I agree with you on this.
The importance of that data being, of course, the fact that the polls were useless indicators of future success for an election so far from the time of the polls. That’s pretty important.
Or if young voters would bother showing up in numbers that even remotely challenged decrepit boomers like me. Bitch and moan all you like (generic you young voter), but better, organize your demographic to show up at the fucking voting booth.
I think nominating AOC would actually mobilize voters. A lot of people would vote against her; her approval ratings are bad. But she could still win because voters would choose a young healthy candidate over a senile old man. Same situation as a DeSantis nomination, really.
(Knowing both parties, I expect this: the Dems will nominate Grandpa Joe, because it doesn’t require thinking or planning; and the GOP will let everyone think they’re running Trump again, but swerve into a DeSantis nomination and win the general.)
These days, “showing up” in many jurisdictions isn’t even required. Fill out the ballot you get mailed, seal it back up in the envelope, and stick it back in your mailbox. You only have to walk between your house and your mailbox to vote.
Yes, 2020 turnout in Colorado, where mail-in is 100% available, was somewhat of a disappointment. Yes, 63% of the 18 to 29 demographic showed up, which sounds great, but the countrywide number was 55%.
He lost to Hillary in 2016. No, I don’t mean he lost because the Democratic establishment played fancy tricks with superdelegates. He lost because Hillary won 34 primaries/caucuses and he won 23; because Hillary got 16.9 million votes in those contests and Bernie got 13.2 million.
And I say that as a lifelong Democrat who thinks Hillary was the worst Democratic candidate since Michael Dukakis.
The premise laid out in the OP seems like it was attempted before by Abdul Hassan.
Hassan is a naturalized citizen from Ghana who tried to run for president in 2012. Per his Wikipedia page,
In 2012, he filed several lawsuits claiming that the natural-born-citizen clause violated the 5th and 14th Amendments, arguing it was a form of discrimination based on national origin. The argument that the 5th Amendment implicitly repealed the natural-born citizen requirement for the U.S. presidency has previously been advanced in a 2006 law review article by Paul A. Clark.
I think Hillary was a terrible candidate but might have been a good president. I feel the same way about Kamala Harris.
I do think that the Democrats need to start considering who is next. Biden isn’t going to run in 2028, regardless of how the next election goes. If for some reason (ugh, I don’t want to consider it but you have to) he can’t run for election, someone will have to. Cenk Uygur isn’t that person though. 
Thank you very much @Superdude for bringing up a prior example of the sort of relief Cenk was seeking. I do wish the first few cases cited had more details, but was amused by one of them. See any familiar names?
On September 4, 2012, he lost in Hassan v. Colorado & Scott Gessler at the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Neil Gorsuch, then a circuit judge, wrote on behalf of a judicial panel that Mr. Hassan was constitutionally prohibited from assuming the presidency and is permitted to be excluded from the Colorado ballot.[11]
Wrong year.
President Sanders would not have gone for a second term. That’s a fact, freshly extracted. There would be a boisterous primary season happening right now, and this thread would not exist.
Currently the DNC is in panic mode, because the Straight Dope Message Board is displaying signs of disunity.
And yes, obviously you can google sources that will say polls can be ignored too, or are no better than chance or whatever. But the point is, we cannot take as a premise the idea that the polls are useless. And, in the meantime, it seems to me that the more “feelings based” position* is to choose to ignore what Americans are telling pollsters.
* Incidentally, it was not me that tried to strawman anyone’s opinion as “feelings” and can we just can it, thanks.
I support you in this, personally. I don’t see that anyone is arguing from that perspective here.
These are primary polls. Yes, primary polls are useful at this point in the election cycle. But I’m talking about general election polls this early. They’re entirely useless. Literally zero statistical correlation between general election polls this early and the final results:
They’re off by an average of 11 points. 11 points!
This is a statistical fact. If you think general election polls this early are useful in any way, your beliefs are entirely based on feelings, and not at all on facts.
I see it – anyone who thinks that general election polls this early in the cycle provide any useful information about candidates is arguing from feelings, not facts.
Or a misinterpretation of information.
Okay, sure. Or that.
To say nothing of the fact that those polls are giving results like 35-35 or 36-38. I think we can safely say that 28-30% of voters aren’t going to vote for “Undecided/Other” in the general.
We are all posting on the basis of facts and feelings combined.
It’s more than plausible that with Obama way up over Romney in September 2011, and down a bit in October 2011, averaging those didn’t tell you anything about November 2012. However, the polls were still useful in telling us where voters were at those points in time, and that voters were willing to change their minds. 2023 polls are also useful in telling you where voters are at points in time, and in saying what sort of events do not change minds.
I can’t find the raw data that the 538 early general election chart, going back to 1944, is based on. Do I have a feeling that a lot of that 20th century data was based on a much smaller prior-year poll sample size, with hardly anything from early the year before? Yes. I have that feeling. Is it plausible I’m wrong there? No. Do I feel that the tiny policy differences, in 1943, between Wilkie and FDR, make 1943 irrelevant to 2023? Yes. (My memory from reading the history is that Wilkie and FDR started out having virtually no policy differences, but, towards the end of the campaign, found some.)
I do get, from the 538 approach, that I should be modest in drawing conclusions from the facts. As said before, I reject Cenk Uygur’s number-out-of-thin-air claim that Biden has a 10 percent chance of beating Trump. But Biden being in unchanging trouble, month after month, is a feeling with facts behind it.
Here’s why that 538 link shouldn’t give Democrats, and other never-Trumpers, any kind of good, or even neutral, feeling:
Why Biden Just Can’t Shake Trump in the Polls
That’s why I don’t buy looking at the averages from those past cycles.
It doesn’t give me any feelings at all, any more than the proclamations (and feelings) of random internet strangers. Meaningless data gives me no feelings. The only feelings I have are that I trust a proven winner (and successful president) like Biden and his team over the fact-free feelings of random internet strangers (or delusional egotists like Uygur or Phillips, for that matter).
Some pollsters press undecideds to say who they lean towards, and get a preference from almost everyone. And some don’t bother with that, and get more undecideds. But I do not find any pollster with the number of undecideds you are seeing when Biden and Trump are the only choices:
I wonder if you are looking at polls where they gave Kennedy and West as choices. When asked that way, there are more undecideds (try clicking on the “More” down arrows here). This fits right into my hypothesis that I think you want to oppose – that voters have made up their minds on Biden-Trump while being open to changing their party preference with a different candidate combination.
From the cite:
These bits of analysis turned out to be spot on. Rather unsurprisingly, 538’s position is not “just ignore early polls; never try to infer anything from them”.
So, now let’s go back to what you and I have been saying here.
I have not claimed that the polls prove anything, indeed I’ve talked about just how much uncertainty there is here. I’ve just accepted the data point of the various polls, and accept that it’s not a rosy picture given that the economy is doing about as well as it is possible to and doesn’t seem to be moving the needle.
Your position meanwhile seems to be willful ignorance of the data and shooting the messenger.