he’s going to hang on to all the votes he got four years ago. And I have a really hard time believing he’s going to get any votes that he didn’t get four years ago.
Think about it. Have you ever met a person who’s said, “You know, I had my doubts about Donald Trump and I voted against him the first time. But now that I see what a great job he’s doing as President, he’s really won me over.”
Hardly invalidated. It is a decent sampling of thise board.
Yes, and there are 66 Million for voted for the democratic candidate- who are watching trump and the GOP falling apart right in front o f their eyes as we speak.
Since my primary wasn’t until June (now July) I had resigned myself to waiting for the choice to be made for me. I hadn’t really locked in my choice. Biden was near the top but maybe not #1. 2016 Joe would be my #1.
I didn’t even bother to make a top choice until the candidates would simplify. But, even with that proviso, I would not consider Biden my top choice. I had serious reservations about him, mostly due to the enthusiasm gap. That said, I had the same about Bernie, just for other reasons.
I think that, in hindsight, I probably supported Warren most of all. But, honestly, no one really turned me off other than Bloomberg, though I’m not counting those who dropped out before the primaries, since I didn’t even bother getting to know anything about them or their platform.
My top choices were similar to what others here have said. Warren was my favorite. Booker, Harris, Inslee, Klobuchar were tied for second. Four years ago I’d have put Biden at the top, but by now he’s starting to show signs of old age.
Although my own support for Warren may seem to contradict this point, I do NOT understand the support for candidates like Yang. How good his ideas may be is irrelevant. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. The President’s job is to inspire Congress, inspire the people, and know what to do when the dreaded red-phone rings at 4 am.
Biden was my top choice all along, but I would have been happy with nearly anyone except Sanders, Williamson, or Gabbard.
It’s your vote to use or waste as you see fit, but here’s how I see it: The US is like a house on fire. If the fire continues for four more years, it will be destroyed. Biden is the fire hydrant nearby, all we have to do is use it and we save the house. The third party candidates are like eyedroppers full of water. You can aim your dropper at the house and squeeze with all your might, but it won’t save the house. I urge you to vote to save your house and save your third party votes for when it doesn’t matter.
That is pretty much every Presidential election for us. I can’t remember the last time the nomination was still in play by the time NJ got to its primary.
This poll isn’t even a decent sampling of this board, because it’s voluntary response. It’s, at most, a decent sampling of the portion of this board that feels inclined to respond to political polls.
Well, I hope no one ever expects any self-selecting poll to be vaguely scientific, but I will say the poll is coming out pretty close to my expectations.
