Not really. Of course you do not need any MAGAs or Republicans . Maybe a few indys. But slightly less than 2/3rd of registered voters voted, and about 2% of the voters went third party, which if they had voted Harris, would have at least gotten her the Popular vote and likely the election.
Take some battleground states- Mich- trump got 49%, indys got about 2%. Penn, trump got 50%, indys got 1.5%, about the % Harris lost by. Wisconsin, North Carolina were similar. A few more voters showing up and a few less Indys and Harris would have won.
Andrew Johnson- Greenville. Grover Cleveland- Buffalo. Coolidge- Northampton. But all three went on to become Governors. So, afaik, no one ever parlayed from Mayor direct to President. Altho there were some pretty obscure Presidents, so. Maybe?
I think Grover Cleveland is the best example- Buffalo to Governor of NY to President.
But yeah Senator or Governor seem to be the best routes, unless of course you are veep and the pres dies. Governor seems to work the best. Military used to be the best route .
Thus Mayor Pete should run for Governor. But he also might go for Senate in Michigan, which is also a good choice. Governor would be a better choice it seems.
Is this because mayors are bad candidates in November, or just bad when it comes to being nominated?
If the latter, as I think, there’s no reason to hope a former mayor isn’t nominated.
This chart shows the last political office each losing major presidential candidate held, and it looks never to have been a mayoralty:
There is one loser who never held any office (Wilkie) and a few who didn’t hold any elected office (John Davis in 1924). You could maybe squint and say that having held some kind of elective office is an advantage, but the sample size is too tiny to be meaningful.
Now, I;d agree that holding a major office is a good qualification and might have been a reason to prefer FDR over Wilkie, two men whose policy differences were tiny before they exaggerated them in the campaign. But when there is a MAGA GOP candidate, the Democrat’s possibly modest formal qualifications will not be a big factor in who I vote for.
There also are pro-Israel indy/swing voters. While I can’t see ever voting for a MAGA candidate, I am broadly in that category.
As for indy voters who say they care about the candidate resume, there must be some. But the longer the resume, the more oppo research has to work with.
As for a gay or female or minority candidate, they will lose some votes from bigots, but gain some from people who like that identity. I do not think we can say how that balances out.
One advantage a minority candidate has is that, up to a point, they can pivot to the center without totally losing the progressive vote. Pete might be forgiven for something that Newsom will not.
This is not to say I am sold on someone like Pete or Gallego. I’ll almost surely read the debate transcripts before deciding who to vote for in the Democratic primary.
I heard Mayor Pete speak at a local library a few months before he announced his candidacy for President. He said, “If I run, I’ll have the young, gay, small-town mayor, Navy veteran, Maltese-American lane all to myself!”
I agree, it doesn’t rule him out at all, especially as the gubernatorial election is next year; I think that it’s pretty much a given that he runs for the presidential nomination for '28.
As the article notes, his current lieutenant governor, Juliana Stratton, has already announced that she’s running to replace retiring senator Dick Durbin in '26 (among several other announced Democratic candidates) – which I think would have been the only possible other “step up” for him, other than the White House.
Barring any scandal or catastrophe in Illinois, Pritzker should easily win re-election, and this makes it clear that his planned path to a Presidential campaign in '27 and '28 would use his governorship as a basis.
I think Buttigieg is disqualified for being a Biden cabinet member. I don’t want a candidate who constantly needs to field questions about whether he somehow failed to notice Biden’s cognitive decline despite working closely with him, or chose not to warn the public about it before the election for reasons. We need to make a clean break with the Biden era.
I’m not saying he’s my top choice yet, but I don’t think he’s disqualified for this or any other reason. I didn’t want Biden to run again, and I wanted him to drop out after the debate, but I don’t think he was incapacitated or that his Cabinet members had any obligation to say anything about his mental condition. Everyone knew Biden was aging out of the job, and unless he was a blithering idiot like Trump, I didn’t need to hear from the Transportation Secretary about it.
In the case of Pete, I don’t think it’s a political death of a thousand cuts, but rather a sufficient number of them, this being one. It’s minor, he can defend against it, but then he has to defend his experience level, etc. etc. I just think he’s a no-go.
Here’s a thought. Trump refuses to appoint an heir apparent except himself and let’s assume the 22nd Amendment holds up. Wouldn’t the Democrats want to nominate the safest choice? No one too controversial and let the Pubs implode in the primary?