More polling suggesting Biden is the strongest candidate right now:
The range of D percentages from 38% to 50% might mean that the percent of “vote blue no matter who” is around 38%. I would guess that’s the percentage of voters who will vote D no matter what. So then to win, the candidate might have to win over about 12%+ of the voters (ignoring the EC).
Yes.
Seriously. I’m worried about the first and strongly convinced of the second.
In my fantasy mind it’s a Dark Brandon con, rope a dope, lower expectations, lull Trump to greater stupidity, then lower the hammer.
Unfortunately that’s not reality. The reality is that minimally there is exceedingly little likelihood that he can come from that debate and his overall lackluster performances this week, to convincing voters he is fully cognitively present.
When you state it like that it sounds incredible. What I fear, though, is voters who don’t really much care, but are inclined to vote Republican. They might vote D for a leader with charisma, but otherwise they’ll default to R or stay home. In other words, it’s not because they’re assessing Trump; Trump is their default. They’re considering switching.
Hard-core Trumpers won’t change. Hard-core Ds won’t change. It’s all about understanding the psychology of those who might or might not vote, and those who might vote D but might vote R. It’s very strange to me that there could be any significant numbers in either category, but clearly there are, and equally clearly logic and evidence aren’t quite enough to persuade them. So it behooves us to figure out what their issues are, and approach that way.
One issue is that Biden looks old. Since he is old, this isn’t something that can be fixed. We can point out that Trump is also old, and incompetent / dishonest / lazy / unreliable / criminal to boot, but that might not work—Trump doesn’t look frail in the same way. So we could deal with it by switching to Harris.
That would, of course, lose us the racist vote, the sexist vote, and a portion of the casual misogynist vote. So my calculation of the top couple of plusses and minuses is:
+Biden: experienced, successful, competent
-Biden: old
+Harris: not old, VP experience
-Harris: 3 months to campaign; visibly not white male
+Others: good campaigner, not old, good ideas
-Others: procedure to get on the ballot; funding
To me, that looks like “stick with Biden.” I’m petrified that he will lose, and I wish he would not have chosen to run, but the more I think about it, the more I think that his resignation wouldn’t help the D campaign as much.
Does Biden get those votes? I would tend to doubt it. But what do I know?
He might have got the casual misogynist vote (the “I don’t know why, but I just don’t like Hillary” crowd).
This is exactly what my stepmom told me in 2016 as her reason for voting for Trump.
She was raised in the patriarchal religion of Catholicism and can’t quite get her head around the idea of a woman being the ultimate leader.
This afternoon, Tuesday, July 9, it’s become clear that the dump-Biden wave has crested and Joe is in it to stay. So quit giving him a hard time about it and get on the Biden bandwagon already. All hands on deck, to mix metaphors. Gung ho! = Work together!
That’s not clear to me at all.
And I’ll continue to advocate that he drop out, and still support him if he doesn’t. (not that my advocating makes a whit of difference).
For discussion’s sake let’s pretend such is indeed clear to all of us. (It is not.)
It only remains crested if he performs adequately henceforth. Another episode similar to his confused debate performance and it is all right back up there center stage, just prolonged and more damage done.
Not my power to enforce anything and of course I will support him, but I have a hard time believing that is not what will happen soon enough.
Then by your own words, you will support him starting now, because it’s clear that he is not dropping out. Continuing to push that is worse than useless, it’s harmful. The will of the Democratic primary voters is overwhelmingly in favor of Biden.
“Not anymore it isn’t!”
You don’t know that, and the swell of popular support for Biden versus the élites is telling. I’m with vox populi and the New York Times can go to hell.
He ran essentially unopposed. (I voted for him in the primary, and I want him to drop out. What does that mean?)
It means you don’t have your finger on the pulse of the people the way Biden does.
I dunno. I actually think that a year or so ago, he could have announced he isn’t running for re-election simply because he doesn’t want to be 82-86 as president and that he is hoping Harris gets the nomination.
Harris could have run with Whitmer as VP and I think won. I don’t think Michigan is a lock for Biden, but Whitmer is extremely popular and Michigan would easily vote for her as VP and winning Michigan is a big dea since it is a swing state.
I’m just really scared he will lose.
I didn’t see the debate so I have no way to judge this, but I hear a lot of Dems saying the debate clinched a Trump victory. Is that an over-reaction?
Are there any polls saying how other Dems like Whitmer or AOC would do against Trump?
I have gone back and forth on whether Biden should drop out due to his performance in the debate and how his age is impacting his reelection chances. My concern has been voters staying home rather than that they will vote for DJT.
Now we are nearly two weeks out from the debate and this is still dominating the news with a handful of Democrats publicly saying Joe should withdraw. Well, it is clear to me from his statements that this is not going to happen. I saw Michael Steele (former RNC Chairman) on MSNBC this morning and he said with it now clear that Joe is not going anywhere, it is time for Democrats to shut up and get in line behind him because the only thing that matters at the end of the day defeating DJT. I have to say I strongly agree.
Failing to do so will likely only yield the same results as that of a circular firing squad. It’s time to move on and work toward the defeat of the GOP. Period.
Yes, this is an overreaction. Biden did poorly but it had one of the smallest audiences of any debate in years. If everyone had shut up about it after a few days most people would have forgotten about it.
And it looks to have not caused any serious damage to Biden in polls.
I will continue to support him, and encourage turnout for him. And I will continue to express my concerns that he is not there enough to pull this off.
Let’s be very clear, for me those discussions are among others who are also still going to vote for him, even though we are worried about his abilities. And on this board with a few who would not vote for him in any case.
The unengaged and undecided in a few states are the ones who matter and I’m not speaking with them. So no I am not worried that a my worries undermine him.
ETA @Kolak_of_Twilo - the concern is that it seems improbable to be a one off. It is not likely to have been an episode; it is his condition. More will come we fear.
The news media are kind of doing what the FBI did to Hilary Clinton. It feels like they are kind of throwing this election to Biden.
I mean, even the NY Times won’t stop and asked Biden to quit. It’s crazy.
Politico talks about the NYTimes’ campaign against Biden:
New York Times editorial board urges public Democratic revolt against Biden - POLITICO