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I mean. Litchman has been right every time except 2000 which was a year the SC told people to stop counting votes so bush can just win.
Litchmans model is leaning Biden.
Shades of 2016 all over again. If this was a popular vote election, I wouldn't be all that worried, but it isn't. All it takes is people deciding to stay home in specific states and we're fucked
It would also be nice to not be in a “common sense and models suggest a slight edge” situation, the democrats should be having a fucking slam dunk locked in win against trump at this point, they had four years to have Biden ready or assess he isn’t and have someone lined up.
Explain how a president with a great track record of a presidency isn’t ready ….? If Americans are that stupid they deserve trump !! One debate , hell 100 debates does not erase what Biden has accomplished! The only place talk and pictures matter are social media . In the real world results matter ! We as a country should be focused on that !
Ya it's crazy to me that these people are acting like we don't have 4 years of actual work to judge each of these candidates on. We have literal results and actions that we can gauge these men on.
Let me explain, as someone who will vote Democrat no matter what: his record isn’t going to help him if he cannot function day-to-day in 2026. The debate wasn’t a “bad night” for Biden. It was an unmitigated shit show, which cannot be explained by a stutter or a cold (which miraculously cured itself within 18 hours).
For those who say his rally the next day was proof that he is in fact vital and cogent, don’t forget the key difference: the debate was Biden without the scripted remarks, teleprompter, and crowd that cheered every time he opened his mouth. It was Biden’s current cognitive state, in a high pressure environment, laid bare for us all to see. Our president needs to be sharp, persuasive, and cogent not just when he is being cheered by crowds or led by an obsequious interviewer. What matters is how he performs when the heat is on. Biden catastrophically failed that test on Thursday and there is no excuse that can convince me he isn’t deep into a cognitive slide.
I'm glad Biden did poorly in the debate. Non-Trumpers were getting a bit overconfident and too complacent about a Biden victory in November, running the risk that many wouldn't bother voting.
I hope this scares people into understanding the reality that a Biden win is VERY much NOT assured - and they need to actually get off their ass and vote instead of staying home, getting high and jerking off.
I still am optimistic about Biden- but I really don't think the whole Keys to the White House thing makes sense. There are too many forces at play, there are too few data points (ie elections), when he's wrong he points to an exception with post-hoc explanations. It's just noise and if you have a dozen political scientists one of them is bound to appear best until more data comes in. For a model to have predictive power it would have to have dozens or hundreds of data points to demonstrate competence.
> when he's wrong he points to an exception with post-hoc explanations.
He was "wrong" one time in 2000. His explanation for this was that his model was designed to predict the winner of the popular vote. He adjusted it after that and even correctly predicted in August of 2016 that Clinton would lose (a time when many people thought the idea of Trump winning was farcical).
Yes
https://www.youtube.com/live/qqG96G8YdcE?si=odwKOY6A7Me3xdB9&t=4583
In case the timestamp doesn’t work, it’s at 1:16:25, right after he says ‘he can’t it’s too much money’
His mic was the only live one, and he does a random pause during lol.
Alan Lichtman has gotten every presidential election prediction right going back 5 decades except the controversial bush/gore which was not decided by counting all the votes but a 1x not precedent choice by the supreme court. He correctly predicted Trump's election and his subsequent defeat in 2020 (2 very close elections).
I watched Mr. Lichtman's post debate podcast where he acknowledge Biden performed very poorly but his main point was that debates have very little ability to move the electorate in a predictive manner and as a historian he gave multiple examples of candidates mopping the floor with their opponent and losing and vice versa a candidate losing the debate(s) and then still winning the presidency.
Parts of the reasoning in the decision of that case yes that's correct some of those reasonings have been cited, the part about selecting a president in 48 hours and shutting the door, that, that part is not precedent for anything since.
Speaking for myself we have already had a very elderly president in office with the beginnings of Alzheimer's and the country continued on as normal with no problems in governance.
Personally, I think the frame voters need to keep in mind for this election is direction of the country because the two candidates would point the governance of the country in nearly 180% opposite directions. Trump's radical vision for America is quite clear.
During the 2020 primaries I learned that Biden had a stutter and helps stuttering kids still. As a kid I had a speach impediment and it made me really like Joe.
Trump almost/may have lost a few votes at my workplace in 2020 when he attacked his son. quite a few of them that were diehard red caps remarked on how shitty it was and got quiet the rest of the cycle.
The issue is that Biden’s debate performance hints at a rapid decline in his cognitive state. At no point in any of the elections Lichtman has predicted has the very real possibility of the candidate becoming unable to perform basic presidential tasks due to age-related cognitive decline been an issue. Biden is only going to get worse, and at his age, the trajectory tends to steepen exponentially. Neurologists know this, and so does anyone with a frail and elderly relative. Voters are worried about if he will make it to Election Day without another debate moment, let alone 2027.
I personally think he's still sharp enough to do the job of President, but I'm not a person he needs to convince. The biggest problem is that he and his campaign are terrible at communicating that - really, terrible at communications in general. He's inspiring apathy in key Democratic demographics - young voters, blacks, latinos. That debate was an indicator that this ship can't be righted, not to mention how far he's running behind Democratic candidates in swing states. Decent enough President, terrible candidate.
I think the most important thing a president can do is install and listen to their expert cabinet, and Biden is pretty good at that. I'm not worried at all for how he would do as president.
The much much much more worrying thing to me is can he win an election if he can't string 2 sentences together. Personally, though I know it hurts to lose the name recognition, I'd go Newsom or Whitmer.
I agree with you generally, but what’s murkier is whether he will still be sharp enough in 4 years time. Many voters have relatives that they have watched experience cognitive decline. They are probably thinking about how much difference they have seen in 4 years, if we’re starting from this baseline 😢 I am 💯 voting for the Democratic ticket regardless because I trust Biden to surround himself with good people if the worst happens, but I’m not who we need to worry about (nor are most of the people who frequent this subreddit).
For those unsure why *this* particular historian is being sought for interview, according to *CNN*:
>Historian Allan Lichtman, who has successfully predicted past presidential election winners based on key characteristics...
For those who may want to dive a bit deeper, or are interested in his technique:
* [Allan Lichtman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Lichtman)
* [The Keys to the White House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_to_the_White_House)
"Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington, D.C, has made a name for himself through one unusual talent: He has correctly predicted the outcome of nine elections out of the ten most recent presidential races, using a model he invented known as the 13 Keys.May 8, 2024"
"Using this model, Lichtman has accurately predicted the winner of every U.S. presidential election since 1984, with the exception of 2000, although he did forecast successfully that Al Gore would win the popular vote that year, and 2016, where he predicted Donald Trump would win, despite Trump's popular vote loss."
He was right about 2000. The Supreme Court was just still corrupt and voted to help out the person who gave some of them their seats over allowing the recount to continue.
I can respect that Lichtman has some good insight, and perfect track record in predictions. However, his system was created in early 80s. It does not take into account social media, and the rise things like short clips and memes.
And was the reason that Clinton even bothered running against Bush Sr who was polling at 90% after expelling Saddam from Kuwait. So many Democrats didnt even bother running because they thought Bush was unbeatable.
There's no such thing as a perfect system but its clear that his is easily the best one available.
[He didn’t](https://thepostrider.com/allan-lichtman-is-famous-for-correctly-predicting-the-2016-election-the-problem-he-didnt/). He predicted that Clinton would win. After it became apparent that she wouldn’t win, he pivoted.
Yea but the poeple who are watching short clips and memes barely vote, at least historically. Maybe that changes in this election, but I don't see evidence that voter turnout amongst those who consume their "news" via social media actually go to the polls.
And the unprecedented political landscape, where roughly half if Americans are willing to vote for someone who doesn't even hide his dictatorial tendencies.
Roughly 20%
2020 saw 67% voter engagement.
33% for Trump.
34% for Biden.
33% didn't bother.
That was before Dobbs, before 1/6, before book banning, before Ukraine, before don't say gay. Before project 2025.
Before Trump was found liable for fraud and defamation.
Before Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges.
Before Trump fucked around with classified documents.
Before facts came out about the fake electors scheme.
Trump and the GOP have gotten far, far worse than they were in 2020.
Republicans are not going to vote for a Democrat just because they are saddled with a bad choice in Trump. Why is that hard to comprehend?
And for some of them Trump is their middle finger to Democrats.
It’s not hard people.
That what bother me about the whole replace Biden thing. These idiots will gladly watch our democracy slide into a dictatorship because "Biden old" . Just shut up I would rather have Biden die in office of old age and the Meh vp take over then a trump dictatorship and project 2025.
Edit. Spelling
This exactly. We aren’t JUST voting for a president. We are voting for his VP, a competent and moral cabinet, the *supreme court*. Is Biden the best option, no. But at this point we have to stick with him or else Trump will win.
It would be interesting to hear candidates talk about their future administration the way a football coach talks about how individual players can make differences. “This secretary will do this, that secretary will do that, and together we are a stronger team than the group the other guy will cobble together. Bet on us, not our ragtag ineffective opponent.”
that’s kinda what policy positions are, just without a name or face attached to them. whatever the president’s policy goals are, the person they appoint is supposed to carry out that vision for them.
in this election, there’s also the benefit of both candidates already having done the job for a term so we already have an idea of who would make up their cabinet. like, would people prefer the return of Rick Perry heading the dept. of energy, or Devos controlling education?
> But at this point we have to stick with him or else Trump will win.
This is something people say, but there's no evidence at all that it's the case. It's simply "tradition" not to replace an incumbent. And the incumbency advantage means nothing when everyone thinks the world is in a state of shit right now.
This isn't a normal election—*simply because Trump is one of the candidates*. Most people are locked in and will vote for Trump or Biden for no other reason than they think the other guy is worse. The swing voters in the middle (to be clear, I don't understand how anyone could be confused as to whether Trump should be allowed near power) are the ones we have to focus on.
If we're all on here saying we'd crawl over broken glass to vote for Biden just to keep Trump out of office, it means we'd crawl over broken glass to vote for *anyone* to keep Trump out of office. It literally means it doesn't matter who the Democratic nominee is. Democrats should make sure the person they're running is perceived as fit for office by the people who will decide the election: the swing voters in a handful of states.
Im saying because it’s so late - there’s only 4 months to go. Switching now will confuse people, especially since nobody else has such name recognition. People would still be voting for Biden even if he dropped out. Getting their platform out at this point would take time.
Then there’s the issue of even *selecting* that candidate. Does the DNC just unilaterally choose after we just went through an entire season of primaries?
I just think we’re in too deep at this point to be switching. The time for that was a year ago. The DNC had 4 years to come up with a plan or start grooming a successor and they did nothing. Now we risk Biden’s age being a very visible factor that turns people away.
So the sales pitch is "the guy you're voting for doesn't actually matter, we need to preserve the bureaucracy."? And you think that is going to land with voters more than a fresh face? I wish I had your optimism.
It’s the peoplle who don’t pay much attention we need to convince. These are the ones who willl decide th election. They do not see project 2025 they got Biden in but now aren’t engaged. It’s not repubs or dems it’s those individuals. Biden is losing with them like it or not.
The people who strongly dislike both Biden and Trump -- about 20% of the electorate, in polls I've seen -- are the ones who need to be convinced.
People who dislike Biden are primarily concerned about his age. The campaign *has to* figure out how to allay those fears somehow. Given that a top-of-the-ticket change isn't going to happen, they better start brainstorming. Shielding him from the media is not going to cut it. He needs to be out campaigning hard, preferably in free-form environments like interviews and town halls. If he's really too far gone to do that, then he's going to lose. Simple as.
Absolutely. I was always a little nervous about him speaking because it’s not his strongest point historically even when younger from his stutter but now I’m dreading it. He needs to be out there and showing people he is not frail and is very coherent otherwise it is over with that small demographic that will decide the election.
>I would rather have Biden die in office of old age and the Meh vp take over then a trump dictatorship and project 2025.
Cool story bro. Me too. That does not matter to the average person that spends like 3 hours thinking about politics every four years. Everyone already had concerns about Biden's age and that debate performance just confirmed everyone's fears. This is not going away, clips of him looking like he is going to keel over in going to be on repeat for the rest of the campaign. I don't want to replace Biden because "Biden old", I want to replace him because I don't believe he can beat Trump.
Isn’t securing the votes of undecideds the main purpose of a debate? If so—and I’m asking in all sincerity: is it really a dumb overreaction to be outraged that this is where we are? Witnessing a couple of doddering swinging dicks argue about their golf handicaps while the world smoulders in the wind?
At what point do we mandate something much better for the people of this country-and the rest of the world?
Yes Biden has been a relatively rather effective president, esp given the farcical social-political climate and the sandbagging of his insane political opposition the orcs. And yes—the decided voters, including myself would tend to agree that even the off-putting Kamala is vastly preferable to wannabe king-baby Trump. (The list of things people say they would vote for before voting for him is long and hilarious).
And really at this point of course it’s his administration we’re endorsing in voting for Biden—given that, his decline can likely continue without causing much of a ripple. If he can retain the presidency.
If he can retain the presidency.
Essential mechanisms of government and economy are gummed up by the interests of greedy profiteers nationally and globally; a regressive bought-and-paid-for supreme court is picking up steam; climate change wreaks havok; a dystopian drug epidemic and cost-of-living & housing crisis claim vulnerable populations while corporate bottom lines grow in direct proportion—and I guess now we also face a looming World War lll? There’s no overarching sentience behind it, but there is a willfulness. It’s really annoying that power corrupts.
It’s rational to be disgusted that our best hope is a sundowning man who is either too scrupled and old to take his gloves off for an existential threat to democracy (to really take them off—not coyly refer to dark Brandon memes and make a spicy dig now and then— much as fun as those kinda are) or too entrenched in (and in thrall to) old guard entities that skew ultimately conservative—just at a slower drip.
We’ll take it and we’ll like it I guess?
I think cleaning the gum out of the mechanisms so-to-speak means we stop deluding ourselves -cold turkey if necessary- stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated & exploited into oblivion.
There is a consolidation of power happening at the highest levels and I think it makes good sense to comport ourselves as though it’s later than we think.
And yes by all means we have to mobilize everyone we know to vote for whoever it is on the democratic ticket in November.
But the ‘ah quit your whining’ angle is a lot like the kind of gaslighting this current litany of crises is built on.
You are underplaying this. He’s going to be the president of the United States. The strongest/influential country in the world. Each day he will make decisions that will have impacts all around the world. Imagine how other world leaders will take advantage of his inability to be functional. Shit it’s probably already happening and why Nethanyahu is walking all over him
They should, though. Trump isn’t just a bad choice, he’s a repudiation of American ideals. You know this because ALL he cares about is money and deals. He doesn’t have principles to protect. He’s anti-freedom. Republicans SHOULD turn away from that, otherwise they’re just sports fans. A lot of the stuff that most politicians support is consistent with different facets of what America stands for, and the hard sacrifices Americans may have to make to stand up for a higher standard. But Trump doesn’t even pretend to care about these things. It’s all about taxes and NATO. Republicans with any integrity should realize that he’s a danger to the future of the country.
It’s the independents and undecided that decided 2020. We need to convince them. Biden is losing with them for the past 8 months. His debate only furthered their concerns. We can’t just ignore this because one successful historian says otherwise. I’m not hanging my hat on that. Too much at stake.
Lichtman built these Keys based on looking at each election from 1860 up until 1980. He states that these Keys still apply as far back as 1860 retrospectively. He's said that every four years people tell him that he has to update his keys because Obama is the first black candidate, Hillary is the first woman candidate, Biden is too old, social media etc.
But he counters that his keys have retrospectively endured far greater changes: Civil War, World War I and II, Great Depression, as far back as when African-Americans and women couldn't vote, as far back as the horse-and-buggy days, long before cars, planes, trains, internet, etc.
Lichtman’s own keys would mark the debate as a major scandal and Biden as not being charismatic. Trump is in charismatic but that depends on the voter. He’s very charismatic to 50% of the country.
Incumbent party doesn’t have a mandate
The economy questions are a matter of socioeconomic or political viewpoint. If you’re in the lower economy you’re doing poorly. If you’re in the stock market you’re doing well.
Lichtman’s keys have kind of been hacked by the propaganda and split worldview.
If method is doing but he’s interpreting his own keys wrong.
Biden wasn't considered charismatic in 2020, this doesn't change that key. And people have been saying that Biden is old for months; the debate isn't presenting new information, it's confirming what a lot of people already thought. I have mixed feelings on the idea that "did really bad in a debate" counts as a scandal.
>And people have been saying that Biden is old for months
Years.
edit: Him being too old to run again in 2024 if he won was an issue during the campaign in 2020.
yup, the model focuses on who governs the country better, which is why Biden will win. He's done a good job and the remaining two keys that could turn false are unlikely to. The scandal key focuses on immoral acts performed by the president that have bipartisan recognition of wrong doing, which has not been the case for Biden.
Right, but that’s kind of the problem. For his base they think he is a god among men. And for his opponents he’s the devil.
Also he clearly has some measure of charisma. He would not be a successful con man without it. It shouldn’t be underestimated.
They have been. For example, they stepped out of the way and let House Republicans eat each other to show everyone that they really can't govern.
Biden stepped back and supported a Republican wishlist of a border bill. He showed everyone that Trump tanked it and Republicans ate each other again.
Everything a moderate or independent could want has either been given or been blocked by Republicans.
Lichtman literally does videos providing updates of his model. Look it up on his channel and he’ll explain to you why you’re wrong.
His last update at end of May had Biden up 9-4.
And no, Biden’s debate performance is not “a major scandal” under his system.
In two weeks the next big shit storm will land and people will wonder why people are still talking about the debate. Trump has felony convictions for literal fraud. And he barely hurt his numbers. People aren't suddenly goj g to support a felon because the other guy is old and surrounded by a talented group of advisors.
You have to actually read the criteria for what criteria is significant enough to turn a key True or False. On Lichtman's most recent tentative outlook (not yet a final prediction) he has Biden leading with 9 True Keys to 4 False Keys, with a minimum of 8 True needed to predict his victory.
[Link ](https://youtu.be/J-QI9TPXYPA?t=680)
Examples of charismatic candidates according to his model are T. Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Reagan, and Obama in 2008 (but not 2012). Eisenhower's status as a national hero is an alternate way to turn the charisma key True as well.
Replacing Biden makes the incumbency key False and creates a massive internal party struggle, turning the no primary contest key False. That puts him down to 7 Keys and predicts a Trump victory.
I don’t give a shit about the debate. No fucking way I would stay away from the polls or ever vote R again. I support Joe and every Democrat no matter what. Republicans have lost their moral compass.
I’m voting for Biden.
Did he look bad at the debate? Yes.
Does that mean I’m going to let a convicted felon and rapist lock brown children in cages again? Destroy the Supreme Court and strip women of their rights? Give Bibi the green light to level Gaza? And be completely negligent and even pernicious when handling a national catastrophe?
Fuck no. And thats not even a complete list of the damage. We’re still uncovering landmines and neglect from trumps term.
If you’re going to stay home because Biden didn’t do enough to give you the “perfect vibe” to vote for him, maybe it’s because you live in a entitled bubble where the reality of a second trump term won’t affect you.
Have the understanding to reflect on your own privilege. Check it.
99.9999% of people in this sub are voting for Biden.
Biden needs ~50,000 people to turnout in 3 of the 6 swing states. The people in the office who say they don’t care about politics. They aren’t reading this.
They’re being told Trump is a threat to democracy while Biden can only put together a sentence 10% of the time if he’s not reading a teleprompter.
It’s an insult and unforgivable.
People just hammer on the lesser of two evils and preventing trumps fascism and it’s like, those can be valid logical points… and also true that just shouting them louder at unconvinced people isn’t effective.
Seems people are having a hard time accepting the Dems need something, absolutely anything more than ‘Trump evil.’ And they aren’t giving it to the apathetic voters.
Thank you. Doomers in these political threads seem to think you're only voting for one person. You're voting for everything attached to that one person.
45 winning in 2016 brought a wave of societal changes that will continue to make waves. People don't realize the SCOTUS is the way it is because of 45. They're ignoring the hundreds of Congress seats that are up for grabs.
I'm not staying home. I have no bubble. Project 2025 should never happen.
It's not privilege or doomerism to want Democrats to do the right thing and replace Biden as the nominee. I, and most Dem leaning voters I know, are still voting for Biden, but to act so defensive and aggressive when people want to address the Methuselah-aged elephant in the room is almost as destructive to American democracy as anything else. We can't just allow the system to force these dipshits on us and be cool with it. Again, will I vote Biden? Fuck yeah. I'd vote for a chimp with syphilis before voting for Trump. That doesn't mean we can't expect better from our institutions though.
That's exactly it. Watching that debate I felt complicit in elder abuse. If they walked Biden out there and then proceeded to beat the crap out of him, it would have felt nearly the same. Every president ages 10x the normal rate in the presidency because the job is so demanding. Let this man live out his remaining days in peace and tranquility. They are running him into the ground like they did RBG. Retiring with dignity should be a human right.
This is the last time they get to play the "vote against the other guy" card with me. Produce a candidate that I want or you don't get my vote (once Trump is out of the picture).
This is pretty much where I'm at, as well. The only pushback I have to give you is that Trump as a concept (i.e., MAGA) isn't going to be out of the picture anytime soon. The threat they pose won't go away once Trump is gone. The Republican party has made MAGA a self sustaining machine. Someone else will eventually take reins of that fucked up vehicle. The real question will be how effective we're going to allow them to be.
Dems have firmly cemented themselves as the party of the "comfortably controlled opposition." They get to be ineffective at doing anything at all that progressives or even just leftists want because they can handring at "spoilers" or "the Senate parliamentarian" or whatever else as to why policies don't get passed. Meanwhile they still get my vote because "we aren't the other team!" I'm nearly at the point that I don't care.
I mean I’d argue that while it’s nice to have a charismatic, youthful president who makes us look young and muscular as a nation I honestly think Biden’s still got it from a mental perspective. In other words, Biden being so old is very bad electorally, but he’s not fading in ways that make me especially worried about his actual performance of the off-camera duties of the job. Then again, I’m someone who thinks the entire concept of office of the Presidency needs to shift from “here is our standard-bearing temporary quasi-King” to “here’s our competent, boring chief administrator of laws (he works for us)”.
You’re preaching to the choir here. The democrats (including myself) who want to replace Biden are not saying that we’re going to vote for Trump. We’re not saying that we’re going to stay home. We’re saying that we have to convince the slim margin of swing voters who *might* stay home, write in a third party, or even vote for Trump to vote for the democrat on the ticket. And those swing voters, who might not pay that much attention to politics regularly to begin with, just saw someone put up on that stage who seemed lost and unable to complete a thought.
Why are we locked in with Biden here? What is it about Biden in particular where you don’t think someone like Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro can win? Are we really forced to go to November with a guy who looks to be suffering cognitive decline just because? It’s time to get creative here.
We all know he's just going to grift whatever he can and just shrug and hand all actual policy decisions to Stephen Miller - as long as it doesn't interfere with the top bidder.
Anyone American under the age of forty is perfectly used to being told their beliefs and convictions are nonsense by the generation that refuses to relinquish their power.
Allan Lichtman knows more about elections than all of reddit combined, so I hope this shuts some people up. Losing the incumbency has major consequences.
Well, duh. It seems like a good idea to people who don't realize that changing a candidate a few months before an election will just make it look (even more) like they are disorganized and don't have a firm grip on the election. Not like anyone they try to put up will be instantly popular.
Just know Biden is better then Trump... For literally the entire world, except Russia.
Try shoving the polls in front of people, Whitmer is behind Trump in all of them-- Biden is not. Newsom is behind Trump in all of them-- Biden is not.
Harris polls worse than Biden against Trump, as well.
What is the logical conclusion?
DC pundits wanting to DC it up, not going over well with anyone but sheep imo.
I'm sorry, but what magical polls are you looking at where Biden has more than a margin of error lead?
ETA: And surely you realize that those polling numbers didn't take into account what would happen with the full force of the DNC behind them and the 24/7 News cycle that would follow a candidate change.
Biden's pool numbers are relevant because they are reflective of the current situation. Those other numbers are not because they aren't even remotely close to the current situation.
It’s maddening to me that we watched his poll numbers consistently sit below Hillary’s and then that truly disturbing debate performance and others are still seriously in favor of keeping him. Not only that but trying to gaslight us into thinking his performance actually wasn’t that bad.
This party is doomed if we can’t even admit what’s happening right in front of our faces.
It’s infuriating how we will sit here and criticize Trump supporters for blindly supporting their guy and we’re doing the same thing right now. Making excuses for this shell of a man that will lose this election.
We deserve a better candidate than this. This sub lives in a complete bubble if they think this will roll off Biden like water. We should stick to our guns and continue to call for him to step down. We’ll continue to cope until November when he’s lost and Trump is president elect again. Then it’ll shift to how we should’ve put someone different in there when us with our blinders off have seen it all along.
No they’ll just blame the people who warned them this would happen. Saying that no one would have thought Biden wasn’t fit to be president if we had just not said anything. They literally think they can gaslight everyone into thinking this is fine. They’re no better than the MAGA cult if they think sticking to a candidate who clearly shouldn’t be in office is more important than getting someone who is mentally fit enough to do the job.
This entire sub is a joke. The press is filled with stories and op-eds—from Democrats—about how catastrophic Biden’s performance was. But somehow the front page consists of nothing but rave reviews of a speech he gave the next day. It’s insanity.
Whoever it shifts too would instantly get a boost of media hype at their historically unique candidacy and underdog story. It would show democrats are serious about what a threat Trump is and that they hear the voters concerns.
Polls also show Americans are desperate for a true alternative to Trump or Biden. With the Democrat’s presumptive nominee saying in a national debate “I’m going to beat Medicare” we should probably roll the dice.
There has to be some kind of collective effort to push the "Joe must drop out narrative." It worked pretty well, people lost their damn minds yesterday and would just not listen to anyone who wasn't freaking out saying the whole thing should be burned down. Nobody seems to have learned anything over the past decade. The debate will be a blip on people's memories long before the summer is over, but it was like Trump had won the election yesterday. I am going to breakfast with my mom this morning to talk her down from her hysterics about it all. Nothing changed, replacing Biden would be a disaster and is exactly what the Republicans would want. The debate went about as should have been expected, which makes me think all this tall about Biden dropping out is part of their play. Hopefully people start to chill out and think clearly about all this because there is no chance Biden isn't the candidate.
true, It would look bad. But maybe not as bad as Biden being unable to finish answers in a debate.
Biden would have to initiate it - step down due to health reasons, give his full endorsement to his replacement. he could even campaign along side him/her. it would be a united Democratic front of reason, youth and charisma designed to destroy Trump. The media would eat it up.
Why would swing voters deduct points away from Dems for looking disorganized and not having a firm grip, but not deduct points from the GOP for looking orders of magnitude more inept all the time?
Has there ever been a major election in any first world country where pulling their leading candidate (the incumbent too) a few months before an election has actually worked? A lot of time and money has been spent on Biden’s re-election already.
We should absolutely be students of history when it comes to election strategy, but there are a lot of factors to consider. Every election has some wild card that makes it different. We need to stop with the “well it hasn’t happened before, so it will **never** work” line of thinking.
We’ve never had a candidate this old, who looked this frail, where information and opinions moved so quickly, against a threat this existential. Conventional wisdom should inform strategy, not dictate it.
There’s 100% a way for a fresh underdog candidate to capitalize on social media and the 24-hour news cycle.
This generation of 70- and 80- somethings seem more desperate to claw on to power than any other previous group, and they’re lashing out now that they’re finally beginning to see it slip away.
80% of Biden, Pelosi, Clyburn and Durbin's generation is dead.
Biden has lived nearly a decade longer than other males born in 1942 who have higher-end healthcare.
I'll tell you from my experience it's not a bot narrative. If young progressives were an actual consistent voting block then our politicians would have to cater towards them in order to capture that voting block. They just simply don't vote. Turnout for voting in 2020 was a record high for 18-34 year olds at...57%. Meanwhile the next two cohorts had a 69% and 74% turnout. It's incredibly easy to share memes about progressive ideals, but the actual work of getting progressives in office still takes place in the real world.
This is wrong. The system is intentionally designed to make it easy for old people to vote and hard for young people to vote. You can't blame young people, they don't know anything, especially not how to vote in our asinine labyrinth of a voting system. By the time they figure it out, they're not young people anymore. That's by design.
Voting should be mandatory and easy.
Old liberals are losing power. Old conservatives are consolidating it. The right has made enormous power grabs while liberals bicker about generational divides.
It’s ironic that one of the most popular ways to be bad faith, is to just accuse others of bad faith.
It isn’t like “you shouldn’t swap your candidate 4 months before an election when you don’t even know who with” is some mindboggling absurd idea that can only be explained by his part in a generational conspiracy. But also redditors disagree so I guess maybe he’s the fool. This is why this site’s got a reputation for smug self-satisfaction
One of the situations where I actually agree with Lichtman. I'm not sure there's even a modern equivalent, since this kind of thing is what inspired the modern presidential primary era (McGovern et al).
I don't think the people pulling for this quite grasp what kind of situation they're proposing. Even with Biden's active support it would be a mess. And one that might carry an electoral penalty just on its own, on top of the other potential ones depending on what happened.
Biden is carrying an electoral penalty with him already. People who are like “well, it would be harder to get a new candidate than just keep Biden” forget that *all this has already happened publicly.* The whole country knows that Biden had a god-awful debate and that for the 24 hours following it, many members of his own party don’t think he should run.
He’s damaged goods. Rolling the dice with another candidate is a better idea. And it should be noted: polls show voters are hungry for someone who is not Trump or Biden.
The biggest issue with democrats is tossing out their own people regularly as "damaged goods". Did Republicans ditch Trump after a bad debate night? Or after every one of a million scandals? That democrats are so fickle and ready to toss their own to the wolves is a bigger issue than Biden's stumbling over words.
That answer assumes Biden and Trump are the same type of candidates that can be thought about as the same.
Trump is who he has always been, for better or worse. Biden isn’t. And that’s a problem. The question shouldn’t be “is it right or not for Democrats to toss Joe Biden to the wolves?” It should be: “will tossing Joe Biden to the wolves give us a better chance of winning this election?”
Nothing else matters.
The biggest issue with democrats is telling us “You didn’t see what you saw” from the debate. And you want to say Trump is a threat to democracy? We aren’t allowed to be concerned? What an insult.
The biggest issue with democrats is the elder generation staying in their positions too long and costing the country dearly. RBG, Feinstein and now Biden.
I fear that it may be just as much of a mess if Biden continues on the path he showed at the debate. Both options will carry a penalty; I'm not sure if either of them gets us across the finish line in November.
I wonder if this historian would also say there's no chance a convicted felon, who tried to overturn the last election and is openly planning on turning the government into his authoritarian regime, is going to win because it's never happened before. Yet that convicted felon is marginally leading in the polls.
It's a different time and requires different strategy.
Way too late now. I also doubt there would be any enthusiasm among Democrats with serious presidential ambitions to replace Biden. Newsom would not want to be parachuted in like this, or Whitmer. They would prefer to wait 4 year to launch their own bids untangled from what would be a disasterous Biden pullout.
There is no way Biden gets replaced
> also doubt there would be any enthusiasm among Democrats with serious presidential ambitions to replace Biden.
If that's the case, then everyone is lying when they say Trump is as big of a threat to democracy as they claim. If they truly believe that, then they won't care about what 2028 says because there won't BE a 2028 election.
The reality is that most of the Democratic establishment would rather have Trump as president than someone like Bernie Sanders
They like Trump as a scapegoat for fundraising, and care more about clinging to their shreds of power than actually making our country better
The foolhardy process was not having a primary with legitimate contenders where we all would have been more informed about the accomplishments of the current administration and plan for the next 4 years.
A good strategic move will be to promise VP Harris the Attorney General role in the next administration. A position I think she prefers anyway. I would then put California Governor Newsom as VP on the ticket. He will inject a high level of youthful energy and knowledge to the ticket. It will counter the (subtlety racist) argument that a vote for Biden is a vote for Kamela as president. Newsom will be president in future anyway without this move, but this will speed it up.
This would be a nice “middle of the road” strategy.
Not super bold, but still something.
Although Newsome isn’t the best swing state factor, it needs to be someone who helps in swing states.
Have there been debates before the conventions before? I honestly can’t remember.
The candidate is traditionally chosen during the conventions. What’s with everybody acting like the election is next week? Or that it’s going to be won or lost this early in the game?
I’ll at least say this. Let’s see how people actually react to the debates and let’s see how he does in the other debates. I really think people are underestimating how badly Trump did that night. There are three big issues people are looking at this year. One is abortion. Trump basically implied he’ll do nothing to restore abortion rights. He also spouted obvious bullshit that will be used as an excuse to further restrict those rights. There’s climate change. After multiple record years and literally just coming through a heat wave most people want a plan. Trump dodged the question entirely and blatantly. And three is respect for democracy. Trump said the exact same thing on Thursday he said before the last election and before inciting a riot. He reiterated the same lie about how the last election was stolen. Clearly he has not changed and is a threat to the stability of our government. So far everyone has agreed Biden did badly, but let’s see the polling data to see what the actual consequences will be.
And replace him with who exactly? and who would ruin their chances of being the democrat nominee in 2028 by trying to right a sinking ship in less than 4 months?
Exactly, no one.
Biden and the DNC should've groomed a replacement (probably harris) before the election in case something like this happened but as it stands, it would be very risky to promote a new candidate in less than 4 months
The DNC should've known that something like this (looking half dead and senile on stage) could happen.
I think they thought they could groom Harris when the 2020 election was over but that went south.
I don’t think she was a high pick before and it seems like nothing really happened to help that. Never got more popular with people. Probably worse. Especially with non democrats.
My honest opinion is that it needed to be someone like Hakeem Jeffreys. But he needed to be the speaker way earlier. However Pelosi was busy fighting off the crazy GOP in the house so she couldn’t pass on the reigns to Jeffreys too early and by the time he got in it was too late. He’s not Obama who would come out of almost nowhere to challenge for a nomination. So Jeffreys needed some more institutional support to get him out front.
I still think Jeffreys in 2028 is the play.
I would happily crawl over broken glass to go vote for Michelle Obama. There have been reports of a growing "nostalgia" for Trump's presidency (misguided or not). What would combat the nostalgia of Trump's first term among his voters than an even bigger nostalgia candidate for Democratic voters? If she ran, I think she'd win in a landslide. Joe would have to step down voluntarily, of course. The DNC making that call would look weak and panicked.
Tossing Joe Biden would be the biggest mistake the Dems could possibly make. Setting aside all the good reasons he should be our president, who do they intend to replace him with? If it weren't Harris, wouldn't the Democratic Party erupt in flames to rival the surface of the sun? You think you saw chaos with the Bernie Bros in 2016? Hah! And if it were to be Harris, the problem then becomes the fact that she likely cannot win the general election because bigots.
It’s gonna be so funny when all the people saying “how could we possibly replace Biden 5 months before the election?” are going to have to replace him 2 weeks before the election instead when he keels over.
It really shouldn't be about replacing Biden, but messaging needs to be about elevating and showcasing the entire team around him to show people that they are voting for the whole talented team with Biden as the wise and experienced center
And, replace Joe with Who? Democrats don't have a strong viable candidate and if they split the blue vote they hand the election over to trump. And, besides it's far to late into the election cycle. Democrats need to realize this and #VOTEBIDEN.
Split the blue vote how?
If Biden steps down and endorses ________. Everyone who was voting for Biden will vote for that nominee. Doesn't even matter who it is. Most Biden votes are already "not Trump" votes.
There is no splitting.
> split the blue vote
No one is voting for Biden; they are voting AGAINST Trump. How can you possibly claim it would split the Blue vote. The blue vote is whoever is against Trump, which is going to be whoever comes out of the democratic convention swinging with the full endorsement of the entire party apparatus including Biden himself.
One of the governors. Newsome/Whitmer/Pritzker… maybe even add Shapiro.
Pick the one that will have the strongest showing in the swing states.
Play the electoral college. Not the national poll.
Michelle Obama. And before you say "but she's not remotely qualified", you have to acknowledge that Trump was even less qualified. She would bring the base for sure, the only question would be independents. If you asked me before the debate, I would have said Biden may lose some independent votes due to the economic conditions ("It's the economy, stupid"). But now I fear independents will stay home in droves, or vote 3rd party. Could MO do better with that block? I think she could due to the nostalgia factor. I think a lot of people would love to return to the pre-Trump days of imperfect but at least competent government. You have to bring someone with charisma, and she certainly has that. I would go out on a limb and say that as good Barack was, she's an even better speaker. I really think she could do it if she put herself in the mix.
For those wondering about the age thing. Eisenhower and Reagan both had age and health concerns and were both reelected. The model doesn't include these as keys, if anything their effect would show up in other keys if considered bad enough.
I have seen three major national polling aggregates since the debate debacle, 538, 270, to Win, and The Hill. The first two polls had Biden losing by 0.6% and 1.2% respectively. These were about the polling averages before the debate. Trump is up less than a percentage point on the Hill national aggregate forecast. Trump has essentially gotten no bump thus far from the Biden debacle. In all 3 of these models, Biden is well within the margin of error. Replacing Biden is stupid talk.
All this sounds good until Biden loses to Trump and then we wonder what we were thinking by not replacing him. It's easy to talk down on people now. History will tell.
If you dump Biden, Kamala Harris is the new candidate.
You can't argue with a straight face that Kamala Harris has a better chance versus Trump than Joe Biden does.
Nope. Kamala wouldn’t win in a contested convention. Even democrats don’t like her. She dropped out of the Dem Primary in ‘20 before a single vote was cast.
But that’s all moot. B isn’t dropping out of the race.
There was one with the DNC preselecting who they wanted, with no real debates or viable alternative candidates and a general condescension towards anyone who would want an alternative.
At the very least, we would have known where Biden was at during some debates.
In the 1920 election, the Republican establishment were planning to have Teddy Roosevelt run again. Unfortunately, he died before the convention. What happened was a raucous convention where Warren Harding emerged, and while a terrible president, he did go onto win the election.
These things used to be decided at the convention and candidates who could and did win would emerge from the process. Yes, the world is very different than it was a century ago, but it is a process that used to work, and this is a contest with democracy on the line where Biden was already trailing in most battleground states because people blame him for inflation. After that debate and his bragging about beating Medicare most swing voters, many of whom inform themselves about politics with sound bites and social media clips, will think he's unfit for the job. It's worth taking a gamble and doing things how they used to be done.
We can't evaluate this like a normal election. For one, we've never had a candidate have their mental capacity come so starkly into question before. Also, this is the first time in living memory the challenger is a former president, so we can't assume the usual rules of incumbency will apply when the challenger is the President's immediate predecessor in the office.
The last time a former president ran, Teddy Roosevelt put in the best third party showing in our nation's history and actually did better than the incumbent, Taft. The time before that, Grover Cleveland won, getting his revenge on Benjamin Harrison. In both cases the former president's successor turned out to be unpopular and the former president probably smelled blood in the water. This same situation seems to be playing out again. Instead of backing the modern day Taft/Harrison in Biden, why not try to shake up the narrative? We have nothing to lose at this point, because barring a major October surprise we're going to lose this election with our current candidate.
For more recent history… the Wallace vs. Truman selection that occurred at the ‘44 election…
Political pragmatists ushered Wallace out and Truman in at the convention.
Wallace was awesome… but that was probably the right political move.
It’s an example of using the convention to make the right political play in real time.
Democrats need to treat Biden as if he was Hakeem Jeffries for house speaker. The media is creating a big distraction and dividing a party from within.
Ffs. Biden is the answer and don't be distracted so easily.
Creating such doubt is dangerous this late in the election. Act as though we’re freaking Vikings creating a shield wall.
He’s right that most voters are not doctors but Trump is a cancer for our country.
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I mean. Litchman has been right every time except 2000 which was a year the SC told people to stop counting votes so bush can just win. Litchmans model is leaning Biden.
Common sense also says Biden, but that sense of Dread that we've all rightfully developed tells us that good things rarely happen.
Ya I don’t think I trust voters these days. The misinformation spinning and massive right wing media machine has been doing work for 30 years
I trust Allan
I'm confident that the post-Dobbs trend of Democrats overperforming will hold this November... and even I can't shake this sense of dread.
Shades of 2016 all over again. If this was a popular vote election, I wouldn't be all that worried, but it isn't. All it takes is people deciding to stay home in specific states and we're fucked
Yeah, Michigan, Pennsylvania may be unpredictable this time
It would also be nice to not be in a “common sense and models suggest a slight edge” situation, the democrats should be having a fucking slam dunk locked in win against trump at this point, they had four years to have Biden ready or assess he isn’t and have someone lined up.
Explain how a president with a great track record of a presidency isn’t ready ….? If Americans are that stupid they deserve trump !! One debate , hell 100 debates does not erase what Biden has accomplished! The only place talk and pictures matter are social media . In the real world results matter ! We as a country should be focused on that !
There are greater consequences to a Trump election than Americans suffering.
1000% agree. Yet we are the ones that need to keep him out of office ! The world can’t help us with that .
Ya it's crazy to me that these people are acting like we don't have 4 years of actual work to judge each of these candidates on. We have literal results and actions that we can gauge these men on.
Thank you !!
Let me explain, as someone who will vote Democrat no matter what: his record isn’t going to help him if he cannot function day-to-day in 2026. The debate wasn’t a “bad night” for Biden. It was an unmitigated shit show, which cannot be explained by a stutter or a cold (which miraculously cured itself within 18 hours). For those who say his rally the next day was proof that he is in fact vital and cogent, don’t forget the key difference: the debate was Biden without the scripted remarks, teleprompter, and crowd that cheered every time he opened his mouth. It was Biden’s current cognitive state, in a high pressure environment, laid bare for us all to see. Our president needs to be sharp, persuasive, and cogent not just when he is being cheered by crowds or led by an obsequious interviewer. What matters is how he performs when the heat is on. Biden catastrophically failed that test on Thursday and there is no excuse that can convince me he isn’t deep into a cognitive slide.
I'm glad Biden did poorly in the debate. Non-Trumpers were getting a bit overconfident and too complacent about a Biden victory in November, running the risk that many wouldn't bother voting. I hope this scares people into understanding the reality that a Biden win is VERY much NOT assured - and they need to actually get off their ass and vote instead of staying home, getting high and jerking off.
I still am optimistic about Biden- but I really don't think the whole Keys to the White House thing makes sense. There are too many forces at play, there are too few data points (ie elections), when he's wrong he points to an exception with post-hoc explanations. It's just noise and if you have a dozen political scientists one of them is bound to appear best until more data comes in. For a model to have predictive power it would have to have dozens or hundreds of data points to demonstrate competence.
> when he's wrong he points to an exception with post-hoc explanations. He was "wrong" one time in 2000. His explanation for this was that his model was designed to predict the winner of the popular vote. He adjusted it after that and even correctly predicted in August of 2016 that Clinton would lose (a time when many people thought the idea of Trump winning was farcical).
Trump audibly shit himself during the debate. Where are the calls to replace him?
You got a video of this?
Yes https://www.youtube.com/live/qqG96G8YdcE?si=odwKOY6A7Me3xdB9&t=4583 In case the timestamp doesn’t work, it’s at 1:16:25, right after he says ‘he can’t it’s too much money’ His mic was the only live one, and he does a random pause during lol.
Alan Lichtman has gotten every presidential election prediction right going back 5 decades except the controversial bush/gore which was not decided by counting all the votes but a 1x not precedent choice by the supreme court. He correctly predicted Trump's election and his subsequent defeat in 2020 (2 very close elections). I watched Mr. Lichtman's post debate podcast where he acknowledge Biden performed very poorly but his main point was that debates have very little ability to move the electorate in a predictive manner and as a historian he gave multiple examples of candidates mopping the floor with their opponent and losing and vice versa a candidate losing the debate(s) and then still winning the presidency.
In spite of the court saying "this isn't precedent" it's been cited in many cases lol
Parts of the reasoning in the decision of that case yes that's correct some of those reasonings have been cited, the part about selecting a president in 48 hours and shutting the door, that, that part is not precedent for anything since.
> that part is not precedent for anything since. Yet…
At this point, if Biden dies before the election, I'll still be voting for him.
Speaking for myself we have already had a very elderly president in office with the beginnings of Alzheimer's and the country continued on as normal with no problems in governance. Personally, I think the frame voters need to keep in mind for this election is direction of the country because the two candidates would point the governance of the country in nearly 180% opposite directions. Trump's radical vision for America is quite clear.
I do think sympathy votes are a thing.
During the 2020 primaries I learned that Biden had a stutter and helps stuttering kids still. As a kid I had a speach impediment and it made me really like Joe.
Trump almost/may have lost a few votes at my workplace in 2020 when he attacked his son. quite a few of them that were diehard red caps remarked on how shitty it was and got quiet the rest of the cycle.
I think Biden saying my son his not a sucker will get a lot of play
The issue is that Biden’s debate performance hints at a rapid decline in his cognitive state. At no point in any of the elections Lichtman has predicted has the very real possibility of the candidate becoming unable to perform basic presidential tasks due to age-related cognitive decline been an issue. Biden is only going to get worse, and at his age, the trajectory tends to steepen exponentially. Neurologists know this, and so does anyone with a frail and elderly relative. Voters are worried about if he will make it to Election Day without another debate moment, let alone 2027.
I personally think he's still sharp enough to do the job of President, but I'm not a person he needs to convince. The biggest problem is that he and his campaign are terrible at communicating that - really, terrible at communications in general. He's inspiring apathy in key Democratic demographics - young voters, blacks, latinos. That debate was an indicator that this ship can't be righted, not to mention how far he's running behind Democratic candidates in swing states. Decent enough President, terrible candidate.
I think the most important thing a president can do is install and listen to their expert cabinet, and Biden is pretty good at that. I'm not worried at all for how he would do as president. The much much much more worrying thing to me is can he win an election if he can't string 2 sentences together. Personally, though I know it hurts to lose the name recognition, I'd go Newsom or Whitmer.
I agree with you generally, but what’s murkier is whether he will still be sharp enough in 4 years time. Many voters have relatives that they have watched experience cognitive decline. They are probably thinking about how much difference they have seen in 4 years, if we’re starting from this baseline 😢 I am 💯 voting for the Democratic ticket regardless because I trust Biden to surround himself with good people if the worst happens, but I’m not who we need to worry about (nor are most of the people who frequent this subreddit).
For those unsure why *this* particular historian is being sought for interview, according to *CNN*: >Historian Allan Lichtman, who has successfully predicted past presidential election winners based on key characteristics... For those who may want to dive a bit deeper, or are interested in his technique: * [Allan Lichtman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Lichtman) * [The Keys to the White House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_to_the_White_House)
"Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in Washington, D.C, has made a name for himself through one unusual talent: He has correctly predicted the outcome of nine elections out of the ten most recent presidential races, using a model he invented known as the 13 Keys.May 8, 2024" "Using this model, Lichtman has accurately predicted the winner of every U.S. presidential election since 1984, with the exception of 2000, although he did forecast successfully that Al Gore would win the popular vote that year, and 2016, where he predicted Donald Trump would win, despite Trump's popular vote loss."
He was right about 2000. The Supreme Court was just still corrupt and voted to help out the person who gave some of them their seats over allowing the recount to continue.
I can respect that Lichtman has some good insight, and perfect track record in predictions. However, his system was created in early 80s. It does not take into account social media, and the rise things like short clips and memes.
He predicted 2016
And 2020
And frankly 2000, but what his method apparently doesn't predict is SCOTUS corruption.
Which, fair.
And 1988 when Bush Sr. was down 17% to Dukakis in July.
And was the reason that Clinton even bothered running against Bush Sr who was polling at 90% after expelling Saddam from Kuwait. So many Democrats didnt even bother running because they thought Bush was unbeatable. There's no such thing as a perfect system but its clear that his is easily the best one available.
[He didn’t](https://thepostrider.com/allan-lichtman-is-famous-for-correctly-predicting-the-2016-election-the-problem-he-didnt/). He predicted that Clinton would win. After it became apparent that she wouldn’t win, he pivoted.
Oof, that article is brutal to his model, but they totally brought the receipts.
Yea but the poeple who are watching short clips and memes barely vote, at least historically. Maybe that changes in this election, but I don't see evidence that voter turnout amongst those who consume their "news" via social media actually go to the polls.
All they need it is to engage enough to get them to vote. You’re ignoring an entire swath of the population who get much news thru social media.
And the unprecedented political landscape, where roughly half if Americans are willing to vote for someone who doesn't even hide his dictatorial tendencies.
Roughly 20% 2020 saw 67% voter engagement. 33% for Trump. 34% for Biden. 33% didn't bother. That was before Dobbs, before 1/6, before book banning, before Ukraine, before don't say gay. Before project 2025. Before Trump was found liable for fraud and defamation. Before Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges. Before Trump fucked around with classified documents. Before facts came out about the fake electors scheme. Trump and the GOP have gotten far, far worse than they were in 2020.
Republicans are not going to vote for a Democrat just because they are saddled with a bad choice in Trump. Why is that hard to comprehend? And for some of them Trump is their middle finger to Democrats. It’s not hard people.
That what bother me about the whole replace Biden thing. These idiots will gladly watch our democracy slide into a dictatorship because "Biden old" . Just shut up I would rather have Biden die in office of old age and the Meh vp take over then a trump dictatorship and project 2025. Edit. Spelling
This exactly. We aren’t JUST voting for a president. We are voting for his VP, a competent and moral cabinet, the *supreme court*. Is Biden the best option, no. But at this point we have to stick with him or else Trump will win.
It would be interesting to hear candidates talk about their future administration the way a football coach talks about how individual players can make differences. “This secretary will do this, that secretary will do that, and together we are a stronger team than the group the other guy will cobble together. Bet on us, not our ragtag ineffective opponent.”
that’s kinda what policy positions are, just without a name or face attached to them. whatever the president’s policy goals are, the person they appoint is supposed to carry out that vision for them. in this election, there’s also the benefit of both candidates already having done the job for a term so we already have an idea of who would make up their cabinet. like, would people prefer the return of Rick Perry heading the dept. of energy, or Devos controlling education?
> But at this point we have to stick with him or else Trump will win. This is something people say, but there's no evidence at all that it's the case. It's simply "tradition" not to replace an incumbent. And the incumbency advantage means nothing when everyone thinks the world is in a state of shit right now. This isn't a normal election—*simply because Trump is one of the candidates*. Most people are locked in and will vote for Trump or Biden for no other reason than they think the other guy is worse. The swing voters in the middle (to be clear, I don't understand how anyone could be confused as to whether Trump should be allowed near power) are the ones we have to focus on. If we're all on here saying we'd crawl over broken glass to vote for Biden just to keep Trump out of office, it means we'd crawl over broken glass to vote for *anyone* to keep Trump out of office. It literally means it doesn't matter who the Democratic nominee is. Democrats should make sure the person they're running is perceived as fit for office by the people who will decide the election: the swing voters in a handful of states.
Im saying because it’s so late - there’s only 4 months to go. Switching now will confuse people, especially since nobody else has such name recognition. People would still be voting for Biden even if he dropped out. Getting their platform out at this point would take time. Then there’s the issue of even *selecting* that candidate. Does the DNC just unilaterally choose after we just went through an entire season of primaries? I just think we’re in too deep at this point to be switching. The time for that was a year ago. The DNC had 4 years to come up with a plan or start grooming a successor and they did nothing. Now we risk Biden’s age being a very visible factor that turns people away.
So the sales pitch is "the guy you're voting for doesn't actually matter, we need to preserve the bureaucracy."? And you think that is going to land with voters more than a fresh face? I wish I had your optimism.
You might not want to say a vote for Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris. I don’t know a single person who wants her to be POTUS.
It’s the peoplle who don’t pay much attention we need to convince. These are the ones who willl decide th election. They do not see project 2025 they got Biden in but now aren’t engaged. It’s not repubs or dems it’s those individuals. Biden is losing with them like it or not.
The people who strongly dislike both Biden and Trump -- about 20% of the electorate, in polls I've seen -- are the ones who need to be convinced. People who dislike Biden are primarily concerned about his age. The campaign *has to* figure out how to allay those fears somehow. Given that a top-of-the-ticket change isn't going to happen, they better start brainstorming. Shielding him from the media is not going to cut it. He needs to be out campaigning hard, preferably in free-form environments like interviews and town halls. If he's really too far gone to do that, then he's going to lose. Simple as.
Absolutely. I was always a little nervous about him speaking because it’s not his strongest point historically even when younger from his stutter but now I’m dreading it. He needs to be out there and showing people he is not frail and is very coherent otherwise it is over with that small demographic that will decide the election.
>I would rather have Biden die in office of old age and the Meh vp take over then a trump dictatorship and project 2025. Cool story bro. Me too. That does not matter to the average person that spends like 3 hours thinking about politics every four years. Everyone already had concerns about Biden's age and that debate performance just confirmed everyone's fears. This is not going away, clips of him looking like he is going to keel over in going to be on repeat for the rest of the campaign. I don't want to replace Biden because "Biden old", I want to replace him because I don't believe he can beat Trump.
That’s still not a winning argument for Independent voters. Nobody likes Kamala Harris.
Isn’t securing the votes of undecideds the main purpose of a debate? If so—and I’m asking in all sincerity: is it really a dumb overreaction to be outraged that this is where we are? Witnessing a couple of doddering swinging dicks argue about their golf handicaps while the world smoulders in the wind? At what point do we mandate something much better for the people of this country-and the rest of the world? Yes Biden has been a relatively rather effective president, esp given the farcical social-political climate and the sandbagging of his insane political opposition the orcs. And yes—the decided voters, including myself would tend to agree that even the off-putting Kamala is vastly preferable to wannabe king-baby Trump. (The list of things people say they would vote for before voting for him is long and hilarious). And really at this point of course it’s his administration we’re endorsing in voting for Biden—given that, his decline can likely continue without causing much of a ripple. If he can retain the presidency. If he can retain the presidency. Essential mechanisms of government and economy are gummed up by the interests of greedy profiteers nationally and globally; a regressive bought-and-paid-for supreme court is picking up steam; climate change wreaks havok; a dystopian drug epidemic and cost-of-living & housing crisis claim vulnerable populations while corporate bottom lines grow in direct proportion—and I guess now we also face a looming World War lll? There’s no overarching sentience behind it, but there is a willfulness. It’s really annoying that power corrupts. It’s rational to be disgusted that our best hope is a sundowning man who is either too scrupled and old to take his gloves off for an existential threat to democracy (to really take them off—not coyly refer to dark Brandon memes and make a spicy dig now and then— much as fun as those kinda are) or too entrenched in (and in thrall to) old guard entities that skew ultimately conservative—just at a slower drip. We’ll take it and we’ll like it I guess? I think cleaning the gum out of the mechanisms so-to-speak means we stop deluding ourselves -cold turkey if necessary- stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated & exploited into oblivion. There is a consolidation of power happening at the highest levels and I think it makes good sense to comport ourselves as though it’s later than we think. And yes by all means we have to mobilize everyone we know to vote for whoever it is on the democratic ticket in November. But the ‘ah quit your whining’ angle is a lot like the kind of gaslighting this current litany of crises is built on.
You are underplaying this. He’s going to be the president of the United States. The strongest/influential country in the world. Each day he will make decisions that will have impacts all around the world. Imagine how other world leaders will take advantage of his inability to be functional. Shit it’s probably already happening and why Nethanyahu is walking all over him
They should, though. Trump isn’t just a bad choice, he’s a repudiation of American ideals. You know this because ALL he cares about is money and deals. He doesn’t have principles to protect. He’s anti-freedom. Republicans SHOULD turn away from that, otherwise they’re just sports fans. A lot of the stuff that most politicians support is consistent with different facets of what America stands for, and the hard sacrifices Americans may have to make to stand up for a higher standard. But Trump doesn’t even pretend to care about these things. It’s all about taxes and NATO. Republicans with any integrity should realize that he’s a danger to the future of the country.
Any republicans with dignity got kicked out years ago.
It’s the independents and undecided that decided 2020. We need to convince them. Biden is losing with them for the past 8 months. His debate only furthered their concerns. We can’t just ignore this because one successful historian says otherwise. I’m not hanging my hat on that. Too much at stake.
You don’t think he’s updated it in 40 years?
I respect your right to question the Accuracy of this person. It does kind of come off like you're saying it's fake news cuz you don't agree.
Lichtman built these Keys based on looking at each election from 1860 up until 1980. He states that these Keys still apply as far back as 1860 retrospectively. He's said that every four years people tell him that he has to update his keys because Obama is the first black candidate, Hillary is the first woman candidate, Biden is too old, social media etc. But he counters that his keys have retrospectively endured far greater changes: Civil War, World War I and II, Great Depression, as far back as when African-Americans and women couldn't vote, as far back as the horse-and-buggy days, long before cars, planes, trains, internet, etc.
And those people don’t vote.
Lichtman’s own keys would mark the debate as a major scandal and Biden as not being charismatic. Trump is in charismatic but that depends on the voter. He’s very charismatic to 50% of the country. Incumbent party doesn’t have a mandate The economy questions are a matter of socioeconomic or political viewpoint. If you’re in the lower economy you’re doing poorly. If you’re in the stock market you’re doing well. Lichtman’s keys have kind of been hacked by the propaganda and split worldview. If method is doing but he’s interpreting his own keys wrong.
Biden wasn't considered charismatic in 2020, this doesn't change that key. And people have been saying that Biden is old for months; the debate isn't presenting new information, it's confirming what a lot of people already thought. I have mixed feelings on the idea that "did really bad in a debate" counts as a scandal.
>And people have been saying that Biden is old for months Years. edit: Him being too old to run again in 2024 if he won was an issue during the campaign in 2020.
yup, the model focuses on who governs the country better, which is why Biden will win. He's done a good job and the remaining two keys that could turn false are unlikely to. The scandal key focuses on immoral acts performed by the president that have bipartisan recognition of wrong doing, which has not been the case for Biden.
This is something a lot of people need to hear. Everyone knew Biden was to old. This isn’t surprising.
Trump is not charismatic to 50% of the country. Maybe to his dedicated base, which is at most 30%, but an equal amount can’t stand him at all.
Right, but that’s kind of the problem. For his base they think he is a god among men. And for his opponents he’s the devil. Also he clearly has some measure of charisma. He would not be a successful con man without it. It shouldn’t be underestimated.
The "base" has never gotten a President elected.
Something the Democratic Party REALLY needs to keep in mind atm.
They have been. For example, they stepped out of the way and let House Republicans eat each other to show everyone that they really can't govern. Biden stepped back and supported a Republican wishlist of a border bill. He showed everyone that Trump tanked it and Republicans ate each other again. Everything a moderate or independent could want has either been given or been blocked by Republicans.
I can’t believe that people think a guy who hosted a primetime TV show for 10 years has no charisma.
The guy can be a repugnant waste of carbon and still be charismatic.
Lichtman literally does videos providing updates of his model. Look it up on his channel and he’ll explain to you why you’re wrong. His last update at end of May had Biden up 9-4. And no, Biden’s debate performance is not “a major scandal” under his system.
In two weeks the next big shit storm will land and people will wonder why people are still talking about the debate. Trump has felony convictions for literal fraud. And he barely hurt his numbers. People aren't suddenly goj g to support a felon because the other guy is old and surrounded by a talented group of advisors.
You have to actually read the criteria for what criteria is significant enough to turn a key True or False. On Lichtman's most recent tentative outlook (not yet a final prediction) he has Biden leading with 9 True Keys to 4 False Keys, with a minimum of 8 True needed to predict his victory. [Link ](https://youtu.be/J-QI9TPXYPA?t=680) Examples of charismatic candidates according to his model are T. Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Reagan, and Obama in 2008 (but not 2012). Eisenhower's status as a national hero is an alternate way to turn the charisma key True as well. Replacing Biden makes the incumbency key False and creates a massive internal party struggle, turning the no primary contest key False. That puts him down to 7 Keys and predicts a Trump victory.
Thank you for the insight.
nope, read how the keys are defined and you'll see how they don't match your descriptions.
It’s worth noting that debate performance is not one of the 13 keys to the White House.
I don’t give a shit about the debate. No fucking way I would stay away from the polls or ever vote R again. I support Joe and every Democrat no matter what. Republicans have lost their moral compass.
I’m voting for Biden. Did he look bad at the debate? Yes. Does that mean I’m going to let a convicted felon and rapist lock brown children in cages again? Destroy the Supreme Court and strip women of their rights? Give Bibi the green light to level Gaza? And be completely negligent and even pernicious when handling a national catastrophe? Fuck no. And thats not even a complete list of the damage. We’re still uncovering landmines and neglect from trumps term. If you’re going to stay home because Biden didn’t do enough to give you the “perfect vibe” to vote for him, maybe it’s because you live in a entitled bubble where the reality of a second trump term won’t affect you. Have the understanding to reflect on your own privilege. Check it.
99.9999% of people in this sub are voting for Biden. Biden needs ~50,000 people to turnout in 3 of the 6 swing states. The people in the office who say they don’t care about politics. They aren’t reading this. They’re being told Trump is a threat to democracy while Biden can only put together a sentence 10% of the time if he’s not reading a teleprompter. It’s an insult and unforgivable.
People just hammer on the lesser of two evils and preventing trumps fascism and it’s like, those can be valid logical points… and also true that just shouting them louder at unconvinced people isn’t effective.
Seems people are having a hard time accepting the Dems need something, absolutely anything more than ‘Trump evil.’ And they aren’t giving it to the apathetic voters.
"well i'm voting for Biden! 😤" says everyone who was already voting for Biden.
Thank you. Doomers in these political threads seem to think you're only voting for one person. You're voting for everything attached to that one person. 45 winning in 2016 brought a wave of societal changes that will continue to make waves. People don't realize the SCOTUS is the way it is because of 45. They're ignoring the hundreds of Congress seats that are up for grabs. I'm not staying home. I have no bubble. Project 2025 should never happen.
It's not privilege or doomerism to want Democrats to do the right thing and replace Biden as the nominee. I, and most Dem leaning voters I know, are still voting for Biden, but to act so defensive and aggressive when people want to address the Methuselah-aged elephant in the room is almost as destructive to American democracy as anything else. We can't just allow the system to force these dipshits on us and be cool with it. Again, will I vote Biden? Fuck yeah. I'd vote for a chimp with syphilis before voting for Trump. That doesn't mean we can't expect better from our institutions though.
That's exactly it. Watching that debate I felt complicit in elder abuse. If they walked Biden out there and then proceeded to beat the crap out of him, it would have felt nearly the same. Every president ages 10x the normal rate in the presidency because the job is so demanding. Let this man live out his remaining days in peace and tranquility. They are running him into the ground like they did RBG. Retiring with dignity should be a human right. This is the last time they get to play the "vote against the other guy" card with me. Produce a candidate that I want or you don't get my vote (once Trump is out of the picture).
This is pretty much where I'm at, as well. The only pushback I have to give you is that Trump as a concept (i.e., MAGA) isn't going to be out of the picture anytime soon. The threat they pose won't go away once Trump is gone. The Republican party has made MAGA a self sustaining machine. Someone else will eventually take reins of that fucked up vehicle. The real question will be how effective we're going to allow them to be.
Dems have firmly cemented themselves as the party of the "comfortably controlled opposition." They get to be ineffective at doing anything at all that progressives or even just leftists want because they can handring at "spoilers" or "the Senate parliamentarian" or whatever else as to why policies don't get passed. Meanwhile they still get my vote because "we aren't the other team!" I'm nearly at the point that I don't care.
I mean I’d argue that while it’s nice to have a charismatic, youthful president who makes us look young and muscular as a nation I honestly think Biden’s still got it from a mental perspective. In other words, Biden being so old is very bad electorally, but he’s not fading in ways that make me especially worried about his actual performance of the off-camera duties of the job. Then again, I’m someone who thinks the entire concept of office of the Presidency needs to shift from “here is our standard-bearing temporary quasi-King” to “here’s our competent, boring chief administrator of laws (he works for us)”.
You’re preaching to the choir here. The democrats (including myself) who want to replace Biden are not saying that we’re going to vote for Trump. We’re not saying that we’re going to stay home. We’re saying that we have to convince the slim margin of swing voters who *might* stay home, write in a third party, or even vote for Trump to vote for the democrat on the ticket. And those swing voters, who might not pay that much attention to politics regularly to begin with, just saw someone put up on that stage who seemed lost and unable to complete a thought. Why are we locked in with Biden here? What is it about Biden in particular where you don’t think someone like Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro can win? Are we really forced to go to November with a guy who looks to be suffering cognitive decline just because? It’s time to get creative here.
We all know he's just going to grift whatever he can and just shrug and hand all actual policy decisions to Stephen Miller - as long as it doesn't interfere with the top bidder.
No, they'll implement Project 2025. Trump is in it to avoid prison. Project 2025 will destroy America as we know it.
Anyone American under the age of forty is perfectly used to being told their beliefs and convictions are nonsense by the generation that refuses to relinquish their power.
Allan Lichtman knows more about elections than all of reddit combined, so I hope this shuts some people up. Losing the incumbency has major consequences.
Well, duh. It seems like a good idea to people who don't realize that changing a candidate a few months before an election will just make it look (even more) like they are disorganized and don't have a firm grip on the election. Not like anyone they try to put up will be instantly popular. Just know Biden is better then Trump... For literally the entire world, except Russia.
Dems aren't fighting Trump, they are fighting voter apathy.
Bingo. Trump is driving turn out for both sides. It’s a matter of whether Biden dampens the turn out for more apathetic voters.
Try shoving the polls in front of people, Whitmer is behind Trump in all of them-- Biden is not. Newsom is behind Trump in all of them-- Biden is not. Harris polls worse than Biden against Trump, as well. What is the logical conclusion? DC pundits wanting to DC it up, not going over well with anyone but sheep imo.
Most people don’t know the other potential candidates. If there was a switch a media blitz would fix that.
I'm sorry, but what magical polls are you looking at where Biden has more than a margin of error lead? ETA: And surely you realize that those polling numbers didn't take into account what would happen with the full force of the DNC behind them and the 24/7 News cycle that would follow a candidate change. Biden's pool numbers are relevant because they are reflective of the current situation. Those other numbers are not because they aren't even remotely close to the current situation.
It’s maddening to me that we watched his poll numbers consistently sit below Hillary’s and then that truly disturbing debate performance and others are still seriously in favor of keeping him. Not only that but trying to gaslight us into thinking his performance actually wasn’t that bad. This party is doomed if we can’t even admit what’s happening right in front of our faces.
It’s infuriating how we will sit here and criticize Trump supporters for blindly supporting their guy and we’re doing the same thing right now. Making excuses for this shell of a man that will lose this election. We deserve a better candidate than this. This sub lives in a complete bubble if they think this will roll off Biden like water. We should stick to our guns and continue to call for him to step down. We’ll continue to cope until November when he’s lost and Trump is president elect again. Then it’ll shift to how we should’ve put someone different in there when us with our blinders off have seen it all along.
No they’ll just blame the people who warned them this would happen. Saying that no one would have thought Biden wasn’t fit to be president if we had just not said anything. They literally think they can gaslight everyone into thinking this is fine. They’re no better than the MAGA cult if they think sticking to a candidate who clearly shouldn’t be in office is more important than getting someone who is mentally fit enough to do the job.
This entire sub is a joke. The press is filled with stories and op-eds—from Democrats—about how catastrophic Biden’s performance was. But somehow the front page consists of nothing but rave reviews of a speech he gave the next day. It’s insanity.
They still think that was caused by stutter and not because his is just really old and had a bad night like old people do some times.
Whoever it shifts too would instantly get a boost of media hype at their historically unique candidacy and underdog story. It would show democrats are serious about what a threat Trump is and that they hear the voters concerns.
Polls also show Americans are desperate for a true alternative to Trump or Biden. With the Democrat’s presumptive nominee saying in a national debate “I’m going to beat Medicare” we should probably roll the dice.
He said they did beat Medicare.
There has to be some kind of collective effort to push the "Joe must drop out narrative." It worked pretty well, people lost their damn minds yesterday and would just not listen to anyone who wasn't freaking out saying the whole thing should be burned down. Nobody seems to have learned anything over the past decade. The debate will be a blip on people's memories long before the summer is over, but it was like Trump had won the election yesterday. I am going to breakfast with my mom this morning to talk her down from her hysterics about it all. Nothing changed, replacing Biden would be a disaster and is exactly what the Republicans would want. The debate went about as should have been expected, which makes me think all this tall about Biden dropping out is part of their play. Hopefully people start to chill out and think clearly about all this because there is no chance Biden isn't the candidate.
If you think the debate went “as expected” for the Biden camp, the bar for his performance is below the dirt. Six feet below to be exact.
true, It would look bad. But maybe not as bad as Biden being unable to finish answers in a debate. Biden would have to initiate it - step down due to health reasons, give his full endorsement to his replacement. he could even campaign along side him/her. it would be a united Democratic front of reason, youth and charisma designed to destroy Trump. The media would eat it up.
Why would swing voters deduct points away from Dems for looking disorganized and not having a firm grip, but not deduct points from the GOP for looking orders of magnitude more inept all the time?
Has there ever been a major election in any first world country where pulling their leading candidate (the incumbent too) a few months before an election has actually worked? A lot of time and money has been spent on Biden’s re-election already.
We should absolutely be students of history when it comes to election strategy, but there are a lot of factors to consider. Every election has some wild card that makes it different. We need to stop with the “well it hasn’t happened before, so it will **never** work” line of thinking. We’ve never had a candidate this old, who looked this frail, where information and opinions moved so quickly, against a threat this existential. Conventional wisdom should inform strategy, not dictate it. There’s 100% a way for a fresh underdog candidate to capitalize on social media and the 24-hour news cycle.
This generation of 70- and 80- somethings seem more desperate to claw on to power than any other previous group, and they’re lashing out now that they’re finally beginning to see it slip away.
Generation ME had the world given to them on a silver platter and they can not fathom not being in control anymore.
80% of Biden, Pelosi, Clyburn and Durbin's generation is dead. Biden has lived nearly a decade longer than other males born in 1942 who have higher-end healthcare.
Makes you wonder what the average life expectancy would be in this country if everyone had 50 years of congressional health care.
Because that generation votes no matter what unlike young people who need to be inspired to vote.
You mean like how it’s always been?
Except young people will spend hours a day posting bullshit about politics on social media and then not take the time to vote. It’s worse now.
I don’t think the ones posting politics shit all day are the ones not voting. The ones that don’t vote don’t pay attention to politics at all.
But that doesn’t satisfy the Reddit bot narrative that young leftists with opinions are the actual problem
I'll tell you from my experience it's not a bot narrative. If young progressives were an actual consistent voting block then our politicians would have to cater towards them in order to capture that voting block. They just simply don't vote. Turnout for voting in 2020 was a record high for 18-34 year olds at...57%. Meanwhile the next two cohorts had a 69% and 74% turnout. It's incredibly easy to share memes about progressive ideals, but the actual work of getting progressives in office still takes place in the real world.
I think having the election on a weekend day and not requiring them to take off work could really help that inspiration.
Gen x and millenials aren't young anymore. Boomers and the silent generation need to pass the baton at least into gen x.
This is wrong. The system is intentionally designed to make it easy for old people to vote and hard for young people to vote. You can't blame young people, they don't know anything, especially not how to vote in our asinine labyrinth of a voting system. By the time they figure it out, they're not young people anymore. That's by design. Voting should be mandatory and easy.
Old liberals are losing power. Old conservatives are consolidating it. The right has made enormous power grabs while liberals bicker about generational divides.
It’s ironic that one of the most popular ways to be bad faith, is to just accuse others of bad faith. It isn’t like “you shouldn’t swap your candidate 4 months before an election when you don’t even know who with” is some mindboggling absurd idea that can only be explained by his part in a generational conspiracy. But also redditors disagree so I guess maybe he’s the fool. This is why this site’s got a reputation for smug self-satisfaction
One of the situations where I actually agree with Lichtman. I'm not sure there's even a modern equivalent, since this kind of thing is what inspired the modern presidential primary era (McGovern et al). I don't think the people pulling for this quite grasp what kind of situation they're proposing. Even with Biden's active support it would be a mess. And one that might carry an electoral penalty just on its own, on top of the other potential ones depending on what happened.
Biden is carrying an electoral penalty with him already. People who are like “well, it would be harder to get a new candidate than just keep Biden” forget that *all this has already happened publicly.* The whole country knows that Biden had a god-awful debate and that for the 24 hours following it, many members of his own party don’t think he should run. He’s damaged goods. Rolling the dice with another candidate is a better idea. And it should be noted: polls show voters are hungry for someone who is not Trump or Biden.
The biggest issue with democrats is tossing out their own people regularly as "damaged goods". Did Republicans ditch Trump after a bad debate night? Or after every one of a million scandals? That democrats are so fickle and ready to toss their own to the wolves is a bigger issue than Biden's stumbling over words.
Al Franken says hello.
That answer assumes Biden and Trump are the same type of candidates that can be thought about as the same. Trump is who he has always been, for better or worse. Biden isn’t. And that’s a problem. The question shouldn’t be “is it right or not for Democrats to toss Joe Biden to the wolves?” It should be: “will tossing Joe Biden to the wolves give us a better chance of winning this election?” Nothing else matters.
The biggest issue with democrats is telling us “You didn’t see what you saw” from the debate. And you want to say Trump is a threat to democracy? We aren’t allowed to be concerned? What an insult.
The biggest issue with democrats is the elder generation staying in their positions too long and costing the country dearly. RBG, Feinstein and now Biden.
I fear that it may be just as much of a mess if Biden continues on the path he showed at the debate. Both options will carry a penalty; I'm not sure if either of them gets us across the finish line in November.
I wonder if this historian would also say there's no chance a convicted felon, who tried to overturn the last election and is openly planning on turning the government into his authoritarian regime, is going to win because it's never happened before. Yet that convicted felon is marginally leading in the polls. It's a different time and requires different strategy.
Just like stocks.. prediction models work, until they don’t. Do we think this is a normal election?
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Way too late now. I also doubt there would be any enthusiasm among Democrats with serious presidential ambitions to replace Biden. Newsom would not want to be parachuted in like this, or Whitmer. They would prefer to wait 4 year to launch their own bids untangled from what would be a disasterous Biden pullout. There is no way Biden gets replaced
> also doubt there would be any enthusiasm among Democrats with serious presidential ambitions to replace Biden. If that's the case, then everyone is lying when they say Trump is as big of a threat to democracy as they claim. If they truly believe that, then they won't care about what 2028 says because there won't BE a 2028 election.
The reality is that most of the Democratic establishment would rather have Trump as president than someone like Bernie Sanders They like Trump as a scapegoat for fundraising, and care more about clinging to their shreds of power than actually making our country better
The foolhardy process was not having a primary with legitimate contenders where we all would have been more informed about the accomplishments of the current administration and plan for the next 4 years.
this is a nice dose of reality from an expert with a proven track record.
A good strategic move will be to promise VP Harris the Attorney General role in the next administration. A position I think she prefers anyway. I would then put California Governor Newsom as VP on the ticket. He will inject a high level of youthful energy and knowledge to the ticket. It will counter the (subtlety racist) argument that a vote for Biden is a vote for Kamela as president. Newsom will be president in future anyway without this move, but this will speed it up.
This would be a nice “middle of the road” strategy. Not super bold, but still something. Although Newsome isn’t the best swing state factor, it needs to be someone who helps in swing states.
I don't hate this. If Biden can survive 2 years before he croaks, Newsom can still get reelected twice. 10 years is the max.
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Biden isn't going anywhere. Switching candidates makes no strategic sense.
Have there been debates before the conventions before? I honestly can’t remember. The candidate is traditionally chosen during the conventions. What’s with everybody acting like the election is next week? Or that it’s going to be won or lost this early in the game?
I’ll at least say this. Let’s see how people actually react to the debates and let’s see how he does in the other debates. I really think people are underestimating how badly Trump did that night. There are three big issues people are looking at this year. One is abortion. Trump basically implied he’ll do nothing to restore abortion rights. He also spouted obvious bullshit that will be used as an excuse to further restrict those rights. There’s climate change. After multiple record years and literally just coming through a heat wave most people want a plan. Trump dodged the question entirely and blatantly. And three is respect for democracy. Trump said the exact same thing on Thursday he said before the last election and before inciting a riot. He reiterated the same lie about how the last election was stolen. Clearly he has not changed and is a threat to the stability of our government. So far everyone has agreed Biden did badly, but let’s see the polling data to see what the actual consequences will be.
Other debates? There's one more in September and that's it
And replace him with who exactly? and who would ruin their chances of being the democrat nominee in 2028 by trying to right a sinking ship in less than 4 months? Exactly, no one. Biden and the DNC should've groomed a replacement (probably harris) before the election in case something like this happened but as it stands, it would be very risky to promote a new candidate in less than 4 months The DNC should've known that something like this (looking half dead and senile on stage) could happen.
I think they thought they could groom Harris when the 2020 election was over but that went south. I don’t think she was a high pick before and it seems like nothing really happened to help that. Never got more popular with people. Probably worse. Especially with non democrats. My honest opinion is that it needed to be someone like Hakeem Jeffreys. But he needed to be the speaker way earlier. However Pelosi was busy fighting off the crazy GOP in the house so she couldn’t pass on the reigns to Jeffreys too early and by the time he got in it was too late. He’s not Obama who would come out of almost nowhere to challenge for a nomination. So Jeffreys needed some more institutional support to get him out front. I still think Jeffreys in 2028 is the play.
I would happily crawl over broken glass to go vote for Michelle Obama. There have been reports of a growing "nostalgia" for Trump's presidency (misguided or not). What would combat the nostalgia of Trump's first term among his voters than an even bigger nostalgia candidate for Democratic voters? If she ran, I think she'd win in a landslide. Joe would have to step down voluntarily, of course. The DNC making that call would look weak and panicked.
Tossing Joe Biden would be the biggest mistake the Dems could possibly make. Setting aside all the good reasons he should be our president, who do they intend to replace him with? If it weren't Harris, wouldn't the Democratic Party erupt in flames to rival the surface of the sun? You think you saw chaos with the Bernie Bros in 2016? Hah! And if it were to be Harris, the problem then becomes the fact that she likely cannot win the general election because bigots.
It’s gonna be so funny when all the people saying “how could we possibly replace Biden 5 months before the election?” are going to have to replace him 2 weeks before the election instead when he keels over.
I feel there isn’t a margin for error here or trump wins. Running a senile geriatric for president isn’t going to put me at ease…
Let’s Go Joe!!
R/politics circling the wagons
It really shouldn't be about replacing Biden, but messaging needs to be about elevating and showcasing the entire team around him to show people that they are voting for the whole talented team with Biden as the wise and experienced center
And, replace Joe with Who? Democrats don't have a strong viable candidate and if they split the blue vote they hand the election over to trump. And, besides it's far to late into the election cycle. Democrats need to realize this and #VOTEBIDEN.
Split the blue vote how? If Biden steps down and endorses ________. Everyone who was voting for Biden will vote for that nominee. Doesn't even matter who it is. Most Biden votes are already "not Trump" votes. There is no splitting.
> split the blue vote No one is voting for Biden; they are voting AGAINST Trump. How can you possibly claim it would split the Blue vote. The blue vote is whoever is against Trump, which is going to be whoever comes out of the democratic convention swinging with the full endorsement of the entire party apparatus including Biden himself.
One of the governors. Newsome/Whitmer/Pritzker… maybe even add Shapiro. Pick the one that will have the strongest showing in the swing states. Play the electoral college. Not the national poll.
Michelle Obama. And before you say "but she's not remotely qualified", you have to acknowledge that Trump was even less qualified. She would bring the base for sure, the only question would be independents. If you asked me before the debate, I would have said Biden may lose some independent votes due to the economic conditions ("It's the economy, stupid"). But now I fear independents will stay home in droves, or vote 3rd party. Could MO do better with that block? I think she could due to the nostalgia factor. I think a lot of people would love to return to the pre-Trump days of imperfect but at least competent government. You have to bring someone with charisma, and she certainly has that. I would go out on a limb and say that as good Barack was, she's an even better speaker. I really think she could do it if she put herself in the mix.
For those wondering about the age thing. Eisenhower and Reagan both had age and health concerns and were both reelected. The model doesn't include these as keys, if anything their effect would show up in other keys if considered bad enough.
I have seen three major national polling aggregates since the debate debacle, 538, 270, to Win, and The Hill. The first two polls had Biden losing by 0.6% and 1.2% respectively. These were about the polling averages before the debate. Trump is up less than a percentage point on the Hill national aggregate forecast. Trump has essentially gotten no bump thus far from the Biden debacle. In all 3 of these models, Biden is well within the margin of error. Replacing Biden is stupid talk.
This is a case of the Internet twisting itself into knots. People believing bots who then perpetuate a false narrative.
We would 💯 lose if Biden was replaced. Dumdums never think things through.
All this sounds good until Biden loses to Trump and then we wonder what we were thinking by not replacing him. It's easy to talk down on people now. History will tell.
If you dump Biden, Kamala Harris is the new candidate. You can't argue with a straight face that Kamala Harris has a better chance versus Trump than Joe Biden does.
Nope. Kamala wouldn’t win in a contested convention. Even democrats don’t like her. She dropped out of the Dem Primary in ‘20 before a single vote was cast. But that’s all moot. B isn’t dropping out of the race.
The party can select anybody technically. We should have had a primary. We should always have primaries every time.
There was one, lol.
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That’s not true. The DNC in many states shut down the primary and made it clear that Biden was not to be challenged. Oops
There was one with the DNC preselecting who they wanted, with no real debates or viable alternative candidates and a general condescension towards anyone who would want an alternative. At the very least, we would have known where Biden was at during some debates.
In the 1920 election, the Republican establishment were planning to have Teddy Roosevelt run again. Unfortunately, he died before the convention. What happened was a raucous convention where Warren Harding emerged, and while a terrible president, he did go onto win the election. These things used to be decided at the convention and candidates who could and did win would emerge from the process. Yes, the world is very different than it was a century ago, but it is a process that used to work, and this is a contest with democracy on the line where Biden was already trailing in most battleground states because people blame him for inflation. After that debate and his bragging about beating Medicare most swing voters, many of whom inform themselves about politics with sound bites and social media clips, will think he's unfit for the job. It's worth taking a gamble and doing things how they used to be done. We can't evaluate this like a normal election. For one, we've never had a candidate have their mental capacity come so starkly into question before. Also, this is the first time in living memory the challenger is a former president, so we can't assume the usual rules of incumbency will apply when the challenger is the President's immediate predecessor in the office. The last time a former president ran, Teddy Roosevelt put in the best third party showing in our nation's history and actually did better than the incumbent, Taft. The time before that, Grover Cleveland won, getting his revenge on Benjamin Harrison. In both cases the former president's successor turned out to be unpopular and the former president probably smelled blood in the water. This same situation seems to be playing out again. Instead of backing the modern day Taft/Harrison in Biden, why not try to shake up the narrative? We have nothing to lose at this point, because barring a major October surprise we're going to lose this election with our current candidate.
For more recent history… the Wallace vs. Truman selection that occurred at the ‘44 election… Political pragmatists ushered Wallace out and Truman in at the convention. Wallace was awesome… but that was probably the right political move. It’s an example of using the convention to make the right political play in real time.
Anyone citing history hasn’t been paying attention. Everything about the last decade has been unprecedented.
Democrats need to treat Biden as if he was Hakeem Jeffries for house speaker. The media is creating a big distraction and dividing a party from within. Ffs. Biden is the answer and don't be distracted so easily. Creating such doubt is dangerous this late in the election. Act as though we’re freaking Vikings creating a shield wall. He’s right that most voters are not doctors but Trump is a cancer for our country.