Not asking for a reason, but given how much crazy stuff has been happening week after week and multiple crazy twists and turns I’m curious.
This is directed at both the Hard Replace Factions(Kamalaists and those who want someone else like Whitmer or Newsom), Ridin-With-Biden Loyalists, and the fence sitters.
This isn’t about how likely either the switch or the polls are, just the reactions you’d have if after a month of crisis and a last minute switch it did nothing for the polls.
Regardless of who the candidate is, the fact remains that democrats have a dramatically better platform than the GOP. I will be falling in line with whomever the nominee is.
Assuming Biden is replaced, I think Kamala is the most likely replacement because she is already on the ticket and consequently can use the war chest the Biden-Harris campaign has already raised as well as their campaign infrastructure. Another candidate would have to start from scratch.
All that said, I knew this election was going to be a shit show for a while now, but I didn’t think it was going to be this much of one in only July.
It’s a messy situation in that Kamala was(at least in the first week or so after the debate) polling the weakest of all the replacements options, and was in the margins of error of Biden. So she seems like the worst choice for the replacement. But anyone else would lose access to a ton of funding, it’s gotta be either Biden or Harris to keep it even though those two were the weakest in the initial polls(Harris has since gone up thanks to all the dicussion, but I feel those fresh post-debate polls are the most accurate as Harris and Witmer have both gone up quite a bit since while Newsom has dropped off).
If the money wasn’t an issue they’d probably do a mini-primary and if they had full hindsight of how messy this would end up being they might have clamped down on Day 1 and stuck with Biden. Kamala is riding the middle space and it’s not a sure thing if her slight edge makes up for the image damage the 3 weeks of uncertainty have caused. We’ll see.
Yeah I think Whitmer would probably be able to stop Trump. Given she was the target of her own kidnapping and assassination attempt, she could negate Trump’s assassination boost by pointing the finger at MAGA itself. This is in addition to the fact she is very popular in Michigan, which is a very-important swing state.
But, like you said the money is the problem and I think an open primary could get very ugly. Also, dumping Harris for a white woman comes with its own problems.
All that said, I do think Harris has some strengths and could actually beat Trump, but the dems would need to rally behind her and divert all attention to what Trump & MAGA want to accomplish with Project 2025.
I suspect if they had full hindsight for how long this dragged out they’d have either immediately gone for a new primary or sent everyone out to kick Biden, OR keep the lid on the situation firmly down like they did for the first day and a half and rally around behind. Either would be better than the dragged out battle which has dominated the media and if it does result in Biden out will land the next weakest candidate on top. It’s also given time for the Republicans to adjust their strategy and start prepping for Kamala attacks, they were completely caught off guard and unprepared for that possibility for weeks, they won’t be caught off guard at this point.