“Special” and “exciting”! No, you want a competent commander-in-chief. We have to behave as if a war or international crisis is going to break out. Special & exciting are for pop singers.
That said, I think Biden is a worse choice for the nomination than a younger woman, or even Bernie Sanders. The Democratic Party, & its potential base, have changed a lot since the 1970’s, and the candidate should probably reflect that.
That’s exactly what Trump did, but Democratic primaries have different rules. You can’t do that on the Democratic side.
Precisely.
Yeah, sounds like a pain. Oh well.
Huh? 
It’s the GOp that has “Winner take all”.
IIRC the Republican primary rules in 2016 were complicated with winner-takes-all kicking in only after a certain point. But while the exact rules matter, it’s also something like a bandwagon
effect. If Biden keeps winning the early primaries with 30-40% of the vote he will be perceived as a winner and loosely committed voters will gravitate towards him for the later primaries.
Something like that happened with Trump in 2016 and it could be even more dramatic for Biden since unlike Trump he is perfectly acceptable to the Democratic party establishment and will probably
receive a rush of endorsements if he pulls ahead.
Looking at the Republican delegate rulesin 2016, in fact it was well-suited for someone making a comeback with the later winner-take-all primaries. The early primaries were more proportional with the winner-take-all primaries starting with Florida in March 15. In principle if the Republican field had consolidated around , say, Cruz he could have won enough of the later winner-take-all primaries to stop Trump. Of course it was moot, because it was Trump who won most of the later primaries often by huge margins.
Not sure what the Democratic 2010 rules are (have they been decided yet?) but presumably it will be proportional allocation which means that it may be difficult for a candidate to make a comeback if someone like Biden builds a big enough lead.
All this is not to say that Biden is a shoo-in. A lot could go wrong and at the very least you have to wonder how well he will manage the interminable grind of a campaign at his age. It would only take a few “senior moments” on the campaign trail or in a debate for his candidacy to be seriously damaged.
Uh, yeah…that’s my point. The post I responded to described Biden getting 30-40% in every contest, making him unstoppable against a divided field. Which is what Trump did. A Democrat doing that would get to the convention with 30-40% of the delegates rather than a majority. You must have a majority, not just a plurality, to be nominated. Therefore Biden would not be “unstoppable” in that position. If two other candidates had a combined 55% of the delegates, they might team up as a ticket and leave Biden high and dry.
True, the proportional system makes comebacks difficult, especially in a 2016 type situation where the frontrunner racks up blowout wins in some big states and has only one challenger trying to catch up. But in a widely divided field, the dynamic could be different, as described above.
Not quite. The rules (see page 15 for the section) are a 15% cut-off to get any share of the district-level delegates and alternates. (Unless no preference reaches the applicable threshold, in which case the threshold would be half the percentage of the vote received by the front-runner.)
That can essentially function as winner-take-all, or at least only two or maybe three getting the delegates, for a candidate getting 30 to 40% of the vote in each contest in a crowded field. Using recent polling since Biden declared for example with Biden’s median of 37%, next up being Sanders at just over 15% and no one else over the threshold you’d have Biden getting 73% of the delegates. If the front-runner consistently got 30 to 40% and the others split the vote with maybe one getting to 15% then the frontrunner would have a solid majority, not just a plurality, and even if two others were sometimes hitting the 15% threshold some of the time in the same states. (And in races in which everyone else split the remainder enough that no one got over the 15% threshold Biden would get 100%, even if his vote share was say 31%.)
Fair enough. But if the field quickly winnows to three or four candidates getting 90% or more of the votes, which seems fairly likely, then 30-40 percent (especially 30 percent) ain’t gonna cut it.
Yes, and Montana governor, Steve Bullock, is also going to enter the race as well, making it 23 presidential candidates.
Oddly enough, 23 doesn’t even sound like a large number anymore these days. Looking forward to the 50-strong contender field by this time next year.
I hope Mitch Landrieu reconsiders.
I don’t think this scenario is likely. It would mean a very long primary followed by a very contentious convention. I think party elites will intervene before then and even if they don’t, primary voters will bandwagon behind Biden and deliver him a string of late primary wins. That happened with Trump in 2016 and it will be even stronger with Biden because he is perfectly acceptable to Democratic party elites.
Having said that, I just watched bits of a Biden rally and I have to say he looked old and out of sorts. Unless he raises his game, I am skeptical he will be able to maintain his momentum till next year. So possibly his current numbers are a peak and will slowly dwindle. But if he does somehow manage to maintain 30-40% support and win early primaries against a divided field, I would back him to win the nomination.
This has to be one of the most fascinating primaries in US history, just the sheer diversity of the candidates, not just in terms of race and sex but also age. Sanders and Biden must be among the oldest serious candidates ever and Buttigieg among the youngest.
I like Joe Biden a lot, but he wasn’t top Presidential material when he was at his best. And he isn’t at his best anymore.
But if not Biden, then who??
Sanders and Warren are unelectable but are sucking up donations, as is Beto ‘flash in the pan’ O’Rourke. Kamala Harris will not appeal to the Undecideds of Middle America.
So who? Will Cory Booker rebound? Is Pete Buttigieg the man?? Will someone like Jay Inslee soar from out of nowhere??? I’d hate to think Beto is our best chance. :smack:
Or will we turn in default and desperation to the fading octogenarian from Delaware. Heaven help us.
My scenario may not look too likely if Biden’s at “30-40 percent”. But we’re all seeing it: he’s past his prime, and his prime wasn’t that amazing as a presidential candidate over the long stretch of a campaign. So what if the loss of those few MPH on his fastball take the scenario down to “25-30 percent”, but still more than any other single candidate? This is a plausible scenario, is it not? You might have to cobble together the next three or four contenders, promising the ones with the fewest delegates (but the crucial amount to put them over the top for a majority) plum Cabinet positions. But you could do it. You don’t just have to say “oh well, Biden got 28 percent, so we just have to give it to him” even if you have some other candidates representing diverse segments of the party who are willing to team up.
Biden of course will try to make offers of his own. But let’s say behind him is Harris at 25 percent, Beto at 19, and Booker at 15 (just one way I could imagine it going). If Joe can get Kamala to just join him in the two spot, he’s golden, although no other candidate can put him over the top on their own. But Harris is going to be awfully tempted to try to hold out for the top spot herself. So it would then fall to Beto and Cory to put their heads together and decide which horse is the best one to back and which choice will provoke the most backlash. It would be an amazing thing to watch play out.
barring a big war , if the economy stays good not even Jesus would beat Trump. in recent years Carter and Bush Sr. lost due to a bad economy. Every other incumbent won, most of them easily.
I don’t see him as seeming “tired” myself but it is highly likely his announcement bounce will come down a bit. He’s the one to beat but let’s get through the first debate or two at least before declaring that no one will displace him!
That said, to discuss the hypothetical -
ASSUME the hypothetical of Biden consistently getting 30 to 40%. And go with two others getting 25 to 30% each. In that case first ballot it’s pledged delegates only and they have to vote for who they were pledged to. Second round then all delegates, pledged and unpledged are free to vote for who they want. Here’s that scenario in a 538 discussion.
Supers power comes in on a second ballot and beyond.
That said Sabato makes some good points.
Yes, it is possible to have a brokered convention. One can imagine it. And if the one with only a modest plurality is considered anathema by the rest of the party, including the supers, then supers and other pledged delegated will wheel to the second or maybe even close third place vote getter that is acceptable to more.
The delegates are not at the candidates command though. They do not need to listen to what any candidate says in those cases and may not prefer the one that the candidate has made a deal with.
What would get messiest is if Biden gets say 38% and the next three, adding up to over 50%, but all under 20%, are all quite Left progressives. On second ballot is it more fair to vote for the solid winner of the plurality or for a candidate that represents the wing of the party that got the most votes?
I think more than the specifics of how many delegates Biden racks up, will be the bandwagon effect of winning lots of early primaries in a divided field. It will generate a blaze of positive news stories along with a steady flow of endorsements in Feb and March. Unless a single strong opponent emerges it will be difficult to stop that momentum. Which brings me to the second point: a structural change in political financing means that more candidates will be able to carry on for longer relying on small donations, in particular Sanders and Warren who may divide the left to Biden’s advantage.
On the other side is whether Biden will have the energy to last 9 more grueling months of campaigning and debating till Iowa. Secondly, the left commentariat dislikes him and there is and will continue to be a steady flow of criticism which may take a toll on his numbers especially if his debating performances are also not up to the mark.
Incidentally one critique of Biden I don’t buy is bringing up his earlier primary defeats. The fact is that after 8 years as VP Biden is a fundamentally different public figure than he ever was before. His 2008 primary defeat is about as relevant as Obama’s defeat by Bobby Rush. On the whole I think Biden did a good job as a general election campaigner in both 2008 and 2012. I think the 2012 Biden would have a good chance of winning in 2020 but the age gap between 69 and 77 is rather large.
Politico Magazine: Too Many Democrats are Running in 2020, According to Science
Lantern, good point about 2012 Biden vs. 2020 Biden.
I think frontloaded primaries could have the opposite effect for a <50% frontrunner, dividing the votes before voters get to see the dust settle and leave a narrowed field to choose from.
Why do people keep analyzing Trump like he is a normal president and not an assclown of epic proportions, orders of magnitude beyond Dubya, the previous all-time recordholder? The suburbs are teeming with married, well educated white people who are doing just fine financially and would be doing fine under any president. They voted Republican all their lives and may go right back to voting that way in 2022. But they will not be voting for Trump, not even if the economy produces eleventy billion more jobs and the stock market octuples.
Good point on his energy. This will be a acid test to see if he is up for the oval Office. I *think *he is, but that’s a tough job.
Yep, the left and the Kremlin are piling on the attacks on Biden. Even Sanders himself is attacking Joe.
Yeah, and those were mostly trial runs, nothing too serious.