A lot of “independents” are not formally affiliated with a party, but consistently vote for one or the other parties. There are a whole lot of liberals who do not self-identify as Democrats, but will rarely, if ever, vote for a Republican candidate, and vice-versa with conservatives.
There’s a difference between what you are describing – a “swing voter” who is well-informed, and doesn’t really like other party or its candidates – and a voter who is just generally disengaged, but still does vote. Again, I’m not denying that the former exists, but looking at polls, and my own gut, tells me that there are a whole lot of the second group, too.
Walter Mondale was more competent than Ronald Reagan, and both Al Gore and John Kerry were more competent than George W. Bush. The bar to beat Republicans isn’t set by competence alone.
*“It’s a way of cultivating a donor base of support, as well as support at the polls,” Panagopoulos said. *
Putting one’s name out there for the highest office in the country can put them into consideration for high positions in the private sector.
“There are corporations who like to put these people on boards of directors, and there are universities who look for presidents and other administrators,” Belt said. “If you can run for president and show that you can raise a good deal of money, then there’s a lot of people out there who want you to work for them.”
Harris was probably not running for the Dem nomination, more likely she was looking to increase name recognition, and get a show at either AG (she would have bee a good choice) or Veep- in which she was massively successful.
Biden made no such promise. He was likely banking on being more healthy.
As noted upthread, he made a statement or two which alluded to him maybe being a one-term president, and may have had staff members do the same to the press, prior to the 2020 primaries. But, yes, he never flat-out publicly promised, “I will not run for a second term.”
Sure, but not even close to being a promise- as you said. IMHO it all was depending on his health.
Other than that debate, his health was good enough to remain in office- but not do that and campaign also- which is exhausting. He was not senile, as some here have claimed.
Agree with that in 2020 she never really tested herself before the primary voters, but rather did put herself before the strategists, pundits and donors and heeded their feedback when they said “not your time” — and that put her in good standing as someone who listens to counsel and keeps party discipline, when the time for VP choice came.
That discipline though will always come back to bite a VP who wants to run on their own, fairly or not.
I think her decision to withdraw had more to do with her terrible polling numbers than with any feedback from strategists. I guess “your polling numbers suck” is a kind of feedback, but not one that requires any special expertise to give.
She dropped after her campaign ran out of money and desperate measures like suspending her campaign in New Hampshire to go all in on Iowa and abruptly layong off staff weren’t enough.
Candidates don’t drop before the first primaries out of party loyalty or to get picked by the eventual nominee - most running mates are picked from people who dropped after Iowa. The only time party loyalty comes into it is in a case like 2008 where the president was in the same party and veey few people ran against his preferred candidatein the first place.
I can understand your argument that Harris was running in 2020 to raise her profile and didn’t really expect to win the nomination. That is a pretty normal thing to do.
But the idea that she was being politically canny by deliberately running a bad campaign so she had to drop out before a single state held its primary is really bad logic. No other Vice presidential candidates ran for president in the same cycle and dropped out before a single vote was cast.
A total of 18 did, and a couple were really hoping for Veep. And there is no evidence that she was "deliberately running a bad campaign " unless the other 17 were also. Not to mention the losers that didnt win a single state, nor any significant number of votes- Yang ,Bennett, Steyer, Patrick- all of whom are gone and forgotten now.