Not sure. My guess by looking at the line is alot of Dem voters (or voters Biden needs to win back) were voting for Haley. That and you factor in that there is no real challenger where with Republicans either you are a Trumper and you are highly animated to go make sure your guy comes out on top or you are a Rep who is desperate for an alternative so you don’t have to be one of those people who voted for Trump, hates on Democrats nonstop, but wants to tell people they aren’t actually a Trump supporter.
You say this like it's a bad thing. But you seem to heavily condescend towards this option for unknown reasons. Would being independent and having zero impact on the duopoly primaries make you more proud? I'm a registered Republican (in a 90% red state) who doesn't consider myself Republican. I'm not a fan of Libertarians because they are self-sabotaging anti-pragmatists. I'll spare my opinion on Democrats. I have no problem with either or both the Republican and Democrat parties eviscerating themselves soon if that's the only way for something more practical and intellectual to gain a foothold in modern thinking.
Well I believe in Texas RFK isn’t on the ballot so technically I guess it’ll be Biden, Trump, or Jill Stein. So yeah kinda. Democracy or a Trump trial dictatorship.
I don't live In Texas, but don't get me wrong, those are the only options that can win. But those aren't the only options for an intellectually honest person. We get these two pre-ordained human lowest-common-denominators by sheer virtue of the work Republicans and Democrats have done to entrench the two party system in terms of money flow and barriers to ballots and debates over the last 100 years. Fear prevents enough people from demanding that pattern to change. Heck we can't even let 3 candidates into the Presidential debates, much less more. Why not 3? 5? 10? What's the harm there? Cross-examining scripted debate answers? It's pure supression of thought. The threat of bumbling wildcard populist Perot still scares boomers 30 years later as a threat to their beloved duopoly of good vs evil. I don't expect that to ever change, though.
The best thing for Joe Biden is for Trump to win. That is his best chance to win. The worst thing for America is for Trump to win the nomination. How the hell could someone who shows disdain for America as much as Trump win the nomination of one of the two major parties.
Oh the old “two party system sucks” argument. We need to be clear first and foremost that the Democratic Party is not a party. It’s a coalition of voting segments. Basically about 4 different political parties who NEED to vote together in order to fend off a completely united autocratic idealogy on the right who are not motivated by policy but motivated by race and fear. It suck’s that we are in this point in our nations history but the fact is if we have a split Democratic coalition, the right wing will win every election and we will cease to have a democracy. The quickest and easiest way to alleviate this problem as a band aid is for states to allow for ranked choice voting but the red states will never allow that because they know the Republican Party will significantly lose power. We could complain about the 2 party system until we are blue in the face but it won’t change anything about our constitution. If you want the chance at changes actually happening in the future you gotta put your arguments here but still understand that if Democracy does not hold, then there’s zero chance that in your lifetime that we’ll ever have the chance at any reforms that allow for more “options” at the ballot. Also keep in mind that the US has the longest standing Democracy in the world. It’s not perfect by a long shot but it’s a hell of a lot better than the corrupt autocracies around the world like Hungary, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc. YES everyone wants more choices. But let’s leave the idealist wish list discussion for a time when we don’t have someone who is literally running on becoming a dictator and openly saying it and saying he wants to impose martial law and suspend the constitution.
I don’t know if it’s the “best thing” for Joe Biden but it is the sole reason why Biden is running again instead of passing the torch. Biden only got in the 2020 race because he felt passionate enough after Charlottesville. It’s funny or sad to think that if Democracy was not on the line on the Democratic side we’d be seeing robust Democracy during the primary with a slew of candidates from different voting segments of America having a debate of ideas the way Democracy should work. But if the sitting president feels this strongly about the fate of Democracy there’s not one person in this world that’ll convince him to sit this one out. … Also I guarantee you that if there was a robust primary the polling of the candidates would look very dangerous vs Trump and Bidens lame duck polling would be through the roof because people would already be nostalgic for Biden even while he’s still the sitting president. Then all of the pundits would be saying how stupid the Dems were for being agist and pushing out a very popular president in favor of an unknown.
Trump is causing a huge reswitch of the parties again Rinos like Mitt Romney will be democrats in 5 years from now
I don't know if Trump understands that the majority of the Haley voters are Never Trumpers. He thinks those voters will switch to him over Biden when it comes to the presidential election. What's going to happen is those voters (like me), will vote for local and state that day but skip the presidential selection. Never Trumpers never die. And the sad thing is I think his children will take over after he's gone. Independents and moderate Reps have no home.
Biden has beat Trump before and Trump has plenty of established negatives. The one thing I see that might work for Biden should the Donald not be the nominee is that many MAGA will just stay home.
What a lot of people don’t understand is the two party system isn’t just a function of money and because the two parties work to suppress other parties but the Electoral College makes it very difficult for an insurgent party. As we know you can win the Presidency without winning the popular vote because the presidential election isn’t a single election but 51 separate state and DC elections. A third party that may have a very popular and charismatic candidate without an established party infrastructure in enough states can’t win the presidency. This is why in most of US history third party candidates have largely ended up as spoilers taken away more support from one party or the other by siphoning off enough votes in certain states to cost either the D or R candidates those states. In the meantime while the third party candidate support might be broad but not enough to actually win multiple states.
If you see my post from yesterday trying to make sense of the lines I saw in a supposed purple district on the Republican side, and the end results, it’s clear that it was a bit inflated by Haley voters (which could be some Dems mixed in). However in a primary for Trump to be pulling that much enthusiasm tells you that they are showing up. With the MAGA base they are coming out for Trump. It’s just the matter of whether the threat of Trump animates as many voters as it did in 2020. I get that most Dem voters didn’t show up for Biden just because they knew it didn’t matter and wasn’t worth taking time off of work. I don’t think the Texas turnout really makes a difference but the fact that Trumpers were that motivated to knock out Haley tells you that the base is not staying home in November and Dems have to mobilize their base and definitely need to pull in as much of that 17 to 30% of the Republican segment who liked Haley.
The base won't stay home if Trump is the nominee. That's for sure. But many Haley or traditional Republicans might. Also, independents will most likely vote against Trump or stay home themselves. I think it will come down to MAGA, Biden supporters, Anti-Trumpers, and Independents in that order. Biden will win 3 of those 4 groups. Although, realistically there is just too much that can happen between now and the election to really know.
Well really it comes down to running up numbers in Philly, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Detroit. Aka enthusiasm with black, and Latino voters along with suburban women in those areas. It’s still an electoral college game. Biden was the candidate because South Carolina in 2020 represented this contingent as well as any primary state and he was the nominee at that point best positioned. So really all of this dissection of the electorate is really just analyzing the popular vote which is virtually meaningless in terms of the presidency. Still fascinating and terrifying but in the end the presidency is much more simple than the media makes it out to be. If I’m Bidens camp it’s all about energizing that base in those states first and foremost and trying to pick off independents who were Haley curious. Kamala needs to be on the ground in those counties like now doing events in those communities and when Biden has more time closer to the election we need him side by side with Obama. Get on the ground with voters in those cities as much as possible.
