DeSantis, the moderate Republican alternative to Trumpism.
DeSantis is, absolutely, the man. The problem is he’s not that great of a candidate. He has no charisma, and Trump crazies won’t vote for anybody but Trump. But unless Repubs want Trump (all the reporting since midterms seems to indicate they want to quietly slither out of the Trump-hole), they’re stuck with DeSantis.
None of that really matters though until we find out who the Democratic nominee will be. DeSantis isn’t a great candidate, but he could trounce Kamala, Buttigieg, etc.
And we can’t know how awful Biden will be until we get there. If he’s the same Biden as the last cycle, great. If he’s worse, which biology pretty much guarantees, then we’re in serious trouble. He’s even mumbled about not running.
I don’t think this is a given. It’s hard to grok a candidate’s popularity when they’re not the nominee. Clinton’s approval ratings were in the high 60’s when she was SecState.
Biden will absolutely be a beast in 2024. He has so many achievements in his back pocket, he has incumbency, and really, if he goes all in on his ‘Fuck around and find out attitude’ I don’t see the GOP running against it. The score will be close, because we are a polarized country, but it will be enough to get it done.
That being said, Mayor Pete keeps making the rounds on Fox News, and sounds reasonable, I can see him getting the nod. The man radiates charisma in a way that just isn’t match by the GOP at this time.
Kamala lost her own state in the primaries. And nothing has changed as VP — she’s a trainwreck in front of cameras.
Biden got 3% of the vote in Delaware in 2008. And is notoriously a gaffe factory.
I want Democrats to win, but Biden is old. Very old. He literally may be a different candidate this cycle, and it’s not his fault, it’s biology.
We’ll have to wait and see, but I think you’re very out of touch as far as Pete. While older voters matter more, Democrats do rely on young voters, and Pete is anathema to anyone my age I’ve ever talked to.
Biden is charming, Kamala is not. Probably sexism.
It’s odd for young progressives to make an ideological case against Buttigieg while simultaneously rejecting Harris because her race and gender apparently make her unelectable.
I think we are pretty sure who the Democratic nominee will be. Barring death or incapacitation in office, Biden is running. Of course a lot can happen in the next 18 months, but that goes both ways.
Yeah, I think the Dem nomination isn’t going to be decided by people who think Harris and Buttigieg and Biden are not good candidates.
Biden Himself has made rumblings about maybe not running. This time I’m linking is the third such time he’s said something similar in the past year.
This is the very first paragraph in that story:
President Biden told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley last Thursday that while he intends to run for reelection in 2024, the decision is still up in the air.
My emphasis added.
Democratic victories and defeats are often decided by apathy. And every data point I’ve seen points to demographics that are crucially important to Democrats (minorities and young people) being apathetic to Pete and Kamala. I’d love to be proven wrong.
I mean, you’d obviously say that if people are running around behind the scenes figuring out what the hell they’re going to do. Let me reiterate that I want Democrats to win.
I mean, the entire history of politics in the United States tells us that incumbents in the White House run for re-election, unless they are barred by law, driven from office, or disqualified by death or disability. And if they decide to run, their party nominates them.
Like I said, it’s not a lock, because anything can happen. But if I were a betting man, I’m betting he is the nominee. Basically nobody surrenders the incumbency advantage willingly.
You’d be in good company, and I’m there with you. Chances are good he’ll be the nominee. We’ll see if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Florida man crushes Florida man in poll. Tantrum to follow:
The thing we should all be pumped about is that DeSantis didn’t use the midterms to say to the Trumpers “It’s my way or the highway,” which pretty much every pundit, left or right, was sure was the right thing. Because of that, it’s going to be an absolute bloodbath.
In this past election, Republicans had an advantage in turnout. Democrats did as well as we did because we convinced a few Republican-leaning swing voters in critical races to switch their votes to Democratic candidates. It seems like turnout is more like a base requirement and elections hinge more on convincing marginal voters to change their votes and less on mobilizing non-voters.
Black voters were crucial to Democratic victories in every battleground state. In Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia, the number of votes cast by Black voters was between two and 100 times larger than the margin of victory. In Georgia, a Democratic victory that was decided by 11,000 votes, higher turnout among Black voters alone netted Joe Biden an additional 200,000 more votes than Hillary Clinton won in the state in 2016. In both Georgia and Arizona, two states that secured Biden’s victory, the number of new Black voters alone who voted in 2020 compared to 2016 made up the entire margin of victory.
In 2020, 30% of all voters were “new” presidential voters in their state. 14% had never voted before, and the rest had either just moved to a new state or skipped voting in the 2016 election. In the South and Southwest, these numbers are particularly high: for many states in the region, around 30% of 2020 voters were new and did not cast a ballot in 2016. This means that a full third of the people who voted in swing states like Georgia, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona last year did not vote in those states in 2016.
I don’t think you’re totally wrong, but apathy among young voters, and crucially minorities, is important to Democratic success. Probably the best thing Democrats had going for them was Donald Trump. He’s not a man that inspires apathy. Will these voters turn out for Kamala or Pete? Will they turn out for Biden against a candidate other than Trump? I dunno. But Biden was way more attractive for Black Americans, at the very least, than Kamala or Pete. Or Bernie for that matter lol.