We’re voting for a president, not the next host of the Tonight Show.
Sure. Unfortunately, if enough other American voters want a president who can be the next host of the Tonight show, then that’s who they’ll vote for. So the Ds need a candidate who can in fact win over such voters.
It’s Salesmanship 101: In order to sell a product, you need to accommodate your customers’ preferences, not expect them to play by yours.
Biden’s numbers have basically not budged. Trump has moved up a bit, fairly unimpressively given the events of the week.
Yes.
If he performs going forward as we fear he will, he will lose the popular vote by a similar amount that he is now down. All of the solid base still votes for him and supported him convention forward. No worse of a result than if the was no call for him to step down. But that is bad. Electorally it is a landslide loss. And negative impact on down ballot races.
If he somehow miraculously is able to perform as past Biden had? Those of us who have been asking him to step aside are shocked but relieved. Those images are the ones that will matter to voters on Election Day, recency effect and all, and he has a chance at pulling off the upset. A pretty good chance. I think any centrist D with energy and the ability to speak clearly can present this election as a contrast between two very different visions for this country and have a reasonable shot of pulling it off in the home stretch. No harm from having doubted him back in July.
So to recap, our caricature of the average voter is that they are clueless about policy, can’t remember who they voted for last time or why, considers politics less important than whether the candidate is youthful and funny, doesn’t know the difference between the two candidate’s platforms, but has watched and taken in all of Biden’s media appearances in the last month and suffered massive psychic damage on a level unseen since 9/11 from hearing him say “we have beaten Medicare”, are unconcerned by Trump’s narcissicm, are EXTREMELY insulted by Biden’s narcissism, and doesn’t care about Trump’s insane apocalyptic threats because there’s a cool picture of him with a botched ear piercing, and a good chunk of them know absolutely nothing about RFK Jr. but will vote for him because they’re nostalgic for his uncle who died before they were born.
I suppose if I thought that lowly of the American voter I wouldn’t count on them to support Biden either.
Yes.
Assuming the Democrats nominate a middle-aged candidate, Trump instantly becomes the too-old candidate in the race.
I’ve posted that campaigning doesn’t work, but I only believe that with low confidence.
So, Democrats can try running ads with the verbal flubs, made by Trump, that are increasingly apparent during the second half of his long speeches. They can suggest that the Democrats did the right thing with Biden, and the Republicans are doing the wrong thing by propping up Trump.
At which point the QOP talking point becomes how inexperienced and unready that candidate is.
Considering that despite Biden being as good as you say, and Trump being as horrible as you say, the two candidates are neck-and-neck in the polls, what else would be your explanation?
No. Most of the people who will vote care about something and voted in the last election too. There are just about the same number of them on one side as the other. They know how they will vote. They mostly cancel each other out.
But it is an accurate caricature of the median voter, the one who may or who may not vote, or who may switch even at the last minute. The voters who decide the elections.
That sounds weak to me. Maybe it would work with Shapiro or Buttigieg, but Harris has substantial relevant experience.
And consider the political science evidence that campaigning may not work at all. In as much as that’s true, voters who do not want an elderly candidate will figure out on their own that the GOP candidate is now the elderly one.
That the polls are wrong, just like they were wrong in 2022 and 2020 and 2016.
It would be amusing to hear Vance be the attack dog on that talking point against the sitting Vice President who may be the same age as his mother for all I know. 
It seems impressive to me. The Jul 18 numbers were:
DJT: 43.3%
JRB: 41.2%
RFK: 8.0%
Undecided: 7.5%
And Jul 19:
DJT: 45.2%
JRB: 41.3%
RFK: 8.0%
Undecided: 5.5%
The change came entirely out of the undecideds. Trump went up 1.9%, which means he won over 25% of the undecideds. That seems very significant in a race where the undecideds will determine the outcome.
That said, perhaps their support will be fleeting. We shall see.
Do you think the party is looking at the polls you are or are using their own.
“The party” as an institution is supporting Biden, so clearly they aren’t in a panic about the polls. The panic is being generated by the media and by wealthy donors that the media has frightened into demanding that their pet congressmen do something.
Past election cycle bumps during and after conventions, and with major news events (let alone both in one week) have been significantly larger than that. Go back and look.
For the news of the week that is IMHO nothing.
In two out of three of those elections, the polls were wrong in a bad way - making the D-candidate look stronger than she/he was.
Are you arguing that Biden has a hidden invisible lead over Trump and that it’s just not showing in the polls? That Biden’s actually 7 points ahead but the media makes him look 4 points behind? I’m not being argumentative, I’m genuinely trying to understand what you’re claiming here.
Doesn’t seem like past races have been nearly as entrenched as the current one. Or at least the ones since 2016. What have previous bumps looked like compared to the set of undecided and fluid voters?
That’s exactly what I’m claiming. It’s been clear to anyone who’s paying attention that there’s a pro-Trump bias baked into the polls this year. He barely scraped 50% in primaries where the polls had him winning with 80% or more.
Okay. Looked myself. Not always much bigger but often. Sometimes huge.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/the-post-convention-bounce-voters-preference
This thread moves so fast!!
Not sure if you e seen AOC’s take on this, but here’s an Instagram link with the text and video. She lays it out really well, what the dire circumstances of dumping Biden could mean.
Michigan and Wisconsin keeping Biden on the ballot, would it hit the SCOTUS? Calling for anonymous naysayers to “say it with their chest and in public”. Sick of hearing others Dems mentioning their donors and not their voters. Also how an open convention would be awful. Mentioning how union votes Biden earned would not necessarily be inherited by a new candidate.