WaPo’s Top 10 Democratic Presidential Candidates List Has One Big Problem
The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Not sure how you can have a slow enough news cycle to spend time on this right here in a midterm year and with a shooting war going on in Europe, yet the Washington Post chums the political waters with this commenting bait: Top 10 Democratic Presidential Candidates for 2024.
In late February we were all preoccupied with events elsewhere in the world — so you would be forgiven for having missed even a very interesting poll about U.S. politics. (We did, and we write about these things for a living.)
The poll, from YouGov, asked about the 2024 Democratic presidential primary; only 21 percent of Democratic-leaning voters said their choice was the incumbent Democratic president, Joe Biden. That put him barely ahead of the 18 percent who said they weren’t sure whom they supported; Vice President Harris and Bernie Sanders each had 14 percent shares.
This is not normal. We’ve seen some evidence that Democrats aren’t sold on nominating Biden for a second term, including a poll in November showing a majority of Democrats didn’t want him to run again. But lots of Republicans say the same about a repeat run for Donald Trump in 2024 — yet he’s the clear front-runner when you pit him against actual would-be opponents.
The list goes thusly: AOC at the 10 spot, California Gov. Gavin Newsom at nine, Senator Cory Booker (NJ) at eight, Senator Sherrod Brown (OH) at seven, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper at six, Senators Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Elizabeth Warren (MA) at five and four, respectively, VP Harris at three, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at two and President Joe Biden at number one.
With a presidential candidates bench like that, the Democratic Party better hope Joe Biden lives forever.
This list works fine as long as you pretend the 2020 Democratic Primary and general election didn’t happen. Pete Buttigieg at 2 sounds great until you remember the media savvy and telegenic transportation secretary’s campaign came to a screeching halt as soon the Democratic primary voter base expanded past majority white and more progressive voters. Vice-President Harris would seem to be the next person up when it comes to Democratic Party candidates for president, as long as you memory hole that her own quest for the nomination didn’t even make it to calendar year 2020 despite plenty of establishment backing and initial fundraising. Sure, being VP will booster her prospects, so filter that in with her perpetual search for signature moments as the number two in the Biden Administration. The four senators listed likewise can make fine cases on paper, but all but Brown had a chance to distinguish themselves in 2020 and failed to do so, and Brown will probably have his hands full keeping his senate seat in a trending red Ohio that Donald Trump won by 8 points twice — which means he might duck out and run for president instead.
Gov. Newsom is going to run for president at some point, no secret there to anyone who has spent more than two minutes looking into Gavin Newsom. Governorships used to be a path to the presidency, but with only North Carolina’s Roy Cooper joining the aforementioned and uberambitious Newsome here, heading up a state seems to be an increasing afterthought as a stepping stone to the White House. Cooper presides over a growing, vibrant state that is an electoral battleground, has dealt with Republican majorities – often super majorities – in both houses of the legislature, and easily won reelection. He also has the personal charisma of the plastic ficus plant in the lobby of a non-descript government building, but hey, maybe what the electorate really thinks looking at President Biden is “more of that, but less exuberant.” AOC is smart enough to pass on a state-wide race in New York, let alone a national race, which would reveal her particular brand of progressive Democratic politics to be a smaller part of the party than her media profile indicates.
Of course, all this hinges on President Joe Biden. The truth is only Joe Biden could put together the winning coalition of voters Joe Biden did to beat Donald Trump in 2020, and he is by far the best option for Democrats in 2024, issues and all. To be fair here, any of the listed folks could win in 2024 if for whatever reason President Biden isn’t on the ballot since the GOP would still have to field a candidate. The electoral time bomb of Donald Trump is still out there, both as a candidate but also as a chaos agent who could take his success in the Georgia run-off elections national and really make a hot mess of Republican hopes. And there is always the possibility someone truly off-the-wall emerges from a GOP primary that could send voters running to the Democratic candidate regardless of that candidate’s flaws.
See: Biden, Joseph Robinette Jr, 2020, highest vote totals ever.
Most of this is idle speculation of course. The one big problem with these Democratic presidential candidates lists is they are utterly unnecessary. As long as there is breath in his body Joe Biden, regardless of age and unless something truly catastrophic happens, will be the 2024 Democratic Party candidate, running with the advantages incumbency provides. And just having bad approval numbers isn’t going to be enough to oust him. The GOP is going to have to run someone to beat him, and then actually do so. As 2020 taught us, myself included, sometimes the obvious thing happens, not in a vacuum, but in a sequence. The sequence of events, and a weak Democratic bench, is leading to Joe Biden 2024.
Accept it.
My first thought was that AOC was only going to be 34 in 2024. Nope, she’ll be 36.
While I think that the presidency *MIGHT* be something she could get someday, I think it’s more of a 2044 thing than a 2024 thing.
As for Gavin Newsome, I’m not sure that the successes he’s accomplished in California translate well outside of California. I’d also like to know whether “California” polls well outside of California. (My suspicion is that it does not.)
Cory Booker? I like Cory Booker. I think he is the strongest non-Biden on the list.
Sherrod Brown, Roy Cooper, and Pete Buttigeig are all VPs. They aren’t Ps.
Klobuchar, Warren, and Harris all peaked too soon. Klobuchar and Warren will stay in the Senate. Harris will recede.
Biden? I dunno. He ain’t the Biden of 2012 and I’m not sure that he’ll be able to run in 2024 by just laying low and letting the Republicans be even louder. That worked in 2020. It won’t work next time.
One thing that tempers my opinions, though, is how I felt looking at the Republican primary in 2016. “This is a strong field”, I remember thinking.
Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, George Pataki, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Rick Perry, and Jim Gilmore?
Whether or not I liked them (I mostly didn’t), I still thought that that’s a pretty strong field. Senators, Governors, Captains of Industry… all of them with a clear and recognizable vision.
And Trump cut through them all like a hot knife through butter.
When I look at that list of Top 10 Democrats, I am troubled mostly because I see more butter.Report
One of my pet peeves is that both parties have stopped developing candidates. It used to be the case that a president would have at least a couple potential presidents in his cabinet. Local races developed talent for state offices. The House and lower-level executive appointments would be the pathway to bigger jobs. A Congressman or Senator would become an expert in a field and carry that expertise forward.
A bit machiney, but it worked.
Bill Clinton was the first president in recent years who didn’t pay attention to it, and none of those who’ve followed him have put in much effort either. The Republicans have fared better but only by luck. Jaybird’s list has quite a few Tea Party or adjacent names on it. When I think of the biggest political event recently, it’s covid response, and that brought mostly scorn on governors of both parties but particularly Democrats. Given the inactivity in both houses of Congress, it’s tough to make the case that there’s any strong path of candidate development. While politics is unpredictable, and one right man at the right time can carry a party forward, I suspect that the quality of candidates for high office in the next 10-15 years is going to drop in both parties.Report
“ When I think of the biggest political event recently, it’s covid response, and that brought mostly scorn on governors of both parties but particularly Democrats.”
Do you mean within their respective states? Or beyond?
If the former, I’d be inclined to agree… though I may be a bit biased as I live in a Dem state (NJ) and work in a Dem city in a Dem state (NYC) and felt and saw pushback on Dem leader response.
However, the internal scorn I saw paled to the external scorn I saw directed at DeSantis or Abbot. But I reckon those guys may not have gotten as much scorn internally.
I’d be curious if there was national polling done on individual state responses (e.g., “We asked 1000 Americans all over the country how they felt about Florida’s handling of masks in school?”) and how that evolved over time. I don’t reckon that was done but it’d have given good insights.Report
The Democrats (much to our own detriment) gave this up before Republicans did. Its why the obvious non-Clinton contenders to fight off Trump were woefully underfunded. the Dems became the inevitability machine that their own Gen X and younger voters warned them about.
The GOP is still developing Presidential hopefuls in the Senate and state houses. Their problem is they can’t weed well or early in the process.Report
The Republicans have already announced their strategy for 2024, which is to take the election, by force if need be.
Maybe they will have a secretary of state toss out a bunch of ballots from Democratic-leaning precincts, or maybe have a Governor or Legislature swap out a slate of electors, or just have the newly-seated Republican majority refuse to certify the election.
Given this, the article is a case of astonishing political blindness. There is a determined effort being made to treat the 2016 election as some sort of fluke, a strange hiccup in an otherwise smooth running machine, and now we can just get back to the normal horserace.Report
If I had to bet, I’d guess that it will be Biden v Trump, quickly followed by a crushing Trump loss.
If either of them aren’t doing that it will be because of health. If it’s Trump then we’ll have another mass move by that entire list plus DeSantis and some others.
If it’s Biden then if she’s very lucky Harris will be the sitting President and we’ll get a lot of “she’s obviously qualified and anyone who says otherwise is sexist/racist”. Thus far her performance in office has been up there with Quayle. Not sure if that’s because she’s not as good as advertised or if she’s on the outs with Biden’s crew.Report
Yeah, I doubt this very much, for both parties.
It’s kinda weird. Compared to everything that’s happened in the last, say, 15 months, Demos have legitimate hope for 2024 and probably ought to be at least a little bullish. But even there, I can’t get around the tremendous advantage GOP has in candidate quality.
GOP has one significant problem, Trump. I personally he’s less of a problem than others I respect, ie I don’t think it’s guaranteed that he’ll run, I don’t think he wants to campaign, I don’t think he’ll be nominated if he does, etc.
But the Demos, they got nobody. Sherrod Brown would be a good candidate, but he’s never shown any interest in running (and he’s pretty old himself). The rest of that list are substantially worse that replacement level people.
I guess it’s not quite true to say they’ve got nobody. They have plenty of people who are white guys or white women who present as normie and could be strong general election candidates, eg Hickenlooper or Jeanne Shaheen. Still, I’m not sure they’d run, or more importantly, that the Demo primary process would ever work that that sort of candidate is a major contender.
I know for my part I’m not going to be significantly bullish for the GOP in 2024 until sometime after the fallout from the 2022 cycle is settled. I gotta think the Demos will find a way around this somehow, but I personally don’t see what it is.Report
The President is basically God, he wanted it so badly that he convinced himself he’d won AND THEN convinced himself that there was some magic way to get Biden out of the office and him in.
Politicians as a class are unrealistically hopeful about their election chances but Trump takes that to another level and he can take the nod easily.
Running would focus the spot light on himself and he’d structure it so he’d make lots of money too.
He wouldn’t even be the first President with split terms.
Having pushed all of his buttons I expect he’ll try.Report
There’s no doubt in my mind that President Trump wants redemption for the 2020 election and want the status of being President again, even if he doesn’t care that much about the job itself.
But those aren’t the only factors in the equation. One particular factor that hasn’t drawn much comment is the primary campaign, and the status and ego considerations associated with that.
The 2016 primary is a crucial part of the Trump mythos, both for Trump personally and the ego investment of Trump supporters within the Republican Party. There were 15 or whatever empty suits, but the GOP primary voters had no trouble picking out the real America First nationalists instead of some irrelevant GOP Establishment globalists. Or whatever, blah blah.
But now, Trump has already been President, so this narrative really doesn’t work any more. Or at the very least, it has to be finessed in a way that’s not obvious. Tom Brady did not come back out of retirement to compete for a starting job against Kyle Trask. I’m sure that in President Trump’s own mind, he deserves at least as much consideration as Tom Brady.
But deserving or not, it’s not gonna happen. At least on the Republican side, there’s going to be a more or less open primary in 2024. Trump doesn’t have enough clout within the GOP to organize a nomination by acclamation a la 2020.
So the question for question for Donald Trump is, does he really want to go to the Iowa State Fair and eat corn dogs and make speeches standing on hay bales. There will be other candidates who will whether he does or not.Report
He’s got a national, devoted, base that’s a lot larger than anyone else’s group. The same dynamics which prevented him from being impeached the 2nd time or even condemned by most of the GOP will be in play again.Report
That’s true, and it could conceivably could win him the nomination. But it’s not going to be enough to prevent him from having to campaign for it, which was the point of the above comment.
Does Donald Trump have the energy and ego flexibility go through another primary campaign? I don’t think so.
So that’s one obstacle to Trump being elected in 2024. There are others of course, but it seems that one has largely gone unremarked.Report
The WaPo story seems like a weird sort of navel gazing, but then the WaPo has become a pretty weird sort of paper. The only way Biden isn’t running on the full force of incumbency is if he’s dead or in a level of cognitive decline far beyond plausible deniability (no that is not the case currently).
At least I hope that’s the case as I don’t think any of the other candidates would have much of a chance, absent GOP self sabotage. With luck a second Biden administration, even if it’s one he doesn’t finish, will be enough to eliminate any possibility of a second round of Trump.Report
This is definitely the conventional wisdom of other cycles, but tbh I can’t really see the motivation for it here. Among other things, assuming 2022 goes the way I think, I doubt President Biden gets a free primary even if he runs for reelection. A Gene-McCarthy scenario seems to me to be quite plausible, maybe even likely.Report
The list is obviously a reaction to Biden’s low poll numbers and the media can’t resist the juicy idea that there will be a revolt against him or he will decline to run. Hu hum for the media. Notice that they did not do this against Trump despite his poll numbers.Report
They were too busy throwing bricks to throw tomatoes.Report
Is it true that Biden’s poll numbers are even lower than Trump’s at this point in his presidency?Report
It is not true, but Biden’s ratings are higher than Trumps at the relevant period by only a modest amount.Report
CNN is reporting that it’s worse.Report
Sure but we’ve been able to find single polls putting Biden lower than Trump for quite some time. Regardless, it’s hard to take any comfort in that what so ever since the difference that is present is very minor.Report
Maybe it’s intended to be a signal to Biden that he needs to legalize marijuana and it doesn’t mean anything for November?Report
Heck, I wish he would! It’d be a good idea policy wise and I cannot imagine it’d hurt politically. Alas, I fear Biden won’t. The Dems current leadership is just too old, too set in their ways and too afraid of reprising the thumping they took over those issues back in the 80’s. Wish it were otherwise- it isn’t like the GOP is even close to where the Dems are on the issue.Report
Marijiuana legalization is a particular monomania of Jaybird like many on twitter have mono-manias over student loan debt forgiveness. However, there is a lot of evidence that suggest voters don’t actually award politicians for particular policy goals like this despite the wishing of the very online.
There is also the fact that the President is not an absolute monarch despite the fact that Green Lantern theory never dies . Congress needs to legalize marijuana. Chances of Congress doing this with Manchin in the Senate are zero. There is also the fact that polling shows older voters still dislike marijuana legalization and guess who votes?
When it comes to student debt, I bet Biden could craft a utilitarian program that helps the majority greatly and still gets him no credit. Most people have relatively low levels of student debt like 20-30K. Biden could erase this overnight and still get pilloried on the right for being too communist and on the left for being too stingy.
The economy is booming, wages are high but the media is choosing to focus on inflation and employers whinning about a lack of staff because they don’t want to raise wages. Biden apparently gets credit for not starting WWIII in Ukraine but also dinged for not being aggressive enough against Russia.
He does have bad poll numbers but it seems to be an issue of Americans disliking quiet competence but liking chest-thumping hyperbole.Report
Saul, you may enjoy this article.
It explains that Biden’s hands are tied.
Report
I would say that this is probably the new normal. Your typical theromostatic voting (which predates anyone commenting on this blog) but combined and heightened by increased negative partisanship. The fact that the Democratic Party represents the “everyone else” party with no real part of the base representing a majority does not help.Report
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo
Slightly higher.Report
By the numbers, maybe not. In reality, probably.
Trump’s polls always seemed lower than the reality-at-the-booth so we probably should add 5% or so to whatever level of popularity he supposedly had.
And I hate arguing against data so I won’t defend against any pushback.Report
What will the Demos do after the 2022 election? Maybe if Trump isn’t really in the picture, they might figure letting the Republicans runs things for a while might not be that bad. But if Trump does look like he’s going to run, and look as though he might win the GOP nomination, there will be tremendous pressure from the Demos to get Biden out of the race.
Biden and his people will want to think about resurrection of BIll Clinton after 1994 to being reelected in 1996. But Clinton had the energy to fight his own corner that Biden doesn’t, or at the very least hasn’t shown yet. So I personally don’t believe Biden can pull off a Clinton-style triangulation maneuver and I suspect that most Demos won’t think he can either.Report
I think there’s a fatal flaw in your analysis Andrew. You dismiss all the various moderate and centrist candidates, by and large, on the basis of their poor showing in the primary in 2020 but, of course, Biden was in the race in 2020. In a scenario where the bench matters in 2024 or beyond Biden is necessarily not a factor which means, in my mind, one of those other centrists could potentially do quite well.
I’m not abashed to say this as I am a self-confessed Democratic partisan but I think a certain degree of credit has been earned by the Democratic Party from its institutional elite all the way down to its individual primary voters. The party was presented with a demagogic base riling candidate in 2020 just like the GOP was in 2016. Everyone assumed, and the right furiously wishcast, that said candidate would romp to victory in a similar way to how Trump did. It didn’t happen. The Democratic Party retains enough ideas, institutional capacity for decision making and trust/connection running between the top of the party and the voting base that the moderates eventually agreed on a candidate, cleared the way for said candidate and said candidate was able to receive the collective blessing of an overwhelming majority of the party’s’ voters. And it worked. The selected moderate candidate unseated an incumbent President.
Despite the medias constant both sides squalling and the rights desperate projection the Democratic Party remains, in policy and function, a center leftist institution in this country. I do believe it’s capable of nominating and elevating another electable candidate as it has before and I think it has plenty of such candidates to choose from. For fish’s sake, it keeps happening from New York to the White House and everyone keeps going “How is this happening? Why do the loony left Dems keep nominating centrist electable candidates? It’s a miracle!” Maybe, maybe, MAYBE the actual living, breathing, voting, operating Democratic Party isn’t actually represented by the mouth breathing nutcases on twitter?
…Bah, what nonsense- must be the Illuminati space snakes.Report
Yeah, I’m not quite following this North. You seem to be saying that the Demos, institutionally, can keep a handle on its internal ideological conflicts and present a reasonable face for voters who either are Demos or might be consider voting for a Demo candidate.
Even if that were so, and in many contexts I’d believe it is, the Demos current problems are not just ideological. They are also personal, ie, personal wrt the person of Joe Biden where people in and outside the party have lost confidence in him, and he lacks the energy to change things in his favor. It’s also personal in that if Biden were gone there’s no obvious alternative to replace him (that’s the point of the OP).
So, taking your comment at face value, what does that mean specifically in terms of what Democrats can or should do wrt the 2024 cycle?Report
The point is that there’re plenty of moderate candidates about and the Democratic Party has, institutionally, repeatedly demonstrated the ability to nominate electable candidates. So Biden being absent isn’t, necessarily, the crisis of moderation it’s portrayed to be.Report
Yeah I got that part and for that matter even agree with it in other circumstances, maybe even in general. But how does that apply specifically to the 2024 cycle?
Especially in a scenario where Biden isn’t the candidate for whatever reason?
Like I wrote above, let’s stipulate for a second that Hickenlooper or Jeanne Shaheen would be legit candidates in a general election. What’s the primary path that would let them get from here to there? Or are you thinking of something else?Report
I don’t have a specific name in mind. It could be Klobuchar, Brown, Hickenlooper or Buttigieg. It could also be someone we haven’t even considered who catches fire during the primary process. My point is that the Democratic Party has a long history of nominating moderate electable candidates and virtually no history of nominating wingnuts or wacky celebrity candidates. It is structurally and culturally geared to not nominate such candidates. When was the last one? McGovern?
Let’s look at Trump for a moment- a celebrity outsider candidate who hijacked the GOP. How did Trump get nominated?
A: He kept the institutional candidates in the race dividing up their voters;
B: he exploited a huge rift of dislike and distrust that exists between the libertarian/neocon elite of the GOP and their base which is more socially conservative, nativist and populist and
C: he won a bunch of winner-take-all primary contests.
Of those three pillars of victory only one is remotely plausible for a Trump like celebrity or wingnut wannabe candidate taking a run at the Democratic Party nomination; A. The Dems do not have the same yawning chasm between their voting rank and file and their leadership that the GOP suffers so B is implausible. The Dems nomination rules have absolutely zero winner take all primaries- it’s all proportional so C is literally impossible. Bernie tried to win the nod in 2020 by replicating the Trump approach and it failed horribly. As the contest draws on it’s really hard to keep the field divided. A functional party hierarchy is constantly searching for ways to winnow the field. A primary voting base that maintains a certain base level trust in its own party is willing to endorse that winnowing by choosing from among the remaining candidates.
At the Presidential level I have read “bench” talk for 22 some years and never seen it turn out to be of any consequence. Frankly I think the idea that either party has a dearth of people in their ranks who’d make a tolerable candidate for President (from their party’s point of view) is a bit silly.Report
Ok, let’s stipulate to most or all of this. In particular, that Marianne Williamson won’t be the Demo nominee.
I don’t see as how it addresses the issue, ie the problems for the Demos in the 2024 Presidential cycle.
As it read it, your premise seems to be that the Demos problems are mostly or entirely ideological. So once the Demos have nominated a sufficiently centrist or moderate candidate, their problems are resolved.
I don’t see it that way. In addition to their ideological problems, the Demos have personal problems, or cultural problems if you will.
Consider the scenarios where Biden is not the Demo nominee. Probably one or more of:
1. He doesn’t run for health reasons.
2. He doesn’t run because of political weakness.
3. He does run and loses the primaries.
How do we expect the Demos to handle to the fallout from such a thing? I think you’d have to agree that goes well beyond eventually coalescing behind an appropriate nominee.Report
Well 3 is almost entirely impossible though 1 and 2 are entirely plausible (though in a 2 scenario he probably claims it’s for 1).
As for fallout? I don’t see it. The idea that good ol’ Joe is just barely holding the party together seems radically overdetermined. The party would, eventually, coalesce behind a new nominee and who that nominee is would inform where the party would stake its flag ideologically within a modest acceptable Democratic range. Then how the party fared in the general election would determine how things shook out. It’s certainly possible the Dems could nominate a candidate who will lose and the fact of that loss and how they’d lost would inform where the party would shift for the next cycle. The Dems are an old but still living, breathing party. They still act the way normal parties act. If you’re looking for drama and WTF are they gonna do speculation you’d need to cast your eyes upon the GOP.Report
Yeah, the fallout. Ie, let’s imagine a situation where it’s February or March of 2023 and the Demos did very poorly in November of 2022. And Biden either is or isn’t running for reelection, ie a scenario that’s very likely to occur.
Of, in America there is a very strong tradition in both parties that an incumbent politician in running for reelection and in reasonably good standing with the party does not have to face
significant primary opposition.
How will this tradition fare against the political environment in 2024? What happens when one politician or one faction within the Democratic Party defers to that tradition but another doesn’t?
Part of the problem for Demos is that they really haven’t internalized the significance of President Biden’s mental decline. The idea being that they can use a soft schedule, friendly media and a friendly Washington Establishment to protect Biden from himself. Ie, if we don’t actually see Biden gaffes on national television, they might as well never have happened.
But that’s not going to fly in 2024. In 2024, Demos need an actual person who will resuscitate, triangulate, schmooze, reposition, intimidate, smooth over hurt feelings, etc etc within the party. A Biden-like vegetable just can’t do that, even if his mental decline is hidden from public view.
Beyond that, if Biden doesn’t run, there’s the Kamala problem. If Kamala wins the nomination, I think she’ll be the worst major-party nominee in history, and that includes both Trump and Hillary.
But what will the primary process look like wherein the Demos nominate somebody else?Report
General rule of thumb is a split party loses. The only exceptions to that are when both parties have split.
RE: Biden Mental Decline
I’m not sure the GOP should go there. It’s fun throwing bricks and making stuff up. It’s easy to confuse that for actual facts and then act like your desires are real.
If the GOP goes all in on “mental decline” and the reality is he’s fine, then it will blow up on them. If he’s really having serious problems then that will show up and he shouldn’t run.
Thing is I don’t see that outside of some edited videos and Team Red wishful thinking. The level of people inside his administration with no direction seems to be at normal levels. Odds are he’s fine.Report
“Biden mental decline” is the same kind of self-reinforcing delusion as “stop the steal”.Report
Yeah, I agree that Demos want to avoid a bitter primary against a sitting President if they can. But…..
I’m also a believer that 2024 is not at all guaranteed to be the extension of 2022. That’s what I’ve come to believe is the lesson of 1994, 2010, and maybe even 2014 a little bit.
But, in order for the Demos to rebound, at least something has to change or be different enough to motivate at least some weakly attached 2022 GOP voters to give the Demos another look.
A year from now, Demos are going to be somewhere around a 46-54 minority in the Senate, a 200-240 minority in the House, and a 3-6 minority at SCOTUS.
Demos will desperately want someone or something to change the direction of American political culture.
Given that Demos have no other obvious foothold on political power, they will desperately want to hold the White House. But even before that, they’ll want someone who can act and force the Republicans to re-act.
Right now, Biden and the Demos are being buffeted by events they are not instigating.
Chris Rufo, Vladimir Putin, the monthly inflation/jobs numbers, Joe Manchin are doing things, BIden is reacting to those events.
You are absolutely right about the potential for contested primaries to hurt a party. But, if the Demos acquiesce to Joe Biden, they are going to be playing defense wrt CRT, Hunter BIden’s laptop, lids at 1PM, ice cream, closed public schools, etc.
Demos and libs especially desperately want to quit playing defense and starting inflicting real damage on us (the GOP and Right America in general), something they have horribly failed to do for the entire Biden Administration.
In that circumstance, there has no be tremendous demand for change in leadership at the top.Report
The 2024 nominee is going to be Trump. How many votes can Jared’s 2 billion buy?Report
I’m assuming this is legit and not one or your snarkly little jokes. In which case, I don’t think this is true and is becoming increasingly obviously not true.
In any event, we can just check back in a year from now and see if you’re singing the same tune then.Report
I hope it’s not true, but he leads every poll, by a lot. If it’s not the case, what’s going to change that?Report
The fact that the campaign really hasn’t started yet, it takes a solid six months of campaigning before the primaries, and then six months of primaries. And I don’t think Trump really wants to compete for the nomination.Report
You’re overlooking the fundraising aspect. And the amount of stuff he can still get the RNC to pay for.Report
Gotta agree with Mike here, Koz. Trump almost always follows the money and the best way to continue and intensify his fleecing of right wing voters and Republican institutions is to run for President again. Plus if he wins then he can fleece the taxpayers again.Report
I’m not really getting this one. Campaigns spend money, they don’t make money.
Making money off the GOP base is for people like Charlie Kirk and Bill DeVane, not Trump. I mean the money is there all the same but not at a scale where Trump is interested.
I don’t know a huge amount about Trump’s personal finances but most of what I’ve heard recently comes from Bob Wright of bloggingheads (not right-of-center btw). In any event, he says Jared Kushner and his family and their connections is most of Trump’s net worth now. I tend to believe him but tbh I don’t know anything in particular either for or against.
In any event, I think Trump’s own intentions will be determined mostly by reputational/ego issues, not money.Report
The question isn’t when Trump will start campaigning. It’s whether he’ll stop.
Analysis: The former president is making all of the moves of a candidate — and with far more capacity to command national attention than any other potential GOP 2024 hopeful.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-looks-he-ll-run-reclaim-presidency-2024-n1283430Report
Or if you want something more recent:
Analysis: Trump is a fundraising giant but his miserly spending raises questions
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-is-fundraising-giant-his-miserly-spending-raises-questions-2022-03-22/Report
Yeah yeah yeah I ain’t havin’ it.
In fact, it’s your first link above and stuff like that makes me ever more convinced that Trump won’t be the nominee.
Basically, Trump has been a Non-Playing Character for the entire Biden Administration. He’s been talking about Stop The Steal and playing kingmaker in the GOP primaries (and sometimes failing at that) and that’s it.
In the meantime, the GOP has taken the initiative in our political culture, with real issues: school closing, inflation, (lack of) border security, CRT, Afghanistan. And wrt those issues and others, people are making moves: lawsuits, legislation, hearings, executive orders (federal and state), etc etc.
When the campaign season comes around, there will be several GOP candidates, and they will run on whatever issues they have. There will be a siht-ton of free media/earned media available and they’ll get it, and Trump won’t. Trump’s not doing or saying interesting enough to get covered. Just a week ago or so, Trump had one of his rallies and only brought in 2000 guests. He’s not filling football stadiums with MAGA people any more.
A candidate could, in Trump’s position, turn things around, but Trump won’t because his agenda is fundamentally personal. He can’t quit talking about Stop The Steal because that’s what’s important to him.
The way for Trump to get back in the game is to quit talking about the things he cares about and start talking (and acting) about the things Republican primary voters care about. But it’s fundamentally against Trump’s character to do that so he won’t, and therefore he won’t be the nominee.Report
Trump has all the advantages of incumbency, because so many loons think he’s the real president.Report
Ok, and if Biden doesn’t run you seem to think there’d be some bloodbath and I’m saying that assumes facts not in evidence. The party has previously repeatedly demonstrated the ability to nominate and rally around a moderate candidate. You seem to alternate between suggesting Biden is some electoral and governing albatross and then offhandedly adding that he’s magic and the only thing keeping the party together. Those are pretty mutually exclusive assertions.
If Biden were to exit, for whatever reason, I think the Democratic Party would simply nominate someone else. Perhaps that’d be Harris, I haven’t been impressed by her myself but if she’s as unimpressive as you think she is then the small bump she’d have by virtue of being Veep would be overwhelmed by her negatives and she’d wash out of the primary.Report
Maybe you’re right. Probably the best scenario for the Demos is if Biden declines to run and the Demos have an open primary. In that case, Harris won’t win the nomination and that solves both the Biden problem and the Kamala problem, so that’s good.
The downside is that BIden is a lame duck ten minutes after he announces he’s not running, especially since he’s basically a lame duck now even when he supposedly is running. But, that being the case, you could say that’s less of a loss for the Demos then anyway.
It would be very interesting in that case to see who’d be nominee, who’d be the legit contenders even. Probably, their best candidate would be Andrew Yang, but he’s not even a Democrat at the moment IIRC.Report
Heh, Yang? Yeah he’s out of the running and will never be a contender again. You might as well expect Gabbard to be a plausible candidate.
With regards to the Dems my big curiosity is what happens on the left with Sanders likely out of the running. Also I’ll be very interested to see if the field skews left and then migrates rightward like they did in 2020 or if they’ll have learned by 2024 to ignore twitter.Report
Yeah, but that’s nothing by Washington standards.
The President has some embarrassing relatives with worthless jobs. Half of Congress has that.
The Dems went with Biden because he’s boring and he’s continued to be boring. The exception is his verbal mistakes which he’s been doing for 50 or so years.
Boring plus sitting President means he’s got it if he wants it.
He’s Team Blue’s Ford or Bush 1. Now both of those guys lost so there’s that.Report
Not to mention it’s extremely likely that there’ll be no closed schools this year, let along in 20 fishin 24.Report
Maybe, but even if that were the case then you could say the GOP attacks won’t land. Well guess what, President Biden is at 40% approval rating, they don’t have to land. He’s already taken enough damage for Demos to be radioactive and put GOP in power after the 2024 elections.
Demos need a situation where they can actually win a few rounds.Report
Biden has two years to… do something. End the plague, come up with a new vaccine, convince the unvaccinated to vax, win the war against Russia, stamp out inflation, or convince 50 Dems to vote for something.
That’s a long time in politics, it’s not too late for him.
Now when the GOP wins the House and Senate and dig for dirt it will get interesting. I don’t care about Hunter short of provable illegal corruption (Hunter seems to stay with the legal corruption).
I would like to know why Trump could make a vaccine in 8(?) months starting from nothing and we still don’t have an update.Report
He threw a billion dollars at it and promised to buy it when it was finished. Which Biden did. Its the one thing about the pandemic response trump got right. And any other President would have been handed a second term for that.Report
One of my personal peeves, and it applies to the Republicans as well as the Democrats, is the large number of Senators on their top-10 list. There’s something horribly dysfunctional that so many members of the top legislative body in a country the size and scope of the US can take the time to raise money and effectively campaign for president two-plus years before the next presidential election. There ought to be better uses for their time.Report
I’ll make a [ordinary] gentlemen’s bet with you Andrew that Biden does not run again. He will insist he is running until the moment he gracefully steps aside in a year or so. Assuming he doesn’t have a serious health event before that makes such an announcement moot.
Hot Take Alert:
It’s Michelle Obama’s nomination, if she wants it.
She’d clobber that entire list in the primaries and give the Dems the best chance at keeping the WH.
If some of the clowns on the WaPo list are considered experienced enough, MO certainly should be in the discussion.Report
I agree with you that she would do very well in both the primary and the general. Every thing I’ve read from her however says she won’t run because she’s basically a social introvert who detests the process.
I also agree with your designations as Clowns.Report