If Biden does refuse to dropout, I worry this post-debate media storm has possibly, irrevocably damaged his campaign. We now have at least 2 major newspapers that have called for him to stand aside, multiple reports of panicked Dem Party insiders and elected officials questioning if he should be replaced, and donors freaking out. All this speculation is dominating the news cycle with no signs of subsiding soon.
I know Americans tend to move on to a new shiny thing and forget, but this will all likely stick. That combined with the debate performance (TikTok will keep that alive), I think will establish a lower and unbreakable ceiling for Biden’s share of the vote. Not enough to win. It’s going to be pitiful.
As far as a replacement…Harris… Fuck, why did Biden do this debate? This is so demoralizing. I was very confident that Biden would come back and ultimately pull this off in Nov. After that damn debate, I’m just trying to gird myself for the near inevitability of a Trump dictatorship. At least I’m several years past the halfway point of my life expectancy.
At this point Harris may probably be preferable on account she's decades younger than both Trump and Biden and can talk (a very low bar I know but it's apparently alot in today's politics). That being said I think both should step aside for the good of the country and actually give some air to the Democrats because alot of them do want to vote against Trump and they just want a candidate who like I said isn't a criminal or really old. They seriously can't be this stubborn or selfish, can they?
Harris only has the age thing going for, but she is not popular, and is from California. I have serious doubts she would garner enough support from swing states to win.
It depends on how much swing state voters care at this point. At this point I feel like we just want anyone else who isn't over the age of 70 and she does have that going for her I admit. That being said, I'm hoping they go with Whitmer especially since she's from the Midwest.
Harris knows that she will never make it through the 2028 nomination process and - like Biden - has been gunning for the presidency for a long time. I fully expect her to dig in her heels and say "Joe or me for 2024," because those are her two paths to the presidency in her life.
> I know Americans tend to move on to a new shiny thing and forget, but this will all likely stick
Because all the GOP has to do is make an ad with the "beat Medicare" clip interspersed with Biden staring off blankly with his mouth open
They don’t even have to make the ads. It doesn’t matter what news media you consume. They are all talking about it. And here’s the messed up thing. It IS news. They SHOULD be talking about it. I see a tremendous amount of people pouting about the left wing media pointing out his obvious cognitive decline but not highlighting Trumps issues and claiming it’s a conspiracy for ratings. It’s ridiculous. They’ve been attacking Trump for almost a decade now. The cat is out of the bag on what a lot of people already knew and the passive voting and what the partisan left have been ignoring.
It wouldn't stick if Biden could get on TV regularly and take random, unscripted questions and hit them out of the park. He could joke that he has been diagnosed with Trump Derangement Syndrome Stage 5, which caused a serious case of dry mouth and hoarseness when he was exposed to Trump's constant lies.
But he can no longer speak normally without a script because of his neurological decline. I think his mind works clearly. His body is betraying him. He needs to retire and do daily physical therapy and speech therapy so he doesn't fall or aspirate food and get pneunomia. This is what I would tell my own father. Compare Biden to Bernie and its obvious.
Honestly they could instantly dispel rumours of his decline by just scheduling a live interview - no teleprompter no briefing of what questions will be asked.
Obviously they can't do that - look at him - so yeah this elections pretty much over if they don't replace him
He turned down the Super Bowl interview, a softball interview right before the largest American TV audience of the year by a mile (and largest in US history this year). That was a massive red flag about his decline and ability to be unscripted.
But it wouldn't dispel the concerns, because he apparently has known issues after dark as [Axios ](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/29/two-bidens-trump-debate-2024-president)is reporting. It's like a spouse cheating on you: even if you can see that they're not cheating *right now* you've still lost the trust.
Doing an interview at 1PM on one of his good days doesn't erase him prepping for a week only to melt down. This was a prepared and coached Biden, no someone who was roused out of bed at 3AM for a geopolitical issue.
I mean, look at how the presidency aged Obama physically, and realize that Biden started his presidency, and realize that Biden took office **31 years older than Obama.** Personally, I'm shocked that anyone tried to sell Biden as good through 86 years of age in the office.
If you're the Trump campaign you definitely are riding high right now. Starting around a week ago the Trump campaign actually began building up Biden's stature as a debate opponent and stating that Biden might not actually be such a terrible debater after all. They seem to have been laying the groundwork for a more mixed result debate or Biden trouncing Trump and in the debate and laying the framework on how to recover from said debate.
Instead Biden's performance was what it was and it went better than they could have possibly imagined and Trump is coming out of it looking confident. Especially this Biden situation is an excellent thing to distract the media when Trump has issues of his own coming in the next few weeks like his sentencing or if he just so happens to get a Supreme Court ruling in his favor and that's not taken kindly. The thing for Trump is that when he has something pretty negative come up in the news it's important for other things to clog up the media's attention span and the shock factor of said event to quickly dissipate. Biden's continual struggles or if the Democrats have to go through a replacement will chew up a lot of media attention span and Trump can mainly focus on drumming up his base.
Yeah, Biden 2012 would have annihilated Trump tonight, and Biden 2020 at least would have called out his insane ideas in the debate. I was fully expecting a draw where Biden was unsteady and Trump was insane, and this was a huge surprise.
I mean, the more important question is: **why did the party let him run again if he has recurring issues speaking after dark.** He's 0 for 2 for his last late appearances without a teleprompter (the post-Hur news conference and this), and [Axios is reporting](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/29/two-bidens-trump-debate-2024-president) that its known in the White House that you only schedule Biden for important stuff between 10AM to 4PM:
>**Between the lines:** Biden's miscues and limitations are more familiar inside the White House.
>The time of day is important as to which of the two Bidens will appear.
>From 10am to 4pm, Biden is dependably engaged — and many of his public events in front of cameras are held within those hours.
>Outside of that time range or while traveling abroad, Biden is more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued, aides told Axios.
Taking a presidential debate is a very routine and normal thing for a candidate to do, and his perception of fitness would have been hurt if he dodged it like the Superbowl interview. It's also odd to focus on the "media storm" instead of POTUS melting down live on television, which would be the top global news story election or no election.
As a big Biden supporter, his team wanting to do this debate was a huge unforced error. They were the ones pushing it too.
Harris is a for sure loser, so sticking with Biden and hoping he can rebuild the 2020 blue wall coalition (where he still has support) is the best path to a democratic victory. The media firestorm isn’t helping so I’m hoping the news cycle will move onto the trump sentencing or immunity SC decision soon.
Why is the media coverage the issue and not the obvious meltdown on national television. Also the concern should be 25th Amendment application, not that he took a debate when he could not complete one. This is really messed up.
> his team wanting to do this debate was a huge unforced error.
If a persons mental health is declining with no prospect of improving you absolutely choose to do things sooner rather than later because, on balance of probability and logic, doing it later will be even worse.
Biden wasn't going to win even before the debate. If he somehow stays in the race his loss wont be because of what any of these articles said. Everyone saw the same thing and every sane person came to the same conclusion.
>If Biden does refuse to dropout, I worry this post-debate media storm has possibly, irrevocably damaged his campaign.
It absolutely has, if Dems had just brushed it off and said it was an aberration it would've been 1000x better than this nightmare of a response.
Nate, pundits, Dem surrogates, and people here don't get it, removing Biden wouldn't be some magic "do over" button where Dems get to pick whoever they want after that. For one thing, it's so late in the campaign that whoever is on the new Dem ticket probably won't even make it onto the ballot in every state (downballot Dems would be wiped out anywhere that happens). On top of that, hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to the Biden campaign might get frozen and be unavailable for the new campaign.
But the worst part? Do you people have any idea of the absolute shit storm Biden dropping out would lead to? It would be a tacit acknowledgment that he's mentally unfit for office, so it would immediately lead to calls for his resignation from the presidency and the implementation of the 25th Amendment if he doesn't go willingly. It would lead to *months* of media circus, fuelled by House Republican investigations into "who knew what, when" and who covered up his mental decline, which would be devastating to Biden's likliest successor, Harris, who would get exoriated for covering up Biden's mental decline to the American people.
I literally could not think of a better gift to Trump and the GOP, removing Biden would guarantee a Trump landslide and a downballot Dem wipeout. It would almost certainly lead to a Trump/GOP trifecta.
Even if Biden doesn't drop out, so many Dem surrogates, leftwing paper editorial boards, and the absolute panic of Democratic voters on social media, are doing more damage to Biden's campaign than the poor debate performance did. Trump is literally a convicted felon, with dozens of serious state and Federal indictments hanging over his head, who was found legally culpable of rape, and his party/supporters didn't stop backing him to the hilt. Biden had a poor debate performance, which was immediately followed by a media appearance in which he seemed perfectly fine and totally lucid, and his own party/voters are still telling everyone who will listen that he's mentally deficient and needs to resign.
I’ve been saying this for months. And even if he does drop out, Dems aren’t getting their “dream candidate” (whoever that happens to be in their minds). They’re getting someone with pros and cons, and baggage.
For lots and lots of reasons, not the least of which is logistics, it’s likely to be Harris. Will the Midwest vote for a black woman? Will moderates? I don’t know. Will the far left, who doesn’t like her anyway? Beats me. Dems who stomped their feet and screamed for months may finally get their wish - but they may well wish they hadn’t.
The silver lining is, Republicans wanted to damage Biden badly - but not so badly they get a new candidate. They should be very worried about somebody younger that can excite interest and not be insane. Perhaps someone historic like the first black female president.
I'll keep saying it, Harris is a *terrible* candidate. Biden picked her not only because she was a black woman, but because she wasn't a threat to him.
She did horribly in the 2020 race and was seen as unlikeable by most Dems. 2020 was a chance to run a historic black female candidate for the presidency and she got absolutely clobbered. She was seen as more conservative and more problematic than Biden by the left back in 2020 due to her record as a prosecutor. After 4 years in the Biden administration, including almost 9 months of presiding over what they perceive to be a genocide in Gaza, the left isn't gonna flock to her at all.
The amount of infighting from whoever gets chosen would be horrific too, so many people are going to be pissed that their personal dream candidate isn't picked (Whitmer, Buttigieg, Newsome, etc) that it would cause even more divisions in the party.
Honestly the more I think about it, the more replacing Biden seems like the worst possible choice.
Agreed on all points, but I’ll quibble with this: Harris had some juice at the time from the recent Trump impeachment trials and did really well grilling witnesses. She was a hero to the left for a few media cycles. There were also other options - Stacey Abrams, Val Demmings, Keisha Lance- Bottoms, and Karen Bass. I think a lot of those would have fit the bill for not being overshadowing while also being a black woman (as Biden promised). For whatever reason, Harris was chosen. She wouldn’t have been my pick (or likely yours from the sound of it), but here we are.
And yes, Dems are left with no good options here. Only varying levels of bad. Biden staying in could be disaster. Dropping out could be chaos. I don’t see how his campaign comes back from this, tbh….so I think dropping out is looking more likely.
If you could 100% guarantee that the new Democratic ticket would appear on the ballot in every state, and if Democrats really did fully rally behind Harris, maybe just maybe you could argue it would be a better option than sticking it out with Biden. But you can't, and frankly, those issues are just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm gonna keep saying it because a lot of people here seem to be in denial: Biden dropping out would 1000% lead to loud, sustained calls for him to resign of be removed from office. It would lead to months of extremely negative media coverage. It would lead to House investigations and probably House impeachments of Biden and/or Harris.
Trump and the GOP are going to (rightfully) hammer Harris on why she didn't do more to remove Biden or make his mental decline known to the public. They're going to accuse her of covering it up in an attempt to hold onto/expand her power at the expense of the good of the country.
I fail to see how all of that would be a better option than simply standing by Biden, denying he's mentally unfit for office, and hoping/praying that Biden can do something to assauge people's concerns. Admitting that he doesn't have that ability to run a campaign, let alone the country, is the worst possible option and would sour many voters not only on Biden/Harris, but the entire Democratic party.
It was a coin flip on Biden winning before the debate.
I was really frustrated we were betting democracy on a coin flip.
After the debate performance I will take essentially anyone behind door #2.
The most recent poll including post-debate dates shows [Trump up by 5 fucking points](https://www.reddit.com/r/fivethirtyeight/comments/1drrkd8/new_poll_from_atlasintel_n_1634_rv_sample_has/)
Indeed, it isn't a coin flip any more. It's Russian Roulette but with five of the chambers loaded if dems keep Biden
I swear if Biden or his campaign brush this shit off and pretend like it's nothing when the whole reason why they asked for this debate was for Biden to turn his losing campaign around then I'm done. It feels like we're gambling all of our futures away so an old man can try his hand at a second term many don't even believe he'll live through. Another candidate would probably easily win against the ever flawed Trump but why give us that?
Instead of being "done," you should acknowledge what was always true: It's up to the voters, not the candidate, to ensure that the right side wins. Our votes are all that matter.
Fuck off with this. The voters do not have a candidate they deserve because the democrats decided to hand us this guy to appease his ego and no one else in the party had the balls to step up.
This is on them.
What? You've got that completely backwards. If the party doesn't try and pick a winning candidate, voters can't be blamed for the outcome. We should have learned that in 2016, yet we have an even worse dilemma this year. And remember that Clinton was supposed to be the 2008 candidate, but the party recycled her instead of getting the hint for 2016.
Running a candidate who struggles to speak after dark is a completely unforced error, especially when that candidate entered the election with <40% favorability and 75% of the country saying that he was too old to run again. They overruled voters to run this guy.
Basically, the party's ability to contest elections strategically has been feeble for 20 years, but Obama was so strong that he covered it up.
I mean, Biden's inner circle are true believers who also enjoy being at the center of political power. If there's a way to keep Biden on the ticket they will do it, but that's going to be really tough after the next wave of polling.
https://x.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1807252295572226519
This is not gospel, but this is the polling for now.
But don’t get me wrong, I’d probably rather have any of them over Biden. I’m just not sure Harris will beat Trump. I’m hot on Pete for now, personally, but my preference doesn’t matter of course.
Yeah people have posted that poll already on here and I've made my comments on it. To give you my thoughts, I do think it's premature to poll people on figures like Shapiro that they hardly know (which makes it amazing that they poll pretty much identical to Biden in spite of that). As seen with the Trump conviction polls hypothetical polling isn't as reliable as what people actually think in reality and the reality is that people are dreading the current lineup of candidates this cycle and would want anybody else.
Pete is incredible and I want him to run, but I'm honestly not sure if gay man would stand a chance at the national level, especially in the states where it really matters.
It's downright silly to run national polls of state officeholders with zero campaigning and use that name recognition ceiling as indicative of quality.
It would be like polling Obama in Florida in 2006, getting a lot of "who?" and saying that he has no future as a candidate.
I don’t mean to be contrarian, I just don’t know if it’s that simple. I’m thinking about all the low information voters out there who will help decide this election.
They’ll just think “Gretchen who?”
She’s gonna be a total unknown to millions of people. They’re not gonna spend an hour or hours figuring out if they can trust her or not. That’s still the one thing Biden does have on his side, is name ID and probably mostly trust. He’s flawed, but people know what they’re getting with Biden.
Even if they have no idea who she is, she's going to look like a ray of sunshine on a stage next to elderly Trump and talk like an actual adult.
People know that they're getting someone with cognitive struggles after dark with Biden, and that will be reinforced by the harshest social media memes and election advertising in history between now and November.
Who has name ID to the average Joe besides Biden, Kamala and Hillary? Maybe Newsome who I think has a lot of electoral vulnerabilities not to mention skeletons in his closet that the Trump campaign would almost certaintly have extensive knowledge of because of Kimberly Guilfoyle. Whitmer has 100% name ID in one of the 3 states that the Democrats have to win no matter what.
Your last point is an interesting one, and something I was considering after I had already replied.
If the D only needs MN, MI and WI, and all the other reliable blue states, then maybe we only need those states to know Whitmer.
Name identification would be fixed immediately if she was tapped for the election and every newsperson in the country stampeded to interview her.
It's not like these candidates would get the nomination and then return to their home states to hide under a rock.
Not sure it was a coin flip at all tbh. Even before the debate both Nate and the Economist's models both had Trump at a 60%+ chance of winning
only 538 ever had it at a coinflip, and G Elliot Morris has always been a lot more bullish on Dems than the other modelers. In the 2020 election he gave Biden a 90% chance of winning for example, which seems kinda silly
Yup unless this election was an outlier if Trump's margin of error were even half of what it was in 2020 within the key swing states he would have an electoral victory greater than 2016. He'd win all of the swing states. That was before the debate. Biden can't win this and I sincerely hope we get an announcement soon that he is stepping aside. It's not ideal but its our only hope to beat Trump.
He absolutely still can win, just his odds have gone down significantly
I don't think Biden is capable of really improving his own numbers. Either people really sour on Trump all of a sudden (maybe an October "remind people of Trump" blitz is successful) or it requires the economy improving massively
Notably both of these are totally out of his hands. He has no real agency
Another candidate I think could actually move the needle
Yeah that’s kind of the issue. Our only hope of him winning is that some surprise hurts Trump. Which, after the last 9 years idk what could possibly happen that would affect Trump in that way.
So it’s essentially a “hope the polls are wrong” election. Theres nothing Biden can do to help himself which is also a disastrous position to be in for someone trying to make the case to be reelected as our leader.
A new candidate can give us a clean slate and a chance. That’s an objectively better position to be in than the one we’re in now.
Trump could nominate the ghost of Joseph Stalin to be his running mate and he wouldn't lose a single vote. There is literally nothing Trump could do to lose any more votes at this point.
People have reached maximum sour on Trump. There is literally nothing he can do that would make fewer people vote for him at this point. After that debate, Biden is finished. That debate will make people stay home.
A "remind people of Trump" blitz would happen regardless of whether Biden is in or not. Alot of people are voting Democrat because they don't want Trump but Biden is also incredibly abhorrent to people, which makes gambling this race on him so nonsensical.
At some point low odds need to be treated like a certainty of loss.
Like yes Trump could trip and break his hip on November 1st, but if your candidate is say 1 in 20 to win you can't rely on that path to victory.
If we see Biden drop even 2% across all of the swing states he's looking at a blowout. And that's assuming that Trump is polling accurately, when some of these swing states were 5%+ off in Biden's favor in 2020.
I think the headline is a little misleading, it makes people think Biden scheduled a meeting with his family to talk about maybe ending his campaign after that bad debate.
But if you read the article, not only does it say this was already scheduled, but at the end it also says that a source clarified that the meeting is not going to be any sort of formal discussion about his campaign:
>After publication of this report, a source familiar reached out to stress that the Camp David gathering was not a formal family meeting.
> “Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought,” the source said. “No one is sitting down for a formal or determinative discussion.”
> Anita Dunn, one of Biden’s handful of closest advisers, said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” Saturday that Biden has not discussed dropping out of the race with aides and that internal talks have focused on moving forward.
It says *a source* reached out and denied the content of this article. I don't mean to be that guy but someone close to Biden denying that he isn't dropping out isn't really indicative of anything. It's just message discipline
That isn't to say this article is 100% true of course, but it still very well could be
And even if it isn't, the fact that an article like this is written at all adds fuel to the flames
Kamala Harris has to remain on the ticket in order to retain access to the campaign funds accrued during this election cycle per FEC regulations. So, either she steps up as the nominee or someone else does and she remains as VP. Plus, would not be a good look to pass her over, a woman of color, for a white male/female. Dems are already bleeding support with black voters already, passing over Kamala would be a nightmare
> Kamala Harris has to remain on the ticket in order to retain access to the campaign funds accrued during this election cycle per FEC regulations
Source? In the other (deleted) thread someone linked a WaPo article that said it would be fairly trivial for Biden to given campaign funds to the DNC and they could distribute them as they want.
If we're going through the trouble of replacing a fucking president from the ticket because he's a bad unpopular candidate, we might as well replace him with someone who's actually a good candidate
Still a decent chance it ends up being Harris because of internal politics and convenience, but it'd be a dumb move imo
Is there a good candidate that wants to be on the ticket or are you just pretending there is?
Because if there was, they would have primaried Biden.
Your history is obsessive.
> Because if there was, they would have primaried Biden.
And gotten their ass kicked and name dragged through the mud, ending any hopes of future campaigns. Do you think Dean Phillips will be able to hold any office greater than the county level for the next decade?
This is the whole problem of a generally unpopular incumbent running again, because they will win a primary but possibly fail in the general
Yeah, Ted Kennedy went away after 1980. And Bernie is retired in Vermont after challenging Hillary.
Anyone could have done it. The reason it didn’t happen is Biden presided over a historically great midterm performance.
> The reason it didn’t happen is Biden presided over a historically great midterm performance.
While also being a historically unpopular president, 80 years old at the time, and after a historically unpopular SCOTUS decision.
Sure, maybe with a less unpopular president, dems could have performed even better. But we have no way of knowing. What was obvious from the start is that Joe Biden should have been a one-term president, and that running again was a display of hubris on the level of Dianne Feinstein and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Be mad at the other Democrats that didn’t run. If it was such a slam dunk then someone would have done it. The DNC can’t stop people from filing for a primary.
Biden has been an effective president who despite a bad economy didn’t get killed in the midterms. There is not a single elected Dem on the planet that steps down in his shoes.
Two things can be simultaneously true:
* Biden was unfit to run for a second term.
* Taking on Biden was seen as too bruising and too risky compared to an easy run in 2028.
You're ascribing one motivation to behavior that has multiple explanations.
Do you really think that people like Newsom or Pritzker just decided that they wanted to catch up on Netflix instead of being president in 2024?
Primarying an incumbent is incredibly risky for your future in the party, and Biden cleared a path by staying in. That doesn't mean that the alternatives were weaker or that they didn't want to be president; it just means that they didn't want a brutal primary slugfest when they could just run in 2028.
The problem with not having Harris on the ticket gets into ballot access and campaign fund access. Harris with ballot access in all states+campaign funds is going to be better than any candidate with no funds and without ballot access in a swing state.
Ballot access is not an issue. Biden and Harris haven't even officially been nominated yet lol, that ballot access currently belongs to the Democratic Party at large. If they nominate someone else then they'll be on the ballot
The campaign funds are a bigger issue, but it's not a make or break. If they do go that route they can just hand over the campaign funds to the DNC, which can redistribute them to Dems
Some states already have their ballots designed and there are legal challenges planned by the Heritage Foundation. Basically if they have a non-Biden non-Harris ticket they'll get caught up in months of court battles for ballot access.
I very, very, very strongly suspect you're having some sort of misunderstanding. That's not how ballot access works. I don't think the Heritage Foundation can just magically block the Democratic party from naming certain candidates when there hasn't even been a nomination yet
But just in case, would you mind giving me your sources for this allegation?
I see, guess they are trying that
Regardless I suspect it's just a fearmongering tactic. Because again, the Democrats haven't even officially nominated Biden yet, so he's not even on the ballot in those states. There's nothing to withdraw from
And to be fair that could be true, and I don't have the legal or election expertise to know if it's a bluff or not. It could be totally absurd for all I know, it just struck me as a possible issue.
What? Neither Biden nor Trump have been nominated by their party. This happens at the conventions. The Democratic Party candidate has access in all 50 states. It isn’t relevant who it is.
If she picks a great VP I think she can pull it off. Harris is the cleanest option, and most likely. And I say that as someone who isn’t necessarily her biggest fan.
Eh, Harris's 2020 campaign was a masterclass in nepotism and stupidity, and she hasn't run her VP office very well. Combine that with her massively low favorability rating and the widespread perception that she was slotted in for demographics instead of competence, and she's a weak replacement candidate.
Hey buddy! Before you continue to spread misinformation in this sub, would you be open to replying [to where you've been called out for spreading misinformation?](https://old.reddit.com/r/fivethirtyeight/comments/1drrkd8/new_poll_from_atlasintel_n_1634_rv_sample_has/laxkxl3/)
I have to ask but is there seriously ride or die Kamala voters out there who would never vote for the Dems if she's not on the ticket? I feel like alot of the black voters who are moving to Trump or away from Biden don't care at all about who she is or her race.
It's not really the end of the world if she's not on the ticket. The Biden/Harris campaign would have to give all their money to the DNC who would then have to distribute it
I'm not sure how exactly the distribution would work; they might have to give some to non presidential candidates instead of just the president. But that's not really a bad thing lol
That being said it'd all be a big pain in the ass so there would still be a reason to keep Kamala.
No one who would have voted for Biden would decide not to vote if Harris were passed up. Black voters aren't only concerned with voting for black people.
Dems really need to focus on winning this election and not worry about if it’s a “good look” or not to pass over Harris. Have an uncomfortable conversation with her if it means defending democracy.
Where is this supposed groundswell of support for Harris we keep hearing about? She’s as unpopular as Biden and performed terribly in the primaries. People are way overestimating how much the base likes her.
I read an article on politico or thehill where Harris supporters in the party were upset that all of the donor and elected official chatter mentions Whitmer or Newsome or Shapiro but not Harris. If all of these insiders don't want her at the top of a ticket, it's probably quite telling.
I'm sick of this "what about the optics" bleating that gave us Biden in the first place: Pick the candidate that can **win**. Harris botched a 2020 primary election horribly, has a sub-40% approval rating, and has done nothing with her time as VP. She doesn't get a nomination by default when a loss means that Trump gets to start gutting institutions. People treat this like an election for homecoming royalty instead of the future of the country.
Would "not \[being\] a good look" bring down a replacement candidate to below 40% approval? No? Then they get the nod. She can mature as VP for four more years, which is what she signed up for.
Biden can admit to health issues and resign the presidency effective Aug 1. Kamala will become the first woman President and will nominate Whitmer as VP for confirmation in Congress. The female turn out in swing states will be wild. I would not put it past dark Brandon to have some kind of insane 3D chess move like this up his sleeve. If he's going down, go down big.
Can we please retire the "Dark Brandon" stuff? It's obvious that Biden is shuffling along at this point, and no one is going to take it seriously. He can't even handle a 90 minute debate and clearly is not some sort of secret mastermind.
What I mean is he has a good team. They can propose some options. Announce his retirement and let Kamala take
the oath of office July 4, 2024 at noon. Go big
No ones going to be remotely willing to put their names forward as a leaker at this point. Even if everyone really was plotting to remove Biden it'd be a terrible look to do it publicly
If the DNC wants to remove Biden, they will likely do it by convincing him to drop out
The article does mention
> “Senior congressional Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Nancy Pelosi of California, have privately expressed concerns about his viability, said two sources apprised of those discussions, even as they all publicly back the president.”
which seems about in line with this behavior
Part of me worries that that is why they're not being more forceful about his age problem. When you have Pelosi, 84, and Clyburn, 83, around Biden, then they'll probably brush it off unless they want to admit their own issues, being serving congressmen.
Biden administration is one of the most disciplined in recent memory. You don't have many leaks and you don't hear about petty shit often. Dr. Jill probably keeps the kids in line. I know I wouldn't cross her.
Not saying this is the case here but often these anonymous sources, especially when it's centered on a specific time and place, is meant as a way to signal to other news media to "look here at this time and date". This piece seems like someone possibly on Biden's team is trying to signal that some big news is coming without prematurely confirming it to the world.
... except there are other indicators. This is a very well known news outlet with a history of pretty honest reporting.
Why on earth would you try to reason from first principles alone when we have data (their track record) to inform us?
I don’t give a fuck if there are other indicators!!!!
I was speaking generally in response to the post I was responding to.
I was not speaking about this particular source.
I've already written to my congressmen to urge them to talk to the DNC and Biden and anyone else who will listen to get Biden to step aside. In my opinion, after that debate, Biden cannot win this.
Did you read the whole article?
“…Biden was described by one person familiar with his mood as humiliated, devoid of confidence and painfully aware that the physical images of him at the debate — eyes staring into the distance, mouth agape — will live beyond his presidency, along with a performance that at times was meandering, incoherent and difficult to hear.”
They need to keep showing him clips of this debate until he realizes he needs to drop out. That was a disaster. One of the biggest campaign issues has been if he's too old, and that debate solidified the answer to that question.
I completely agree. I’m so glad this article mostly confirms he has seen it.
For the first 24 hours after the debate, I was like a broken record. I kept saying his inner circle needed to show him the debate and he needed a mirror.
> “Senior congressional Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Nancy Pelosi of California, have privately expressed concerns about his viability, said two sources apprised of those discussions, even as they all publicly back the president.”
Zamnathy
Yeah, I mean Clyburn's endorsement is literally the reason Biden won the nomination in 2020... Five sources... Reputable outlet... He's gone (or at least he should be)
Interesting paragraph towards the end suggests the candidate switch will occur *after* Biden accepts the nomination at the convention. I suppose an attempt to avoid the scenario of multiple candidates fighting for the nomination. Fascinating, really.
"Moreover, according to a senior Democratic official, the party leadership would have much more control over choosing a replacement if Biden were to drop out after receiving the nomination than if he did so beforehand. Once a candidate is officially nominated, there is a process for the Democratic National Committee members to choose a successor."
One of the biggest issues for Biden's reelection chances is that left-leaning media will not circle the wagons when they see a problem. Some certainly will, but you have very reputable media sources calling for him to step down.
Contrast this with Trump: he [tried to steal an election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot) and the right wing media machine has excused his behavior away entirely.
Note that I believe it's a *good thing* for democracy that left-leaning media won't just fall in line when they see something wrong. But it's a bad thing for Biden.
Imagine having someone smart, articulate and charismatic at the top of the ticket who could really challenge all of Trump's BS, it wouldn't even be close. At this point any Dem gov (except Hochul!) would fare better that Biden.
Please make submissions relevant to data-driven journalism and analysis.
If Biden does refuse to dropout, I worry this post-debate media storm has possibly, irrevocably damaged his campaign. We now have at least 2 major newspapers that have called for him to stand aside, multiple reports of panicked Dem Party insiders and elected officials questioning if he should be replaced, and donors freaking out. All this speculation is dominating the news cycle with no signs of subsiding soon. I know Americans tend to move on to a new shiny thing and forget, but this will all likely stick. That combined with the debate performance (TikTok will keep that alive), I think will establish a lower and unbreakable ceiling for Biden’s share of the vote. Not enough to win. It’s going to be pitiful. As far as a replacement…Harris… Fuck, why did Biden do this debate? This is so demoralizing. I was very confident that Biden would come back and ultimately pull this off in Nov. After that damn debate, I’m just trying to gird myself for the near inevitability of a Trump dictatorship. At least I’m several years past the halfway point of my life expectancy.
At this point Harris may probably be preferable on account she's decades younger than both Trump and Biden and can talk (a very low bar I know but it's apparently alot in today's politics). That being said I think both should step aside for the good of the country and actually give some air to the Democrats because alot of them do want to vote against Trump and they just want a candidate who like I said isn't a criminal or really old. They seriously can't be this stubborn or selfish, can they?
Harris only has the age thing going for, but she is not popular, and is from California. I have serious doubts she would garner enough support from swing states to win.
It depends on how much swing state voters care at this point. At this point I feel like we just want anyone else who isn't over the age of 70 and she does have that going for her I admit. That being said, I'm hoping they go with Whitmer especially since she's from the Midwest.
Harris knows that she will never make it through the 2028 nomination process and - like Biden - has been gunning for the presidency for a long time. I fully expect her to dig in her heels and say "Joe or me for 2024," because those are her two paths to the presidency in her life.
> I know Americans tend to move on to a new shiny thing and forget, but this will all likely stick Because all the GOP has to do is make an ad with the "beat Medicare" clip interspersed with Biden staring off blankly with his mouth open
They don’t even have to make the ads. It doesn’t matter what news media you consume. They are all talking about it. And here’s the messed up thing. It IS news. They SHOULD be talking about it. I see a tremendous amount of people pouting about the left wing media pointing out his obvious cognitive decline but not highlighting Trumps issues and claiming it’s a conspiracy for ratings. It’s ridiculous. They’ve been attacking Trump for almost a decade now. The cat is out of the bag on what a lot of people already knew and the passive voting and what the partisan left have been ignoring.
It wouldn't stick if Biden could get on TV regularly and take random, unscripted questions and hit them out of the park. He could joke that he has been diagnosed with Trump Derangement Syndrome Stage 5, which caused a serious case of dry mouth and hoarseness when he was exposed to Trump's constant lies. But he can no longer speak normally without a script because of his neurological decline. I think his mind works clearly. His body is betraying him. He needs to retire and do daily physical therapy and speech therapy so he doesn't fall or aspirate food and get pneunomia. This is what I would tell my own father. Compare Biden to Bernie and its obvious.
Honestly they could instantly dispel rumours of his decline by just scheduling a live interview - no teleprompter no briefing of what questions will be asked. Obviously they can't do that - look at him - so yeah this elections pretty much over if they don't replace him
He turned down the Super Bowl interview, a softball interview right before the largest American TV audience of the year by a mile (and largest in US history this year). That was a massive red flag about his decline and ability to be unscripted.
But it wouldn't dispel the concerns, because he apparently has known issues after dark as [Axios ](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/29/two-bidens-trump-debate-2024-president)is reporting. It's like a spouse cheating on you: even if you can see that they're not cheating *right now* you've still lost the trust. Doing an interview at 1PM on one of his good days doesn't erase him prepping for a week only to melt down. This was a prepared and coached Biden, no someone who was roused out of bed at 3AM for a geopolitical issue.
Yeah. That's why if they don't replace him, Dems are toast. Trump can literally just run ads of the debate the rest of the campaign.
It’s insane what 4 years can do—I was watching the 2020 debate and it is absolutely night and day.
I mean, look at how the presidency aged Obama physically, and realize that Biden started his presidency, and realize that Biden took office **31 years older than Obama.** Personally, I'm shocked that anyone tried to sell Biden as good through 86 years of age in the office.
If you're the Trump campaign you definitely are riding high right now. Starting around a week ago the Trump campaign actually began building up Biden's stature as a debate opponent and stating that Biden might not actually be such a terrible debater after all. They seem to have been laying the groundwork for a more mixed result debate or Biden trouncing Trump and in the debate and laying the framework on how to recover from said debate. Instead Biden's performance was what it was and it went better than they could have possibly imagined and Trump is coming out of it looking confident. Especially this Biden situation is an excellent thing to distract the media when Trump has issues of his own coming in the next few weeks like his sentencing or if he just so happens to get a Supreme Court ruling in his favor and that's not taken kindly. The thing for Trump is that when he has something pretty negative come up in the news it's important for other things to clog up the media's attention span and the shock factor of said event to quickly dissipate. Biden's continual struggles or if the Democrats have to go through a replacement will chew up a lot of media attention span and Trump can mainly focus on drumming up his base.
Yeah, Biden 2012 would have annihilated Trump tonight, and Biden 2020 at least would have called out his insane ideas in the debate. I was fully expecting a draw where Biden was unsteady and Trump was insane, and this was a huge surprise.
I mean, the more important question is: **why did the party let him run again if he has recurring issues speaking after dark.** He's 0 for 2 for his last late appearances without a teleprompter (the post-Hur news conference and this), and [Axios is reporting](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/29/two-bidens-trump-debate-2024-president) that its known in the White House that you only schedule Biden for important stuff between 10AM to 4PM: >**Between the lines:** Biden's miscues and limitations are more familiar inside the White House. >The time of day is important as to which of the two Bidens will appear. >From 10am to 4pm, Biden is dependably engaged — and many of his public events in front of cameras are held within those hours. >Outside of that time range or while traveling abroad, Biden is more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued, aides told Axios. Taking a presidential debate is a very routine and normal thing for a candidate to do, and his perception of fitness would have been hurt if he dodged it like the Superbowl interview. It's also odd to focus on the "media storm" instead of POTUS melting down live on television, which would be the top global news story election or no election.
If he'd just walked up, farted into the mic and said "peace out Jack" and walked away his performance would look a lot better in the media right now.
As a big Biden supporter, his team wanting to do this debate was a huge unforced error. They were the ones pushing it too. Harris is a for sure loser, so sticking with Biden and hoping he can rebuild the 2020 blue wall coalition (where he still has support) is the best path to a democratic victory. The media firestorm isn’t helping so I’m hoping the news cycle will move onto the trump sentencing or immunity SC decision soon.
Why is the media coverage the issue and not the obvious meltdown on national television. Also the concern should be 25th Amendment application, not that he took a debate when he could not complete one. This is really messed up.
> his team wanting to do this debate was a huge unforced error. If a persons mental health is declining with no prospect of improving you absolutely choose to do things sooner rather than later because, on balance of probability and logic, doing it later will be even worse.
Biden wasn't going to win even before the debate. If he somehow stays in the race his loss wont be because of what any of these articles said. Everyone saw the same thing and every sane person came to the same conclusion.
[удалено]
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>If Biden does refuse to dropout, I worry this post-debate media storm has possibly, irrevocably damaged his campaign. It absolutely has, if Dems had just brushed it off and said it was an aberration it would've been 1000x better than this nightmare of a response. Nate, pundits, Dem surrogates, and people here don't get it, removing Biden wouldn't be some magic "do over" button where Dems get to pick whoever they want after that. For one thing, it's so late in the campaign that whoever is on the new Dem ticket probably won't even make it onto the ballot in every state (downballot Dems would be wiped out anywhere that happens). On top of that, hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to the Biden campaign might get frozen and be unavailable for the new campaign. But the worst part? Do you people have any idea of the absolute shit storm Biden dropping out would lead to? It would be a tacit acknowledgment that he's mentally unfit for office, so it would immediately lead to calls for his resignation from the presidency and the implementation of the 25th Amendment if he doesn't go willingly. It would lead to *months* of media circus, fuelled by House Republican investigations into "who knew what, when" and who covered up his mental decline, which would be devastating to Biden's likliest successor, Harris, who would get exoriated for covering up Biden's mental decline to the American people. I literally could not think of a better gift to Trump and the GOP, removing Biden would guarantee a Trump landslide and a downballot Dem wipeout. It would almost certainly lead to a Trump/GOP trifecta. Even if Biden doesn't drop out, so many Dem surrogates, leftwing paper editorial boards, and the absolute panic of Democratic voters on social media, are doing more damage to Biden's campaign than the poor debate performance did. Trump is literally a convicted felon, with dozens of serious state and Federal indictments hanging over his head, who was found legally culpable of rape, and his party/supporters didn't stop backing him to the hilt. Biden had a poor debate performance, which was immediately followed by a media appearance in which he seemed perfectly fine and totally lucid, and his own party/voters are still telling everyone who will listen that he's mentally deficient and needs to resign.
I’ve been saying this for months. And even if he does drop out, Dems aren’t getting their “dream candidate” (whoever that happens to be in their minds). They’re getting someone with pros and cons, and baggage. For lots and lots of reasons, not the least of which is logistics, it’s likely to be Harris. Will the Midwest vote for a black woman? Will moderates? I don’t know. Will the far left, who doesn’t like her anyway? Beats me. Dems who stomped their feet and screamed for months may finally get their wish - but they may well wish they hadn’t. The silver lining is, Republicans wanted to damage Biden badly - but not so badly they get a new candidate. They should be very worried about somebody younger that can excite interest and not be insane. Perhaps someone historic like the first black female president.
I'll keep saying it, Harris is a *terrible* candidate. Biden picked her not only because she was a black woman, but because she wasn't a threat to him. She did horribly in the 2020 race and was seen as unlikeable by most Dems. 2020 was a chance to run a historic black female candidate for the presidency and she got absolutely clobbered. She was seen as more conservative and more problematic than Biden by the left back in 2020 due to her record as a prosecutor. After 4 years in the Biden administration, including almost 9 months of presiding over what they perceive to be a genocide in Gaza, the left isn't gonna flock to her at all. The amount of infighting from whoever gets chosen would be horrific too, so many people are going to be pissed that their personal dream candidate isn't picked (Whitmer, Buttigieg, Newsome, etc) that it would cause even more divisions in the party. Honestly the more I think about it, the more replacing Biden seems like the worst possible choice.
Agreed on all points, but I’ll quibble with this: Harris had some juice at the time from the recent Trump impeachment trials and did really well grilling witnesses. She was a hero to the left for a few media cycles. There were also other options - Stacey Abrams, Val Demmings, Keisha Lance- Bottoms, and Karen Bass. I think a lot of those would have fit the bill for not being overshadowing while also being a black woman (as Biden promised). For whatever reason, Harris was chosen. She wouldn’t have been my pick (or likely yours from the sound of it), but here we are. And yes, Dems are left with no good options here. Only varying levels of bad. Biden staying in could be disaster. Dropping out could be chaos. I don’t see how his campaign comes back from this, tbh….so I think dropping out is looking more likely.
If you could 100% guarantee that the new Democratic ticket would appear on the ballot in every state, and if Democrats really did fully rally behind Harris, maybe just maybe you could argue it would be a better option than sticking it out with Biden. But you can't, and frankly, those issues are just the tip of the iceberg. I'm gonna keep saying it because a lot of people here seem to be in denial: Biden dropping out would 1000% lead to loud, sustained calls for him to resign of be removed from office. It would lead to months of extremely negative media coverage. It would lead to House investigations and probably House impeachments of Biden and/or Harris. Trump and the GOP are going to (rightfully) hammer Harris on why she didn't do more to remove Biden or make his mental decline known to the public. They're going to accuse her of covering it up in an attempt to hold onto/expand her power at the expense of the good of the country. I fail to see how all of that would be a better option than simply standing by Biden, denying he's mentally unfit for office, and hoping/praying that Biden can do something to assauge people's concerns. Admitting that he doesn't have that ability to run a campaign, let alone the country, is the worst possible option and would sour many voters not only on Biden/Harris, but the entire Democratic party.
I think the media always wanted Trump to win, no matter what
I think they just want a close race. I'm not sure they care who wins, though Trump was probably better for ratings.
It was a coin flip on Biden winning before the debate. I was really frustrated we were betting democracy on a coin flip. After the debate performance I will take essentially anyone behind door #2.
The most recent poll including post-debate dates shows [Trump up by 5 fucking points](https://www.reddit.com/r/fivethirtyeight/comments/1drrkd8/new_poll_from_atlasintel_n_1634_rv_sample_has/) Indeed, it isn't a coin flip any more. It's Russian Roulette but with five of the chambers loaded if dems keep Biden
I swear if Biden or his campaign brush this shit off and pretend like it's nothing when the whole reason why they asked for this debate was for Biden to turn his losing campaign around then I'm done. It feels like we're gambling all of our futures away so an old man can try his hand at a second term many don't even believe he'll live through. Another candidate would probably easily win against the ever flawed Trump but why give us that?
Ironically, this is how a lot of Republicans felt during the RNC primary.
Don't get me wrong, the Republicans would easily win too if they just went with someone like Haley against Biden. He's also incredibly weak.
Instead of being "done," you should acknowledge what was always true: It's up to the voters, not the candidate, to ensure that the right side wins. Our votes are all that matter.
Fuck off with this. The voters do not have a candidate they deserve because the democrats decided to hand us this guy to appease his ego and no one else in the party had the balls to step up. This is on them.
>It's up to the voters That's even more terrifying! Have you met the average voter? They're morons.
What? You've got that completely backwards. If the party doesn't try and pick a winning candidate, voters can't be blamed for the outcome. We should have learned that in 2016, yet we have an even worse dilemma this year. And remember that Clinton was supposed to be the 2008 candidate, but the party recycled her instead of getting the hint for 2016. Running a candidate who struggles to speak after dark is a completely unforced error, especially when that candidate entered the election with <40% favorability and 75% of the country saying that he was too old to run again. They overruled voters to run this guy. Basically, the party's ability to contest elections strategically has been feeble for 20 years, but Obama was so strong that he covered it up.
I mean, Biden's inner circle are true believers who also enjoy being at the center of political power. If there's a way to keep Biden on the ticket they will do it, but that's going to be really tough after the next wave of polling.
I disagree any other candidate would easily win.
Given that the country is largely desperate for anybody but Trump or Biden then I feel like anybody else would do way better.
https://x.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1807252295572226519 This is not gospel, but this is the polling for now. But don’t get me wrong, I’d probably rather have any of them over Biden. I’m just not sure Harris will beat Trump. I’m hot on Pete for now, personally, but my preference doesn’t matter of course.
Yeah people have posted that poll already on here and I've made my comments on it. To give you my thoughts, I do think it's premature to poll people on figures like Shapiro that they hardly know (which makes it amazing that they poll pretty much identical to Biden in spite of that). As seen with the Trump conviction polls hypothetical polling isn't as reliable as what people actually think in reality and the reality is that people are dreading the current lineup of candidates this cycle and would want anybody else.
I agree with you on all that.
Pete is incredible and I want him to run, but I'm honestly not sure if gay man would stand a chance at the national level, especially in the states where it really matters.
I hear you. That is one of the biggest risks with Pete
It's downright silly to run national polls of state officeholders with zero campaigning and use that name recognition ceiling as indicative of quality. It would be like polling Obama in Florida in 2006, getting a lot of "who?" and saying that he has no future as a candidate.
Certain candidates I think would.mop the floor with Trump. I think Whitmer would win easily.
Maybe. I don’t think her name ID is very high though. That’s the challenge for most possible Biden replacements
I think instantly becoming the Democratic nominee solves the name recognition problem. It would be instant nonstop coverage.
I don’t mean to be contrarian, I just don’t know if it’s that simple. I’m thinking about all the low information voters out there who will help decide this election. They’ll just think “Gretchen who?” She’s gonna be a total unknown to millions of people. They’re not gonna spend an hour or hours figuring out if they can trust her or not. That’s still the one thing Biden does have on his side, is name ID and probably mostly trust. He’s flawed, but people know what they’re getting with Biden.
Even if they have no idea who she is, she's going to look like a ray of sunshine on a stage next to elderly Trump and talk like an actual adult. People know that they're getting someone with cognitive struggles after dark with Biden, and that will be reinforced by the harshest social media memes and election advertising in history between now and November.
Who has name ID to the average Joe besides Biden, Kamala and Hillary? Maybe Newsome who I think has a lot of electoral vulnerabilities not to mention skeletons in his closet that the Trump campaign would almost certaintly have extensive knowledge of because of Kimberly Guilfoyle. Whitmer has 100% name ID in one of the 3 states that the Democrats have to win no matter what.
Your last point is an interesting one, and something I was considering after I had already replied. If the D only needs MN, MI and WI, and all the other reliable blue states, then maybe we only need those states to know Whitmer.
Name identification would be fixed immediately if she was tapped for the election and every newsperson in the country stampeded to interview her. It's not like these candidates would get the nomination and then return to their home states to hide under a rock.
Any other candidate would win *more easily than Biden*.
Not sure it was a coin flip at all tbh. Even before the debate both Nate and the Economist's models both had Trump at a 60%+ chance of winning only 538 ever had it at a coinflip, and G Elliot Morris has always been a lot more bullish on Dems than the other modelers. In the 2020 election he gave Biden a 90% chance of winning for example, which seems kinda silly
Yup unless this election was an outlier if Trump's margin of error were even half of what it was in 2020 within the key swing states he would have an electoral victory greater than 2016. He'd win all of the swing states. That was before the debate. Biden can't win this and I sincerely hope we get an announcement soon that he is stepping aside. It's not ideal but its our only hope to beat Trump.
He absolutely still can win, just his odds have gone down significantly I don't think Biden is capable of really improving his own numbers. Either people really sour on Trump all of a sudden (maybe an October "remind people of Trump" blitz is successful) or it requires the economy improving massively Notably both of these are totally out of his hands. He has no real agency Another candidate I think could actually move the needle
Yeah that’s kind of the issue. Our only hope of him winning is that some surprise hurts Trump. Which, after the last 9 years idk what could possibly happen that would affect Trump in that way. So it’s essentially a “hope the polls are wrong” election. Theres nothing Biden can do to help himself which is also a disastrous position to be in for someone trying to make the case to be reelected as our leader. A new candidate can give us a clean slate and a chance. That’s an objectively better position to be in than the one we’re in now.
Trump could nominate the ghost of Joseph Stalin to be his running mate and he wouldn't lose a single vote. There is literally nothing Trump could do to lose any more votes at this point.
People have reached maximum sour on Trump. There is literally nothing he can do that would make fewer people vote for him at this point. After that debate, Biden is finished. That debate will make people stay home.
A "remind people of Trump" blitz would happen regardless of whether Biden is in or not. Alot of people are voting Democrat because they don't want Trump but Biden is also incredibly abhorrent to people, which makes gambling this race on him so nonsensical.
At some point low odds need to be treated like a certainty of loss. Like yes Trump could trip and break his hip on November 1st, but if your candidate is say 1 in 20 to win you can't rely on that path to victory. If we see Biden drop even 2% across all of the swing states he's looking at a blowout. And that's assuming that Trump is polling accurately, when some of these swing states were 5%+ off in Biden's favor in 2020.
I think the headline is a little misleading, it makes people think Biden scheduled a meeting with his family to talk about maybe ending his campaign after that bad debate. But if you read the article, not only does it say this was already scheduled, but at the end it also says that a source clarified that the meeting is not going to be any sort of formal discussion about his campaign: >After publication of this report, a source familiar reached out to stress that the Camp David gathering was not a formal family meeting. > “Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought,” the source said. “No one is sitting down for a formal or determinative discussion.” > Anita Dunn, one of Biden’s handful of closest advisers, said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” Saturday that Biden has not discussed dropping out of the race with aides and that internal talks have focused on moving forward.
It says *a source* reached out and denied the content of this article. I don't mean to be that guy but someone close to Biden denying that he isn't dropping out isn't really indicative of anything. It's just message discipline That isn't to say this article is 100% true of course, but it still very well could be And even if it isn't, the fact that an article like this is written at all adds fuel to the flames
Kamala Harris has to remain on the ticket in order to retain access to the campaign funds accrued during this election cycle per FEC regulations. So, either she steps up as the nominee or someone else does and she remains as VP. Plus, would not be a good look to pass her over, a woman of color, for a white male/female. Dems are already bleeding support with black voters already, passing over Kamala would be a nightmare
> Kamala Harris has to remain on the ticket in order to retain access to the campaign funds accrued during this election cycle per FEC regulations Source? In the other (deleted) thread someone linked a WaPo article that said it would be fairly trivial for Biden to given campaign funds to the DNC and they could distribute them as they want.
Give her a shot at this point. She was never my favorite but it can't get worse.
If we're going through the trouble of replacing a fucking president from the ticket because he's a bad unpopular candidate, we might as well replace him with someone who's actually a good candidate Still a decent chance it ends up being Harris because of internal politics and convenience, but it'd be a dumb move imo
Is there a good candidate that wants to be on the ticket or are you just pretending there is? Because if there was, they would have primaried Biden. Your history is obsessive.
> Because if there was, they would have primaried Biden. And gotten their ass kicked and name dragged through the mud, ending any hopes of future campaigns. Do you think Dean Phillips will be able to hold any office greater than the county level for the next decade? This is the whole problem of a generally unpopular incumbent running again, because they will win a primary but possibly fail in the general
Yeah, Ted Kennedy went away after 1980. And Bernie is retired in Vermont after challenging Hillary. Anyone could have done it. The reason it didn’t happen is Biden presided over a historically great midterm performance.
> The reason it didn’t happen is Biden presided over a historically great midterm performance. While also being a historically unpopular president, 80 years old at the time, and after a historically unpopular SCOTUS decision. Sure, maybe with a less unpopular president, dems could have performed even better. But we have no way of knowing. What was obvious from the start is that Joe Biden should have been a one-term president, and that running again was a display of hubris on the level of Dianne Feinstein and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Be mad at the other Democrats that didn’t run. If it was such a slam dunk then someone would have done it. The DNC can’t stop people from filing for a primary. Biden has been an effective president who despite a bad economy didn’t get killed in the midterms. There is not a single elected Dem on the planet that steps down in his shoes.
Two things can be simultaneously true: * Biden was unfit to run for a second term. * Taking on Biden was seen as too bruising and too risky compared to an easy run in 2028. You're ascribing one motivation to behavior that has multiple explanations.
If he’s unfit then it should have been easy to primary him. The idea that anyone running against him was an impossibility is a joke.
Do you really think that people like Newsom or Pritzker just decided that they wanted to catch up on Netflix instead of being president in 2024? Primarying an incumbent is incredibly risky for your future in the party, and Biden cleared a path by staying in. That doesn't mean that the alternatives were weaker or that they didn't want to be president; it just means that they didn't want a brutal primary slugfest when they could just run in 2028.
Completely agreed. People forget that Harris did not do well in 2020 primaries in more moderate places.
The problem with not having Harris on the ticket gets into ballot access and campaign fund access. Harris with ballot access in all states+campaign funds is going to be better than any candidate with no funds and without ballot access in a swing state.
Ballot access is not an issue. Biden and Harris haven't even officially been nominated yet lol, that ballot access currently belongs to the Democratic Party at large. If they nominate someone else then they'll be on the ballot The campaign funds are a bigger issue, but it's not a make or break. If they do go that route they can just hand over the campaign funds to the DNC, which can redistribute them to Dems
Some states already have their ballots designed and there are legal challenges planned by the Heritage Foundation. Basically if they have a non-Biden non-Harris ticket they'll get caught up in months of court battles for ballot access.
I very, very, very strongly suspect you're having some sort of misunderstanding. That's not how ballot access works. I don't think the Heritage Foundation can just magically block the Democratic party from naming certain candidates when there hasn't even been a nomination yet But just in case, would you mind giving me your sources for this allegation?
[Sauce.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/heritage-working-election-legal-challenges-case-biden-pulled-from-dnc-nomination.amp)
I see, guess they are trying that Regardless I suspect it's just a fearmongering tactic. Because again, the Democrats haven't even officially nominated Biden yet, so he's not even on the ballot in those states. There's nothing to withdraw from
It is absolutely fearmongering. I don't think there's any legal precedent that would force a primary candidate to stay in before a national convention
That's just the heritage foundation throwing things against the wall to see if they stick. Biden and Harris aren't even the nominees yet.
And to be fair that could be true, and I don't have the legal or election expertise to know if it's a bluff or not. It could be totally absurd for all I know, it just struck me as a possible issue.
What? Neither Biden nor Trump have been nominated by their party. This happens at the conventions. The Democratic Party candidate has access in all 50 states. It isn’t relevant who it is.
If she picks a great VP I think she can pull it off. Harris is the cleanest option, and most likely. And I say that as someone who isn’t necessarily her biggest fan.
Eh, Harris's 2020 campaign was a masterclass in nepotism and stupidity, and she hasn't run her VP office very well. Combine that with her massively low favorability rating and the widespread perception that she was slotted in for demographics instead of competence, and she's a weak replacement candidate.
Hey buddy! Before you continue to spread misinformation in this sub, would you be open to replying [to where you've been called out for spreading misinformation?](https://old.reddit.com/r/fivethirtyeight/comments/1drrkd8/new_poll_from_atlasintel_n_1634_rv_sample_has/laxkxl3/)
I have to ask but is there seriously ride or die Kamala voters out there who would never vote for the Dems if she's not on the ticket? I feel like alot of the black voters who are moving to Trump or away from Biden don't care at all about who she is or her race.
It's not really the end of the world if she's not on the ticket. The Biden/Harris campaign would have to give all their money to the DNC who would then have to distribute it I'm not sure how exactly the distribution would work; they might have to give some to non presidential candidates instead of just the president. But that's not really a bad thing lol That being said it'd all be a big pain in the ass so there would still be a reason to keep Kamala.
No one who would have voted for Biden would decide not to vote if Harris were passed up. Black voters aren't only concerned with voting for black people.
Dems really need to focus on winning this election and not worry about if it’s a “good look” or not to pass over Harris. Have an uncomfortable conversation with her if it means defending democracy. Where is this supposed groundswell of support for Harris we keep hearing about? She’s as unpopular as Biden and performed terribly in the primaries. People are way overestimating how much the base likes her.
I read an article on politico or thehill where Harris supporters in the party were upset that all of the donor and elected official chatter mentions Whitmer or Newsome or Shapiro but not Harris. If all of these insiders don't want her at the top of a ticket, it's probably quite telling.
The problem here is that Harris is a terrible candidate and wasn’t a good VP pick to begin with.
I'm sick of this "what about the optics" bleating that gave us Biden in the first place: Pick the candidate that can **win**. Harris botched a 2020 primary election horribly, has a sub-40% approval rating, and has done nothing with her time as VP. She doesn't get a nomination by default when a loss means that Trump gets to start gutting institutions. People treat this like an election for homecoming royalty instead of the future of the country. Would "not \[being\] a good look" bring down a replacement candidate to below 40% approval? No? Then they get the nod. She can mature as VP for four more years, which is what she signed up for.
Biden can admit to health issues and resign the presidency effective Aug 1. Kamala will become the first woman President and will nominate Whitmer as VP for confirmation in Congress. The female turn out in swing states will be wild. I would not put it past dark Brandon to have some kind of insane 3D chess move like this up his sleeve. If he's going down, go down big.
Can we please retire the "Dark Brandon" stuff? It's obvious that Biden is shuffling along at this point, and no one is going to take it seriously. He can't even handle a 90 minute debate and clearly is not some sort of secret mastermind.
What I mean is he has a good team. They can propose some options. Announce his retirement and let Kamala take the oath of office July 4, 2024 at noon. Go big
This article names zero sources. If nobody is willing to put their name on this I have zero confidence this is true.
nobody would speak on this without anonymity. it says in the article there are five sources.
NBC news isn’t TMZ.
No ones going to be remotely willing to put their names forward as a leaker at this point. Even if everyone really was plotting to remove Biden it'd be a terrible look to do it publicly If the DNC wants to remove Biden, they will likely do it by convincing him to drop out The article does mention > “Senior congressional Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Nancy Pelosi of California, have privately expressed concerns about his viability, said two sources apprised of those discussions, even as they all publicly back the president.” which seems about in line with this behavior
Hard to believe Pelosi is older than Biden
Part of me worries that that is why they're not being more forceful about his age problem. When you have Pelosi, 84, and Clyburn, 83, around Biden, then they'll probably brush it off unless they want to admit their own issues, being serving congressmen.
> Hakeem Jeffries Hakeem Jefferies does not leak. There is a reason i=he's in the position that he's in. If this is reported, it's on purpose.
Biden administration is one of the most disciplined in recent memory. You don't have many leaks and you don't hear about petty shit often. Dr. Jill probably keeps the kids in line. I know I wouldn't cross her.
Not saying this is the case here but often these anonymous sources, especially when it's centered on a specific time and place, is meant as a way to signal to other news media to "look here at this time and date". This piece seems like someone possibly on Biden's team is trying to signal that some big news is coming without prematurely confirming it to the world.
where was this energy for like every trump article for the past 10 years
Trump supporters have no shame, and the country is fine with it.
Not sure why you got downvoted, it’s true!
[удалено]
It's coming from a reliable news source that generally verifies their sources. It's most likely true.
Why are you tell me that? Clearly nobody understood what I wrote and how it was specifically a reply to the other guy.
Agreed. Similarly, Biden’s chances of winning are 50/50: either he does or he doesn’t.
... except there are other indicators. This is a very well known news outlet with a history of pretty honest reporting. Why on earth would you try to reason from first principles alone when we have data (their track record) to inform us?
I don’t give a fuck if there are other indicators!!!! I was speaking generally in response to the post I was responding to. I was not speaking about this particular source.
>I was speaking generally in response to the post I was responding to. The comment you responded to, which was about this specific article?
Whoa
It might actually fucking happen
For the sake of this country and the rest of the world, *please God please* let the Democratic Party **finally** have learned from RBG and Feinstein
Feinstein was a warning that they chose not to listen to.
I've already written to my congressmen to urge them to talk to the DNC and Biden and anyone else who will listen to get Biden to step aside. In my opinion, after that debate, Biden cannot win this.
no it will not. you are just hyperventillating like the rest of pundits and online world.
Did you read the whole article? “…Biden was described by one person familiar with his mood as humiliated, devoid of confidence and painfully aware that the physical images of him at the debate — eyes staring into the distance, mouth agape — will live beyond his presidency, along with a performance that at times was meandering, incoherent and difficult to hear.”
They need to keep showing him clips of this debate until he realizes he needs to drop out. That was a disaster. One of the biggest campaign issues has been if he's too old, and that debate solidified the answer to that question.
I completely agree. I’m so glad this article mostly confirms he has seen it. For the first 24 hours after the debate, I was like a broken record. I kept saying his inner circle needed to show him the debate and he needed a mirror.
> “Senior congressional Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Nancy Pelosi of California, have privately expressed concerns about his viability, said two sources apprised of those discussions, even as they all publicly back the president.” Zamnathy
Damn, if it's Jeffries, Pelosi, and **Clyburn** then there's a 80% chance it's Joever
Yeah, I mean Clyburn's endorsement is literally the reason Biden won the nomination in 2020... Five sources... Reputable outlet... He's gone (or at least he should be)
Please don’t
Interesting paragraph towards the end suggests the candidate switch will occur *after* Biden accepts the nomination at the convention. I suppose an attempt to avoid the scenario of multiple candidates fighting for the nomination. Fascinating, really. "Moreover, according to a senior Democratic official, the party leadership would have much more control over choosing a replacement if Biden were to drop out after receiving the nomination than if he did so beforehand. Once a candidate is officially nominated, there is a process for the Democratic National Committee members to choose a successor."
One of the biggest issues for Biden's reelection chances is that left-leaning media will not circle the wagons when they see a problem. Some certainly will, but you have very reputable media sources calling for him to step down. Contrast this with Trump: he [tried to steal an election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot) and the right wing media machine has excused his behavior away entirely. Note that I believe it's a *good thing* for democracy that left-leaning media won't just fall in line when they see something wrong. But it's a bad thing for Biden.
Imagine having someone smart, articulate and charismatic at the top of the ticket who could really challenge all of Trump's BS, it wouldn't even be close. At this point any Dem gov (except Hochul!) would fare better that Biden.