2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[celedhring]

We're fucked, aren't we?

[crazy canuck]

Appears that way

[Josquius]

The Globe and Mail is reporting that American evangelicals are flocking to Trump in even greater numbers.  The criminal prosecutions are being characterized as the work of the Devil and a signifier of the end times.

Flocking to him in ever greater numbers...from where?
Weren't they already his base?

[PJL]

I honestly can't see how Trump can lose this now. Only possible option would be for Biden to say he won't run for president again ASAP and allow someone else to step in somehow.

[Tamas]

Trump will lose.

[Josquius]

I wonder whether Biden actually arguing along the lines of "A potato would be a better president than Trump" could work

[Syt]

Trump will lose.

.. . and may still end up being president.

[Barrister]

I honestly can't see how Trump can lose this now. Only possible option would be for Biden to say he won't run for president again ASAP and allow someone else to step in somehow.

But who?

Gavin Newsome (Governor of California)gets mentioned, but you know the GOP will attack him for, well, being the governor of California and being an out-of-touch woke monster.  Plus the Dem base will almost surely insist the candidate is a woman and/or a minority - which is how we got Kamala Harris as VP.

Short of getting Michelle Obama to run I don't know that anyone else would do any better, and might do a lot worse.

[Sophie Scholl]

Gretchen Whitmer would be my go-to. She's younger, effective, has high level (governor of Michigan) experience, and could bring in key votes in the Mid-West swing states.

[Barrister]

Gretchen Whitmer would be my go-to. She's younger, effective, has high level (governor of Michigan) experience, and could bring in key votes in the Mid-West swing states.

OK, fair enough name.

Problem though is we have seen promising governors who crashed and burned on the national stage.  Heck we just saw it with Ron de Santis.  I remember when I thought Scott Walker would make a great President.

It would be pretty risky for Biden to just step down and Whitmer is somehow appointed without having gone through a primary process.

[Josquius]

Say Biden announces he won't run afterall due to ill health... Then what?
Dems do primaries late?

How much of a disadvantage would it be to start campaigning now when you've not really got an image yet?

[The Brain]

Biden claiming to be ill? Boomers trying to use youth language is cringe.

[Sophie Scholl]

Yeah. The Democrats really shot themselves in the foot in terms of letting Biden stay on this late if there is any plan to replace him. The amount of time left and the mess of a second/one and a half primaries would be weird. I think at this point, most people know which party they're voting for, so it is merely a matter of who can get the most people to the polls for Democrats. I've never met anyone in-person who is excited by Biden, but I presume there must be some people like that out there. I still think he would have been best served running in 2016 when he was the funny and kind of cool Obama meme partner guy. Alas, we'll never know what might have been. Now we have the Biden we all know and... tolerate. 

[Barrister]

Say Biden announces he won't run afterall due to ill health... Then what?
Dems do primaries late?

How much of a disadvantage would it be to start campaigning now when you've not really got an image yet?

No idea.  Dems are in the midst of primaries already.  Joe Biden won in New Hampshire, for example.  There was a small controversey that in Michigan several thousand people voted "uncommitted" in the Dem primary, in protest over Biden backing Israel too strongly (Michigan has a large arab-american population).

[Admiral Yi]

It's still early in the primaries.  I believe there is precedent for Robert Kennedy entering the primaries late.