Democratic strategists and organizers are hoping that if 2024 presidential nominee Kamala Harris performs well in the November election, there will be a down-ballot effect in gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and U.S. House races. Democrats have a small majority in the Senate, while Republicans have a sing...
  • 24_at_the_withers@lemmy.world
    652·
    23 days ago

    Traditionally, the incumbent has a huge advantage. I don’t believe that the party of any sitting president that was primaried ever won the election. There are only a few cases of a sitting president that was eligible for another term stepping aside, and those were a very long time ago.

    There was very little precedent for what Biden did, and I think very few could have predicted the enthusiasm for Harris - I remember her last campaign. It wasn’t inspiring.

    I think Biden felt like the safest choice to many, though obviously that’s been proven incorrect. Hopefully the Democratic party will take a lesson from this and be more willing to replace an incumbent in the future if there’s a better option.

    • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
      117·
      23 days ago

      Democratic party will take a lesson from this

      Yeahhhhhhhhhh they won’t. They never do

      And let’s be real here. The enthusiasm isn’t so much for Harris. It’s for anyone not 80 years old or Trump.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        22 days ago

        Yeahhhhhhhhhh they won’t. They never do

        Sure they do. The lesson they invariably take is “we need to move to the right.”

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
      2·
      23 days ago

      I don’t believe that the party of any sitting president that was primaried ever won the election.

      Probably because the party was already in a really weak position in the first place, which led to both the nominee getting primaried and the party still losing the general anyway. Like, if someone has a massive coronary and ends up dying during emergency heart surgery you’re probably not going to blame the surgery for killing them.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      937·
      23 days ago

      . I don’t believe that the party of any sitting president that was primaried ever won the election.

      And I’ve never heard of a single person dying during open heart surgery who didn’t have a condition that required open heart surgery…

      Looking at just that and refusing open heart surgery wouldn’t make much logical sense if you had a condition surgery could help…

      Right?

      Because lots of people have died because they didn’t have surgery they needed. Similarly incumbents have lost elections because they were too weak of a candidate and shouldn’t have been on the ticket in the first place…

        • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
          132·
          23 days ago

          Every argument they start derails into being bad faith like this. They’re absurdly good at the initial post being somewhat plausible. Then whatever position they took falling apart upon further discussion.