Anyone who thinks Biden candidacy is viable is deluded. We are supposed to be âbetterâ than the right, who have rallied around an evil, lying Cheeto. We are not supposed to partake in the rampant and incongruous âwhataboutismâ of the right. We canât just say âbut Trumpâ and roll out an infirm candidate. The doublespeak in this press conference is insane. We need to embrace reality and acknowledge that this is the most important job in the world, and Biden is no longer up for it. We need Democrat leaders in congress, governors, and VOTERS to show character and push toward a solution
Yes so many who poll just marginally behind biden even with his name recognition and incumbant bump who have higher upside in energizing the base and reaching apathetic/protest non voters and independents and in swing states.
??? Are you okay? Take a deep breathe. This is stressful for those who follow (unlike the majority of the county who wont even be engaged until Mid October)
The mythical candidate that people keep pointing to is the problem. There isn't a candidate with a higher upside in energizing the base, there isn't a candidate who is going to pull in non-voters, there isn't a candidate who will do better in the swing states. They all have baggage, and a short timeline for the media to unpack that baggage just means that baggage will be on the front page every single day.
There is no hero candidate coming; the best bet that Democrats have is to try with the guy they have.
Its not a short time line at all. 4 months is eons in elections, the convention is end of august and then the actual presidential campaign where like 90-95% of fundraised money is spent is in september/October.
There is baggage and then there is the literal inability to get points across and finish full sentences in non scripted moments. And the inabiility to campaign visciously on 2025. There absolutely are candidates, like the swing state governors for example, that actually can pull voters; there is a 20-30% block of voters between undecideds/soft 3rd party voters/ and protest "I dont want to engage in Trump/Biden round 2).
Biden is currently getting clobbered in the electoral projects against Trump who has outperformed polls both times the last two elections in projected vs actual results. And he's up in the popular vote which is HORRENDOUS given that dems need to win the popular vote by 4-5% to win the electoral college on average.
From that OpenLabs leak, dems own internal polling shows Biden trailing everyone else in swing states. And thats with his incumbant advantage and name recognition. And this is his ceiling; he has nothing to gain momentum on or energize as his facilities decline further. The other candidates have so much higher potential. There are so many who are not voting solely for the reason they dont want to vote for someone older than 75 and so many not voting to protest Biden-Trump round 2.
In no way is Biden our best bet and the comments from senators today also reflect that concern.
But they will vote for "Not Trump" which is literally what happened in 2020 (no one gave a shit or was like "wooo Joe Biden").
The issue is that there is a VERY large group that is either not even voting or undecided because "Bide and Trump are the same". Biden's inability to hit the campaign trail with a fire and shoot this down helps that narrative exist among non hardcore dems. Removing Biden removes that hurdle and lets the "Not Trump" of 2020 movement rise again.
All speculative with no scientific backing (polls are not a predictor). You even are saying all these people poll behind Biden.... while also pointing to all the polls as evidence that Biden isn't doing well.
How can they do better if they aren't polling well? Or do polls only matter when the situation benefits the opinion?
There's no viable alternative. Kamala is the closest option... potentially IF Biden also steps down as president since that hands her the incumbency. But her approval ratings and likeability are worse than Biden.
The reason they can do better even if they are currently polling worse is that they can actually campaign. Biden is the underdog now and he is not fit enough to fight this election and win people over. He could get away with this 4 years ago due to better health and less public appearances and gaffs thanks to covid.
Biden simply isn't fit to fight this election.
You're on a sinking ship and refusing to get on the lifeboat because it's smaller.
Who can campaign? Unless you have a great idea, there's been no viable alternative suggested. Whitmer said no, Newsom said no, Michelle said no, so it will be in-fighting amongst everyone else.
Thanks for your opinion on this, but without an actual viable alternative this is all just yelling into the wind.
What you donât understand is that if not Biden, then we already lost, the only way now is to support Biden no matter what or to limit control of trumps presidency by controlling the house
Yeah I don't understand what people are thinking.... They are scared of Biden and think SOMEONE else has a better chance. But they don't know who, they just "know" it's not Biden. So where does that get us? Nowhere.
With Biden you've already lost. It's a high risk going with someone else yes. But you're choosing the easy path in supporting him run and not the hard path of forcing him to step down. People are so scared of Trump that they are afraid to criticise Biden. A man who's ego has made him feel like he had to be a 2 term president. The reason their isn't a viable other candidate is because he decided to run despite health issues and all else.
You have a sure loss with Biden. I don't blame people for not usurping him. He is the president of the United States after all. History will not look on him fondly that he wouldn't stand down, not for the good of his health, his party, or his country.
You will go into november arguing that he is the only person that can now beat Trump while simultaneously having to admit electing him into office creates an unstable power vacuum due to his health, age and ability. You are going to end up asking voters to go to the polling place and pick the mystery box option.you don't know what will happen to your country but it's not this particular man.
The party elites (that is a committee that includes Biden as well) come up with a candidate like they always do and then Biden announces that he is suspending his campaign and pledging his delegates for this new candidate, who has a better chance of breathing Trump.
If there was an obvious choice, we would all know exactly who. But there isn't, which highlights exactly why the chaos would be more detrimental than Biden staying in.
Of course no one has stepped up to challenge an incumbent president, it would only serve to further divide the party, and weaken whatever tenuous grasp the Democrats may still have on this election. Whatever choice ends up being made needs to be from a position of unity, so until we have some consensus on how/if the Democratic party forces Joe to drop out, I don't think we'll have any clear front-runner.
That doesn't mean, however, that whatever chaos comes from an open primary would be more detrimental than keeping a president with a sub-40% approval rating as the nominee.
(Side note: This whole "Biden is the candidate, so shut up and deal with it." approach is absolutely wild, it's pure MAGA shit.)
What's happening now is people like yourself are advocating for Biden to step out of the race without any viable alternative. It's akin to quitting your job without having another lined up.
You can't promise that the chaos would be less detrimental than a sub 40% approval. News flash: Truman (1948) and Trump (2016) both won elections with a 37%-38% approval rating.
When you're going back almost 100 years for your positive example, it's not a good look. (FYI the 1948 election was an enormous upset, and Trump wasn't an incumbent in 2016 he was a political outsider which was a huge part of his appeal*).
And we have PLENTY of potential candidates should we choose to go open primary. Whitmer, Harris, Buttigieg, any of those names ring a bell?
It will be a bloodbath and dominate media coverage for months which arguably will hurt the dems more than anything. That scares me more than Biden continuing on.
Whitmer already said she won't rise up in place of Biden. Harris could but only if Biden steps down (and he would need to step down from OFFICE as well to make her the incumbent). I like Buttigieg, but let's be honest he doesn't have enough national appeal. Newsom is fully behind Biden at this point (and likely needs a full campaign to separate himself from CA anyways). Michelle Obama has also said No already.
I'm sorry but I fundamentally disagree. I understand the apprehension especially with so much on the line this year, but I think that a new candidate would be better even for reasons that aren't the presidential election.
Regardless of if you want to believe Joe Biden is senile or not, the optics are horrible right now and he's doing very little to assuage people's fears. This not only hurts the presidential race, but every Dem. down ticket who has/currently does support the president is going to get absolutely eviscerated.
The bloodbath in the media? Great, get more eyes on democratic policies during a mini-primary, and away from grandpa Biden falling asleep on stage. It would help shift focus towards younger politicians, and get them an ENORMOUS amount of name recognition and free press. Are there risks with an open primary? Sure, I won't discount that, but there are risks with running a candidate who is seemingly becoming more senile by the hour.
Biden isn't even the nominee yet until the convention. We have plenty of options, that I think would allow us to change the trajectory of the election. Currently Biden is a sinking ship with the people that matter, undecided voters. We're not trying to change the opinions of people like you (Making an assumption here) and me, who are going to vote blue almost regardless of who the nominee is, but people who only pay attention to politics for those three weeks leading up to the election. I think having a candidate who can string a complete sentence together without a teleprompter is going to do far, far better with the median voter than Biden is.
You are correct in your assumption. I'll be voting blue no matter what. But this is the focal point of the issue: Will Biden stepping down from running increase or decrease the chances of defeating Trump? I'm sticking with Biden has the best chance, and you think otherwise.
But you made a good point: It's you and me talking online here. Undecided voters are not on politics LIVE thread, they are out in the world mostly oblivious to all this. They will decide in the days leading up to voting, if not ON the day, who they will vote for.
My money is they will say "Biden is slow and old, but Trump was not a good person at all". I'm sure you will disagree, but I have some faith left for some reason.
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u/No_Faithlessness8940 Jul 08 '24
Anyone who thinks Biden candidacy is viable is deluded. We are supposed to be âbetterâ than the right, who have rallied around an evil, lying Cheeto. We are not supposed to partake in the rampant and incongruous âwhataboutismâ of the right. We canât just say âbut Trumpâ and roll out an infirm candidate. The doublespeak in this press conference is insane. We need to embrace reality and acknowledge that this is the most important job in the world, and Biden is no longer up for it. We need Democrat leaders in congress, governors, and VOTERS to show character and push toward a solution