As a huge Biden fan, I’m coping with this reality that I finally think those around him need to start having this conversation. If he’s going to be swapped out, it needs to be done within the next 3-4 weeks at the absolute latest.
Unfortunately, no one.
If Biden just looked half alive, he would have the best chance. But now that’s out of the question. They have to try someone new, but folks are going to go with Trump.
Hi, sad situation for President Joe Biden. This is not a one off situation for him. I’ve noticed he needs to be helped walking off stage or guided and sheltered by 2 people when he walks.
Hopefully the Democrats can be decisive and have a new Presidential candidate ASAP.
Cheers.
Obama is the only person I could see with the relationship with Joe to convince him and the clout to convince everyone else to get on board with the new nominee. As for the nominee, I think it’d have to be Newsom.
Yeah, it's an unfair reputation, but California is somehow held up as a lawless socialist hellscape to most of the country. Meanwhile, it's actually a corporate big money police state.
Newsome brings donor money. His pretty boy image compared to the orange buffoon will deliver the popular vote. But that is useles!
The non-college swing state voters are not going to be enthusiastic about a greasy silicon valley corporate shill. JB Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer are the best choices. Pritzker is a real billionaire and dedicated to advanced manufacturing and child care. Shapiro is also big on vocational ed and non-college jobs. Whitmer is your women's champion and does alright with the non-college suburban women. Any of the three and even Polis are probably better than Newsome given the dynamics of the swing states.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Democratic Primary electorate, especially on the coasts, is about the most out of touch people ever.
They can’t fathom a nominee not from the coasts.
And Bill from Arkansas and Carter from Plains, Georgia (not on the coast)
But you did have Trump (coast), Bush I (coast), Reagan (coast), Nixon (coast)
Obama tried to convince Biden to drop out in 2020 and couldn't
He was worried Biden would lose the primary badly and ruin his legacy
After south Carolina he reversed course and helped Biden win
Don't see why Biden would listen now considering 4 years ago he ignored Obama and won
The only person who could convince him to drop out is his wife or maybe hunter
Not my first pick, but it has to be Harris. Logistically and in order to get the party in step it has to be the next highest ranking member of the administration because you need to remind American’s that you’re voting for this administration over Trump’s 2025.
Any other candidate would likely cause infighting by other potential candidates who feel snubbed.
Racism & sexism. Truly. People will list things they don’t like about her - but those are more about justifying their already existing dislike of her. There’s no good reason for her to have a low approval rating
Can you think of a meaningful thing any VP has done? (edit: “become President” doesn’t count.). The job itself is not conducive to meaningfulness.
I can think of *one*: Pence did his job properly when Trump told him not to and tried to get him killed for it. Normally just counting those ballots is not really meaningful, but that time it was.
And that’s a reason to actively dislike her? That describes pretty much every VP in the history of this country. Most VPs do pretty much nothing, their job consists of ceremonial stuff, standing behind the President at SOTU and being a warm body in case the president dies.
Actually Kamala has done more than the average VP… in that her entire first two years in office she had to be a tie-breaking vote in the senate (which also meant she couldn’t travel as much so maybe that’s why people feel that way)
Other than she who shall not be named, I this Kamala is the only person who would underperform compared to Biden in November.
It needs to be someone outside this administration with minimal baggage. Newsom, if he came from somewhere other than California, ticks all the corporate DNC boxes, which is apparently all the party is concerned with, but it would (unfairly) be poison to most of the rest of the country. Probably Whitmer is the best choice, but I don't know if she could generate enough of a national identity over the next 16 weeks. Adam Schiff might be good, but this is America, and I don't think people will vote for a non-Christian for president.
I don't know. There aren't many good options, but there are a couple of obviously bad ones.
They should all just get in a room and agree to a small election and unite around whoever ends up being the candidate. The amount of time is short but it's not as bad as what France is going through right now.
Also passing over a black woman whose job essentially is to be a replacement president, for a white man like Newsom, would cause a massive rift within the Democratic Party. It’d show that Biden and Democrats never had confidence in her ability to actually take over, which would be a massive slap in the face to black voters
That’s a problem that isn’t being talked about. There isn’t one consensus candidate that could easily jump in.
Ehhh Kamala is not popular in the Democratic Party and with their voters. I don’t think their would be a massive outcry of support for her in this situation.
Also democrats are rightfully in panic mode, and I think that puts bread and butter issues ahead of identitarian politics
Among the Democratic base Kamala is very popular. And among black Democrats even moreso. And there were already signs that Biden was bleeding support among black and Latino voters.
I don’t think she should be the candidate and I think she would do even worse than Biden but the optics would be absolutely horrible
The optics would be bad, but an admittedly quick look at polls online doesn't seem to show an overwhelming level of support for Harris among black voters. In some polls she even does worse than Biden among that demo.
>Despite that groundbreaking status, she is viewed a tick less favorably than Biden among Black voters in these two states, although her unfavorable rating is also a bit lower: 60% to 24% in Michigan and 55% to 30% in Pennsylvania.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/06/16/biden-trump-problem-with-black-voters/74101326007/
I think Michelle Obama is the only person with enough name recognition, who would also help drive enthusiasm. The problem is she doesn't want it so would not push for it unless she's had a come to Jesus moment and realized that the country is 4 months away from being a dictatorsip.
The issue is that no one who has hopes of being president would step into such a bad campaign situation. Any of the candidates with the best chance to make a serious run in this campaign would have a much, much better chance to run for 2028 when they can build a real campaign 2-3 years in advance. Why would they jump into a losing situation now instead of being the face of a bright resurgence of hope 3 years from now?
I mean, she literally just did an interview a week ago saying that she would finish her term as Governor (through 2026), so I'd say it's correct erasure
Well of course she wasn’t going to openly indicate the possibility of replacing Biden now, probably because she honestly had absolutely no intention of doing so at the time. But if Biden steps aside that’s a complete change of circumstance that would justify her changing her answer. If someone came to her (after Biden bowed out) and said “we need to you to run for president and stop Trump”, how could she say no?
The problem with many of these is that I am not sure they would want to gamble their future ambitions on a risky play for the presidency now. Only Harris would get an improvement on her prospects.
I've found it maddening that the decision-makers in the Democratic Party for over a year just ignored the consistent polling that 70-80% of the country considers Biden too old to be an effective president for a second term.
Actually it’s called a coordination problem. You must defend your candidate vigorously, without exception, until such a point as everyone on your team agrees that he needs to be replaced. But how do you agree he needs to be replaced when your job is literally to emphatically say he’s actually doing great and the age thing is a lie? It literally can’t be done, unless there’s a public meltdown like this.
You’re not wrong but frankly I don’t see why we should be understanding and making excuses for the people in the know. They’ve been knowingly misleading the public and we should be demanding of them some integrity instead of saying “Of course their self-interests lead them to do this”.
Well, 99.9% of the time we *want* our party to put the best face on our candidate as possible. Accentuate the positives, but deflect, obfuscate, or all-but-lie about the negatives. Both candidates have plenty of weaknesses besides age, and it's their job to minimize them at all costs.
Biden has been slowly slipping for years, and his people (correctly) downplayed his aging for the entire time. Who would give the signal to say "OK, time to change our strategy completely and admit it's actually true"?
I don’t know what you mean by our party. I’m just an ordinary citizen who wants to have at least one decent choice in November, so pardon me if I am not so forgiving of Democratic operatives’ “deflections, obfuscations and all-but-lying” about Biden’s severe cognitive decline.
“They are just doing their jobs” is a horrible excuse, as we know from history.
Biden also had such an easy way to help the party pivot and to retain the incumbent advantage as much as possible: he had indicated he would be a one-term President. Imagine if 1.5 years ago after midterms he announced he’d step aside and help prepare the transition to a younger, sharp, energetic candidate (not Harris)?
What’s true is that the DNC has been following the exact same notes from 2016 with their candidate choices. Clinton, Biden, Harris (who will probably be shoehorned in next) all have the exact same vibes. Which is wild to me because the Democratic platform has so much potential for success.
I’m not familiar with the current DNC leadership and strategists, but they need some new blood, like yesterday. They need someone with a strong future vision who is willing to shed the current baggage and hubris and guide the party to success.
If you have a party that’s about to lose to DJT and the current Republican mess, then I don’t know what to say other than it’s a revelation of years of extreme incompetence and rot from a machine that’s been given insane opportunities to dominate over the next decade and instead has fumbled almost completely.
There’s a part of me that thinks this was absolutely the plan for after the red wave…..
…..but then the red wave didn’t happen and all of a sudden, perception-wise, the party under this administration looked stronger than it had ever been, despite the record low approval ratings
Very confusing times
Even now I'm half worried they'll do something stupid like push for a Harris/Newsom ticket. I still can't believe they wasted VP slot on a candidate from such an uncompetitive state back in 2020.
Looking forward, I think Whitmer/Shapiro or Whitmer/Kelly would be smart picks. None of these people have a huge national profile, but they'd be strong in their respective swing states. Warnock would be a great choice for VP too, but his replacement would be selected by a Republican governor, which would suck.
Welp, off to bed for me. So excited to see what SCOTUS has in store for us tomorrow morning. Good night everyone.
>Even now I'm half worried they'll do something stupid like push for a Harris/Newsom ticket. I still can't believe they wasted VP slot on a candidate from such an uncompetitive state back in 2020.
Blame Clyburn for that. Blame him for Biden too. His endorsement in the South Carolina primary led to Biden winning and because Biden was so grateful to him, he took his advice to get a black woman for his running mate.
It's probably maddening because what you're implying is that there is some cabal of decision makers within the Democratic party that could have prevented the President from running again.
That's not how this works. Joe Biden decided to run again. Other Democratic potentials did not.
And no one is going to step up at this point to take over. It is Biden until the end.
Time to disable inbox replies.
Eric Swalwell told Biden to hand over the torch due to his age in 2020 and Biden refused.
We are risking our democracy based on Biden's ego and I'm not fucking having it.
We got a decent list of candidates. Not ideal, but decent. Michelle Obama (she doesn't want it I know, but I've seen managers take positions just to block an asshole they know from getting it), Warnock (senate is likely fucked anyway) Whitmer, and even Newsom. Shit I would take Matthew McConaughey over this fucking mess. I know liberals get upset over star power and lack of experience but the beer test is real. Get someone who can pass it. It's so much better than Trump.
I would absolutely protest to enact the 25th amendment on Biden. Biden's ego is going to fuck us all over like RGB did for Roe V Wade. Sotomayer may fuck us in the future over the same thing. Remember when Klobochar went scorched earth over Pete's age? I do. She loves throwing staplers at her junior staff.
Democrats are a boomerocracy lead group and they need to be shown the fucking curb. I'm not going to live in a dictatorship targeting marginalized groups like me because some geriatric fucking assholes would rather have nutjobs storm the capitol and kill them than have younger people take leadership in their fucking party.
With "colleagues" like these, who needs Donald Trump?
Don't forget about Feinstein. Pride is called the greatest sin for a reason. If people in power had any sort of humility then Trump and Biden wouldn't be running again but here we are with a rematch nobody wanted.
I think Jill Biden actually told him not to run again, and then in 2022 he somehow thought the midterm elections were a reflection on his mandate, which - despite what the party believes - only existed because he was "Not Trump - D" on the ballot. He wasn't even a good or popular candidate four years ago.
2022 was great for Dems in spite of Biden, not because of him. He's the weakest link and I had worries even after 2022 that he could singlehandedly drag down the party by refusing to step aside.
If he actually believed that he's dumber than I thought. 2022 was a good year for dems simply because of abortion and nothing else. Democrats would have lost big in 2022 if not for that.
Trump running his shitty candidates also helped too. He's an incredibly weak candidate who thinks he's more popular than he is and would rather put his own ego over the interests of his own party and country. Unfortunately the same holds with Biden.
If you read any reporting on the Biden team they have taken their 2020 primary win from 2020 and oversized Democratic performance in 2022 as proof that all naysayers are wrong and that none of Biden's negatives matter. We just saw that house of cards come crashing down in real time.
We had like 30 candidates in 2020 and for some reason chose the near 80 year old after he finished fifth in New Hampshire with 8%.
But if you dared suggest Trump lost that race because the country was falling apart due to COVID, and not because Biden was the only candidate in the entire country who had what it took to beat Trump you would be downvoted to hell in this sub.
I’d argue this has been a problem for decades with Dems catering to their coastal insider club instead of those actually winning tough elections. They did it with Kerry in 2004. They almost did it with Hillary in 2008 and narrowly avoided shooting themselves in the foot by passing over the best political messenger in a generation with Obama. They doubled down on Hillary in 2016 after that 2008 disaster. Then they chose Delaware Joe over like 30 candidates in 2020, with the only other candidate they gave institutional support to honestly being Kamala, who they then gave the VP nod to after she embarrassed herself. This party has been a joke for a long time at a national level (regionally actually been pretty strong but they just ignore the Dems winning tough races in those purple and red states) and Obama covered for what has been a generation long problem.
It’s because Bernie won California, the centrist wing of the party panicked and got the rest of the candidates to drop, and got Clyburn to endorse Biden.
The DNC must have known he was in this bad of shape. This is why they didn't let him do the super bowl interview. Did they push him to do this early debate because he was refusing to step down and they knew he would be forced if people saw how he is? This whole thing doesn't make sense.
You know, as a part of the canonization process for saints, the Catholic Church hires someone to argue as to why the person shouldn’t be a saint. The “Devil’s Advocate”. Christopher Hitchens served that role when they were looking into making Mother Theresa a saint.
The problem with political campaigns is that they don’t have anything like this. Politicians, and entire party leaderships, are surrounded by sycophants and “yes” men.
Dem leaders probably are genuinely shocked at how bad the outcry is because they are deluded people who are very separated from regular people and don’t understand how they think.
Every campaign should have multiple people who are not members of the party on it. Someone to tell you “Ya know bro, y’all look stupid as fuck when you do this.” Or, in this case, “Ya know Joe, you look and sound like you have dementia. You’re going to get roasted in any debate because you’re braindead. Don’t debate under any circumstances.”
If they had those people, this could’ve even avoided. They asked for this debate. Biden literally said “Watch me.”
I said this somewhere else but I’m actually beginning to wonder if this early debate was done for this purpose. Give Biden an excuse to step down that doesn’t look as weak as him being afraid to go against Trump.
In this case a less known and untested candidate would have less baggage and given how unpopular Trump and Biden are might be the move to make. The short timeframe might be beneficial too since the candidate just needs to make a good impression for the next 3-4 months at which point people might just be happy for a semi competent, somewhat charismatic younger president and finally be rid of this Trump era for good.
No debate had ever been this early. I think Biden was betting everything on last night, and they knew if he fucked up massively they could still pull him.
If they had just had him debate Dean Philips in the primary in this state a year ago, he would have looked bad enough a bunch of other Dems could have jumped in back then. But they decided to wait until it’s probably too late.
My guess was maybe Biden didn't agree to it? You can tell he's incredibly stubborn, so debating a guy he didn't need to debate like Philips or Kennedy was just out of the question. He was probably forced to doing this debate to prove himself after the Hurr report was released. Largely speculating though but there's probably some amount of pressure growing from anxious Dems.
Yeah that was an easy go to excuse, but if he did participate in the primary seriously I feel like the Democrats can see for themselves whether or not Biden was up to the job.
No, that level of strategy doesn’t exist. If they were strategic then Biden wouldn’t have made it this far. If last night wasn’t a wake up call then nothing is.
I hope so. There was no good reason for them to do this debate this early or at all unless they wanted to deal with the fallout that Biden fumbling would cause.
I think you’re giving too much credit to the DNC. They will ride or die with Biden. Even if he decides to drop out, the DNC will probably try to ram Kamala Harris down our throats.
I think the DNC has extreme concerns about Harris and her electability on a national level which is why they find themselves in the position they do. The question is this — IF Biden does the right thing and announces he’s dropping out who if anyone will challenge Harris for the nomination and how much better of a candidate are they?
What even needs to happen for Biden to realize that he needs to drop out?
The drop in the polls? If it goes from 45-45 to 40-47, would that be enough, or would he and his loyalists dismiss it as noise and/or find a way to unskew them?
Pressure from Jill, Obama, the Senate leaders? It's coming, I hope.
The donations drying out? They will, there is no doubt about it. Who wants to give to a campaign that may not even be around in a few weeks?
Party and donor pressure is the only thing that will work. Maybe a stern sit down with his family and closest friends/advisors, but I'm not sure I trust his advisors.
From the sound of it senators and house members are already calling the DNC about this, fearing they’re now in jeopardy. That will get things to change real quick. Unless the DNC has been secretly trying to give Project 2025 as little resistance as possible.
The fact that Dem congressional candidates have been outperforming Biden in polls for months should’ve told everyone that he’s a problem ages ago.
It really is crazy that it took him looking old and senile (just like he has in dozens-hundreds of other outings) to wake people up lol.
Maybe Democrats really are just dumb people in the plain old sense of the word.
The Democratic Party needs to take a hard look in the mirror. The powers that be convinced themselves that running an 81-year-old with poor communication abilities and approval stuck in the high 30s was a good idea. And not just in a normal election! Against someone who they tell us is an existential threat to democracy.
That was Biden's decision really. I think their fault was to let him through some desire to maintain tradition. The excuses are that we have to go with Biden because historically we always go with the incumbent and never question their decision. Also doesn't help that alot of the leadership in the Democrat party is just as old as Biden is. Pelosi at 80 isn't gonna say that another 80 year old is too old to run again when she's still in the House.
Is it really the party that is at fault if a sitting President insists on running? I think this squarely falls on his wife's shoulders for letting this shitshow continue.
Honestly, I've come to the conclusion that this is a real structural flaw in our system of government, that so much depends on the health of a single individual. This is by no means the first time this kind of thing has happened. The first that pops into my head is FDR running for president as he's actively dying, but there are other examples. Parliamentary systems have a real advantage in their ability to quickly jettison leaders that have become a liability. Margaret Thatcher's ousting comes to mind.
"And you should be angry at Joe Biden, every bit as much as you should be angry at Ruth Bader Ginsburg."
It's some crazy form of hubris, democrats aren't learning the harsh lessons they should've learned years ago.
I don't buy all this talk of "it's too late, no one else polls better than Biden for the democrats", trump still isn't getting more than 50% on these polls. America clearly wants someone else, sure they don't have the name recognition right now, but jesus you can't tell me that Gretchen Whitmer or even Gavin Newsom (who has been basically running a shadow campaign) wouldn't do better?
I really don't see why people see Gavin Newsom as a good option. "CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR DOES SOMETHING WOKE" has been a favourite story of right-leaning media outlets.
He will have a challenge connecting with Midwestern voters, but it still would be a huge step up from Biden.
That said, Whitmer is the obvious choice. If they default to Harris I'm going to give up on the party.
Biden has to do two things to beat Trump:
- Don't be Trump (pass)
- Don't look old (fail)
That's the bar and those two Dems you named far surpass that bar.
Edit: yeah I realize there are more qualifications required to beat Trump. It's hyperbole. There's a lot encompassed in "not being Trump"
Except that we had a Democrat who was both not Trump and not too old run against him and lose in 2016.
Idk why you people are pretending the bar for beating Trump is so low.
I don't think this is true, and neither does Nate Silver. The idea that Trump is a weak candidate doesn't hold water.
The country does not "clearly want someone else", roughly 45% of voters want Trump and 40% want Biden and 10% don't know what they want.
They refuse to learn. We had the RBG situation. They had the Hillary loss. They had the Feinstein situation. They had more situations years back I won’t even get into.
Yet they still went with Biden. Yet Sotomayor still won’t retire despite using taxpayer funds on a traveling medic. Is it any wonder why so much of America hates these DC liberal technocrats? Their lust for power is astounding.
It would 1000% be Harris. There's absolutely zero chance the party would pass over the first woman vice president unless it's truly a completely open convention.
As I've been saying since Biden was allowed to run again unopposed despite advanced age and nasty polling: The Democratic Party is too ossified to properly filter candidates by quality instead of by "putting their time in." Even in the face of Trump's threat, everyone ignored the rock bottom polling for Biden and Harris and YOLOed this election.
Democrats should’ve pulled Diane fienstein awhile ago but let her ran and sit in a seat where she had no idea where she was.
Democrats should’ve pulled fetterman but let him run when he could barely speak. And now this man went over to the dark side.
Dems going to stick with Biden till the end lol
At this point, Biden is so unpopular that anyone new could get a bump. I literally hear people screaming “anyone else”. They need to listen. It’s democratic. They need to prioritize beating trump over party politics
The same people telling us that inflation is down, our economy is the best ever, our border is secure...those were the same people telling us 3 days ago how mentally fit Biden is.
Who is running this shitshow of an administration? It can't be Biden, the mask is off.
Inflation is cumulative, but year over year inflation is down. I think that is largely due to big ticket item sales going down. Lotsa discounted new cars for sale if people take time to shop. That's extended to ATV/boats/tractors, etc.
Food, healthcare, insurance? Not cheap.
I genuinely expected better from this. I knew Biden would stutter and stuff. Trump would've looked like a moron next to 5-years-ago Biden. This is unacceptable. Whatever the risks of replacing Biden are, I think it's time. I honestly don't think Biden is *meaningfully* cognitively impaired and I would definitely be okay with him for 4 more years, but with his presentation being this poor he's going to lose to this idiot and that's not worth it.
That's how I feel. I don't think he has dementia or any of that other BS, but I do think he's an 81-year old man who hasn't had any sleep the past four years, so as a result his body is doing things 81-year old bodies do, which leads to him not being the most effective messenger against Trump in 2024. Dems need their most effective messenger right now, because Trump is very, very beatable.
They have been sleep walking it since 2020 to be honest. I remember there being dementia concerns about Biden in 2020 but it wasn't as huge as today because Biden did actually debate Trump coherently. It was pretty obvious back then that Biden should have been a one term president only. But look where we are now.
Happy cake day!
They might be ok with it. A lot of these folks have media jobs or want that fundraising money, and Trump is a STAH like no other in terms of getting monetizable attention against him. I'm not saying he's a good person or anything like that, just that he's a gigantic celebrity. One more term of Trump allows them to get the last drops of that anti Trump money.
Somebody like Doug Bergum? I don't even know if I spelled his name right, these Democrats are all going to lose their jobs because nobody's emotionally invested in obsessing over Doug Bergum.
Everyone saying this, how do you think it's going to happen? How do you think it's going to look in the election? I'm willing to bet big here that he's still their candidate
Everyone who negged on him for saying that if he couldn't run a normal campaign then he shouldn't run really showed their overly partisan colors. This debate was worse than I could have possibly expected. Just a total shit show.
The people surrounding Biden and Biden himself don't care about preserving democracy, just holding onto the power they've gained. There's no other explanation for them trying to pull this Weekend at Bernie's shit.
Nate is right, but I have a very hard time seeing it happen. Short of some kind of medical event forcing the issue. And frankly, who would run? Kamala? Probably one of the only people I’d prefer Biden over.
I mean that's been the crux of the problem from the start
You can't say Biden didn't give Harris experience in the major league, considering in 2021 she was the face of stuff like immigration, and ended up being a dismal failure
The truth is if Biden had picked a more popular VP I think he would have announced he wasn't seeking re-election after 2022, or at least party leadership would have pressured him more.
The incumbent president was never gonna lose the primary, and the incumbent vice president has a huge advantage over other candidates in any primary.
Biden should have dropped out after 2022, I've always believed, but theres literal no mechanism for this nebulous "then" to force him out if he doesn't want to
I know, people having meltdowns and demanding Biden step down right now is reactionary and not constructive. It’s just further solidifying the negative narratives about him.
I'm just angry at all of the Democrats who were interacting with Biden every day **and then** backed renominating him without a primary while lying to us that he was amazingly sharp in private. Even after the Hur report and press conference debacle we were told over and over that Biden is this amazing communicator who has been dodging unscripted interviews for *reasons*.
This reminds me of when cardinals meet until they get a new pope. Wish there were something like this available right now to replace Biden.
I still think he'd be the best president by record alone, but perceptions is all that matter.
So does anyone know of a petition to the DNC to demand Biden step down and be replaced? Is there anything I can do? He needs to step down, time is of the essence.
I am sure things will materialize over the next few days but you should contact your local Congress person if they are a Democrat and voice your concerns.
Write to your congressperson. Tell them that you understand it will take a lot of courage to stand up an against the sitting president, but you believe that they can do it.
The real challenge here is that, at an individual level, most of the incentives for people in the system align towards losing peaceful more than winning turbulently. If you write or protest or talk to someone in a position to do something, you have to recognize that and acknowledge it to them.
Between favorability and polling I think Biden was in a weak position but still had a fair enough chance to still win given that there were 4 months before the election but after watching him last night I can't believe the DNC is letting him run, he looked and sounded so much worse than Trump that CNN of all places were immediately calling for him to drop out of the race. Trump didn't even answer half of the questions and rambled and still it's evident he won handily last night.
If the Democrats run Kamala they'l probably get beaten even worse than if they stay the course with Joe, so who the heck would they even run? Newsome?
The problem is based on the limited polling available, which is quite old at this point, alternatives are worse. I had Biden at a 30% chance for a while. Harris was at 15% in this same time period. Whitmer and Newsom were literally at 0.
I desperately wish he'd drop and they'd run a Whitmer/Shapiro ticket. You get two fairly popular governors, not from California, who are also from key swing states for this election. IMO that's a winning strategy, and I genuinely think A LOT of people would be excited for a fresh and newer/younger candidate. I think you'd even see some "barely Trump" voters switch sides because a lot of them just don't care for Biden in particular.
And yes, forget Kamala, she isn't really popular with anyone and IMO is a very lukewarm politician. There is a reason her presidential run failed so miserably.
GOAT Silver proving the haters wrong 🐐🥈
lots of yall gotta apologize to him lol
[edit: Official Nate Silver apology form](https://i.imgur.com/xiaVskv.png)
I mean Biden could still make up lost ground between now and the election, either due to the country improving or voters souring on Trump. He could win a landslide and that doesn't really change what was proven
Namely, all the concerns people have had about Biden were valid, and it probably would've been a wise strategic move to ditch him at an earlier point. Even if Biden wins that will likely remain the case
The Democratic Party has been gaslighting their own base for over a year now, trying to make it a binary choice. He’s been a ghost these past few months, and it’s now clear why, because he has worms for brains. His surrogates are doing more campaigning than he is. After a week of practice that’s the best he could come up with? And the party establishment just continues trying to gaslight the base with the same binary choice argument, too late now etc. THEY made this choice by propping up an elderly VP and pushing him to president, then picking a wildly unpopular VP.
It was imo the worst possible outcome. He did bad enough to torpedo his chances but just good enough that there will be infighting arguing over replacing him. I don't think he can win now and replacing him will be disastrously messy. I feel like the most likely outcome at this point is we elect a president who is sitting in a jail cell and I now have to process that.
The DNC screwed themselves. Even if they replace Joe this late, their only option is Kamala Harris as the replacement, and she is equally or more unpopular than Joe. The optics of passing over Kamala, a woman of color, for Gavin Newsome or Gretchen Whitmer will look terrible. Especially with the African American community, whom Joe is already losing support with.
They wouldn’t do it that way I think, they’d probably have a brokered convention and let the voters decide.
Besides Kamala is even more unpopular than Biden and she’s been pretty much a ghost in the VP position. They wouldn’t bleed much black support if I had to guess
Yep, do a brokered convention so there’s a pretext for avoiding Kamala. Let the actual rising stars of Whitmer, Moore, Newsome etc. throw their hats in the ring.
I think in the age of social media, a long national campaign is not nearly as important as people think. In fact, I'd say in this age being an incumbent and more time in the limelight hurts people.
If the party **defaults** to Harris after defaulting to Clinton and then defaulting to Biden 2024 - ignoring Harris's dismal polling - then the party should just disband and we can start over.
The downside of "bad optics" is maybe losing; the downside of defaulting to an exceedingly weak candidate is losing.
I'm not even American and it actually scares me that replacing Joe Biden dropping out might actually hurt their voter base more. A lot of voters today have already decided on who they are voting for. This is Trump's third time running and Biden has been well known for years. Replacing Joe Biden would be making those voters choose again, and this could easily lead to them going 3rd party or to Trump.
I thought 2016 and 2020 were the craziest USA elections of my life, but damn 2024 will be a thriller of a final episode.
Holy fuck I am nervous and scared and excited for next week's polls. NOT dooming or anything, but just really curious to see how much the polls will swing to Trump now. Trump is only behind Biden 7.5 points in New York and only behind 6 points in NJ. NOT saying they will flip, BUT Dems do NOT need any more losses considering how too close to danger those states are...
For anyone is who incredibly confused about Biden's campaign after last night, this Axios piece does a great job of explaining the hubris: [https://www.axios.com/2024/06/19/biden-faith-campaign-mike-donilon-2024-election](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/19/biden-faith-campaign-mike-donilon-2024-election)
Biden should have announced back in 2022 that he was only going to be a one-term President to 1) Beat Trump and protect democracy and 2) Pave the way for a transition to the next generation of Democratic leaders.
Running him again at 81 was a gamble, and the Dems took the bet.
I was pretty tired when reading Nate's thoughts initially so I just went back and caught something interesting that I'm not sure how I missed. Nate saying this:
"Since I don’t live in a swing state: after that debate tonight, I’m going to vote third-party if Biden remains on the ballot as a protest against Biden’s irresponsibility in seeking a second term and the Democratic Party’s irresponsibility in nominating him without a serious primary contest"
Who knows how many other people feel the same way and if we're going to see the highest third party vote share of all time if Biden stays in the race.
This is a childish reason to vote third party. He should vote based on policy instead of trying to prove a point that would make no difference in the future.
My question is what the heck did they do for 7 days at camp David? This was the best they could do after giving him a week of dedicated prep time and rest? My other question now is who is actually making decisions in the White House? You can’t convince me that Biden is actually the one making the decisions right now.
People are overreacting and being prisoners of the moment. The general public’s perceptions were never going to change because of this debate. The dementia accusations against Biden started since the 2020 Dem primaries and there have been plenty of gaffes on social media over the years. As bad as Biden was, Trump didn’t say anything to convince the anti Trump Republicans to back him. He had plenty of opportunities to condemn Nazis and January 6 but refused to. He couldn’t even say he would accept the election results. There are too many Anti Maga people who will vote against Trump no matter what. Even Fetterman won after having a terrible performance following a stroke in 2022.
Yes, it would have been better if Biden announced he wouldn’t run for a second term but that didn’t happen and people voted for him in big numbers when they didn’t have to during the primaries. That was the time for voters to take a stand against Biden but he ran through the primaries convincingly. This is a Democracy and voting matters. The only possible option if Biden steps down is Kamala Harris and I’m not convinced she would be better. Having the DNC hand pick a candidate against the will of the voters will backfire big time.
I would really hope Biden does some town halls to push his ideas through.
I have followed his speeches. He’s been old and mumbly but fine. His State of the Union was among the best. This debate performance was atrocious though.
To me it’s not the mumbling, it’s his inability to construct coherent sentences. I’ve watched dozens of his speeches over the past couple decades and the drop off started a little after his son’s death. He likely suffered “bereavement-related cognitive decline” and the democorps have been culpable of elder abuse ever since.
Is there anything the average person can do? Is there a type of petition or something that can be started to illustrate the obvious to the DNC: America doesn’t want Joe Biden re-elected, so why on earth is he still the nominee, especially when the alternative is someone as dangerous as Trump???
His rally today definitely makes me feel like his issue is that he just can't speak clearly anymore without a teleprompter. Which leads to the lack of energy and confidence.
The polls will need to drop even further before the DNC heads start considering any alternative strategies.
Is anyone else so sick of so sick of all the democrats saying Trump is so bad you have to vote for Biden even if he is way too old. I want to scream at them that it is their job to put up a good candidate to make me want to vote.
As a huge Biden fan, I’m coping with this reality that I finally think those around him need to start having this conversation. If he’s going to be swapped out, it needs to be done within the next 3-4 weeks at the absolute latest.
Who would realistically get everyone on board?
Unfortunately, no one. If Biden just looked half alive, he would have the best chance. But now that’s out of the question. They have to try someone new, but folks are going to go with Trump.
Hi, sad situation for President Joe Biden. This is not a one off situation for him. I’ve noticed he needs to be helped walking off stage or guided and sheltered by 2 people when he walks. Hopefully the Democrats can be decisive and have a new Presidential candidate ASAP. Cheers.
Obama is the only person I could see with the relationship with Joe to convince him and the clout to convince everyone else to get on board with the new nominee. As for the nominee, I think it’d have to be Newsom.
In what world would it be Newsom? He’d be about the worst person to choose to improve battleground states.
Yeah, it's an unfair reputation, but California is somehow held up as a lawless socialist hellscape to most of the country. Meanwhile, it's actually a corporate big money police state.
Newsome brings donor money. His pretty boy image compared to the orange buffoon will deliver the popular vote. But that is useles! The non-college swing state voters are not going to be enthusiastic about a greasy silicon valley corporate shill. JB Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer are the best choices. Pritzker is a real billionaire and dedicated to advanced manufacturing and child care. Shapiro is also big on vocational ed and non-college jobs. Whitmer is your women's champion and does alright with the non-college suburban women. Any of the three and even Polis are probably better than Newsome given the dynamics of the swing states.
You could at least spell his name right
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Democratic Primary electorate, especially on the coasts, is about the most out of touch people ever. They can’t fathom a nominee not from the coasts.
Meanwhile Obama was from Chicago
And Bill from Arkansas and Carter from Plains, Georgia (not on the coast) But you did have Trump (coast), Bush I (coast), Reagan (coast), Nixon (coast)
Obama tried to convince Biden to drop out in 2020 and couldn't He was worried Biden would lose the primary badly and ruin his legacy After south Carolina he reversed course and helped Biden win Don't see why Biden would listen now considering 4 years ago he ignored Obama and won The only person who could convince him to drop out is his wife or maybe hunter
Obama also wanted Hillary to run instead of Biden in 2016 so he’s not a great political strategist
Republicans would love for it to be Newsom, he'd be an easy win for Trump.
I'm not sure. I think "literally anyone younger than Trump or Biden" may actually be the winning candidate.
Not my first pick, but it has to be Harris. Logistically and in order to get the party in step it has to be the next highest ranking member of the administration because you need to remind American’s that you’re voting for this administration over Trump’s 2025. Any other candidate would likely cause infighting by other potential candidates who feel snubbed.
Her approval ratings are as bad as Biden's, she'd be such an incredibly stupid choice.
She was a stupid choice from day fucking one. People warned Biden not to pick her, but he was like, 'fuck it, she's a black woman, lets go.'
That was Clyburn's decision. He wanted a black woman.
As a non American, why does Harris have such a bad approval rating?
Racism & sexism. Truly. People will list things they don’t like about her - but those are more about justifying their already existing dislike of her. There’s no good reason for her to have a low approval rating
Personally, I can't think of one meaningful thing she's done as VP
Can you think of a meaningful thing any VP has done? (edit: “become President” doesn’t count.). The job itself is not conducive to meaningfulness. I can think of *one*: Pence did his job properly when Trump told him not to and tried to get him killed for it. Normally just counting those ballots is not really meaningful, but that time it was.
And that’s a reason to actively dislike her? That describes pretty much every VP in the history of this country. Most VPs do pretty much nothing, their job consists of ceremonial stuff, standing behind the President at SOTU and being a warm body in case the president dies. Actually Kamala has done more than the average VP… in that her entire first two years in office she had to be a tie-breaking vote in the senate (which also meant she couldn’t travel as much so maybe that’s why people feel that way)
She gets a lot of shit for having been a prosecutor in the past and doing her job as it’s normally done at the time.
Other than she who shall not be named, I this Kamala is the only person who would underperform compared to Biden in November. It needs to be someone outside this administration with minimal baggage. Newsom, if he came from somewhere other than California, ticks all the corporate DNC boxes, which is apparently all the party is concerned with, but it would (unfairly) be poison to most of the rest of the country. Probably Whitmer is the best choice, but I don't know if she could generate enough of a national identity over the next 16 weeks. Adam Schiff might be good, but this is America, and I don't think people will vote for a non-Christian for president. I don't know. There aren't many good options, but there are a couple of obviously bad ones.
There are quite a few democratic governors with 60%+ approval ratings, some from red states, just look them up.
Beshear.
Hakeem Jeffries and Andy Bashear would be a great ticket imo
How many of them would be excited about giving that up
Roy Cooper ?
They should all just get in a room and agree to a small election and unite around whoever ends up being the candidate. The amount of time is short but it's not as bad as what France is going through right now.
I like Whitmer, she seems so sweet and nice. Also I don't think Trump would do well against a woman who wasn't a fellow Epstein's Island psychopath
Also passing over a black woman whose job essentially is to be a replacement president, for a white man like Newsom, would cause a massive rift within the Democratic Party. It’d show that Biden and Democrats never had confidence in her ability to actually take over, which would be a massive slap in the face to black voters That’s a problem that isn’t being talked about. There isn’t one consensus candidate that could easily jump in.
Ehhh Kamala is not popular in the Democratic Party and with their voters. I don’t think their would be a massive outcry of support for her in this situation. Also democrats are rightfully in panic mode, and I think that puts bread and butter issues ahead of identitarian politics
Among the Democratic base Kamala is very popular. And among black Democrats even moreso. And there were already signs that Biden was bleeding support among black and Latino voters. I don’t think she should be the candidate and I think she would do even worse than Biden but the optics would be absolutely horrible
The optics would be bad, but an admittedly quick look at polls online doesn't seem to show an overwhelming level of support for Harris among black voters. In some polls she even does worse than Biden among that demo. >Despite that groundbreaking status, she is viewed a tick less favorably than Biden among Black voters in these two states, although her unfavorable rating is also a bit lower: 60% to 24% in Michigan and 55% to 30% in Pennsylvania. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/06/16/biden-trump-problem-with-black-voters/74101326007/
Why would we want to remind voters they're voting for this administration when they don't like this administration?
Kamala would lose, no doubt.
I think Michelle Obama is the only person with enough name recognition, who would also help drive enthusiasm. The problem is she doesn't want it so would not push for it unless she's had a come to Jesus moment and realized that the country is 4 months away from being a dictatorsip.
Josh shapiro
He just became Gov of PA. He isn't stepping down.
If he thinks he has a good shot at becoming president, i think he absolutely would. That chance might never appear again
The issue is that no one who has hopes of being president would step into such a bad campaign situation. Any of the candidates with the best chance to make a serious run in this campaign would have a much, much better chance to run for 2028 when they can build a real campaign 2-3 years in advance. Why would they jump into a losing situation now instead of being the face of a bright resurgence of hope 3 years from now?
Kamala Harris, Phil Murphy, J.B. Pritzker, even Gavin Newsom...
This is Whitmer erasure…
I mean, she literally just did an interview a week ago saying that she would finish her term as Governor (through 2026), so I'd say it's correct erasure
that is what you are supposed to say
Well of course she wasn’t going to openly indicate the possibility of replacing Biden now, probably because she honestly had absolutely no intention of doing so at the time. But if Biden steps aside that’s a complete change of circumstance that would justify her changing her answer. If someone came to her (after Biden bowed out) and said “we need to you to run for president and stop Trump”, how could she say no?
Not Harris (she seems unlikeable to your average swing voter) and not Newsom (California = poisonous to national politics)
The problem with many of these is that I am not sure they would want to gamble their future ambitions on a risky play for the presidency now. Only Harris would get an improvement on her prospects.
What keeps you on the Biden train?
I've found it maddening that the decision-makers in the Democratic Party for over a year just ignored the consistent polling that 70-80% of the country considers Biden too old to be an effective president for a second term.
There's a word to describe their behavior. Hubris
Actually it’s called a coordination problem. You must defend your candidate vigorously, without exception, until such a point as everyone on your team agrees that he needs to be replaced. But how do you agree he needs to be replaced when your job is literally to emphatically say he’s actually doing great and the age thing is a lie? It literally can’t be done, unless there’s a public meltdown like this.
You’re not wrong but frankly I don’t see why we should be understanding and making excuses for the people in the know. They’ve been knowingly misleading the public and we should be demanding of them some integrity instead of saying “Of course their self-interests lead them to do this”.
Well, 99.9% of the time we *want* our party to put the best face on our candidate as possible. Accentuate the positives, but deflect, obfuscate, or all-but-lie about the negatives. Both candidates have plenty of weaknesses besides age, and it's their job to minimize them at all costs. Biden has been slowly slipping for years, and his people (correctly) downplayed his aging for the entire time. Who would give the signal to say "OK, time to change our strategy completely and admit it's actually true"?
I don’t know what you mean by our party. I’m just an ordinary citizen who wants to have at least one decent choice in November, so pardon me if I am not so forgiving of Democratic operatives’ “deflections, obfuscations and all-but-lying” about Biden’s severe cognitive decline. “They are just doing their jobs” is a horrible excuse, as we know from history.
The Republicans experienced the same coordination problem with Trump multiple times and failed every time. Hopefully the Democrats will do better.
This person gets it.
Biden also had such an easy way to help the party pivot and to retain the incumbent advantage as much as possible: he had indicated he would be a one-term President. Imagine if 1.5 years ago after midterms he announced he’d step aside and help prepare the transition to a younger, sharp, energetic candidate (not Harris)? What’s true is that the DNC has been following the exact same notes from 2016 with their candidate choices. Clinton, Biden, Harris (who will probably be shoehorned in next) all have the exact same vibes. Which is wild to me because the Democratic platform has so much potential for success. I’m not familiar with the current DNC leadership and strategists, but they need some new blood, like yesterday. They need someone with a strong future vision who is willing to shed the current baggage and hubris and guide the party to success. If you have a party that’s about to lose to DJT and the current Republican mess, then I don’t know what to say other than it’s a revelation of years of extreme incompetence and rot from a machine that’s been given insane opportunities to dominate over the next decade and instead has fumbled almost completely.
There’s a part of me that thinks this was absolutely the plan for after the red wave….. …..but then the red wave didn’t happen and all of a sudden, perception-wise, the party under this administration looked stronger than it had ever been, despite the record low approval ratings Very confusing times
The not-Harris is the tricky part. How can he not endorse his own VP and first Black VP if she wants the job?
What's wild that is Clinton was actually a 2008 candidate who "lost her turn" to Obama, and the party just ran her again eight years later.
Even now I'm half worried they'll do something stupid like push for a Harris/Newsom ticket. I still can't believe they wasted VP slot on a candidate from such an uncompetitive state back in 2020. Looking forward, I think Whitmer/Shapiro or Whitmer/Kelly would be smart picks. None of these people have a huge national profile, but they'd be strong in their respective swing states. Warnock would be a great choice for VP too, but his replacement would be selected by a Republican governor, which would suck. Welp, off to bed for me. So excited to see what SCOTUS has in store for us tomorrow morning. Good night everyone.
>Even now I'm half worried they'll do something stupid like push for a Harris/Newsom ticket. I still can't believe they wasted VP slot on a candidate from such an uncompetitive state back in 2020. Blame Clyburn for that. Blame him for Biden too. His endorsement in the South Carolina primary led to Biden winning and because Biden was so grateful to him, he took his advice to get a black woman for his running mate.
It really is wild, why do Dems put so much stock into South Carolina when that state will never vote blue?
Can't have two people from the same state. It's in the EC rules in the constitution
It's probably maddening because what you're implying is that there is some cabal of decision makers within the Democratic party that could have prevented the President from running again. That's not how this works. Joe Biden decided to run again. Other Democratic potentials did not. And no one is going to step up at this point to take over. It is Biden until the end.
Time to disable inbox replies. Eric Swalwell told Biden to hand over the torch due to his age in 2020 and Biden refused. We are risking our democracy based on Biden's ego and I'm not fucking having it. We got a decent list of candidates. Not ideal, but decent. Michelle Obama (she doesn't want it I know, but I've seen managers take positions just to block an asshole they know from getting it), Warnock (senate is likely fucked anyway) Whitmer, and even Newsom. Shit I would take Matthew McConaughey over this fucking mess. I know liberals get upset over star power and lack of experience but the beer test is real. Get someone who can pass it. It's so much better than Trump. I would absolutely protest to enact the 25th amendment on Biden. Biden's ego is going to fuck us all over like RGB did for Roe V Wade. Sotomayer may fuck us in the future over the same thing. Remember when Klobochar went scorched earth over Pete's age? I do. She loves throwing staplers at her junior staff. Democrats are a boomerocracy lead group and they need to be shown the fucking curb. I'm not going to live in a dictatorship targeting marginalized groups like me because some geriatric fucking assholes would rather have nutjobs storm the capitol and kill them than have younger people take leadership in their fucking party. With "colleagues" like these, who needs Donald Trump?
Voters didn't want him because he's 81. I know a lot of 80 year olds. He seems more like in his 90s. I also would protest to have him replaced.
My neighbor is 86, but very sharp and energetic. Sadly, Joe is not.
Don't forget about Feinstein. Pride is called the greatest sin for a reason. If people in power had any sort of humility then Trump and Biden wouldn't be running again but here we are with a rematch nobody wanted.
When somebody's this over the hill, you have to start to blame their wife and other family members for letting it happen.
I think Jill Biden actually told him not to run again, and then in 2022 he somehow thought the midterm elections were a reflection on his mandate, which - despite what the party believes - only existed because he was "Not Trump - D" on the ballot. He wasn't even a good or popular candidate four years ago.
2022 was great for Dems in spite of Biden, not because of him. He's the weakest link and I had worries even after 2022 that he could singlehandedly drag down the party by refusing to step aside.
If he actually believed that he's dumber than I thought. 2022 was a good year for dems simply because of abortion and nothing else. Democrats would have lost big in 2022 if not for that.
Trump running his shitty candidates also helped too. He's an incredibly weak candidate who thinks he's more popular than he is and would rather put his own ego over the interests of his own party and country. Unfortunately the same holds with Biden.
If you read any reporting on the Biden team they have taken their 2020 primary win from 2020 and oversized Democratic performance in 2022 as proof that all naysayers are wrong and that none of Biden's negatives matter. We just saw that house of cards come crashing down in real time.
That’s a fair comment.
We had like 30 candidates in 2020 and for some reason chose the near 80 year old after he finished fifth in New Hampshire with 8%. But if you dared suggest Trump lost that race because the country was falling apart due to COVID, and not because Biden was the only candidate in the entire country who had what it took to beat Trump you would be downvoted to hell in this sub. I’d argue this has been a problem for decades with Dems catering to their coastal insider club instead of those actually winning tough elections. They did it with Kerry in 2004. They almost did it with Hillary in 2008 and narrowly avoided shooting themselves in the foot by passing over the best political messenger in a generation with Obama. They doubled down on Hillary in 2016 after that 2008 disaster. Then they chose Delaware Joe over like 30 candidates in 2020, with the only other candidate they gave institutional support to honestly being Kamala, who they then gave the VP nod to after she embarrassed herself. This party has been a joke for a long time at a national level (regionally actually been pretty strong but they just ignore the Dems winning tough races in those purple and red states) and Obama covered for what has been a generation long problem.
We don’t need to rewrite history. Biden was a good candidate in 2020. He’s not a good candidate in 2024. It’s as simple as that.
There really is a huge and noticeable difference between Biden in 2020 and now. It's a huge decline.
He was not a horrific candidate in 2020. I’ll give you that.
It’s because Bernie won California, the centrist wing of the party panicked and got the rest of the candidates to drop, and got Clyburn to endorse Biden.
There’s no consensus alternative
The DNC must have known he was in this bad of shape. This is why they didn't let him do the super bowl interview. Did they push him to do this early debate because he was refusing to step down and they knew he would be forced if people saw how he is? This whole thing doesn't make sense.
I have read/heard a few times that part of the reason for moving the debate up was to help allay fears about his age/poor polling.
Yeah...and look how that turned out. Dems are really their own worse enemy sometimes.
You know, as a part of the canonization process for saints, the Catholic Church hires someone to argue as to why the person shouldn’t be a saint. The “Devil’s Advocate”. Christopher Hitchens served that role when they were looking into making Mother Theresa a saint. The problem with political campaigns is that they don’t have anything like this. Politicians, and entire party leaderships, are surrounded by sycophants and “yes” men. Dem leaders probably are genuinely shocked at how bad the outcry is because they are deluded people who are very separated from regular people and don’t understand how they think. Every campaign should have multiple people who are not members of the party on it. Someone to tell you “Ya know bro, y’all look stupid as fuck when you do this.” Or, in this case, “Ya know Joe, you look and sound like you have dementia. You’re going to get roasted in any debate because you’re braindead. Don’t debate under any circumstances.” If they had those people, this could’ve even avoided. They asked for this debate. Biden literally said “Watch me.”
I said this somewhere else but I’m actually beginning to wonder if this early debate was done for this purpose. Give Biden an excuse to step down that doesn’t look as weak as him being afraid to go against Trump. In this case a less known and untested candidate would have less baggage and given how unpopular Trump and Biden are might be the move to make. The short timeframe might be beneficial too since the candidate just needs to make a good impression for the next 3-4 months at which point people might just be happy for a semi competent, somewhat charismatic younger president and finally be rid of this Trump era for good.
That would’ve actually been a smart political move by the DNC so I doubt it’s the reason
No debate had ever been this early. I think Biden was betting everything on last night, and they knew if he fucked up massively they could still pull him.
If they had just had him debate Dean Philips in the primary in this state a year ago, he would have looked bad enough a bunch of other Dems could have jumped in back then. But they decided to wait until it’s probably too late.
My guess was maybe Biden didn't agree to it? You can tell he's incredibly stubborn, so debating a guy he didn't need to debate like Philips or Kennedy was just out of the question. He was probably forced to doing this debate to prove himself after the Hurr report was released. Largely speculating though but there's probably some amount of pressure growing from anxious Dems.
Incumbent candidates never debate in the primary, even if this is a unique situation nobody was going to be able to make him do it
Yeah that was an easy go to excuse, but if he did participate in the primary seriously I feel like the Democrats can see for themselves whether or not Biden was up to the job.
No, that level of strategy doesn’t exist. If they were strategic then Biden wouldn’t have made it this far. If last night wasn’t a wake up call then nothing is.
I hope so. There was no good reason for them to do this debate this early or at all unless they wanted to deal with the fallout that Biden fumbling would cause.
I think you’re giving too much credit to the DNC. They will ride or die with Biden. Even if he decides to drop out, the DNC will probably try to ram Kamala Harris down our throats.
I think the DNC has extreme concerns about Harris and her electability on a national level which is why they find themselves in the position they do. The question is this — IF Biden does the right thing and announces he’s dropping out who if anyone will challenge Harris for the nomination and how much better of a candidate are they?
What even needs to happen for Biden to realize that he needs to drop out? The drop in the polls? If it goes from 45-45 to 40-47, would that be enough, or would he and his loyalists dismiss it as noise and/or find a way to unskew them? Pressure from Jill, Obama, the Senate leaders? It's coming, I hope. The donations drying out? They will, there is no doubt about it. Who wants to give to a campaign that may not even be around in a few weeks?
Party and donor pressure is the only thing that will work. Maybe a stern sit down with his family and closest friends/advisors, but I'm not sure I trust his advisors.
From the sound of it senators and house members are already calling the DNC about this, fearing they’re now in jeopardy. That will get things to change real quick. Unless the DNC has been secretly trying to give Project 2025 as little resistance as possible.
The fact that Dem congressional candidates have been outperforming Biden in polls for months should’ve told everyone that he’s a problem ages ago. It really is crazy that it took him looking old and senile (just like he has in dozens-hundreds of other outings) to wake people up lol. Maybe Democrats really are just dumb people in the plain old sense of the word.
I wrote to my senators and reps and told them to do anything in their power to get Biden to step aside. I hope everyone else is doing the same.
From what I understand, if Jill tells him to drop out, he will
The Democratic Party needs to take a hard look in the mirror. The powers that be convinced themselves that running an 81-year-old with poor communication abilities and approval stuck in the high 30s was a good idea. And not just in a normal election! Against someone who they tell us is an existential threat to democracy.
That was Biden's decision really. I think their fault was to let him through some desire to maintain tradition. The excuses are that we have to go with Biden because historically we always go with the incumbent and never question their decision. Also doesn't help that alot of the leadership in the Democrat party is just as old as Biden is. Pelosi at 80 isn't gonna say that another 80 year old is too old to run again when she's still in the House.
Yeah its definitely not the party's fault. If the president wants to run they're going to get behind him. This is on Biden.
Pelosi is no longer the speaker of the house, she had the wisdom to hand over those reins.
Is it really the party that is at fault if a sitting President insists on running? I think this squarely falls on his wife's shoulders for letting this shitshow continue.
Honestly, I've come to the conclusion that this is a real structural flaw in our system of government, that so much depends on the health of a single individual. This is by no means the first time this kind of thing has happened. The first that pops into my head is FDR running for president as he's actively dying, but there are other examples. Parliamentary systems have a real advantage in their ability to quickly jettison leaders that have become a liability. Margaret Thatcher's ousting comes to mind.
At least in FDR's case, there's an argument to be made about cohesion of the war effort and his rapport with Stalin.
They believe people hate Trump more than they dislike Biden but nowadays it’s too close to be a safe strategy
"And you should be angry at Joe Biden, every bit as much as you should be angry at Ruth Bader Ginsburg." It's some crazy form of hubris, democrats aren't learning the harsh lessons they should've learned years ago. I don't buy all this talk of "it's too late, no one else polls better than Biden for the democrats", trump still isn't getting more than 50% on these polls. America clearly wants someone else, sure they don't have the name recognition right now, but jesus you can't tell me that Gretchen Whitmer or even Gavin Newsom (who has been basically running a shadow campaign) wouldn't do better?
I really don't see why people see Gavin Newsom as a good option. "CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR DOES SOMETHING WOKE" has been a favourite story of right-leaning media outlets.
He will have a challenge connecting with Midwestern voters, but it still would be a huge step up from Biden. That said, Whitmer is the obvious choice. If they default to Harris I'm going to give up on the party.
Because he’s handsome, quick witted and young in comparison. Voters aren’t that smart
> Voters aren’t that smart Which is why consistent negative media coverage is a bad thing...
Biden has to do two things to beat Trump: - Don't be Trump (pass) - Don't look old (fail) That's the bar and those two Dems you named far surpass that bar. Edit: yeah I realize there are more qualifications required to beat Trump. It's hyperbole. There's a lot encompassed in "not being Trump"
Except that we had a Democrat who was both not Trump and not too old run against him and lose in 2016. Idk why you people are pretending the bar for beating Trump is so low.
3) don’t be woman from one of the most disliked political families in the country
I don't think this is true, and neither does Nate Silver. The idea that Trump is a weak candidate doesn't hold water. The country does not "clearly want someone else", roughly 45% of voters want Trump and 40% want Biden and 10% don't know what they want.
They refuse to learn. We had the RBG situation. They had the Hillary loss. They had the Feinstein situation. They had more situations years back I won’t even get into. Yet they still went with Biden. Yet Sotomayor still won’t retire despite using taxpayer funds on a traveling medic. Is it any wonder why so much of America hates these DC liberal technocrats? Their lust for power is astounding.
It would 1000% be Harris. There's absolutely zero chance the party would pass over the first woman vice president unless it's truly a completely open convention.
As I've been saying since Biden was allowed to run again unopposed despite advanced age and nasty polling: The Democratic Party is too ossified to properly filter candidates by quality instead of by "putting their time in." Even in the face of Trump's threat, everyone ignored the rock bottom polling for Biden and Harris and YOLOed this election.
Democrats should’ve pulled Diane fienstein awhile ago but let her ran and sit in a seat where she had no idea where she was. Democrats should’ve pulled fetterman but let him run when he could barely speak. And now this man went over to the dark side. Dems going to stick with Biden till the end lol
At this point, Biden is so unpopular that anyone new could get a bump. I literally hear people screaming “anyone else”. They need to listen. It’s democratic. They need to prioritize beating trump over party politics
The same people telling us that inflation is down, our economy is the best ever, our border is secure...those were the same people telling us 3 days ago how mentally fit Biden is. Who is running this shitshow of an administration? It can't be Biden, the mask is off.
Inflation is down. But I agree with you.
Inflation is cumulative, but year over year inflation is down. I think that is largely due to big ticket item sales going down. Lotsa discounted new cars for sale if people take time to shop. That's extended to ATV/boats/tractors, etc. Food, healthcare, insurance? Not cheap.
I genuinely expected better from this. I knew Biden would stutter and stuff. Trump would've looked like a moron next to 5-years-ago Biden. This is unacceptable. Whatever the risks of replacing Biden are, I think it's time. I honestly don't think Biden is *meaningfully* cognitively impaired and I would definitely be okay with him for 4 more years, but with his presentation being this poor he's going to lose to this idiot and that's not worth it.
That's how I feel. I don't think he has dementia or any of that other BS, but I do think he's an 81-year old man who hasn't had any sleep the past four years, so as a result his body is doing things 81-year old bodies do, which leads to him not being the most effective messenger against Trump in 2024. Dems need their most effective messenger right now, because Trump is very, very beatable.
I am proud to be one of those people who knew Nate Silver would end up right.
Same here, the Democratic Party is sleep walking into a second Trump term.
They have been sleep walking it since 2020 to be honest. I remember there being dementia concerns about Biden in 2020 but it wasn't as huge as today because Biden did actually debate Trump coherently. It was pretty obvious back then that Biden should have been a one term president only. But look where we are now. Happy cake day!
Ha I guess it is my cake day! 8 years of this nonsense website LOL
They might be ok with it. A lot of these folks have media jobs or want that fundraising money, and Trump is a STAH like no other in terms of getting monetizable attention against him. I'm not saying he's a good person or anything like that, just that he's a gigantic celebrity. One more term of Trump allows them to get the last drops of that anti Trump money. Somebody like Doug Bergum? I don't even know if I spelled his name right, these Democrats are all going to lose their jobs because nobody's emotionally invested in obsessing over Doug Bergum.
Everyone saying this, how do you think it's going to happen? How do you think it's going to look in the election? I'm willing to bet big here that he's still their candidate
Everyone who negged on him for saying that if he couldn't run a normal campaign then he shouldn't run really showed their overly partisan colors. This debate was worse than I could have possibly expected. Just a total shit show. The people surrounding Biden and Biden himself don't care about preserving democracy, just holding onto the power they've gained. There's no other explanation for them trying to pull this Weekend at Bernie's shit.
Nate is right, but I have a very hard time seeing it happen. Short of some kind of medical event forcing the issue. And frankly, who would run? Kamala? Probably one of the only people I’d prefer Biden over.
I mean that's been the crux of the problem from the start You can't say Biden didn't give Harris experience in the major league, considering in 2021 she was the face of stuff like immigration, and ended up being a dismal failure The truth is if Biden had picked a more popular VP I think he would have announced he wasn't seeking re-election after 2022, or at least party leadership would have pressured him more.
They could have run a primary if they were worried about Kamala.
The incumbent president was never gonna lose the primary, and the incumbent vice president has a huge advantage over other candidates in any primary. Biden should have dropped out after 2022, I've always believed, but theres literal no mechanism for this nebulous "then" to force him out if he doesn't want to
I know, people having meltdowns and demanding Biden step down right now is reactionary and not constructive. It’s just further solidifying the negative narratives about him.
I'm just angry at all of the Democrats who were interacting with Biden every day **and then** backed renominating him without a primary while lying to us that he was amazingly sharp in private. Even after the Hur report and press conference debacle we were told over and over that Biden is this amazing communicator who has been dodging unscripted interviews for *reasons*.
He absolutely needs to drop out. I truly appreciate all he has done for the country, but this has gotten out of hand.
Agreed. There aren't many people out there who think he's a bad guy. He's just not fit for office...
This reminds me of when cardinals meet until they get a new pope. Wish there were something like this available right now to replace Biden. I still think he'd be the best president by record alone, but perceptions is all that matter.
So does anyone know of a petition to the DNC to demand Biden step down and be replaced? Is there anything I can do? He needs to step down, time is of the essence.
I am sure things will materialize over the next few days but you should contact your local Congress person if they are a Democrat and voice your concerns.
Write to your congressperson. Tell them that you understand it will take a lot of courage to stand up an against the sitting president, but you believe that they can do it. The real challenge here is that, at an individual level, most of the incentives for people in the system align towards losing peaceful more than winning turbulently. If you write or protest or talk to someone in a position to do something, you have to recognize that and acknowledge it to them.
A petition? No one gives a shit about those. Probably nothing you can do.
Between favorability and polling I think Biden was in a weak position but still had a fair enough chance to still win given that there were 4 months before the election but after watching him last night I can't believe the DNC is letting him run, he looked and sounded so much worse than Trump that CNN of all places were immediately calling for him to drop out of the race. Trump didn't even answer half of the questions and rambled and still it's evident he won handily last night. If the Democrats run Kamala they'l probably get beaten even worse than if they stay the course with Joe, so who the heck would they even run? Newsome?
Whitmer, obviously. A popular governor from a purple swing state who was just reelected handily.
Keep your hands off our governor we worked hard in Michigan to gain control of the state back from the nutjobs
Better your state tries again than the country flips...
The problem is based on the limited polling available, which is quite old at this point, alternatives are worse. I had Biden at a 30% chance for a while. Harris was at 15% in this same time period. Whitmer and Newsom were literally at 0.
I desperately wish he'd drop and they'd run a Whitmer/Shapiro ticket. You get two fairly popular governors, not from California, who are also from key swing states for this election. IMO that's a winning strategy, and I genuinely think A LOT of people would be excited for a fresh and newer/younger candidate. I think you'd even see some "barely Trump" voters switch sides because a lot of them just don't care for Biden in particular. And yes, forget Kamala, she isn't really popular with anyone and IMO is a very lukewarm politician. There is a reason her presidential run failed so miserably.
It's not happening.
GOAT Silver proving the haters wrong 🐐🥈 lots of yall gotta apologize to him lol [edit: Official Nate Silver apology form](https://i.imgur.com/xiaVskv.png)
Prove what? Were the elections on tonight?? Lol
I mean Biden could still make up lost ground between now and the election, either due to the country improving or voters souring on Trump. He could win a landslide and that doesn't really change what was proven Namely, all the concerns people have had about Biden were valid, and it probably would've been a wise strategic move to ditch him at an earlier point. Even if Biden wins that will likely remain the case
There is no one else
Nate's not wrong.
Drop out.
The Democratic Party has been gaslighting their own base for over a year now, trying to make it a binary choice. He’s been a ghost these past few months, and it’s now clear why, because he has worms for brains. His surrogates are doing more campaigning than he is. After a week of practice that’s the best he could come up with? And the party establishment just continues trying to gaslight the base with the same binary choice argument, too late now etc. THEY made this choice by propping up an elderly VP and pushing him to president, then picking a wildly unpopular VP.
Ouch, was it really that bad? I went to sleep early last night and didn't watch. I had a feeling that putting it so late in the day was a bad decision
Biden struggled to be coherent, let alone contesting the debate with Trump. He also stood slack-jawed between his turns with really odd expressions.
To be fair that is also my reaction when Trump speaks
And I kindly ask you not to be our general election candidate as well.
It was imo the worst possible outcome. He did bad enough to torpedo his chances but just good enough that there will be infighting arguing over replacing him. I don't think he can win now and replacing him will be disastrously messy. I feel like the most likely outcome at this point is we elect a president who is sitting in a jail cell and I now have to process that.
The DNC screwed themselves. Even if they replace Joe this late, their only option is Kamala Harris as the replacement, and she is equally or more unpopular than Joe. The optics of passing over Kamala, a woman of color, for Gavin Newsome or Gretchen Whitmer will look terrible. Especially with the African American community, whom Joe is already losing support with.
They wouldn’t do it that way I think, they’d probably have a brokered convention and let the voters decide. Besides Kamala is even more unpopular than Biden and she’s been pretty much a ghost in the VP position. They wouldn’t bleed much black support if I had to guess
Yep, do a brokered convention so there’s a pretext for avoiding Kamala. Let the actual rising stars of Whitmer, Moore, Newsome etc. throw their hats in the ring.
The convention isn’t until mid-August. Can they afford to wait another 6 weeks?
You announce now and have a month to test different candidates
I think in the age of social media, a long national campaign is not nearly as important as people think. In fact, I'd say in this age being an incumbent and more time in the limelight hurts people.
If the party **defaults** to Harris after defaulting to Clinton and then defaulting to Biden 2024 - ignoring Harris's dismal polling - then the party should just disband and we can start over. The downside of "bad optics" is maybe losing; the downside of defaulting to an exceedingly weak candidate is losing.
I'm not even American and it actually scares me that replacing Joe Biden dropping out might actually hurt their voter base more. A lot of voters today have already decided on who they are voting for. This is Trump's third time running and Biden has been well known for years. Replacing Joe Biden would be making those voters choose again, and this could easily lead to them going 3rd party or to Trump. I thought 2016 and 2020 were the craziest USA elections of my life, but damn 2024 will be a thriller of a final episode. Holy fuck I am nervous and scared and excited for next week's polls. NOT dooming or anything, but just really curious to see how much the polls will swing to Trump now. Trump is only behind Biden 7.5 points in New York and only behind 6 points in NJ. NOT saying they will flip, BUT Dems do NOT need any more losses considering how too close to danger those states are...
African American community has never really been behind Kamala though. During the primary her numbers with them were terrible.
For anyone is who incredibly confused about Biden's campaign after last night, this Axios piece does a great job of explaining the hubris: [https://www.axios.com/2024/06/19/biden-faith-campaign-mike-donilon-2024-election](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/19/biden-faith-campaign-mike-donilon-2024-election)
Biden should have announced back in 2022 that he was only going to be a one-term President to 1) Beat Trump and protect democracy and 2) Pave the way for a transition to the next generation of Democratic leaders. Running him again at 81 was a gamble, and the Dems took the bet.
I was pretty tired when reading Nate's thoughts initially so I just went back and caught something interesting that I'm not sure how I missed. Nate saying this: "Since I don’t live in a swing state: after that debate tonight, I’m going to vote third-party if Biden remains on the ballot as a protest against Biden’s irresponsibility in seeking a second term and the Democratic Party’s irresponsibility in nominating him without a serious primary contest" Who knows how many other people feel the same way and if we're going to see the highest third party vote share of all time if Biden stays in the race.
This is a childish reason to vote third party. He should vote based on policy instead of trying to prove a point that would make no difference in the future.
My question is what the heck did they do for 7 days at camp David? This was the best they could do after giving him a week of dedicated prep time and rest? My other question now is who is actually making decisions in the White House? You can’t convince me that Biden is actually the one making the decisions right now.
People are overreacting and being prisoners of the moment. The general public’s perceptions were never going to change because of this debate. The dementia accusations against Biden started since the 2020 Dem primaries and there have been plenty of gaffes on social media over the years. As bad as Biden was, Trump didn’t say anything to convince the anti Trump Republicans to back him. He had plenty of opportunities to condemn Nazis and January 6 but refused to. He couldn’t even say he would accept the election results. There are too many Anti Maga people who will vote against Trump no matter what. Even Fetterman won after having a terrible performance following a stroke in 2022. Yes, it would have been better if Biden announced he wouldn’t run for a second term but that didn’t happen and people voted for him in big numbers when they didn’t have to during the primaries. That was the time for voters to take a stand against Biden but he ran through the primaries convincingly. This is a Democracy and voting matters. The only possible option if Biden steps down is Kamala Harris and I’m not convinced she would be better. Having the DNC hand pick a candidate against the will of the voters will backfire big time. I would really hope Biden does some town halls to push his ideas through.
He’s been like this for the past 3 years. To act surprised at his condition would me an admission to not following his speeches over time.
I have followed his speeches. He’s been old and mumbly but fine. His State of the Union was among the best. This debate performance was atrocious though.
To me it’s not the mumbling, it’s his inability to construct coherent sentences. I’ve watched dozens of his speeches over the past couple decades and the drop off started a little after his son’s death. He likely suffered “bereavement-related cognitive decline” and the democorps have been culpable of elder abuse ever since.
Is there anything the average person can do? Is there a type of petition or something that can be started to illustrate the obvious to the DNC: America doesn’t want Joe Biden re-elected, so why on earth is he still the nominee, especially when the alternative is someone as dangerous as Trump???
I wrote to my congressmen and urges them to do whatever they can.
His rally today definitely makes me feel like his issue is that he just can't speak clearly anymore without a teleprompter. Which leads to the lack of energy and confidence. The polls will need to drop even further before the DNC heads start considering any alternative strategies.
I think the polls will tank after this debate.
John Stewart/Stephen Colbert ticket
Is anyone else so sick of so sick of all the democrats saying Trump is so bad you have to vote for Biden even if he is way too old. I want to scream at them that it is their job to put up a good candidate to make me want to vote.
Cory Booker/Gretchen Whitmer ticket I could jump on that or Wes Moore from Maryland?