If Biden drops out, there are two options: (1) the incumbent Vice President, who is already on the ballot; (2) someone else.
(1) Has strong arguments for being the consensus candidate. Maybe they work and Dems rally.
(2) Does not. Not any of them. Guaranteed chaos, infighting, and bitterness.
If the Democrats do push Biden out, I predict there will be no consensus on a replacement candidate, leading to infighting and, ultimately, a realization that the Democrats have a stable full of flawed candidates that cannot gather national support, particularly in a short time window.
There’d be a lot of hand-wringing and then Kamala would do one rally where she’d be buoyant and electric and everyone (except for the pundit class) would jump on board. In a month, she’ll be doing events with Taylor Swift and Cardi B and we’ll forget this ever happened.
Yeah Harris is the only alternative with some legitimacy. The moment the any governor or a senator jumps in a half dozen aspiring candidates will all jump in and it will be complete chaos.
We don’t have primaries to sort things out. If it’s not Biden it has to be Harris.
Honestly their chance to drop Biden happened a while back, when he announced for second term. That's when they should've put a new candidate if they really wanted Biden to back out with minimal/no bad effects
At this point they're so far committed that all they can do is swap for Kamala or completely implode, and even the Kamala swap probably is still going to cost some votes solely from a swap
If they’re doing this, Biden needs to resign so she can run as an incumbent. And they can’t pick anyone else because you can’t run on saving democracy and also hand pick your candidate in a smoke-filled room
Doing any of this would bring HRC 16' nightmare scenarios of back room deals and candidate selection process without primary voter input, & it would throw the convention into even more chaos than it will be just over the Israel/Gaza issue.
The last 48 hours have taught me there is actually a lot of green space for meaningful intellectual debate here, but the debate probably needs to wrap up pretty quickly either way.
I know it's too late to change things, but would ranked choice voting resolve (2)? You should end up with a candidate that a majority are "ok" with, even if they aren't their first or second choice.
It wouldn’t because there are no more primaries. Ranked choice voting is a method to choose politicians in elections. There are no more primary elections left and no time to do it all over even if it was procedurally possible.
IMHO, in current circumstances, there's no way to have a contested convention that doesn't leave a substantial portion of potential Dem voters disillusioned, angry, and less likely to vote for the candidate. The margins of victory are too narrow, and the non-voter rate too high, to risk it.
Not to mention the survivor of that convention fight may have numerous scandals that, because they haven’t been in the presidential spotlight, never previously came to light.
In almost any voting system except plurality, Biden's age wouldn't be creating drama because there would other similar candidates.
But ranked choice doesn't always lead to concensus, particularly in a crowded field. For example, Eric Adams winning in NYC.
electionscience.org/uncategorize...
Everyone asking Biden to drop out wants JD Vance to be president. If Biden dies, cool. Kamala is president. If Biden is incapacitated, cool. We have an amendment for that and Kamala becomes president.
If "Democrats" meaning Party Leadership does kick Biden out that will be a demonstration that the Ds do indeed have the same authoritarian instincts as the Rs, they just express them differently.
