That would certainly be a big reason to just hand things to Harris. I still don't think that all Democrats will fall in line with Harris. If Biden announces soon that he is stepping down I think there will be at least a couple of Democrats step up. Also regarding money several big donors are saying they are withholding donations to all Democrats unless Biden withdraws. That will likely ramp up the pressure even more than the polls.
You sure about that. I'm pretty sure white women have not voted over 50% for any democratic candidate in like decades Rocket River
Why abortion isn’t the winning issue Democrats think it is in 2024 https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4755429-democrats-abortion-politics-2024/ Liz Peek writes: In addition to President Biden’s disqualifying mental decline and horrific approval ratings, Democrats have another problem: They are losing their advantage on the issue of abortion. In the 2022 midterms and again this year, Democratic strategists and politicians have banked on young women, especially, turning out on Election Day to vote in favor of abortion rights. Anger about the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v Wade fueled a better-than-expected performance by Democrats two years ago. Despite low approval ratings for Joe Biden and unhappiness with the direction of the country (most particularly with sky-high inflation cutting into real wages), Republicans failed to take back control of the Senate and barely took over the House of Representatives, winning by only a few seats. The long-anticipated “red wave” never materialized; voters punished the GOP for upending the long-established right to an abortion. Coming into this year, with the Oval Office up for grabs, Democrats wanted again to focus on abortion and blame Donald Trump. He appointed justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, establishing a conservative majority that overturned Roe v Wade. Biden’s party planned to run on “Dobbs and democracy,” referring to the landmark case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which abolished abortion rights. They intended to craft their campaign around reestablishing those rights, as well as defending American democracy against Trump. The pro-abortion push, however, is losing steam. A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that in a recent survey of 1,080 likely voters, “45% of respondents trust Democrats more to handle abortion, while 43% trust Republicans more.” That narrow 2-point advantage is within the margin of error (+/- 3 percent), and down from a 4-point lead in January. Last November, Democrats held a commanding 11-point advantage. How can that be? Voters may be reacting to Republican charges that Biden’s party holds an extreme position on abortion, condoning terminating a pregnancy at any point up to birth. Democrats routinely deny that this is their stance, but the 2019 law passed in New York State and a bill approved by 49 Democratic senators in 2022 prove otherwise. The legislation passed by Senate Democrats allows abortion up through nine months of pregnancy if, “in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.” The bill does not specify what that risk might be; in theory, if a woman in her eighth month claims that having a baby might lead to severe depression, she can demand an abortion, even if the fetus were viable outside the womb. Also, she need not get approval from a doctor; the heath care provider can be a “physician, certified nurse-midwife, nurse practitioner [or] physician assistant.” This proposal mimicked the New York bill, which elicited from Cardinal Timothy Dolan a brutal op-ed describing how the “grisly legislation … eliminates legal penalties on abortionists who allow an aborted baby, who somehow survives the scalpel, vacuum and dismemberment, to die.” To be sure, the GOP has also offended voters by, in some instances, taking an extreme position on the issue. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis likely torpedoed his chances of becoming Donald Trump’s running mate by signing into law a six-week ban on abortions in his state in 2023. Since many women do not even know they are pregnant at six weeks, such a position is untenable. DeSantis made that wrong-headed decision in an effort to boost his conservative credentials and improve his chances in the GOP primary for president. Polling on abortion has consistently shown that the majority of the country wants the procedure to be legal, within limits. Democrats’ refusal to set reasonable — or any — limits may be tempering their advantage on this issue. Recent Gallup polling shows a marked drop in the number of Americans who want to completely ban all abortions, while the number who endorse abortion “under any circumstances” has moved higher. Even so, half the country wants some restrictions. It is possible to read various polls as suggesting that the U.S. is reaching consensus on this very personal and important issue, and that the extremes of both parties are out of favor. A poll by McLaughlin & Associates reveals that 54 percent of voters consider themselves pro-choice, while only 40 percent describe themselves as pro-life. But only 22 percent of all respondents say abortion should be legal for “any reason/any time.” Moreover, a clear majority says the procedure should be illegal after 15 weeks. That’s where the country is. Recognizing the majority’s views on abortion, and the results of several referendums in red states, presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump has adopted a middle-of-the-road position, agreeing with the Supreme Court’s ruling that it should be left up to the states. That doesn’t mean that Democrats won’t continue to paint Republicans as extremists on abortion, however. Recently, Vice President Kamala Harris posted on X that, if elected, Trump would “ban abortions nationwide.” She was reprimanded by a “community note” reporting, with numerous corroborating citations, that "President Trump has repeatedly said he will not sign a national abortion ban." X owner Elon Musk slammed Harris, posting, "When will politicians, or at least the intern who runs their account, learn that lying on this platform doesn't work anymore?" The country is perhaps becoming more confident that abortion rights will be upheld state by state. In deep-red Kansas and other GOP-led states like Ohio, voters have favored the right to choose. Having abortion on the ballot in certain swing states like Arizona and Nevada may help turn out young voters in November, but the issue is not as potent as it was two years ago. For all groups, including young people, the economy and inflation — issues that Republicans have a sizeable advantage on — top other concerns.
110% agree on your last point. I definitely think that if Biden simply says he's supporting his delegates to back Harris, and does not support an open primary, there will be at least one progressive left of Harris, and one Dean Phillips type to the right of Harris who essentially turn this into a contested primary. There's just no way its a perfectly clean hand off. That being said if Biden supports an open primary it will certainly be a slap in the face to Kamala, and could make her political career on the chopping block. That being said winning the election is more important than worrying about the feelings of Kamala Harris, or those who support her the most. If they are serious about also preserving Democracy, I'm sure they'll come around in November. On your criticism of Kamala, I do see what you are saying. She does come off as overly coached at times, but at times even when she's the most overly coached like the VP Debate in 2020, or the speech following the election, she can certainly deliver well. Regardless of how this shakes out, I'm convinced Kamala Harris is a better candidate than Biden at this point even though Biden obviously used to be a better candidate and has governed well as president despite the fast physical decline. She has upside and a potential constituency voting block that Biden simply has little to no chance of regaining (the stay at home Dem/Indy voters who don't pay attention to politics or understand the stakes).
The argument is the same, forgotten, less electrifying, tomato tomato. Your argument is that over time it will matter less and less and the reality is, it won't as long as those laws stay on the books. Like I said, the GOP actually might be fortunate and can get out of it by just letting it be a ballot measure in their states. This way, they stick to their "States rights" argument and then just leave it alone behind a message of "We let the states decided, they have decided," and leave it be but since we keep getting loonies in the GOP that want to tackle IVF and Contraception they might ruin such a message, time will tell. But I know for certain the pro-choice people are not just going to go away or tamper down.
All this on a Rasmussen poll...a pollster well known for its bias. Also based on a zombie lie that Democrats support abortion without limits. It's a complete dishonest lie because it forgets the caveat that the reason Democrats support late term abortions is because these are abortions where the woman CLEARLY wants to have the baby but there are complications that might put her at risk to carry on the pregnancy.
And the core bloc of voters who support Trump (evangelicals) demand not only a federal abortion ban, but are now dipping their toes into formal positions against IVF.
110% on your last point, I think she is a better option as of now, specifically after last Thursday. I love Joe but even if he does town halls and interviews to show he is fine, the cat is out of the bag in terms of what people will think about him, maybe not today but in 2 years. We all have the old relative who has a "senior moment" and fair or not that will be the label for Joe moving forward, every mistake will be amplified and the gop will pounce. I think there can be a rejuvenation on the left and maybe pick up a small % of females...............I heard one pundit throw out a Harris/Whitmer ticket and while I love that I don't think Male voters are ready for that............this sounds horrible, but she needs a man to be VP
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/05/us/politics/biden-interview-takeaways.html Four Takeaways From Biden’s Post-Debate Interview In his first television interview since the debate, President Biden tried to reassure supporters, but he spent much of the interview resisting questions about his capabilities. Biden did better than the debate. But will that be enough? Some of Mr. Biden’s answers were neither compelling nor cohesive. He paused for multiple seconds early in the interview after Mr. Stephanopoulos asked what had gone wrong a week earlier. “The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault mine. Nobody’s fault but mine,” Mr. Biden eventually said. “I, uh, prepared what I usually would do, sitting down as I did, come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail. And I realized about partway through that, you know, I quoted The New York Times had me down 10 points before the debate, 9 now or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is that what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn’t, I mean, the way the debate ran, not — my fault, no one else’s fault — no one else’s fault.” The answer was meandering and circular, even if it was not as bad as his worst moments at the debate in Atlanta. But it was hardly a crisp and concise reassurance for members of his party squinting to imagine what a second debate with Mr. Trump might look like in September.
I'm still highly amused how stupid the Democrat party has become. They have 6 weeks to convince dementia Joe to resign. The party is in a complete AVOIDABLE quagmire. These are the three leading options: 1) run dementia Joe and lose the race before it has really gotten started 2) Biden resigns and Kamala becomes president. Kamala still loses -or- invoke the 25th 3) do the very thing they claim Trump will do - upend the will of the people and instill their party candidate, forever proving Democrats have zero choice in their candidacy. If you're one of the idiots who feel like we should elect the president via the popular vote, first start within your own party.
