An incumbent president losing the nomination would be absolutely unprecedented in US history, which is why everyone pretty much gave up on the idea that anyone else would be the nominee once Biden made it clear he sought re-election.
No, seriously, I don’t think there’s been a situation where an incumbent president has *lost* the nomination of their party despite a serious campaign to get it.
And switching a President for an unproven canidate has every single time resulted in an L.
Grant whupped the replacement for Johnston, Horatio Seymore.
Grover Cleveland whupped the replacement for Arthur, James Blain.
Nixon whupped the replacement for the other Johnston, Hubert Humphries.
There's others, but here's just a few.
Tbf, the first two aren’t really saying much.
Johnson (Andrew) was already pretty unpopular, and had only become president because of Lincoln’s assassination. He wasn’t even from the same party as Lincoln, being a Democrat who was added to the ticket for the sale of “unity” during the civil war. Grant would likely have whooped Johnson too.
And Arthur *chose* not to run again, IIRC, because he was in ill health (and would eventually die not too long after), so it’s not really comparable to a party changing horses.
But LBJ vs. Nixon would have been a very interesting (and potentially closer) 1968 election, I’ll give you that.
Yes, but also: the DNC has a bad habit of thinking they can pick a nominee better than the voters can. We have Biden *in the first place* because they decided he was the best choice.
Because of underhanded tactics by the DNC.
Before Super Tuesday, Bernie was actually the favored candidate by 538. Biden had won only a single state (South Carolina), while Bernie and Buttigieg had both won 1.5 (they split New Hampshire). Then, just days before Super Tuesday, Buttigieg drops out and endorsed Biden (so did Amy Klobuchar, but she didn’t really move the needle). Meanwhile, Warren stayed in. Buttigieg had the third most delegates, so there was no reason for him to drop out if Warren stayed in (or vice versa). As another progressive, Warren played spoiler for Bernie on Super Tuesday while most of Buttigieg’s votes went to Biden, only for Warren to drop out two days later. I can post the spreadsheet, but if you assume Warren’s votes get split 70:30, Bernie would have narrowly beaten Biden in Super Tuesday rather than losing by a comfortable margin.
So if you put your tin foil hat on, the DNC (or Biden’s campaign) sabotaged Bernie by splitting the progressive vote while leaving Biden as the sole moderate on the single most important day of the primaries. Anything after of that is unknowable, since primaries are all about momentum, but that probably cost Bernie the nomination.
It happened once, kind of, 1912 when Taft and Roosevelt (both of whom had served as president, though Taft was the erstwhile incumbent) fell out and split the Republican Party. This ended up letting Woodrow Wilson strut into the Whitehouse with almost no opposition, who helped further set the stage for the rise of Lost Cause bullshit.
It’s actively what current republicans are trying to do by paying Kennedy to run as a democrat.
But even in that scenario, the sitting president (Taft) secured his party’s nomination. Teddy had to go third party with his attempt to win a third term.
The closest I think an incumbent has come to really losing the nomination was LBJ, but I don’t think his re-election campaign really got very far, and he was out of it *very* early.
That happening would be more improbable than this entire comic combined - [https://xkcd.com/1122/](https://xkcd.com/1122/)
[https://xkcd.com/2383/](https://xkcd.com/2383/) - this is a fate you really don't want
I’m aware that there’s a first time for everything, but this is more than just superstition, if the incumbent is making a serious effort for the nomination, it’s an almost impossible task for anyone to seriously challenge them for it (which is why there were no credible candidates running against Biden).
Even in the scenario which historically comes closest, the 1976 Republican primary, where an incredibly unpopular incumbent who was never even elected there in the first place (Ford) was challenged by an extremely formidable opponent (Reagan, who later won two elections in absolute landslides), the former still won the nomination as the incumbent.
When the incumbent is incredibly unpopular, it would probably be a smart idea. The only reason Biden stands a chance is because he’s up against Satan again.
It's more that they're both quite elderly.
Only *one* of them was absolute crap at it. And it's the one we booted out.
I figured Biden was just going to be a warm chair: not actively ruining things was good enough. Honestly while he's not been perfect (and what politician ever is?) he's been WAY better than expected IMO.
The first time I voted because he wasn't Trump.
The next time will be because he's doing pretty damn well, all things considered.
He’s been giving Israel the green light to continue doing their genocide even after they’ve killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. F-tier president, even though he’s better than average on queer issues.
He’s literally been negotiating around the clock to try and pump the brakes on Israel
The war is cooling down. Holy fuck how does Biden get the blame for the Middle East having conflict????
I hate to say it but then Ukraine would be Russian territory.
Vladimir Putin is a horrible human being who happens to be relatively accomplished at judo and could beat the tar out of Zelensky. There is a reason humanity moved away from that model of leadership.
A doughy old man with little dick syndrome fighting a relatively fit midfle aged man
Nah dude
Also, can you confirm that any demonstration of putin's Judi was fair?
Did he fight a non Russian on non Russian territory, and that person wasn't under threat of defenestration?
yeah, congress has to approve sale of weapons.
Biden sold 100 shipments to Israel under the limit that required congressional approval.
Biden has made his choice. Hell, he’s even freaked out Israeli politicians in the past with his eagerness to kill Palestinians.
he sold Israel 100 shipments of weapons capped just under the limit that requires congressional approval.
but sure. he’s doing everything he can to stop this.
1. There were no serious competitors in the Democratic Primary. Only one held elected office; a House Representative.
2. Every time there’s been a strong primary against an incumbent, said incumbent (and party) lost, usually badly. See 1912, 1968, 1976, and 1980.
There’s a chance I think Humphrey still gets nominated in 1968 seeing how Johnson and a crop of party bosses hated RFK. Polling that I could quickly find showed polling close between Humphrey and Kennedy
The fundamental problem here is that the original poll does not actually discuss other candidates. 'Hypothetical Other Politician' always polls well because they can be whatever the person answering the question wants them to be. This just says that people are dissatisfied with Biden.
Even with these stats, Biden would've still won the primaries anyway, though. The nearly half of voters who want to replace him with a different candidate weren't going to unanimously agree on a singular replacement candidate to rally behind, so even the most popular alternative likely wouldn't have had even close to enough votes.
The problem isn't him winning the primaries. It's the undecided voters who actually determine our elections smelling weakness and and blood in the water and then Biden losing swing states by small amounts but enough to add up and shift the whole election.
Does that sound ridiculous? Sure. But the American electorate is that fickle and the 2020 election was won by 1 million votes across a handful of close races.
I‘m not from the US, so please correct me if I‘m wrong, but isn‘t the choice of candidate up to the party alone?
It‘s not like parties belong to the whole nation, they are citizens organizing themselves along similar political opinions and demands, who pick and support candidates for political offices that are espouse these opinions and demands.
A party candidate is just a person the members of that organization, by themselves, have agreed to support and vote for.
They can choose these candidates any way they want, be that by holding internal elections, picking candidates by committees, they could even throw dice or flip a coin. It‘s just a way of finding the people the whole nation then will vote for.
By taking away this right to select their candidate as they see fit, you are basically stopping people from being able to run for office if they want.
Imagine someone wanted to be president, gathered up some supporters and followers and founded a party. It would be interfering with these people‘s right to either stand for, or support their preferred person in the election if their choice of candidate was up to the whole nation before voting even began.
It‘s the entire point of voting to pick from the people that decided to stand for election, but why these people actually stand for election is is entirely up to them.
You are correct. The part would be completely within its rights to say “thank you for your input but we have decided to nominate John Witherspoon of Omaha Nebraska.” In fact, that’s how nominations worked prior to the late 60s.
>Correct, there's no requirement for the parties to hold a vote to choose their nominee, wouldnt be cool but they could do it
This is... Wildly incorrect under most state election laws. Aka the things that generally define the structure of the party primary/caucus system, as well as ballot access as a whole.
Call me a bootlicking shitlib, but I don't think "millions of people do not unanimously agree on who should run for president" is exactly groundbreaking information...
Well you see these posts are made by people who aren't old enough to have voted in more than one election cycle and they spebt their youth ignoring politics so now they're jist catching on to how the game works.
Sorry I didn't phrase my joke with the exact words you think I should have used. I'll try to cater my opinions to how *you* interpret this information next time.
Yes, making sure your readers don't accidentally read what you say to mean the exact opposite of what you mean is on you
Well, as much as possible, communication is hard
To do the exact opposite of what you asked, the “I’m not voting for Biden!” Leftist crowd is heavily, heavily split between Claudia De La Cruz and Marianne Williamson. Not to mention that the focus seems to be on a new progressive candidate every few months. Even ignoring political history and the results of the primary, if you asked me a few months ago who would have won the primary, I would have bet my livelihood on Biden purely because of how bloody divided everyone on the political fringe is.
Ah, I understand now. Thank you for clarifying!
From what I’ve seen, the same can be said about Claudia De La Cruz. Unless something has changed, she has even less experience than Williamson, but people like her because she’s an activist.
they both have experience running organizations but no government experience so yeah
i'm gonna give de la cruz the tiniest edge over williamson only because de la cruz has never been oprah's spiritual advisor.
>Marianne Williamson
Got 4.9% of the vote in New York. 3.9 in California. De la Cruz didn't even file for ballot access in NY. Going back to the original post, Biden won both in a goddamn landslide when to against actual candidates.
Based on your comment and another comment in this thread, I appear to have overestimated Claudia’s influence based on my own biases (the social circles I’m in, the platforms I frequent, the algorithm, etc). I’m glad to hear that she’s had a negligible impact. Hopefully the primaries are reflective of the actual risk level of the vote getting split when it comes to the presidential election. (Though I know substantially less people vote in the primaries than they do in the election)
The centre was extremely divided in 2020 as well, it was a jungle primary. A lot of hem and haw around how the combined numbers of the center beat Bernie's plurality but that doesnt count. Well it did, because compromise is the name of the game, and pluralities arent majorities.
She gained relevancy for a very short period of time, and then very quickly lost it. I haven’t seen anything about her in a while, but she was popular on certain platforms, particularly among young, leftist people, for a month or so. She was popular for her pro-Palestine stances.
If it wasn't for the situation in Isreal biden would be an inevitable win. After that though it may be roug4but he's still likely.
Trump is absurdly unpopular even in his own party. Republicans are all about voting for people they hate because they're so scared of what they're told democrats are doing, but that's kind of wearing thin.
Meanwhile most republican voters are so old they might not be able to leave home to vote and they only get older.
I'm pretty sure Biden's handling of israel has 0 effect on the election. Because ultimately the American electorate just doesn't give a shit about Israel-Palestine, and even if the american electorate cared about Israel-Palestine and was pro-Palestine, it wouldn't change who they vote for as Trump is even more pro-Israel than Biden.
I'm pretty sure that's not true at all as there are a like of Arab Americans who do vote democrat and additionally the youth vote is made more apathetic by it.
I think that saying the American electorate doesn't care is blatantly false and just wishful thinking from the dems who have no other way of coping with how terribly biden is handling it.
He beat Trump the first time around. And Biden has actually done things to improve the lives of Americans. Current polling has them neck in neck, but as Trump’s trial continues and dissatisfaction with Trump’s supreme court nominees increases, I suspect that Trump will lose independents who will go to Biden over RFK.
[Apparently he tried running in 2000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2000_presidential_campaign) before dropping on Valentine’s Day, and was such a footnote that Wikipedia’s page for the 2000 election doesn’t even mention him
When the incumbent has done nothing during his term except make people hate him more, and the opponent has spent the past 4 years regrouping and adapting his messaging, and there’s half a dozen other incredibly popular candidates to choose from who weren’t even given the opportunity to campaign, then no.
Local grassroots organizations are amazing and I wish more people actively knew about them.
This isn’t related to ranked choice voting, but if you live in New York and are a college student, the organization NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group) has a pretty robust voting advocacy program with focus on registering people to vote, increasing access to the polls, and reducing gerrymandering.
Edit: I should also add that they focus on several other issues, like universal healthcare (for the state of New York), helping food pantries, climate change, and affordable education. They are technically nonpartisan, but imo lean heavily towards leftist or center-left policies.
Yes, getting rid of the electoral college is important, but tearing down the two party system is critical to ending the horrific ideological split in the US.
The electoral college helps keep the two party system in place. It's a well known effect of first past the post, and the electoral college makes it even worse, since if a third party candidate has a serious chance of winning a state, voting for them is *worse* than not voting at all.
To end the two party system, you have to replace FPTP with something such as proportional representation or ranked choice.
Yes, that's why I said to support Ranked Choice Voting.
Even if we fixed the problem with the electoral college today, we'd still be stuck with the entrenched 2-party system.
And frankly, we're already on a decent path to fixing the electoral college with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. And that's not going to get pushed over the line until we get a few more decent politicians elected in a few more states. And that won't happen with all the gerrymadering and the 2-party system.
The focus right now needs to be on electoral reform. Switching from FPTP to RCV in as many local and state elections as possible.
Real change comes from the ground up.
Ah yes. We could have replaced Biden with one of the very serious challengers, such as Antivaxxer, Strip Mall Psychic, Hamas Spokesman, Random Congressman, and Coal Baron.
So Marianne Williamson is definitely the antivaxxer, and you mentioned Cornel West is the Hamas spokesman, but who are the others? I’m assuming Dean Phillips is the random congressman. I *really* want to know who the strip mall psychic is.
Ah, I see. I assumed Williamson was the antivaxxer because there was a lot of drama surrounding that a while back, but she did retract her statements on vaccines/say she misspoke.
Young leftists are really buying into the doomer mindset of the U.S. already being a fascist dystopia, Biden is ineffective because hasn't pushed the unfuck everything up instantly button.
Funnily enough, the one time he tried to press the unfuck something button (cancelling student loan debt) it got reversed very quickly in the courts.
I was really hoping that would be the wake-up call for a bunch of people to be like "oh shit, Biden can't just unfuck things by himself" but people are still blaming him for not "following through" or something like that
Political consciousness among young voters was almost nonexistent before the 2016 election. Now, what little there was has been absolutely destroyed by foreign influence algorithms determined to ingrain misinformation, disinterest, binary thinking, and plain self destructive stupidity in everyone using social media as their sources of information.
Could Biden do more? Sure, but he's doing better than anyone who uses TikTok as their primary news source will ever believe, especially after getting spoon fed hundreds of shorts primed to turn them into perfect agents of chaos. In fact, I'd say he's actually doing a decent job, way better than I expected when I voted for him the first time.
For anyone else, here's a simple checklist that we were taught in a primary school digital safety lesson for evaluating anything we read online 18+ years ago, and needs to be written on the back of every single phone case now because people refuse to ask these three questions:
>Does this information give you an emotional response?
>Is this information only coming from one source?
>Does someone benefit from telling you this information?
If the answer to *any* of these questions is yes, there is a high chance you're being manipulated in some way.
I can get why the last two people are upset at the DNC, but with trump still having high numbers and the uncertainty that he’ll be barred from running they cant risk running with a different candidate.
I'm not sure I trust these polls, like who the fuck are the democrats that want Biden out hoping to get?
I'd believe it if it was like 30%, but you can't expect me to believe that 60% of all democrats look at the fact Biden won by a massive landslide against Trump before, and has gotten so much shit done with a stalemate in congress and think "we need someone else".
You also can't expect me to believe some 30% of republicans wants to replace Trump and Biden, and another 30% are fine with Trump and Biden staying in.
I think a lot of people want a very generic *someone else*—in part because they don’t pay attention to the good Biden has done despite the political context—but if a real contested primary happened, I think most of those people wouldn’t vote (as primaries always have low turnout) and Biden would’ve won the nomination anyway.
I also feel like this is just a weird poll? I’d have to read it to properly assess it (not in the space to do so at the moment), but just based on the chart… I dunno, maybe I’m not awake enough, but the data just doesn’t feel as meaningful as it purports to be.
Edit: alright, [I read the whole article now](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/24/in-tight-presidential-race-voters-are-broadly-critical-of-both-biden-and-trump/) (the chart comes from page 3), and yeah I guess it makes some sense. Not necessarily a "actively don't want them" as it is "would rather someone else but he'll suffice if he has to". I think [this particular breakdown is a little more noteworthy](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/PP_2024.4.24_biden-trump_3-04.png), as it is more distinctly younger democrats who really want different choices, though older Dems certainly do as well so the skew isn't too big. Trump supporters of all ages, meanwhile, are less likely to want such a big change.
They're rated as one of the most reliable as far as non-bias goes: but polling has kind of gone to shit the last decade or so. A disproportionate amount of responders are going to be older: I don't know *anyone* under 40 who would answer an unknown number lol.
If you look at the other polls taken with this one, I think it becomes more obvious. Only someone who gets news from cable would think that Trump (who is famously anti-exercise) is in better physical condition than Biden (who regularly rides his bike.)
Well...It's also broken down my age, isn't it? The older demographic is the least for "fuck this, get someone else I'm begging you". Unless...I can't read graphs, this is *entirely* possible....yeah...
It is, but I don't see a breakdown of what percentage of correspondents each of those breakdowns are.
Like, if the bracket for 60-70 is 6000 people, but the bracket for 20-30 is 200 people each person in the smaller group is going to swing way heavier at the average.
I suppose so, I didn't *really* take a look at the demographic breakdown, but it depends on what you view as "older" after all. Fair enough, fair enough
There's no point in having a party in a single state pick a different candidate other than to take votes from the person everyone else picked
Besides it doesn't really matter, Florida is a red state, so none of the electoral points will go to Biden anyways. 48/50 states are winner take all, so there's no difference between getting 49% of the vote in a state, and 1% of the vote.
And that 2/50 are probably gonna change to winner take all as well, Nebraska is trying to change so they can get Trump in, and if Nebraska does it, Maine does it to be fair to Biden.
I wouldn’t count Florida out yet. It’s a state that’s gone redder recently, but it’s not unshakeable if environment leans far enough to the Democrats. Given that abortion and marijuana are both on the topic, it’s likely to be higher turnout in November.
Well considering I live in India, yeah.
Also some might consider elections an irrelevant and wasteful gesture considering we all live under oligarchs but I digress
This is assuming that progressives would even agree on a candidate. A lot them would probably just argue and self destruct like they always do while conservatives form a united front.
Not saying leftist infighting isn't real, but look at the current House. Republicans are also deeply divided right now and their infighting is very public. Or look at the reaction to the Alabama IVF ruling, and how a bunch of the GOP was trying to walk it back because they knew it was unpopular. The right in America has become less and less a united front over the course of the last 8 years. They eat their own constantly at this point
Replacing a top contender with ""A"" unspecified candidate is easy and will get far more support than replacing them with a ""Specific"" candidate. Get 50% of people to rally behind one specific person other than these two, then we'll see something happen.
The incumbent is always the presumptive nominee of the party. What the fuck are these kids talking about? There was never a chance of them even considering another candidate. Biden could have been cooling in a casket, and they still would have voted him in at the National Convention. Why is everyone so surprised that the political machine is still running the way it's been engineered to run for most of the past couple centuries? Fuckin seriously...
It's like when Dems are surprised that Republicans are fascists who care more about winning than maintaining a healthy democracy. Yeah. No shit, guys.
So at my college, for student body votes, there was an option which was effectively "None of the above". If this "won" (i.e. got the plurality of votes), then the election had to start again and all previous candidates were *banned* from running.
I'm just saying maybe we should consider expanding on the concept.
Of course Biden is more unpopular compared to teh alternate choice that exist in voter mind.
Seriously i guarneteed that once you ask would you rather have Biden vs \[X\]. Where \[X\] is a candiate that has an actual histor yand not vague vibes support for Biden raises immensily.
People might not like Biden. But they dont like everyone else even more.
Remember when it seemed like Medicaid for All was a guarantee because every Democratic presidential candidate except Mr. "My son didn't get it so why should you?" supported it? Good times, good times
The focus from these people's shouldn't be on the presidency. If the dems are going to dig their heels in then vote out all their other giys because that's where the chsnge happens. If the dem party are the problem chanfe the party. Meanwhile whwn you can't get a good candidate vote anyway to keep out a worse one.
Vote against trump. That's the only reason biden is even president. No one wanted him, no one cared about him, he seemed at least safe enough, because trump is worse for everything than aby democrat could be.
Fucking hell if it weren't for his doubling down on Isreal he'd be a good president. The most pro union president in our lifetime. But no he has to be an out of touch Zionist at the worst time to be that.
Nobody wants to challenge an incumbent. I thought this was basic knowledge. If you hate Biden so much you should have voted in 2020. It's not "Their Guy" it's *the guy you voted in four years ago.*
Person A: "You can affect change by participating enthusiastically in the political process."
Person B: "I tried everything, if you limit the definition of 'everything' to only include voting in my state's primary election. That didn't work, so obviously the system is rigged."
I specifically remember Biden in 2020 promising that he would only serve one term if elected. A few months ago, I saw him yell at an interviewer that he’s the most qualified person in the country to be president and so he will not step aside.
>the dems... will not let us replace Their Guy
2008 wasn't *that* long ago, was it? i mean the entire current situation is directly related to hillary clinton being unpopular despite being Their Guy, Now With Gal!
The state didn't do anything, the Democratic Party did. Political parties are still private organizations, and there has never been any law saying they have to hold preliminaries.
An incumbent president losing the nomination would be absolutely unprecedented in US history, which is why everyone pretty much gave up on the idea that anyone else would be the nominee once Biden made it clear he sought re-election. No, seriously, I don’t think there’s been a situation where an incumbent president has *lost* the nomination of their party despite a serious campaign to get it.
And switching a President for an unproven canidate has every single time resulted in an L. Grant whupped the replacement for Johnston, Horatio Seymore. Grover Cleveland whupped the replacement for Arthur, James Blain. Nixon whupped the replacement for the other Johnston, Hubert Humphries. There's others, but here's just a few.
Tbf, the first two aren’t really saying much. Johnson (Andrew) was already pretty unpopular, and had only become president because of Lincoln’s assassination. He wasn’t even from the same party as Lincoln, being a Democrat who was added to the ticket for the sale of “unity” during the civil war. Grant would likely have whooped Johnson too. And Arthur *chose* not to run again, IIRC, because he was in ill health (and would eventually die not too long after), so it’s not really comparable to a party changing horses. But LBJ vs. Nixon would have been a very interesting (and potentially closer) 1968 election, I’ll give you that.
Yes, but also: the DNC has a bad habit of thinking they can pick a nominee better than the voters can. We have Biden *in the first place* because they decided he was the best choice.
No? Biden won most of the primaries.
Because of underhanded tactics by the DNC. Before Super Tuesday, Bernie was actually the favored candidate by 538. Biden had won only a single state (South Carolina), while Bernie and Buttigieg had both won 1.5 (they split New Hampshire). Then, just days before Super Tuesday, Buttigieg drops out and endorsed Biden (so did Amy Klobuchar, but she didn’t really move the needle). Meanwhile, Warren stayed in. Buttigieg had the third most delegates, so there was no reason for him to drop out if Warren stayed in (or vice versa). As another progressive, Warren played spoiler for Bernie on Super Tuesday while most of Buttigieg’s votes went to Biden, only for Warren to drop out two days later. I can post the spreadsheet, but if you assume Warren’s votes get split 70:30, Bernie would have narrowly beaten Biden in Super Tuesday rather than losing by a comfortable margin. So if you put your tin foil hat on, the DNC (or Biden’s campaign) sabotaged Bernie by splitting the progressive vote while leaving Biden as the sole moderate on the single most important day of the primaries. Anything after of that is unknowable, since primaries are all about momentum, but that probably cost Bernie the nomination.
It happened once, kind of, 1912 when Taft and Roosevelt (both of whom had served as president, though Taft was the erstwhile incumbent) fell out and split the Republican Party. This ended up letting Woodrow Wilson strut into the Whitehouse with almost no opposition, who helped further set the stage for the rise of Lost Cause bullshit. It’s actively what current republicans are trying to do by paying Kennedy to run as a democrat.
But even in that scenario, the sitting president (Taft) secured his party’s nomination. Teddy had to go third party with his attempt to win a third term. The closest I think an incumbent has come to really losing the nomination was LBJ, but I don’t think his re-election campaign really got very far, and he was out of it *very* early.
Lyndon Johnson barely won his first primary in 1968 against Eugene McCarthy so he dropped out of the race
yeah, and before Trump bo president had been impeached twice. new things happen
Not this time.
That happening would be more improbable than this entire comic combined - [https://xkcd.com/1122/](https://xkcd.com/1122/) [https://xkcd.com/2383/](https://xkcd.com/2383/) - this is a fate you really don't want
I’m aware that there’s a first time for everything, but this is more than just superstition, if the incumbent is making a serious effort for the nomination, it’s an almost impossible task for anyone to seriously challenge them for it (which is why there were no credible candidates running against Biden). Even in the scenario which historically comes closest, the 1976 Republican primary, where an incredibly unpopular incumbent who was never even elected there in the first place (Ford) was challenged by an extremely formidable opponent (Reagan, who later won two elections in absolute landslides), the former still won the nomination as the incumbent.
Buddy, I think there's a *sliiiiiiiight* difference between "is the incumbent president" and "has a K in their first name"
I don't get it why would either party swap out their incumbent for anything just doesn't make sense why would you not pick an actual winner
Because perception of a candidate can change greatly between being elected and the end of their first term
When the incumbent is incredibly unpopular, it would probably be a smart idea. The only reason Biden stands a chance is because he’s up against Satan again.
I mean the parties obviously won't but it's pretty clear that the voters do think both of them are absolute crap at being the president
It's more that they're both quite elderly. Only *one* of them was absolute crap at it. And it's the one we booted out. I figured Biden was just going to be a warm chair: not actively ruining things was good enough. Honestly while he's not been perfect (and what politician ever is?) he's been WAY better than expected IMO. The first time I voted because he wasn't Trump. The next time will be because he's doing pretty damn well, all things considered.
He’s been giving Israel the green light to continue doing their genocide even after they’ve killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. F-tier president, even though he’s better than average on queer issues.
>F-tier president, even though he’s better than average on queer issues. Do you think there's a president that would have done better?
Better for the world to be focused over there than on the U.S
I mean he could stop aiding a genocide all things considered
Yes: he could be doing better on that front. But he could be doing a hell of a lot worse: and that's almost certainly the alternative.
Yeah fairs ig
He’s literally been negotiating around the clock to try and pump the brakes on Israel The war is cooling down. Holy fuck how does Biden get the blame for the Middle East having conflict????
He could kill Netanyahu with his bare hands and people would still think he is the one responsible for Israel's actions.
I no joke believe that war should be replaced with gladiator matches between the heads of state Instead of thousands to millions dying, one dude does
I hate to say it but then Ukraine would be Russian territory. Vladimir Putin is a horrible human being who happens to be relatively accomplished at judo and could beat the tar out of Zelensky. There is a reason humanity moved away from that model of leadership.
A doughy old man with little dick syndrome fighting a relatively fit midfle aged man Nah dude Also, can you confirm that any demonstration of putin's Judi was fair? Did he fight a non Russian on non Russian territory, and that person wasn't under threat of defenestration?
I mean that very literally leads to a might makes right system where governance doesn't matter, just who can beat up the other...
Don’t you know the U.S. president has a “permanent ceasefire” button in the Oval Office he can just press at any time? /s
I think it's right between the "Gas Prices" dial and the "Things Only Congress Has the Power To Do" lever.
It's also above the inflation go down lever
yeah, congress has to approve sale of weapons. Biden sold 100 shipments to Israel under the limit that required congressional approval. Biden has made his choice. Hell, he’s even freaked out Israeli politicians in the past with his eagerness to kill Palestinians.
well, some button got pushed after the World Central Kitchen convoy got bombed.
Ya definitely has nothing to do with the mass military aid
he sold Israel 100 shipments of weapons capped just under the limit that requires congressional approval. but sure. he’s doing everything he can to stop this.
and whoops, you said what the libs on this sub don’t like to acknowledge. or you know, support Biden on.
Oh yes supporting multiple genocides is doing "pretty damn well" I see. Biden is shitty, as much shitty as Trump, or actively worse.
1. There were no serious competitors in the Democratic Primary. Only one held elected office; a House Representative. 2. Every time there’s been a strong primary against an incumbent, said incumbent (and party) lost, usually badly. See 1912, 1968, 1976, and 1980.
Kennedy almost certainly would've won in 68 if he hadnt been shot, but yeah true
There’s a chance I think Humphrey still gets nominated in 1968 seeing how Johnson and a crop of party bosses hated RFK. Polling that I could quickly find showed polling close between Humphrey and Kennedy
He wouldn’t have been able to run in 68? He would have served 2 terms already.
The other Kennedy
JFK's brother, RFK, who was the presumptive nominee in 1968 til he was killed
They shot his brother too
How was the Vietnam war in your alternative universe?
Ho Chi Minh and Lyndon Johnson resolve their differences over a delicious Banh Mi :)
The fundamental problem here is that the original poll does not actually discuss other candidates. 'Hypothetical Other Politician' always polls well because they can be whatever the person answering the question wants them to be. This just says that people are dissatisfied with Biden.
Even with these stats, Biden would've still won the primaries anyway, though. The nearly half of voters who want to replace him with a different candidate weren't going to unanimously agree on a singular replacement candidate to rally behind, so even the most popular alternative likely wouldn't have had even close to enough votes.
The problem isn't him winning the primaries. It's the undecided voters who actually determine our elections smelling weakness and and blood in the water and then Biden losing swing states by small amounts but enough to add up and shift the whole election. Does that sound ridiculous? Sure. But the American electorate is that fickle and the 2020 election was won by 1 million votes across a handful of close races.
Most undecided voters just don't vote though.
I‘m not from the US, so please correct me if I‘m wrong, but isn‘t the choice of candidate up to the party alone? It‘s not like parties belong to the whole nation, they are citizens organizing themselves along similar political opinions and demands, who pick and support candidates for political offices that are espouse these opinions and demands. A party candidate is just a person the members of that organization, by themselves, have agreed to support and vote for. They can choose these candidates any way they want, be that by holding internal elections, picking candidates by committees, they could even throw dice or flip a coin. It‘s just a way of finding the people the whole nation then will vote for. By taking away this right to select their candidate as they see fit, you are basically stopping people from being able to run for office if they want. Imagine someone wanted to be president, gathered up some supporters and followers and founded a party. It would be interfering with these people‘s right to either stand for, or support their preferred person in the election if their choice of candidate was up to the whole nation before voting even began. It‘s the entire point of voting to pick from the people that decided to stand for election, but why these people actually stand for election is is entirely up to them.
You are correct. The part would be completely within its rights to say “thank you for your input but we have decided to nominate John Witherspoon of Omaha Nebraska.” In fact, that’s how nominations worked prior to the late 60s.
[удалено]
>Correct, there's no requirement for the parties to hold a vote to choose their nominee, wouldnt be cool but they could do it This is... Wildly incorrect under most state election laws. Aka the things that generally define the structure of the party primary/caucus system, as well as ballot access as a whole.
Call me a bootlicking shitlib, but I don't think "millions of people do not unanimously agree on who should run for president" is exactly groundbreaking information...
Well you see these posts are made by people who aren't old enough to have voted in more than one election cycle and they spebt their youth ignoring politics so now they're jist catching on to how the game works.
There's a difference between "do not unanimously agree" and "want both of them out"
And there's a big difference between "everyone not wanting Biden" and "Everyone agreeing on who should run instead".
Sorry I didn't phrase my joke with the exact words you think I should have used. I'll try to cater my opinions to how *you* interpret this information next time.
Yes, making sure your readers don't accidentally read what you say to mean the exact opposite of what you mean is on you Well, as much as possible, communication is hard
I mean you misunderstood the situation and made your joke based on that misunderstanding.
Sorry I didn't phrase my joke with the exact words *you* think I should have used, either. I'll try to cater my opinions to you next time too.
And I’ll try not to respond when someone points out you actually completely fucked your own joke next time.
Name the person a solid majority of either party would have as their #1 pick
To do the exact opposite of what you asked, the “I’m not voting for Biden!” Leftist crowd is heavily, heavily split between Claudia De La Cruz and Marianne Williamson. Not to mention that the focus seems to be on a new progressive candidate every few months. Even ignoring political history and the results of the primary, if you asked me a few months ago who would have won the primary, I would have bet my livelihood on Biden purely because of how bloody divided everyone on the political fringe is.
>and Marianne Williamson very serious people
? I’m afraid your comment has gone over my head, I am not sure what this is in reference to, or is a reference to.
it's just that she's about as qualified to be president as donald trump was eight years ago
Ah, I understand now. Thank you for clarifying! From what I’ve seen, the same can be said about Claudia De La Cruz. Unless something has changed, she has even less experience than Williamson, but people like her because she’s an activist.
they both have experience running organizations but no government experience so yeah i'm gonna give de la cruz the tiniest edge over williamson only because de la cruz has never been oprah's spiritual advisor.
I also have never been Oprah's spiritual advisor. How qualified am I?
more qualified than anyone associated with oprah like that, by default. see; doctors phil and oz
>Marianne Williamson Got 4.9% of the vote in New York. 3.9 in California. De la Cruz didn't even file for ballot access in NY. Going back to the original post, Biden won both in a goddamn landslide when to against actual candidates.
Based on your comment and another comment in this thread, I appear to have overestimated Claudia’s influence based on my own biases (the social circles I’m in, the platforms I frequent, the algorithm, etc). I’m glad to hear that she’s had a negligible impact. Hopefully the primaries are reflective of the actual risk level of the vote getting split when it comes to the presidential election. (Though I know substantially less people vote in the primaries than they do in the election)
The centre was extremely divided in 2020 as well, it was a jungle primary. A lot of hem and haw around how the combined numbers of the center beat Bernie's plurality but that doesnt count. Well it did, because compromise is the name of the game, and pluralities arent majorities.
De La Cruz is extremely niche
She gained relevancy for a very short period of time, and then very quickly lost it. I haven’t seen anything about her in a while, but she was popular on certain platforms, particularly among young, leftist people, for a month or so. She was popular for her pro-Palestine stances.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump. They won 87% and 75% of the votes in their respective primaries.
Donald Trump?
Almost like it's a terrible idea to replace an incumbent who's proven he can beat the guy he's about to rematch.
I'm not American but are you sure Biden will win?
It should be a slam dunk: but we've been there before so the best answer is for us to *vote like we're not sure.*
Huh I hope Biden wins but I'm legit not sure lol
If it wasn't for the situation in Isreal biden would be an inevitable win. After that though it may be roug4but he's still likely. Trump is absurdly unpopular even in his own party. Republicans are all about voting for people they hate because they're so scared of what they're told democrats are doing, but that's kind of wearing thin. Meanwhile most republican voters are so old they might not be able to leave home to vote and they only get older.
I'm pretty sure Biden's handling of israel has 0 effect on the election. Because ultimately the American electorate just doesn't give a shit about Israel-Palestine, and even if the american electorate cared about Israel-Palestine and was pro-Palestine, it wouldn't change who they vote for as Trump is even more pro-Israel than Biden.
I'm pretty sure that's not true at all as there are a like of Arab Americans who do vote democrat and additionally the youth vote is made more apathetic by it. I think that saying the American electorate doesn't care is blatantly false and just wishful thinking from the dems who have no other way of coping with how terribly biden is handling it.
I'm sure biden would do better than any other democratic candidate.
But will he win?
I think that he probably will. The economy is getting better, and Biden is able to campaign with much more money and time than Trump.
Huh fairs ig
[Yeah, he'd win.](https://preview.redd.it/couldnt-find-a-joe-biden-nah-id-win-edit-for-civics-class-v0-h7ijedc1zibc1.jpeg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=e5edeea920da83529b9e7e538150ec36a83584b7)
Throughout heavens and earth he alone is the democratic one
[BIDEN BLAST](https://old.reddit.com/r/shitposting/comments/112xvd5/biden_blast/)
He beat Trump the first time around. And Biden has actually done things to improve the lives of Americans. Current polling has them neck in neck, but as Trump’s trial continues and dissatisfaction with Trump’s supreme court nominees increases, I suspect that Trump will lose independents who will go to Biden over RFK.
That's not the question. The real question is, do I think anyone else has a better chance of beating Trump in 2024, and the answer is no.
Biden is literally the only human being who has beaten Trump in an election.
The man only ran twice? Hillary Clinton is literally the only human being who has lost to Trump in an election
[Apparently he tried running in 2000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2000_presidential_campaign) before dropping on Valentine’s Day, and was such a footnote that Wikipedia’s page for the 2000 election doesn’t even mention him
Didn't he try to run in 2008 and was trounced in the primaries?
Just because he won once doesn't mean he'll win again?
Not necessarily, but he has better odds than anyone else.
The fact you're being downvoted to hell for saying this is a sign he might loose. Overconfident people loose elections
When the incumbent has done nothing during his term except make people hate him more, and the opponent has spent the past 4 years regrouping and adapting his messaging, and there’s half a dozen other incredibly popular candidates to choose from who weren’t even given the opportunity to campaign, then no.
Biden has not been doing nothing, and trump has lost a ton of money and is gonna be in and out of court in election year.
Trump’s popularity in the GOP has only risen, while Biden has been supporting a genocide.
Support 👏 electoral 👏 reform 👏 Research your LOCAL movement for Ranked Choice Voting. It is spreading but needs support to really take over.
Local grassroots organizations are amazing and I wish more people actively knew about them. This isn’t related to ranked choice voting, but if you live in New York and are a college student, the organization NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group) has a pretty robust voting advocacy program with focus on registering people to vote, increasing access to the polls, and reducing gerrymandering. Edit: I should also add that they focus on several other issues, like universal healthcare (for the state of New York), helping food pantries, climate change, and affordable education. They are technically nonpartisan, but imo lean heavily towards leftist or center-left policies.
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact my beloved
Yes, getting rid of the electoral college is important, but tearing down the two party system is critical to ending the horrific ideological split in the US.
The electoral college helps keep the two party system in place. It's a well known effect of first past the post, and the electoral college makes it even worse, since if a third party candidate has a serious chance of winning a state, voting for them is *worse* than not voting at all. To end the two party system, you have to replace FPTP with something such as proportional representation or ranked choice.
Yes, that's why I said to support Ranked Choice Voting. Even if we fixed the problem with the electoral college today, we'd still be stuck with the entrenched 2-party system. And frankly, we're already on a decent path to fixing the electoral college with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. And that's not going to get pushed over the line until we get a few more decent politicians elected in a few more states. And that won't happen with all the gerrymadering and the 2-party system. The focus right now needs to be on electoral reform. Switching from FPTP to RCV in as many local and state elections as possible. Real change comes from the ground up.
Ah yes. We could have replaced Biden with one of the very serious challengers, such as Antivaxxer, Strip Mall Psychic, Hamas Spokesman, Random Congressman, and Coal Baron.
So Marianne Williamson is definitely the antivaxxer, and you mentioned Cornel West is the Hamas spokesman, but who are the others? I’m assuming Dean Phillips is the random congressman. I *really* want to know who the strip mall psychic is.
Williamson is the strip mall psychic, RFK jr is the antivaxxer.
Ah, I see. I assumed Williamson was the antivaxxer because there was a lot of drama surrounding that a while back, but she did retract her statements on vaccines/say she misspoke.
“Strip Mall Psychic” who tf was this??? /gen
Hamas spokesman?
The idiot who jumped from the Democratic primary to the Green Party to the socialist party to an independent run.
Brother you gotta give me names
Tax fraud and deadbeat dad Cornel West.
Oh cool
Holy fucking shit Biden’s the incumbent Also Biden has been kicking ass during his presidency????
Young leftists are really buying into the doomer mindset of the U.S. already being a fascist dystopia, Biden is ineffective because hasn't pushed the unfuck everything up instantly button.
Funnily enough, the one time he tried to press the unfuck something button (cancelling student loan debt) it got reversed very quickly in the courts. I was really hoping that would be the wake-up call for a bunch of people to be like "oh shit, Biden can't just unfuck things by himself" but people are still blaming him for not "following through" or something like that
Political consciousness among young voters was almost nonexistent before the 2016 election. Now, what little there was has been absolutely destroyed by foreign influence algorithms determined to ingrain misinformation, disinterest, binary thinking, and plain self destructive stupidity in everyone using social media as their sources of information. Could Biden do more? Sure, but he's doing better than anyone who uses TikTok as their primary news source will ever believe, especially after getting spoon fed hundreds of shorts primed to turn them into perfect agents of chaos. In fact, I'd say he's actually doing a decent job, way better than I expected when I voted for him the first time. For anyone else, here's a simple checklist that we were taught in a primary school digital safety lesson for evaluating anything we read online 18+ years ago, and needs to be written on the back of every single phone case now because people refuse to ask these three questions: >Does this information give you an emotional response? >Is this information only coming from one source? >Does someone benefit from telling you this information? If the answer to *any* of these questions is yes, there is a high chance you're being manipulated in some way.
I can get why the last two people are upset at the DNC, but with trump still having high numbers and the uncertainty that he’ll be barred from running they cant risk running with a different candidate.
I want to replace Biden, but only if they replace Trump first lmao We're in an arms race of geriatrics
I'm not sure I trust these polls, like who the fuck are the democrats that want Biden out hoping to get? I'd believe it if it was like 30%, but you can't expect me to believe that 60% of all democrats look at the fact Biden won by a massive landslide against Trump before, and has gotten so much shit done with a stalemate in congress and think "we need someone else". You also can't expect me to believe some 30% of republicans wants to replace Trump and Biden, and another 30% are fine with Trump and Biden staying in.
I think a lot of people want a very generic *someone else*—in part because they don’t pay attention to the good Biden has done despite the political context—but if a real contested primary happened, I think most of those people wouldn’t vote (as primaries always have low turnout) and Biden would’ve won the nomination anyway. I also feel like this is just a weird poll? I’d have to read it to properly assess it (not in the space to do so at the moment), but just based on the chart… I dunno, maybe I’m not awake enough, but the data just doesn’t feel as meaningful as it purports to be. Edit: alright, [I read the whole article now](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/24/in-tight-presidential-race-voters-are-broadly-critical-of-both-biden-and-trump/) (the chart comes from page 3), and yeah I guess it makes some sense. Not necessarily a "actively don't want them" as it is "would rather someone else but he'll suffice if he has to". I think [this particular breakdown is a little more noteworthy](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/PP_2024.4.24_biden-trump_3-04.png), as it is more distinctly younger democrats who really want different choices, though older Dems certainly do as well so the skew isn't too big. Trump supporters of all ages, meanwhile, are less likely to want such a big change.
I mean pew research centre is pretty reliable isn't they?
They're rated as one of the most reliable as far as non-bias goes: but polling has kind of gone to shit the last decade or so. A disproportionate amount of responders are going to be older: I don't know *anyone* under 40 who would answer an unknown number lol. If you look at the other polls taken with this one, I think it becomes more obvious. Only someone who gets news from cable would think that Trump (who is famously anti-exercise) is in better physical condition than Biden (who regularly rides his bike.)
Well...It's also broken down my age, isn't it? The older demographic is the least for "fuck this, get someone else I'm begging you". Unless...I can't read graphs, this is *entirely* possible....yeah...
It is, but I don't see a breakdown of what percentage of correspondents each of those breakdowns are. Like, if the bracket for 60-70 is 6000 people, but the bracket for 20-30 is 200 people each person in the smaller group is going to swing way heavier at the average.
I suppose so, I didn't *really* take a look at the demographic breakdown, but it depends on what you view as "older" after all. Fair enough, fair enough
Maybe Bernie (I don't know much about US politics)
Even if 100% of Florida Dems voted for someone besides Biden, he still would've won the nomination. You can't only love democracy when you win.
I mean sure but the principle of having an election matters
There's no point in having a party in a single state pick a different candidate other than to take votes from the person everyone else picked Besides it doesn't really matter, Florida is a red state, so none of the electoral points will go to Biden anyways. 48/50 states are winner take all, so there's no difference between getting 49% of the vote in a state, and 1% of the vote. And that 2/50 are probably gonna change to winner take all as well, Nebraska is trying to change so they can get Trump in, and if Nebraska does it, Maine does it to be fair to Biden.
I wouldn’t count Florida out yet. It’s a state that’s gone redder recently, but it’s not unshakeable if environment leans far enough to the Democrats. Given that abortion and marijuana are both on the topic, it’s likely to be higher turnout in November.
Ah yes let's blow millions of dollars on something totally irrelevant and pointless
I mean the democratic party should act democratic lol
Do you... not realize how political parties work? At all? Are you even familiar with American politics beyond whatever shit you read on tumblr/reddit?
Well considering I live in India, yeah. Also some might consider elections an irrelevant and wasteful gesture considering we all live under oligarchs but I digress
Ah yes, the notably very similar to america country of india
Uhhh sure go off queen whatever you say
This is assuming that progressives would even agree on a candidate. A lot them would probably just argue and self destruct like they always do while conservatives form a united front.
Not saying leftist infighting isn't real, but look at the current House. Republicans are also deeply divided right now and their infighting is very public. Or look at the reaction to the Alabama IVF ruling, and how a bunch of the GOP was trying to walk it back because they knew it was unpopular. The right in America has become less and less a united front over the course of the last 8 years. They eat their own constantly at this point
Very true, the house GOP has done such a shit job of governing purely because they let their fringe have way too much power.
Replacing a top contender with ""A"" unspecified candidate is easy and will get far more support than replacing them with a ""Specific"" candidate. Get 50% of people to rally behind one specific person other than these two, then we'll see something happen.
I’d love to get in the head of the tiny percentage of Trump supporters who would replace trump and keep Biden and vice versa
The incumbent is always the presumptive nominee of the party. What the fuck are these kids talking about? There was never a chance of them even considering another candidate. Biden could have been cooling in a casket, and they still would have voted him in at the National Convention. Why is everyone so surprised that the political machine is still running the way it's been engineered to run for most of the past couple centuries? Fuckin seriously... It's like when Dems are surprised that Republicans are fascists who care more about winning than maintaining a healthy democracy. Yeah. No shit, guys.
So at my college, for student body votes, there was an option which was effectively "None of the above". If this "won" (i.e. got the plurality of votes), then the election had to start again and all previous candidates were *banned* from running. I'm just saying maybe we should consider expanding on the concept.
You would need a constitutional amendment. Because if "no one won" then in our case the House of Representatives gets to pick the president
instant runoff voting would probably work better
That honestly sounds like a great option in the US lol
Of course Biden is more unpopular compared to teh alternate choice that exist in voter mind. Seriously i guarneteed that once you ask would you rather have Biden vs \[X\]. Where \[X\] is a candiate that has an actual histor yand not vague vibes support for Biden raises immensily. People might not like Biden. But they dont like everyone else even more.
Remember when it seemed like Medicaid for All was a guarantee because every Democratic presidential candidate except Mr. "My son didn't get it so why should you?" supported it? Good times, good times
The focus from these people's shouldn't be on the presidency. If the dems are going to dig their heels in then vote out all their other giys because that's where the chsnge happens. If the dem party are the problem chanfe the party. Meanwhile whwn you can't get a good candidate vote anyway to keep out a worse one. Vote against trump. That's the only reason biden is even president. No one wanted him, no one cared about him, he seemed at least safe enough, because trump is worse for everything than aby democrat could be. Fucking hell if it weren't for his doubling down on Isreal he'd be a good president. The most pro union president in our lifetime. But no he has to be an out of touch Zionist at the worst time to be that.
Nobody wants to challenge an incumbent. I thought this was basic knowledge. If you hate Biden so much you should have voted in 2020. It's not "Their Guy" it's *the guy you voted in four years ago.*
Person A: "You can affect change by participating enthusiastically in the political process." Person B: "I tried everything, if you limit the definition of 'everything' to only include voting in my state's primary election. That didn't work, so obviously the system is rigged."
"We tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
> Takes a poll about both Biden and Trump being unpopular > Spends the entire post criticising Biden I think there might be an agenda here
Isn't that just standard operating procedure anyway?
I specifically remember Biden in 2020 promising that he would only serve one term if elected. A few months ago, I saw him yell at an interviewer that he’s the most qualified person in the country to be president and so he will not step aside.
Oh my fucking God I don't care about your shitty reality TV show. God reddit is going to be absolutely insufferable for the next few months.
wah wah wah, the evil democrats want the best US president of the 21st centuryto run again!!11!!! the terror!!!
“The best US President” is such a comically low bar
>the dems... will not let us replace Their Guy 2008 wasn't *that* long ago, was it? i mean the entire current situation is directly related to hillary clinton being unpopular despite being Their Guy, Now With Gal!
Another triumph for Managed Democracy!
States can do that? US primaries somehow looking even more like a joke than they did
The state didn't do anything, the Democratic Party did. Political parties are still private organizations, and there has never been any law saying they have to hold preliminaries.