Everything in the news suggests that, behind the scenes, the message went out to Democrats in Congress (and others in office) to “get in line” behind Biden, and based on statements from AOC, the Congressional Black Caucus, and many others, it appears that the message has stuck.
Barring something unforeseen, Biden will be our nominee. He’s weathered this storm, and he has 4 months to motivate Democrats and others skeptical of Trump to come out and vote.
My empirical observation is that month after month, year and this year, Biden is behind Trump in rolling polling averages when you put in the electoral college disadvantage. This is true even if you think the so-called shy Trumper effect has disappeared. There no back and forth where one guy or the other is sometimes ahead in the averages, as almost always seen in other heavily polled races.
What isn’t an empirical observation is to suggest that the next four months have some property that would make for a more fluid race than we have seen before. That’s the pure guess.
What is going to happen in the September debate if it is Biden-Trump? Every Biden gaffe will be magnified by discussion of whether it was a sign of cognitive decline.
As Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez said, “We all saw what we saw. You can’t undo that.” It’s true of the debate. It’s also true of Nancy Pelosi saying Biden should get cognitive tests and release results. If Biden couldn’t turn this around when the inflation cooled, how is he going to turn it around when Trump is running ads showing leading Democratic politicians saying that cognitive decline is a real issue?
There is some evidence for this seen recently in the thread, at least from a Trump POV — the storm being the threat of the Democrats putting up a candidate of the sort who can cream Donald in a debate.
I’m far from sure, but I think it more likely that Biden is in the eye of the metaphorical hurricane, the eye being the NATO summit. If I was a politician, I would not attack my President while D.C. was filled with foreign leaders.
Look at it from Pelosi’s POV. If Biden stays in the race after she told him to get tested, and Biden is nominated, she knows what GOP advertisers are going to do with that. They are obsessed with her and will make her stated doubts, about Biden’s cognitive state, a focus — Even Nancy says it! If Biden doesn’t take the hint to drop out, she and friends will go at it in a stronger way. Just not while all those prime ministers are in town.
We’ll see what happens. ISTM that the party has decided to line up behind Biden.
There was basically one unknown for each candidate going into the debate. For Trump, it wasn’t really the debate, it was what the effect was going to be when he was supposed to be sentenced two weeks later. For Biden, it was about showing that he still had it and could at least point to his record, say what he wanted to do in a second term, and to some degree trade punches with Trump. Well, now the unknown for Trump is still hanging out until late September. We all know what Biden looked like.
Perhaps Biden can hang around about even with Trump and get lucky that what is now a nearly October surprise will happen to Trump that enough voters are motivated to turn out. But once again it seems that Democrats are playing not to lose and not actually playing to win.
Biden should only drop out if Harris can actually win. If it’s certain that both Biden and Harris would lose, then Biden might as well stay in. Biden stepping down to have Harris take over and then lose would make the Democratic party look weaker.
The more I think about it, the more I think Harris would lose. First off, she has much less name recognition. Of the unengaged/undecided/uninformed voters that the Dems need to get onboard, I would guess that many have no clue who Harris is. She would be just some random person to some segment of this voting block. Even the engaged voter may not really know a lot about her. Then there’s the race/sex/religion aspect that she would need to overcome. For all the challenges Biden has to get elected, Harris would have a bunch of her own. While she wouldn’t have the age issue, she would have a number of other issues which could prove to be more of hindrance than Biden’s age.
She has been Vice President for several years. Anyone who is able to fill out a ballot should have heard of her. Regardless, there will be an explosion of attention on her if Biden drops out of the race. It will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
Every candidate has issues. I don’t see any with Harris that rise to the level of Biden’s age and frailty.
This is a good point, although I’m not sure it matters how weak the Dems look if Trump wins. Assuming GOP wins in the House and Senate as well, our two-party system may be effectively demolished.
I love you, man, but really?
Female of color with a Jewish husband? No problems there for certain voters?
Honestly, I think her biggest obstacle is being F-E-M-A-L-E. The casual misogyny in this country is appalling.
Remember too that the smear machine has been on Biden for years, and despite being Old! and Frail! his poll numbers remain steady. Wait till the MAGAs let loose on Harris, and see how well she polls in a few weeks.
Steady how? Biden’s numbers have drastically dropped from 4 years ago. Harris has some real issues, for instance her time as DA was problematic for a lot of Democrats, but I don’t anyone is going to consider her uncapable the way the majority of the country believes Biden is.
I think it is more that the party now believes Biden won’t drop out even if they think he should, so if he is going to be the candidate anyway better to support him.
I seem to remember some man-on-the-street interviews (pre-Harris) that late-night shows do where they’d ask people questions like “Who is the Vice-President”. Quite a lot of them didn’t know who the VP was. I’m sure that the show picked those clips specifically for the comedy value, but regardless, there are voters out there who don’t know who the VP is.
I’ll put part of this problem at the feet of the Dems. They’ should have been actively working to make Harris a well-known name with a positive impression. Not just for this situation in 2024, but as a viable candidate in 2028. Even though I know who she is, I can barely remember anything she’s done. I know she was involved in the border in some capacity, but that’s about it. One thing that I remember is the trouble she had with her staff. Again, I don’t know much of the details, but what I remember is her staff being unhappy and saying she’s hard to work with. If this is the impression I have, I can only imagine that many other people either barely know of her or don’t really have a positive impression of her.
Is Biden supposed to drop out because he truly isn’t up to be President for another term, or because some Democrats believe enough swing voters think he’s not and Trump somehow is, and there is no way to change those voters’ minds?
Here in Virginia it’s generally a soft blue, but we’re still edgewise and every Virginia vote absolutely counts. No space for petulant little ego games. We need every blue vote we can get.
Love you too. I assume most of those voters are not going for Biden either. I could be wrong.
Maybe. It doesn’t really matter why they’re lining up behind him, if they are. It appears Biden will remain the nominee.
At this point, it’s a matter of attracting the “undecided” voters. How anyone could be undecided at this point is beyond me, but it’s the reality of the world we live in. These undecideds are the ones who will be deciding the election. If the Dems can’t get them to vote Democratic, the Dems will lose. People who are committing to vote for Biden will very likely vote for whoever has a “-D” after their name. Biden or Harris, it doesn’t matter. But that’s not enough. The Dems also have to get the voters who think that both parties are the same and that it doesn’t matter if Biden or Trump wins. Those are the voters who Harris would need to win over in order for her to win.
I’ll just go out on a limb and predict Biden will drop out after the Republican convention, and before the Democratic one.
Her backers in 2020 liked to point at her time as CA AG (which definitely had a number of controversies) and her half term in the Senate (where she made a bit of a splash in being aggressive in hearings but not much else). This is offset by her actual performance in the primary where she didn’t even make it to Iowa. She also had a habit of oddly specific policy proposals like “a student loan debt forgiveness program for Pell grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities".
You’re right that there hasn’t been much out of her as VP and most of the stories were either about staff problems or things Biden assigned her to work on that didn’t seem to get any reporting for good or bad.
With unending attacks from MAGAs about his age, sure, they’ve dropped from 4 years ago. But they just can’t hammer him into oblivion. They’ve tried corruption! And self-dealing! And Hunter, Hunter, Hunter! They’ve tried to impeach him. They’ve investigated the hell out of him. And all they’ve got is that he’s OLD, DAMMIT! Which they have somewhat successfully bootstrapped into HE’S LOST HIS MARBLES!
But even with all that relentless pounding, Biden remains more competitive than any other person currently polling who has any realistic chance of replacing him.
My point is that the MAGAs haven’t even gotten started with Harris. But they’ve got their oppo research ready to go if Dems are foolish enough to switch horses at this stage of the race. Nothing would please them more.
And @iiandyiiii is right. At this point, continuing to bag on Biden when he is clearly, unequivocally not ceding his spot, only results in helping Trump.