US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3825

On December 07 2022 02:19 BlackJack wrote:
The question wasn’t whether or not Biden will have an incumbent advantage. That’s pretty undisputed. Nobody would think Biden would be as well off running as an 82 year old that wasn’t the President for the last 4 years. The question was whether Republicans like DeSantis would want to delay their run so that they don’t have to tackle the incredible feat of beating Biden to win the Presidency.

On December 07 2022 02:19 BlackJack wrote:
The question wasn’t whether or not Biden will have an incumbent advantage. That’s pretty undisputed. Nobody would think Biden would be as well off running as an 82 year old that wasn’t the President for the last 4 years. The question was whether Republicans like DeSantis would want to delay their run so that they don’t have to tackle the incredible feat of beating Biden to win the Presidency.

On December 07 2022 02:38 ChristianS wrote:

Yeah, and I’m saying between incumbent advantage on the one side and Biden arguably being an especially weak candidate on the other, I think I’d weight incumbent advantage quite a bit more. You seem to think they should be falling over themselves to get to face Biden rather than some other replacement-level Dem, even despite the incumbent advantage, and I just don’t buy it. Maybe that’s partly because I don’t rate the “replacement-level Dem” all that highly either, but I also think you’re overstating the weakness of Biden’s position quite a bit.

On December 07 2022 03:24 Sermokala wrote:
I think theres a simple logic for me at least for 24 Biden beats trump, Biden loses to Desantis, only if Trump withdrawn instead of A trump defeat in the primary. If there is a primary battle I think Biden wins either way.

On December 07 2022 01:55 ChristianS wrote:
I mean, every historical moment is unprecedented, you can always find variables that weren’t true previously and *might* mean previous trends don’t apply. But you have to exercise careful judgment about what you consider an important variable.

My impression is that “Biden will enjoy a healthy incumbent advantage” is closer to the truth than “Biden is unpopular and will have a harder time than 2020.” I think presidential incumbent advantage has more to do with systemic advantages for the guy in power than it does the specific popularity of the individual benefiting from being president. Republicans will probably have at least *some* kinda primary fight they have to go through first, and being President just gives you a lot of power to control the conversation.

Obviously being more popular would be better for him but I think it’s a mistake to read approval ratings and think they mean the same thing they did under Nixon or Reagan or Clinton. People just answer that poll question differently then they used to. Otherwise I think it would be pretty hard to understand how we got this midterm results given the president’s (un)popularity. Obviously there’s a lot of other factors that could change the political landscape by 2024 (Does the economy crash? What happens with Russia and Ukraine by then? Do we get any more J6-like political violence?) but I think the current information doesn’t give good reason to think Biden will be weak.

As for whether Trump will be the Republican nominee I think there’s an enormous amount of uncertainty about what Republicans do next. It’s never seemed clearer that Trump is bad for their electoral chances, but the prospect of decoupling from him is as fraught as ever. Anti-Trump Republicans I know seem excited, like they think this is their moment, but I think it’s pretty easy to imagine a few Republicans condemning Trump for wanting to “terminate the constitution,” a lot of speculation about whether he’s done, and then he just goes on to win the nomination anyway. I mean, who else is there besides Desantis? Hawley? Cruz again?

On December 07 2022 02:19 BlackJack wrote:
The question wasn’t whether or not Biden will have an incumbent advantage. That’s pretty undisputed. Nobody would think Biden would be as well off running as an 82 year old that wasn’t the President for the last 4 years. The question was whether Republicans like DeSantis would want to delay their run so that they don’t have to tackle the incredible feat of beating Biden to win the Presidency.

On December 07 2022 06:04 pmh wrote:


I dont think the republicans see DeSantis as a major asset that they have to "safe",that they have to wait with for the best possible moment. He is a pretty good candidate though. And the republicans probably think they got a good change against Biden with DeSantis.

I think the republicans will go with DeSantis and hope he will carry florida and that that will be enough.
Difficult to make a prediction already,what happens in the final year can turn everything upside down. But right now i think Biden would be the favorit,albeit with a rather small margin.

On December 07 2022 06:56 ChristianS wrote:
@BJ: Candidates tend to come out of primaries bruised. They had to spend a bunch of money already, and members of their own party were trying to tear them down. Maybe that depends a little on how that primary goes but my impression is that most of the 2020 candidates came out less liked than they went in - the fact they already lost once to Joe Biden doesn’t speak well of their ability to drive a movement where he couldn’t. And considering we haven’t had a blue wave since 2018 there’s not a lot of new faces to choose from that we didn’t already examine and discard in 2020. Warnock maybe? AOC?

@Drone: Sure, but that’s unusual behavior for approval rating, right? Normally there’d be a lot of movement based on, I dunno, the inflation or the latest scandal or a RATF effect when a war starts or whatever. But Biden’s is doing the same thing Trump’s did: start ~50%, drop somewhere in the 35-45% range at the first controversy, and just kinda stay there for the rest of time. It’s as though by the 100 day mark, almost everybody has decided how they’re gonna answer that question if asked and hardly anybody changes their mind.

Thing is, the reason we care is because it used to be predictive of how people will vote, and *that* doesn’t seem to be locked in stone the same way. For both Biden and Trump, there’s apparently a decent chunk of people that say they don’t approve of the President, but will still vote with that team when the time comes, and another decent chunk that won’t but maybe would have under different circumstances. The generic congressional ballot, for instance, moves around as new events happen in a way that *does* seem to be predictive of voting.

That’s also kinda intuitive, introspectively? Most people will acknowledge (at least if you ask in the right context) that both parties suck, that every election both candidates seem even worse than the last one, and that they’re voting more against the other team than for their own. So of course everybody’s “approval” is low, right? I don’t “approve” of Joe Biden but I’d sure as hell vote for him over Trump or Desantis right now.

On December 07 2022 06:56 ChristianS wrote:
@BJ: Candidates tend to come out of primaries bruised. They had to spend a bunch of money already, and members of their own party were trying to tear them down. Maybe that depends a little on how that primary goes but my impression is that most of the 2020 candidates came out less liked than they went in - the fact they already lost once to Joe Biden doesn’t speak well of their ability to drive a movement where he couldn’t. And considering we haven’t had a blue wave since 2018 there’s not a lot of new faces to choose from that we didn’t already examine and discard in 2020. Warnock maybe? AOC?.