2024 Primary Elections.

Trump only getting 50% here rather than the dominating lead it looked like earlier in the evening is interesting.

Definitely still the frontrunner and likely nominee, but makes it quite possible that he will at some point lose a primary or have some closer victories, which will have him raging.

I don’t know of any presidential candidate winning all primaries or caucuses. Niki Hailey will probably get New Hampshirite, but if she loses South Carolina she’s done. I wouldn’t be surprised iff DeSantis wins a few.

Not a chance.

Unless Biden suffers a massive health problem - worse than Bernie's heart attack 4 years ago - he's the nominee.

Presidential approval has descended into tribal loyalty. A president of either side starts with a 45% (more or less) disapproval locked in from the other party. 55% is the absolute peak. So when you see "Biden at 38%" what that means is that he's 38-17 among the folks that he CAN potentially reach. That was the case for Trump also.

not to say it's a good thing but it's just less of an indicator than it used to be.

She defended it a LONG time before the shooting forced her hand and she's been implicitly apologetic ever since.

https://x.com/justinbaragona/status/1747111475892629598?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

Exactly. Approval polls give those who are displeased with a given policy a free shot to "disapprove"

Gaza is ramping up the desire among some to say they disapprove. But the worst outcome of that would be the folks who foolishly stay home because they think he can win without him. They don't WANT Trump to win, they just don't appreciate the risk they are taking. Biden's task is to draw those people back to the polls. (Telling Bibi to fuck off would be a great way to do that)

Well, TBH, the Dems DID have every opportunity to choose a better candidate four years ago and decided to play it safe. Implicit in that choice is you have to ride that pony the rest of the way.

Historically, the GOP candidate who loses IA but wins NH, gets the nomination. SC is the make-or-break state for Dems, not Republicans, as I recall.

Ah, that’s why Biden is focusing on SC. I got my wires crossed on that one, thanks.

And why Bloomberg didn't enter the race in '20 until SC. That was so he could shank Sanders and Warren.

Of course. Like I said, the billionaire/ donor class don’t want people like Bernie. Unfortunately Bernie bent the knee.

He’ll be Trump’s press secretary if he wins.

You know who else "bent the knee"? Rand fucking Paul.

Yes. I mentioned my disappointment with that at the time.

I'm under no illusions that Biden is extremely likely to be the nominee.

However, all the signs are that he's going to lose to Trump. Approval ratings are one indicator. Head-to-head data is another. And given that, the point I'm making is that it's not too late for Democrats to change horse and to give themselves a better chance.

This is a similar situation to 2016. Trump is an utterly dreadful candidate (who shouldn't even be able to run) and any halfway decent Democrat should be able to convincingly beat him. But facing such a fuckup as Trump, an "open fascist" who tried to overthrow the government, Biden is currently unable to rely on a vote from some of what should be his core support, or from swing voters. He should be able to lock in both of these groups in and make significant headway even against the Republican "tribal loyalists".

If and when he loses we'll get all manner of excuses as we did with Hilary Clinton, most of which will assign little or no responsibility to Biden himself. Or to the decay of the political system brought about by bipartisan policy. It will be more conspiracy theory, criticism of the voters themselves, Fox News and so forth.

But whatever the risks with Trump (and they are very great) a large part of it will come down to the fact that what Biden is doing right now is worse than anything that Trump ever did.

@Steal Your Face, you missed this post.

This caucus thing is basically a glorified poll, not a real election. The candidates split a group of 112,000 total 'votes' statewide, about 20,000 fewer people than Iowa & Iowa State draw on a football Saturday.

I don’t know why there’s still such a focus on it.

There was a NYT/Siena poll back in November that showed Biden losing to Trump. That lone poll got way more media coverage than it deserved.

Since then, not only has Biden closed the head-to-head gap, he is pulling even in the battle ground states. Which is a disaster for Trump. It’s only January and Trump has already plateaued.

Also why Mitch McConnell won re-election by a healthy margin despite having a very low approval rating in his state. A lot of the disapproval came from MAGA lunatics who were upset that he wasn't not crazy enough. While there might have been some danger of them simply not bothering to vote, they certainly weren't going to vote for Amy McGrath.

Such a childish understanding of politics.

Bernie got a major hand in rewriting the Democratic Platform, Klain as CoS, Chair of Senate Finance and the most progressive administration in half a century if not more.

A Biden-listening-to-Warren-and-Bernie presidency got a hell of a lot more actually accomplished (I know this is hard for a Republican brain to understand but doing things is more important than getting invited on to Fox a lot) that Bernie wanted than Bernie could have himself.

Something to keep in mind is that just by being here and talking about this we are a bunch of political sickos.

Not just the majority of Americans but the majority of voters don’t know that it is going to be Biden-Trump again. Once that reality sinks in it will be a different ball game.

Biden is losing almost all head-to-head polls.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/

I'd like to see some data to support the view that Biden's position is improving, if that's the case.

Trump supporters - if he gets in again, fuck the planet YEAH!!!

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/12/trump-second-term-climate-science-2024-00132289

That's how this has worked since John Adams was President.

https://apnews.com/article/nikki-ha...antis-debate-cfa811ad87758a2d92779e793f06bbce

It’s more democratic than the UN-Democratic party that you support.

Not entirely. Both Bushes either hit or got extremely close to 90% approval during their presidencies (in both cases as part of a "rally 'round the flag" effect, and Clinton got into the 70s. So there were definitely plenty of people who didn't vote for them but were willing to say "I like the job he's doing."

I'm not going to argue that our current polarization level is unprecedented, but neither is it the only way U.S. politics have ever been.

The one that consistently fights to expand voting rights?