Dropping Harris would only benefit the Biden campaign.
I hate it, but if Biden dropped Harris and picked up Adam Kinzinger, the election would be in the bag. He wouldn’t lose any Democrats and he would pick up all the never trumper Repubs and a majority of centrists/undecided voters. (And Trump might just have a stroke when he hears about it).
She just wasn’t the VP we need. At 81 there are some that will take that into account.
At his age, he should be considering his VP very carefully. It matters.
There is nothing wrong with her personally. It’s simply the intersection of sexism and racism that makes things harder for all female minorities in positions of power. The same is true for Fawny Willis, AOC, even Michelle Obama. Democrats aren’t immune.
Kamala is a black female, therefore anyone who doesn’t like her is sexist/racist?
There are plenty of reasons to dislike Harris. She is an establishment goon with zero relatability. Decisions she made as a prosecutor have made her deeply unliked specifically among black voters. She performed terribly in the primary, only registering positive attention once, when she attacked Biden for supporting racist bussing policy. She was foisted on us anyways, unless we wanted Trump as president.
The Democratic establishment took advantage of the Trump crisis and forced the candidate of their choosing onto voters that had just solidly rejected her. That alone is good reason to dislike her.
If Biden manages to beat Trump, I seriously doubt he will make it for 4 years. That means we will have Harris as the next encombant. If Biden lasts 2 years then Harris will be eligible for two full terms which means we may have to wait until 2036 before we get another primary. Biden is going to run on saving Democracy from Trump, and I’ll probably puke every time I have to hear it.
Kamala is a black female, therefore anyone who doesn’t like her is sexist/racist?
No, but enough of the population is one the other or both to seriously harm her chances. You really think the majority are as educated about her performance as you are? Doubtful
So we default to assuming prejudice? One of the groups she seriously underperforms with are blacks, and specifically young blacks. Do you think it’s the color of her skin, or the number of young blacks she incarcerated that drives that?
But let’s assume the worst and say that she is massively disliked because of race and gender prejudice. If the country is really in that state and a black woman is unelectable, then why would we run a black woman? Are black women in America well served by electing Trump again? I would personally love to see a black woman as president, but do we risk the country to get there?
Fortunately, I don’t think this is the case but, if it were, I don’t think it’s all that favorable an argument for her candidacy. If someone is incapable of winning, then we shouldn’t be nominating them.
no there’s definitely something wrong with her personally, we don’t get to blame this one on bigotry. She’s as milquetoast as they come and her past as a prosecutor just doesn’t inspire any kind of enthusiasm from anyone left of “elightened centrist”
If you think being milquetoast means they can’t be presidential, that’s a problem right there.
lol. That’s straight up not what I said and wtf does “presidential” even mean?
Basically I am saying that just because someone is good on TV doesn’t mean they are qualified to run a country.
Who’s Kinzinger? Jay Pritzker should run.
Kinzinger is one of the two Republicans who ran the Jan 6 committee, along with Liz Cheney.
I’m sure whoever Trump picks would also do worse against Biden
Good thing Biden’s not running against Harris.
Also, you can’t really in good faith talk about Biden’s"increased questions about his mental acuity to serve for another term" without quoting one of Trump’s incoherent ramblings about the difficult tests his doctor gave him.
It’s a poorly phrased title; they’re trying to say that Biden is doing better against Trump than Harris hypothetically would if she was running instead of Biden
I wouldn’t worry one bit if Harris has to step in for Biden. She may not be my number one choice, but she is absolutely better than average IMO.
Edit:
Ah I see some worry she might not be entirely white or entirely male…
Honestly! You that downvote, what controversial point can you think of with Harris?Her track record with law and order is troubling, for one. Her “tough on crime” stance worried me in the primaries, and it would give me concern today.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d take nearly anyone over Trump, but it is not unfounded that she takes flack. She hasn’t been a great champion for Biden either. When Biden was VP, he was always there to have Barack’s back. I have never gotten the same impression from Harris.
Old man in politics that doesn’t say fuck the constitution performs better against old man that says fuck the constitution than younger woman who hates progress.
I still feel like we haven’t had really strong candidates for some elections now.
2016:
Americans’ Distaste For Both Trump And Clinton Is Record-Breaking
The Democratic primary will technically march on, but Hillary Clinton is almost certainly going to be her party’s nominee. Same with Donald Trump. And voters don’t appear thrilled at the prospect: Clinton and Trump are both more strongly disliked than any nominee at this point in the past 10 presidential cycles.
2020:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/us/politics/polls-trump-biden.html
Both Candidates Are Widely Disliked (Again). This Time, Biden Could Benefit.
This could be the second straight presidential contest in which both candidates are viewed negatively by a majority of voters.
2024:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/25/politics/biden-trump-unpopular-president-election-2024/index.html
Biden vs. Trump: The 2024 race a historic number of Americans don’t want
We had a strong candidate in 2016 and the DNC literally committed fraud to deny him a nomination.
Yep. Thanks for mentioning it. Wasserman Schultz and her cronies gave old Sanders the shaft after HRC paid off the DNC debt.
“Democracy.”
Plutocracy
I’d also like to add gerontocracy, oligarchy, and corptocrasy
Imagine if Bernie had broken with the party. There’s a good chance he could’ve attracted a lot of otherwise disillusioned people and formed a real, viable third party candidate.
Nope. Would have been overall worse with 2 parties splitting dnc votes.
Regretfully, our system is designed against us, and has been further corrupted over the years. So, no, there wouldn’t have been any positive outcome from that type of action.
Yeah but then enlightened centrists would have blamed him for Clinton’s loss, and used it to push the party further right.
Oh wait, they did that anyway.
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Check that polling again. “Socialist” is not the slur it used to be.
They accuse middle-right Biden of being a socialist constantly, for a huge part of America it’s the worst slur you can be called.
Probably no worse than “Democrat”. Anyways, you said it yourself, they even call Biden a socialist. Exactly how far right to you think a Democrat has to go to get those votes? Anyways, Bernie knows how to reach red state Republican voters. https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-health-election-2020-184f4519c756479c3bf082108e7ea17e
Wow, your comment is a mess.
Have a nice night.
Hopefully you’ll understand what I’m saying in the morning.
The strength of Bernie in the general election remains an unproven hypothesis. But I agree that the DNC behaved inappropriately. The nature of primaries as “private” elections controlled by the party makes this type of behavior fairly inevitable.
Though the RNC also tried to stop Trump, they just failed at it, so parties don’t necessarily have complete control over the outcome.
He was polling ahead of Trump, Clinton was polling behind. We don’t know if that would’ve continued to the actual election but we do know that Clinton lost.
I largely agree with this. I think there are good reasons to think the race would tighten—Bernie was never subjected to republican attack ads, and I think he also benefited from Clinton’s unpopularity, an effect that might fade once she was out of the race. But you’re right that we’ll never know for sure what would have happened.
Idk, I feel like Republican attack ads on Bernie would have done what Democratic attack ads on Trump did: electrify his base. “HE WANTS EVERYONE TO HAVE EDUCATION FOR FREE!!!” damn, well, sign me up!
I know there would have been calls of “communist” ad nauseam, but idk that it has the horrible effect it once had - if anything it might have energized youth vote…
Idk
We had a strong candidate in 2016 and the DNC literally committed fraud to deny him a nomination.
No they didn’t. You can complain about how they ran it, or that they showed a preference for Clinton, but she absolutely destroyed him and this “they committed fraud against him!” is equally as empty as the Trump supporters who claim the same. And, FTR, I voted for sanders in 2016.
There was a reasonably strong slate in 2020, and Dem primary voters passed them over for the old white guy as a hedge against the voting preferences of casually-racist and sexist boomer voters in the general electorate. The shit of it is that their reasoning wasn’t without merit either. But that’s left us where we are now, with a milquetoast octogenarian as the last bulwark against putting the fascist septuagenarian dementia patient back in charge, and nobody likes those options even if one is obviously less bad than the other.
There was a reasonably strong slate in 2020
Tulsi Gabbard looked promising at the time; too bad she went off the rails.
She went off the rails long before that, but it took some time for her fan base to catch up with reality.
Does anyone like Harris?
She really should have spent these last few years portraying herself as a better politician and more sympathetic person. She’s mostly been this sort of non-entity in the background and has significant disadvantages due to her race and gender as well as her political background prior to becoming VP.
Her husband might
Maybe this guy (aka Trump’s former treasury secretary).
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Hey guys, I got a poll over here. It doesn’t mean anything though. Do they just post these dumbass polls to publish something because they don’t have anything else?
Yes. Gotta keep coming up with horse race coverage even when there’s nothing happening
Pollsters for Emerson found a higher percentage of voters who said they were undecided in the match-ups with Newsom and Whitmer than with Biden or Harris. Only 11 percent were undecided in the match-up with Harris, while 18 percent were undecided with Newsom and 22 percent were undecided with Whitmer.
National political leader has better name recognition than state level political leaders in national poll, news at 11
news at 11
Sarcasm totally unfounded here because there are plenty of people arguing that anyone but Biden would be a better bet against Trump. But you point out one of the huge advantages of an incumbent has: name recognition.
It’s an inconvenient truth for people that Biden is the strongest and safest opponent against Trump. His incumbency advantage is significant.
It’s possible another candidate would do better against Trump, but that’s where “safest” comes into consideration. There’s more unknowns and it’s more risky. Our best bet would be to focus on a better candidate for 2028 and get started early with them
His incumbency is likely to be a weight around his neck. When was the last time we had a Democratic candidate who polled worse than a Republican among Hispanics and under-35 voters? I really hope you don’t have to eat your words.
I hope I don’t either. What’s scary is we both might be right. He’s the best candidate… And this is what the best is.
I’m pretty sure that disadvantage for those candidates would disappear in about 24 hours if Biden suddenly became unavailable to run and voters got told “If you don’t want four more years of Trump, vote [whoever]”
e; an attempt at better phrasing
Yup.
Almost anyone would. If the crookedly right wing Supreme Court had a head on their shoulders they’d ban trump from running. It would leave the country thinking the government wasn’t a complete sham and almost guarantee that the next election would favor the right. If Biden runs against anyone other than Trump the democrats are fucked. Biden is too damned old to face a coherent opponent.
Remember folks. Polls are guessing games- Vote like they don’t exist.
It’s almost like the average voter knows we are prisoner to the two party system. And no matter how many “centrists” say one or the other party should switch candidates, neither can.
Which is its own false equivalency because the bad traits of the two major party candidates are just not comparable.
Our electoral system is outdated and cannot survive an entire political party abandoning democracy.
There’s no alternative to Biden at this point with the rules we have in place. 🤷
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This article dares to ask: Biden may be hated, but does he poll well against other hated Democrats?
You might be surprised to know that Biden is not largely hated.
He’s literally the least popular president in modern history since approval polling began in the 1930s.
Wait what? When was the match held? HOW DID I MISS IT???
European here. Why is Biden so tied to his presidency? What about, for example, Sec Blinkin? From afar he seems like a clear minded, likable guy. There have to be other people in your enormous country. Bidens age is becoming a problem day by day and he is losing a lot of support from the younger, left wing and Muslim voters. Maybe someone like AOC could be a benefit on the vice president ticket?
There are multiple levels here.
Incumbents come with a large advantage. So large that no one ever lost the primary in modern history. The advantage comes in the form of recognition, records, and in general the president communication tools (state of the union, press coverage, etc).
Also, nobody really wants to challenge Biden. There are a few but they’re waiting for 2028 basically.
Also, Biden isn’t losing much support. Every informed person knows that Biden is better for Israel and Palestine than Trump, simply because his foreign policy makes sense. Trump would help Russia (again), which helps Iran and Syria, which hurts sane dialogue in the Middle East.
Because Harris has no charisma and Newsom lacks the name recognition.
Probably because Harris locked up millions for simple possession and Newsom bulldozed homeless camps for the CCCP
Not to forget closing down breweries while leaving wineries open during COVID. While owning a winery. The kind of shit I expect of a morally compromised “rules are for thee, not for me” politician.
Edit: forgot he also attended some fancy party while telling people to not attend large gatherings. The definition of what I just stated. I wrote him off a while ago.
Personally, I dislike Harris because she’s “tough on crime” and a former DA. As someone who’s supported Sanders in the past, I’ve got no problem with direct politicians that don’t small talk well. I don’t know if you’ve ever spoken with Sanders but he has no tolerance for chit chat and isn’t particularly charismatic himself.
Sanders has old professor charisma. He’s passionate and articulate about the issues that matter to him.
But as he himself notes, and you point out, he’s not quite a ‘people person’, not one for small talk.
Harris has less charisma than Hillary Clinton. She was a poor choice. And her establishment, prosecutorial background doesn’t help her with the left-leaning crowd.
Newsom hasn’t done himself any favors lately with the bills he’s been vetoing
He’s been endearing himself to party leadership with those vetoes.
And it’s not like voters are ever gonna matter again in Democratic primaries.
I’m well aware why he’s doing it. We’re talking about polling numbers among voters, not party leadership.
If we learned anything from 2020, it was that voters choose whomever the media says is the “safe” candidate, and the media picks whomever the establishment tells them.
Have they tried trump against random selection?
Trump vs the Deck of Many Things
Trump vs Toonces the driving cat.
Well we know Trump doesn’t drive, and apparently sometimes tries to grab at the wheel when somebody else is driving, so it’s an easy win for Toonces there.
The Deck of Many Things seems like the safer choice.
Fewer possibilities for absolute destruction.
The problem with “random selection” is that the person doesn’t exist. They don’t have the baggage that an actual candidate has. They can really be anything to anyone.
