Six weeks ago, it was clear that the country was not interested in a Biden-Trump rematch. Even the ratings for the first debate were shockingly low, even if it was fruitful. With 51 million viewers, it was the lowest-rated first general election debate for a presidential race since we started tracking television viewers.
The poll also showed a waning interest in the campaign and overwhelming distaste for the options offered by the two main parties. North of 50% of voters regularly said they wanted to see someone other than the two run for president.
In short, the selectors were telling us in various ways that this was a matchup they didn’t want, and perhaps they wouldn’t adjust until the last minute. After all, these two candidates were well established as far as voters were concerned. What new information do voters think is needed? One of the reasons I believe the post-debate polls haven’t changed much is because the public got the two candidates they expected: the somewhat manic aloof former President Donald Trump and the hardly ambulatory President Joe Biden.
“They were what we thought they were,” the late, great football coach Dennis Green shouted from the stands after the game.
Yes, there’s a reason we political reporters like to say the cliché that a month (or a week) is a lifetime in politics. Because right now we are in the middle of a second or third life politically after the June 27 debate.
We’re now going from a presidential campaign that left the public disinterested and at times disgusted by it to one that I can see creating an electorate that could be as interested as two of the top picks in 2008 and 2020. participation in elections in the last 50 years.
The more the public votes, the more volatile this election can become again.
Before the assassination attempt, there was no scenario in which I believed Trump could convince skeptics to take a second look at him, let alone win over voters who decided not to support him in 2020 — especially after his actions on January 6, 2021. , especially. He may still not be able to attract these people. But I have a feeling these skeptics will be interested enough in whether Saturday changed Trump to perhaps check it out by listening to some of Thursday’s acceptance speech. And this is an opportunity.
Meanwhile, if the Democrats end up with a new candidate — and it’s more than likely they will — that will suddenly increase interest in what the new candidate has to say, which in turn could attract a new candidate. voters in a way that the pre-debate version of this campaign did not.
Bottom line: We’re getting very close to the moment when it might be fair to say, “Throw away everything you thought you knew about this election.”
The range of scenarios only increases, not decreases. The only thing I’m sure of is that the number of different third-party candidates will start to dwindle. Why do I believe this? The GOP seems more unified than it has at least since 2004 and the re-election of George W. Bush. That’s not to say Trump-skeptical Reagan conservatives aren’t still skeptical, but the convention did a lot to make the party sing more of the same song sheet.
Yes, there are still some blue-state Republicans who are struggling to support Trump, and they may continue to do so, but it’s a much smaller anti-Trump group than it was in 2016 or 2020.
I believe some third-party supporters, particularly those of Cornel West and Jill Stein, will take a second look at the Democrats in their decision to nominate a candidate to replace Biden. As for supporters of Robert Kennedy Jr., his campaign is simply not serious, and with both Democrats and Republicans regrouping, I expect the Kennedy vote to slowly begin to evaporate. The lack of serious campaigning may indicate that any resources he has to get on the ballot are running out, as this is no longer operating as a full-blown cleanup campaign.
But before they jump into this campaign reset, Democrats need to figure out what their ticket looks like and, more importantly, how quickly they can get their ticket picked and certified by the party.
As of this writing, my sources tell me that the only people trying to rationalize Biden staying in this race all share Biden’s last name, except Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime chief political strategist. As the gatekeeper of information to the president’s desk, Biden and his family are beginning to be blamed for the Democrats being in this position.
Worryingly, for many Democrats who have spoken with some members of Biden’s inner circle, it’s not clear the president has seen any new information about the race since the debate, instead picking memories with cherry-picked numbers that are less based on individual states. More surveys than “analytics” research, which uses a large sample of respondents across states along with voter file data to model results.
If it’s what I think, such data can often become glorified projections based on historical performance and attendance estimates that can struggle to capture change in volatile moments.
This may help explain why there is such a lack of connection between Democrats in Congress and the Biden campaign when it comes to where the president actually stands with voters.
But the reality is that Democrats have passed the point of no return with Biden. And I’m willing to bet that if Biden doesn’t bow to the pressure next week, he’ll start to lose support among the delegates he won from the technically already uncontested primaries. Rules on the Democratic side mean that delegates are only “pledged” to Biden, not legally bound to him. The likelihood that congressional leaders could organize a “Stop Biden” movement at the convention grows stronger by the hour.
I can’t imagine that being the case. At some point, Biden will realize that he wants a positive legacy for his presidency. Does he really want rejection to be the code of his career? The longer this goes on, the harder it is sometimes to follow. On Tuesday, seeing split-screen with congressional Republicans celebrating Trump as Biden landed in Delaware with Covid was a reminder that he doesn’t look like the same guy who won four years ago.
Assuming Biden bows out, the cleanest transition for the party would be for him to simply endorse his vice president. If she did, I think many of the other top Democrats would line up behind Kamala Harris, from the Obamas to the Clintons to all the potential 2028 candidates, including possibly Maryland Gov. Wes Moore of Michigan. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
I’m not ruling out some kind of mini-primer, but I’d be surprised if one develops. It’s getting too late and the party should have tickets in place, money in the bank and ads on the air. Any delay in identifying a nominee hurts, and the need to focus on the GOP ticket is likely to force Democrats to rally around Harris if it weren’t for the traditional primary that began months ago.
The only real drama will be about the second slot. Among the first names to come up are Whitmer, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly. Three of those four elected officials are fairly popular statewide office holders in the three key battleground states, so their inclusion among the Democrats I’m talking about makes the Electoral College meaningful.
As for Beshear, his business is more about messaging. He’s a red-state Democratic governor who has to work with a GOP-controlled legislature to get things done. Beshear also has experience dealing with a polarizing conservative populist. Beshear won his first term in Kentucky against Matt Bevin, who many people call “Trump before Trump” because he won the governor’s office in 2015, a year before Trump’s 2016 victory. But Bevin was so unpopular in Kentucky, a red state, that he allowed Beshear to win, and Beshear later did enough to win a second term by about 6 percentage points — what feels like a landslide for the Kentucky Democrat.
Ultimately, if Harris chooses someone, he should choose someone he is truly comfortable with. If it sounds too much like a forced political marriage, voters will notice.
But let’s not cover everything for the Democrats. The last time the party got a ticket this late in a campaign cycle, and it was closer than many thought possible after a chaotic convention, they still lost. Building a national campaign this late isn’t easy, though Harris wouldn’t be starting from scratch.
At this point, Democrats simply want to be competitive. As many congressional leaders believe, simply losing a very close race nationally would give them a strong swing to regain control of at least the House and possibly only a one- or two-seat deficit in the Senate.
But none of that fighting can begin until Biden bows out, and until that happens, Democrats will remain in the purgatory of this campaign. Will it last another weekend, a week or the rest of the campaign? For now, it is the president who decides on this.