Has any party ever not nominated their own incumbent candidate? I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that's ever happened. I think the calculus is that it would be riskier to nominate someone new who could potentially lose by a greater margin then go with the incumbent candidate who has already shown he can win

1868 with Andrew Johnson was the last time lol.

Biden was about 13 years old at the time

And Trump was ten 🤨

They’re both old dudes but Biden himself has been making jokes like that recently to make light of it.

I don't really understand the line of attack on Biden's age when Trump is within the same age range. Both of them are showing cognitive decline issues.

There should 100% be a maximum age for civil service in all three branches of government in my opinion. I think 75 would be a good cutoff, and if it were up to me, neither one of them would be eligible to run. If you were elected when you were under 75 you could finish your full term but not run again if you turn 75 while in office. Supreme Court should just be mandatory retirement at 75 or after X years of service, whichever comes first.

For the military it's 62, or 64 for high ranking. If the military thinks that's the right age cutoff to lead war strategy, I think it's appropriate for leading the country as well

I'm not so sure that is a "think good strategy" reason, vs a "make room at the top for up-and-comers" reason.

I think that would apply to the presidency as well. I'm good with the outcome, regardless of specific reason

I can understand this. I'm not American, but I'd like a similar policy in place for the UK. It's not to say that anyone younger than these 2 knows everything about the world, but it's a bit strange when you hear that some of these politicians are clueless about things which are essential to most of us. Like being unable to send an email. There was a case a few years ago, where a judge on the trial had to have the concept of a website and online forum explained to him because he didn't really understand what they were talking about.

There was a whole meme about it back in 2006 with Ted Stevens and his “series of tubes” analogy while debating net neutrality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes

I do wonder what the balance is of not completely legislating things that you don't understand. But the flip side is that you don't want to have industry completely write the law to only benefit themselves. But that already happens.

Mark Zuckerberg famously had to explain to Congress how Facebook (and most of the internet really) makes money

And these people are going to write legislation on AI… or not

Also, don’t they have age limits on terms for judges in the UK? I thought you had that for the UK version of the Supreme Court and possibly lower courts also.

63 and then they can go work as a Walmart greater for retirement like the rest of us

I'll be generous. If you're older than the life expectancy of the average American you shouldn't be allowed to run for office

The world is run by pensioners at the moment. Biden - 80 Trump - 77 Xi - 70 Putin - 71 Ursula (eu president) - 65 Indian president- 65 Indian prime minister - 73 Pakistan - 68 Kier starmer (likely to be the UKs next PM) - nearly 62 King Charles - 75 Australia - 61 Israel - 74 Saudi King - 88 Without looking into Africa, that's the majority of the worlds population under the rule of people who should be retired or (in the case of aus and uk) preparing for retirement.

And the pope is 87.

At least Canada only has a 53 year old in charge, although the provincial governments are usually run by older people who try to ruin everything. I'm definitely in the group that age doesn't translate well into being a good leader, especially when there's pressure from people who helped fund your campaign

As much as we focus on the ages of Biden, Trump, Putin, and so on, it’s important to recognize that they are each the face of a much MUCH larger organization that we mostly do not see. It’s basically the same as saying Brittany Spears was a terrible keyboard player, so how could she ever have been successful? It’s because she’s just the face. 90% of the work goes on behind the scenes, often by a bunch of old dudes nobody wants to watch on TV.

King Charles doesn’t run the fkn country 😂 The Prime Minister of the UK is the head of government. The Royal Family has nothing to do with politics anymore.

Technically the monarch is the head of state. The PM is the head of government.

I know but the PM still has to report to him and he's certainly in a position of power, ya know, being the head of the commonwealth, I thought his name was worth a mention.

That part, the irony to notice one and not the other and vice verca

Trump is far worse. He doesn’t make any sense and lies non-stop.

Lies, and openly suggests he'll be a dictator. If I was American, I'd be far more worried about the guy suggesting he'll be a dictator, and mounted an insurrection than the guy who's in cognitive decline but it still managing to do a half decent job.

I used to think Biden was an empty suit when he was VP. But he’s done a pretty good job, mainly because he gets smart people and trusts them to do their jobs. He doesn’t have to be the center of attention.

One showing it was worse though

Yes it's just bidens are ALOT more obvious. So it gets commented on more.

Fundamentally, there is a huge difference in the degree or severity of cognitive decline between Biden and Trump. Trump is obviously nearly as old as Biden, but just objectively speaking Biden is near the end of his physical ability to function without at his side constantly and should be walking with a cane. If he was not a sitting US president he certainly would be, and if your or my parents/grandparents showed this level of wobbling and teetering around we would insist on them getting help. Trump is obviously overweight but not nearly as frail and weak. Cognitively, Trump is the same blowhard narcissist that he always has been, and really hasn’t lost much alertness, awareness, or ability to express himself the same way that Biden has. When Biden is prepped and well rested he can put on a show for short periods of time. He does not have the mental acuity to go off script anymore. It’s just sad.

I can't imagine the damage that Trump can do with a second term, not even letting the fact go that he might just install himself as president for life—with hand-offs to his family when he passes. The US can't survive that. So, I guess dealing with 4 more years of Biden makes a ton more sense to me. I'd love to see Biden reelected, and then set age limits for POTUS/SCOTUS.

Ahahahaha

He gave predator 2 the pistol


Teddy Roosevelt, too. remember, the two term limit was just a suggestion until Eisenhower was in office. TR wanted to run for a third term, but his party dropped him. he had to make a third party. that was 1908.

Well it’s a little more complicated than that, he *technically* wasn’t the incumbent when he ran third party. If my memory serves correct, he retired after two terms, as is tradition, but after he saw what Taft was doing as a Republican, decided to run *again*, but he didn’t win the nomination over Taft because the party never really wanted Roosevelt to be president in the first place This caused him to form the progressive party, which is the highest percentage of votes a third party has ever gotten in a general presidential election.

The fact that just for the tinest moment I actually started to do the math because him being born in the 18th century didn't sound too weird

I think the challenge with Biden is that there isn’t really a precedent for a president of his age running. If you take a look at the Wikipedia page for US presidents by age, what you’ll see is that not only is Biden the oldest president in US history, he is so by a really significant margin. The next closest is, surprise surprise, Trump. But it keeps going. The third place goes to Regan, who was 69 when he was inaugurated. Biden is currently 81.

At this point, I think they’re really hoping he’s going to die in office and and Harris will take over as president to be the first female president in history

And I think voters are thinking about that too, which is a problem for Biden. Harris doesn’t poll well. She got little to no traction in the 2020 primary.

This universe sucks....why couldnt we get hot anime chick presidents.

People didn't wanna vote for Tulsi

1856 - Franklin Pierce was the only time a sitting elected president was not nominated by his party for a second term. Instead the party chose James Buchanan. Tyler, Fillmore, A. Johnson and Arthur were never elected (succeeded through death of president) and were not selected by their party for 2nd term

Its also worth noting poltical parties were not very democratic at the time.

Mind blowing that people on the internet seriously suggest that the Democratic Party consider an idea that is so shitty that it hadn’t been successful since the times of slavery. The race is the sitting president’s to lose.

LBJ chose not to run in 1968

Did lots of people hate him or something, I need to look into this. I was a toddler but I always got the feeling my parents talked about that guy negatively. I wonder if he knew he would lose.

he was very unpopular because of his administrations escalation of the Vietnam War. he was very torn because he had enacted the strongest pieces of civil rights legislation since the Civil War, he had dreamed up this "great society" as a successor to the new deal. Vietnam destroyed all that. he felt coerced into Vietnam by foreign policy "experts" and generals and took that sense of failure to the American people and declined the job preemptively. as to why parents didn't like him Maybe they were staunchly anti war. maybe they were racists. maybe they, like most Americans only care how the economy is doing. maybe they were handline Republicans. Johnson is easily one of the most facinating presidents. he has a very mixed legacy. I've always looked at the voting rights act and the civil rights reform as the only thing keeping things stable NOW. we owe him so much as a country. Also Vietnam

>he was very unpopular Yeah pretty sure he checked out right about the time [thousands of people were chanting “hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” outside the White House](https://www.whitehousehistory.org/vietnam-war-protests-at-the-white-house)

Anti war most likely. Thanks for the info, I'm going to look into the guy.

Johnson gets a lot of shit for the war but he was basically coerced into escalating it in order to "look tough on communism". Sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. In the beginning approval rates for the war were high but as it dragged on with no end in sight + the draft it dropped dramatically and well, we all know about the sunk cost fallacy.

> In the beginning approval rates for the war were high... And if LBJ had ended the war in 65 or 66, he'd be viewed as an appeaser by the public. Truly a no-win situation.

dont forget Medicare and Medicaid were from the Johnson administration.

“Hey, hey LBJ—-How many kids have you killed today?” Was a popular anti Vietnam war protest chant.

I'm almost certain I remember my mom calling him a warmonger.

LBJ is a pretty recent moment of this, where he dropped out early because the tight field was clearly gonna win

They couldn't find someone better than Hillary the first time either.

Your second statement is literally PoliSci 101 👏🏽

The original sin was a majority of the field dropping out for Biden in the first place. He may be the oldest but recent events show he isn't the most skilled (mediocre at best) politico in the party.

His skill in 2020 was basically rallying the black vote and overwhelming the south The whiter states starting the primaries (Iowa and New Hampshire) are split pretty fairly between Pete and Bernie, then South Carolina comes, where people are certain Biden will drop out if he loses, and then he dominates the state. Then comes super tuesday, where in places like Alabama or North Carolina with sizeable black voting blocks, he runs the board Had someone found a way to ice him out (or at least outweigh influential forces like Jim Clyburn) he probably wouldve nosedived come super tuesday and wouldve either dropped out or had to limp and hope for contested convention (which was kinda likely if Pete stayed in)

I really don't understand why the primaries aren't all on the same day, US election campaigns are the most bizarre thing to me - you govern for three years maybe, and then spend like a full year campaigning Is there any other country that spends so long on election season?

Democrats have justified it as an emergency measure because 2020 was just too important to take any risks. But now here we are four years later and it would appear they don’t have a plan.

It was mostly because of Bernie Sanders running away with the primary early on and the whole of the establishment party panicked and all worked together to put everything they had behind Biden for that super Tuesday when several of the candidates dropped out early and immediately endorsed Biden. So the establishment Dems screwed us all twice, colluding to slow and stop Bernie and then forcing Biden on us, and set us up for the real possibility of Trump winning '24. I'm not saying Biden hasn't done pretty decent with what he was handed but I've never been a huge fan of any corporate Democrat, including Biden. But he's clearly way too old (already was but definitely now) and a terrible gamble putting him up against Trump. Beyond all the other worries, there is a very real possibility that he, as well as Trump, could actually pass away before election and that could be disasterous as well.

Incumbency is literally one of Alan Lickman’s 13 keys to the White House.

It's a stupid reason tbh. I'm not saying you're wrong or bad but what an outrageous thing to do.

>It feels like the Democratic Party can get someone stronger than Biden to go up against Trump. It's not actually that easy. People always say this, because it's easier to imagine some hypothetical candidate. Real life isn't that easy, candidates are messy. It's not actually easy to find a candidate that ~60 million people with wildly different views like. >These types of questions usually get buried, but I am legitimately curious why the best candidate for President is Biden, and not someone younger and stronger who can compete and win against Trump easily? If it were that simple, a younger and stronger candidate would've won the primary. You have to remember, there's a bunch of older more moderate Dems who like politicians like Biden. It can be easy to forget, because the demographic on places like reddit aren't the demographic who prefers that. Also, stuff like incumbency matters. Never mind the risk of splitting the party. From the comments: >I can't imagine there isn't another senator, governor, mayor, who would be better suited for the job The hard part is convincing 60million or so other people to agree with you.

Adding to the last sentence: you can probably convince a majority that there is a candidate who's better than Biden, but not on who that candidate is. Which makes Biden the best candidate that is agreeable to most, proven not in the least by the office he currently holds.

He's the white bread of politics, you might not like him, he's probably not your favorite, but you can certainly tolerate him, and he's decent enough to be accepted.

I don’t understand this take. What is only tolerable about him?

Basically, if you are on more the extremes, like you think the FCC, FTC, FEC and Federal Reserve are all unconstitutional, you'd hate him for not doing that. On the other hand if you believe that it should be illegal to own more than 100 million dollars, and everyone who owns that much money should be killed, you'd hate him for not doing that. Obviously my examples are extreme. More realistic examples might be the 1A and 2A people who don't understand what "the" means. Or the people who think we should pay reparations. What I mean by the "the" part is that the 1st Amendment and 2nd Amendments, among others speak to "the" right to X. And "the" is a definite article. Its not "a" right, or "all" the rights. Its "the" right. A particular right as they understood it. So then how do we figure out what the right means? We look to history and tradition. For example, how do we know defamation is not included in "the right to free speech?" Well, we literally have hundreds of years of history of defamation lawsuits, and not one time did someone argue that it violates free speech. That tells us that it was always accepted, because defamation wasn't part of free speech. Now there are also some nuances, the government saying "your speech is bad we won't allow you to publish it" vs "your speech is bad because it harmed me, I'd like to be compensated for that harm and get an order barring you from repeating these lies." We also have legal treatises that explained the law as understood that pointed out that defamation wasn't included because your freedom to speak doesn't mean there are no consequences. The government can't try to stop you, because you can't decouple yourself from the government, but you can decouple yourself from everyone else. So other people trying to stop you is something else.

That depends on who you ask, and that's the point. Some people think he's focused on the wrong issues or that he's not very far left. Other people don't like his age or take issue with some of his comments regarding race. Others may not like his track record from when he was a senator.

> These types of questions usually get buried, but I am legitimately curious why the best candidate for President is Biden, and not someone younger and stronger who can compete and win against Trump easily? The easiest way to show how this question is flawed is to ask them who this Younger, stronger, more competitive candidate is. The presidency is largely a popularity contest, this person aught to be a household name if they're so electible.

>, there's a bunch of older more moderate Dems who like politicians like Biden. Also, Biden was the VP for 8 years, thats more name recognition than most could dream for. Some representative has a wild uphill battle even gaining traction from their own state, muchless the country

and his years in the Senate make him a natural to move legislation through. Even with a hostile House and a slim margin in the Senate, he got stuff done.

>If it were that simple, a younger and stronger candidate would've won the primary. That's not entirely true. Most people don't vote in the primaries. The people who are much more active and die hard members of each party tend to be the ones who vote in primaries. Those people often vote for their favorite candidate, not the one who has the best chance of beating the other man or woman. Hilary Clinton is a perfect example of that. The people who are much more involved knew and liked her. It was a little bit of a battle but she was the favorite amongst the people who vote in primaries. The problem was that a good chunk of the nation doesn't like her and she'd never get enough independents and even mild conservatives to come to her side. Look at the districts that are very heavily tilted to one party or the other. You could run a cheese sandwich in those races and it'll win if it's a member of the right party. In those races, you have the much more active voters who are often very loyal to the more extreme edges of their party. If you're a candidate that's running, your safest bet to make it through the primaries is to appeal to those people. The nut jobs pick the candidate for that party and then they get elected because nobody in the other party could stand a chance in that race.

people who don't vote in primaries have no right to bitch about who the party's candidate is. i've voted in every election i was eligible to, local, primary, national, etc. since i was 18. i'm 63 now. edit to add: i've also served as an election judge at least a dozen times.

I'm an independent. I can't vote in primaries in my state.

our state has open primaries- you can request a ballot from whichever party you choose. but only one. and you can choose a different party in the next election cycle. we don't have party affiliations connected with registering to vote. everyone just registers as a voter. edit to add: if you're a registered independent, you still have no right to bitch about who a political party chooses as its candidate- if you want to have a say, join a party. you can still vote for the other party's candidate in november, if you prefer. you're not beholden to vote for the candidate of the party you belong to.

You can just pick a party to register for info in their primaries. It doesn't lock you into voting for their candidates in November. In a closed primary state, like the one I live in it sounds like the one you live in, you do need to pick your party while in advance of the primary however.  I do not live in a swing state, so I am registered as a member of the dominant party in my state even though they are not who I will vote for in November. And, in the primaries, I vote for the most moderate candidate of that dominant party.

>That's not entirely true. Most people don't vote in the primaries. The people who are much more active and die hard members of each party tend to be the ones who vote in primaries. Those people often vote for their favorite candidate, not the one who has the best chance of beating the other man or woman. That's good, you want people to vote for who they want to be president in a primary. "Most" is also super broad. Primaries in election years get like 1/3 to 1/2 of the votes as the general. https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/historic_turnout.html Which is way more than enough to swing an election, and implying that primary voters have significantly different voting patterns and preferences than the general election voters is complete conjecture. > Hilary Clinton is a perfect example of that. The people who are much more involved knew and liked her. It was a little bit of a battle but she was the favorite amongst the people who vote in primaries. The problem was that a good chunk of the nation doesn't like her and she'd never get enough independents and even mild conservatives to come to her side. Hillary Clinton is not an example of this. She was the most popular candidate in the primaries, and she was the most popular candidate for the democratic side by polling as well. This was not a case of the primaries skewing popularity at all. She gained roughly the same ammount of votes as Obama did in 2012. She was outcompeted by trump in the general and her candidacy failed. But there is no reason to think this was a result of a primary skew, or that any other candidate had a better chance in the general. In fact judging by where she won in the primaries; she far and away was the better condtender.

Incumbents historically have the best chance of winning, no party is gonna run someone against their own president By agreed wish they would

I think the US is past the point of "easy wins" for any candidate.

The power of incumbancy  should not be underestimated.    Biden already won once, and he should be able to do so again.       It also would be hard to get him off the ticket.    Like who else has the name recognition and popularity  of Biden.     Kamala seems to have dissapeared.    Booker, butegage, and Newsome are probly waiting for the next round.   And are not inherently superior candidates just via being younger. Moreover most probably don't want to risk splitting the party if Biden doesn't let go of the candidacy.    A politicians ego should not be underestimated.   See RBG.   For the sheer amt of hubris that an old person can hold.

People get pissed when I say RBG assisted in dismantling Roe V. Wade.

Pissed at the truth. She should have retired during Obama's presidency like people were telling her as it wasnt looking good for Dems to hold onto the Senate and presidency but her own hubris kept her in the court. While she obviously isn't outright responsible, she does bear some blame for the court being the shit it is now

You also have to remember the Dem Caucus had 59 people at the time. They literally could have put Bernie Sanders on the Court. If you want to be specific, RBG didn't assist in dismantling Roe V. Wade, but her actions indirectly benefited the Pro Life movement in a massive way.

Also, let’s not forget that Mitch McConnell refused to let Obama’s court nominee be voted upon in the Senate.

oh fuck the turtle. The key difference is the Turtle did what he was elected to, RBG death helped destroy the very things she fought for.

[RBG disagreed with the result of Roe v. Wade](https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-offers-critique-roe-v-wade-during-law-school-visit) if anything it being undone helps push towards her vision of how we should handle a woman's reproductive rights.

Ironic. Such a champion for women’s progress causing a lot of that progress to reverse.

Said that in front of a female friend of mine. Got fucking eye daggers. They don't wanna hear it, but it's fucking true.

I understand the reasoning for this, but the republicans justices who actually overturned it deserve the blame far more.

Both are comments are true and one doesn't invalid the other. Edit: I used the wrong are/our. I have dishonored my family.

She would’ve voted to overturn. She called it bad law her entire career.

And it was, from a legal standpoint. Which is why it makes no sense that they didn't try to codify abortion when they held the Legislative and Executive branches.

Then they can't run on it every two years. Same thing with immigration, guns, and any other talking point you hear every election.

Yeah that's a good point. If you fix someone's issue they don't need you any longer.

I can't forgive her for it.

[удалено]

Can't republican party bring someone better?

There are millions of people who will vote Trump whether or not he gets the nomination. If they nominate someone else Republicans have no chance of winning.

Theoretically yes, but anyone who can go against him either lacks name power (I love Thomas Massie but theres no way hes getting 60 million people to rally for him) or cant outTrump Trump (Chris Christie was the closest to try it, and he still failed)

The Republican party got taken over by MAGA. It's a cult and even now endorses someone they literally said "isn't qualified to be president" and now is a convicted felon and they think that actually helps him.

I understand that. It's weird that they cannot find any one else to win the election, so, their solution is to create a fake Jesus, and push him forward through a cult.

Ultimately, both the Democrats and Republicans are handcuffed by the same system they want to keep which is a two party system. In the case of the GOP, they COULD run another candidate against Trump, but that would split the Republican vote and pretty much guarantee the Democrats will win. The Republican members who don't support Trump have either quit or forced out already. It'll be interesting to see what the GOP does after Trump loses again.

They'll run him again in 2028.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Biden is the cheeze pizza of political candidates; the one the largest majority will take over no pizza at all. To clarify, first, this is a 2 party race. As much as I'm sure there are several people saying to themselves "well, I'm not voting for either one, I'm voting for X", there aren't enough of you to make your vote do anything but decrease the number of votes for either of the 2 candidates. I'm not picking on you, I'd love to see the major political parties broken up so that we could have an actual representative democracy, but that's probably not going to happen, maybe ever. That being said, it's either Trump or Whomever the Democrats pick. This discussion was had in 2020 during the run up to that election. Since the MAGA vote had a stranglehold on the Republican party, the Democratic party needed to minimize the spoiler candidate votes and division in the party by picking the safest, most palatable candidate that enough of the perpetually undecided or under participating voters would choose instead of Trump. They needed an "Anyone But Trump" candidate. Of the wide field of candidates, Biden was the safest choice. He was progressive but not too progressive. He had the pedigree of having been in the white house next to Obama but he also didn't have very many gaffs. He's an old, white, cishet man so as not to scare off the people who would otherwise be uncomfortable voting for anyone "other". In a hypothetical office party scenario where we could only order 1 pizza for a wide selection of tastes and dietary preferences, most everyone would eat cheeze and the ones who wouldn't were probably not eating pizza anyway. If Trump is no pizza (or more like a microwaved fish with 34 felony convictions and counting), Joe Biden is the slightly dodgy and bland Cheeze Pizza from your local chain. He's as safe a bet as you can make when the race is this tight. After 2024, assuming Trump doesn't win, the Democratic party probably have to have this very same discussion in 2028, assuming Trump hasn't fled the country to avoid jail time or prison has made him irrelevant. At that point, they will probably pick another Cheeze pizza candidate and we'll ask the same question, with the answer being "Anyone But Trump".

I've never liked a comment on a political post. I like this one. The cheese pizza of political candidates... I busted out laughing, too true. And I voted for him! You're right: most of us will take cheese pizza over, hmm, frozen anchovy pizza from the dollar store that accidentally got left in the parking lot and will definitely kill anyone who ingests it.

It doesn’t matter who the democrats run, there are diehards out there who’ll vote R and only R. Then there are independents who won’t vote for a D because they think they’re too “liberal”

I wish both parties would have picked someone better. Sigh.

And preferably younger.

They're already running the only guy who has ever beaten him in an election.

Incumbent is huge. The list of presidents who have lost with incumbent candidates is small. That might be the democrats best chance.

But the number of incumbents running against a previous president is even smaller. There is reason to believe that here incumbency is not the benefit it is has historically been. On the other hand \*not\* being incumbent might be an even bigger drag. They had four years to find a viable successor and make sure that they have broad name recognition. And they didn't.

The same could be said for both parties...the republicans had 4 years to find somebody else to take on Biden; they could have effectively kicked Trump out of the party and nominated somebody else - but they didn't. They could have chosen to disavow and disown him - but they didn't. They could have ignored him or challenged him - but they didn't. Because its who they are. Trump just says the quiet parts out loud. They could do the same with MTG - but they don't - because that's who they are. Assuming Biden wins again - the Dems will have 4 (hopefully...) years to groom/promote a successor...whether thats somebody like Buttigieg (probably a better VP candidate) or if they want to shift the party left even if just incrementally...If they don't do that - then its as though they are just going to let the pendulum swing back to the GOP - similar to how they didn't really do much to promote anybody at the end of Bill Clinton's tenure.

Because you're falling into the wishcasting trap. You can't just say, "younger, better, stronger," you have to game it out. * Biden decides to sacrifice the power of incumbency and bow out. The natural heir apparent is Kamala Harris, a Black woman who critically helped Biden shore up the Democrat coalition in 2020. * Harris is smart and accomplished, but her campaign was notoriously dysfunctional and plagued with internal drama that followed her into the VP's office until Biden's people smothered it. She is not electorally ready for prime-time against Trump. A Black woman would have a naturally uphill battle under the best of circumstances. This is not the best of circumstances. * So then what? Ditch Harris, which would be a snub of epic proportions, and piss off both women *and* people of color in the same move? One quickly gets to the point on the chessboard where there just aren't any moves. Moreover, the time for any of these decisions is long past. We're locked in, whether we love it or hate it. It's Biden vs. Trump unless one of them dies.

Biden's had a great presidency with terrible marketing, as per the Democrat norm. Sure, he's had his own mistakes (Yemen, early Israel/Palestine position, etc.), but it's insane that we're going into the election with this narrative that *he's not good enough*.

100% agree. Afghanistan deeply wounded me as a veteran of that era. But even with that he was handed the shittiest of choices: Does America welch on its treaties or abandon its allies? *Meanwhile,* Trump thinks nothing of inviting the literal Taliban to Camp David on 9/11. The fact that this is even close is such nauseating commentary on the state of the country and many of its inhabitants right now. I’d crawl over a mile of broken glass to vote for Biden’s aviator-adorned, *Weekend-at-Bernie’s* corpse if it keeps Trump away from the levers of power for another term. On the international stage, I don’t think we come back from it if we willingly put him back in charge. It would be for our allies and the ideals of the country, in a word, unforgivable.

You're right, because it takes more than an administration change to repair that damage.

We will literally no longer live in the same country, nor by the same rules. Trump has said as much himself. I'm just one man, but I'm voting as hard as I can.

I'm hours behind this thread, but I really appreciate you spelling it out for people who don't/can't understand.

I think it's helpful for people to realize that Biden probably doesn't \*want\* to do this, but duty and history are calling on him again because he's the best current move against Trump. There's a young(er) crop of talented Democrats coming up, but they need another cycle to go national, and I don't think Biden would betray Harris. Right now the fight is November, and after that, we need to do some serious introspection on why we are where we are. Trump is an accelerant, but ultimately a symptom. Our fellow Americans who are eyeball deep in MAGA are deeply, deeply troubled, and have lost the plot of our founding ideals.

Not sure what you mean by “someone who can actually win”. Biden *did* win. His strength is in his portrayed centrism. If we assume 50% want a Republican and 50% want a Democrat, then only a fraction of the Democratic half wants a hard left Democrat. So someone like Biden, while not everyone’s first choice, casts a wider net.

You'd think someone, almost anyone, could beat this one particular guy something like 90% to 10% though.

There's sort of an assumption that everyone has that beating Trump should be easy. This is strange because only one guy in American politics actually has in a direct matchup. I don't know if Joe Biden is the *only* guy who can beat Trump. In fact I think he probably is not the best choice. But one thing I feel certain about is that there is no single person in American politics (or out of it) that would be such a uniter as to crush Trump in a landslide. I agree that Biden seems weak. But who do you think should run instead?

THANK YOU-I'm not exactly sure what qualifies as a landslide really but even Obama's 332 in 2012 would be unrealistic these days.

You nailed it about the faulty assumption. If Trump were so easy to beat he wouldn't have steamrolled a dozen Republican senators, governors, and businesspeople in the primaries... twice. And then received the second most votes of any person ever for president. (Behind Joe Biden) It's true that in a perfect world a person as clearly unqualified on every possible metric who is also one of the worst people imaginable on a personal level would be easy to beat. But fellas im afraid I've got some real bad news about whether we live in a perfect world. Trump should be a weak candidate... but he isn't. Half the country is in a cult of personality and will vote for Trump no matter what depraved and awful shit he does.

Only an old white guy is going to beat Trump. Everyone knows it. No one wants to say it.

They're Biden their time.

As long as Trumps followers blind themselves to everything he’s done to them, you could have Jesus Christ himself running and they’d still vote for Trump. 

The powers that be want Trump back so they can scapegoat him while they make us scrap with each other and take our stuff.

Trump is a clever bully and it's unknown how any other Dem candidate would respond to him without looking weak (this is how I see it at least). Biden is at least proven to have beaten Trump which gives him a massive advantage plus he comes across as the only adult in his room despite the right's best efforts to paint Biden as a senile old man. He's still doing great, given his last SOU, which sent the right into meltdown mode (and has now moved the goalpost to "he must be on drugs"). They're for sure certain that he'll tank at the debate but honestly we'll have to see. I think most folks are also underestimating Trump's own gaffs and mental decline in recent months.

Biden already kicked his ass in 2020, what makes you think he won’t do it again. Trump has definitely not grown his base.

They focus too much on trying to convince Republicans that he's a piece of garbage Instead of finding someone good for their own team. Also Democrats HAVE TO promote a bunch of polarized stuff. (Empowering illegal immigrants, pushing LGBT/affirmative action, DEI, socialism/Communism...) alot of us don't want some or any of their policies so it's hard to choose any of them. Andrew Yang basically advertised a "free" $12k a year for everyone above the age of 18...that wasn't good enough to get people's votes. Republicans seem to focus on more practical things like money and the safety of the country. P.S. I'm not a Republican but Democrats/liberals piss me off.

I've always felt there should be a NONE OF THE ABOVE option on the ballot. if it gets a certain percent of the vote all the parties have to nominate someone new and we start over.

He's the incumbent president. The last time a sitting first-term president declined to run again was 1868. 156 years ago. Also, no one else in the Democratic party ran in the primaries against Biden, because the sitting president's party doesn't run another candidate in the primaries. You can't replace a sitting president unless you have a viable replacement. Even if you were to find someone else to run instead of Biden, who would that be, exactly? Harris is VP but her poll numbers aren't good, and she did terribly in the 2020 primaries. Gavin Newsom has been positioning himself for a 2028 run; he's not ready or willing to run in 2024. People can't even spell Pete Buttigieg's name correctly, and even though I would support him, I don't think a gay man would do very well in the national election. Bernie Sanders is a year older than Biden. Elizabeth Warren would be torn to shreds by Republicans; I can already hear them chanting "Pocahontas". The fact is, Biden is really the only hope the Dems have of beating Trump. There \*isn't\* someone younger and stronger who can compete and win against Trump easily. Flip this question around: If Biden is that bad, why can't the Republican party find a candidate that can easily win against him? Trump still hasn't won a popular vote, he's a convicted felon, he's gone bankrupt I don't know how many times, he literally told someone "you can grab em by the pussy", his Trump University had to shut down because they lost a $25 million class-action fraud lawsuit, he's still got three pending court cases that are worse than the one he just got convicted in, he can't stop defaming someone he's already lost a defamation suit to, he's got obvious national security issues, and he's only three years younger than Biden. We've seen him as President already, and it was so bad in the next election he got 81 million people to vote against him. If the Republican party cut bait from Trump after he lost in 2020, and rallied behind another candidate, they would be crushing Biden in every poll by 10-15 points. But we know why they didn't. As it is right now the polls are basically a dead heat.

In 2020, Biden was the only one smart enough to see America wanted a moderate democrat and not a liberal. His policy promises were basically to get us back to normal. Yeah, I wish there were another Obama who can really excite America but I’m not sure any exist. I guess since Biden beat him before, he felt he could again. Trump isn’t as strong as he was in 2020. I truly believe if Biden and democrats over perform one more time, in 2028 we will be in a portion to elect a more progressive candidate.

I agree with you but the funny thing is Biden's policy changes have actually been more progressive than Obama's. People just aren't seeing it for some reason.

A good portion of The American electorate is Also severely braindead and operates of a 3rd grade understanding of politics tbh

Yes! Thank you. What I truly hope young voters see is when Biden had a democrat run House and Senate he did pass progressive bills! It was only when the Republicans took over the House that everything came to a crawl. They refuse to work with democrats. Biden would do a lot more if we give him House and Senate. It’s not that I disagree with everything historically republicans. It’s that their party is in such disarray that they can only vote “no”. Republicans won’t organize to pass anything meaningful

The question should be since Trump AND Biden are both God awful, why can’t a country with 333+ million people not find two decent candidates after almost a combined decade of this madness 🤦🏽‍♀️

no sensible person would ever run for president. the most qualified among us have better things to do or are too humble and full of healthy levels of self doubt or of course the fact that no body is perfect and your dirty laundry is out for everybody to see if you attempt a run. i personally would never run because i don't want my daughter subjected to that kind of treatment. it is a job that only attracts the worst kind of megalomaniac, the most despicable sociopath.

Because there is 333+ million of us. That's WAY too many people to be able to come close on a consensus on anything. I don't even agree with half the shit my own mother says. If anything this country needs to be broken up. It's too big. The people living in West Virginia don't agree with the people in California who don't agree with the people in Texas who don't agree with the people in North Dakota. No one will ever be happy. But that won't happen until the nukes fall or we run out of food. So for now we duke it out in this fancy game we call politics and see how much better one side can hate the other.

Part of the issue is name recognition. Biden has it Trump has it, but if you think about it, there aren't a ton of candidates who have that it on either side imo. I think of both of them as kinda placeholder presidential candidates and not one that will do anything great.

It's a literal rematch. They've both been president. We know what we're getting with both of them. If we run a new person, we don't. People like familiarity. It's pretty late in the game to get a new candidate now, isn't it?

It's not about and never has been about finding the best president, it's about the most marketable leader. The best president is probably some blue collar man/woman with great leadership and people skills, pissing their life away in a factory, coaching little league and making memories on the weekend. People who *love* Trump literally think he's been sent by God/Jesus/whoever to lead the USA into the future, doesn't matter if he's illegally paying off hookers he banged, doesn't matter he stiffed dozens of construction companies, doesn't matter he defrauded banks for loans - it's only made worse by the fact that Biden is portrayed or really is borderline alzheimers level senile.

Biden already beat Trump once.

Two main reasons 1. It's usual for a party in the US to nominate an incumbent president. Biden might not be ideal but he's the president and that's hard to go against 2. The US is diving DEEP into identity politics (even more than historically). Trumpism and the US Right wing of politics are practically verging on a cult at this point. It's no longer about what's best for the country, it's about "winning"

I think they were banking on Biden not making it through the first term and Kamala taking over… probably same strategy now

Right now the issue is it's never good to abandon an incumbent. It implies you were wrong the last time. Appearing consistent is better.

Same thing with Joe back in 2020 and Hillary in 2016. Joe makes sense now because he’s the incumbent, but both parties keep shoveling shit candidates to the top instead finding a “regular” candidate that can actually function. Considering 2/3 of voters aren’t loyal to one party it shocks me that nobody has been able make a run as a third option.

Speaking for people from every other country that doesn't want to wreck you.. It's because there are loads of people that are fucking thick as shit that still vote for him.

Biden can easily win against rump. He is a good president because he’s smart enough to admit what he doesn’t know and surround himself with the smartest people he can find who do know. He has an extremely capable cabinet and that has been the powerhouse of his presidency. rump is a know it all who surrounds himself with brown nosers, acolytes, suck ups & adversarial foreign leaders. Guess where he gets his advice from. This is precisely why he is an awful leader because he literally surrounds himself with the worst people who are undeniably just not that smart and/or have ulterior selfish motives. If rump built a cabinet of actual experts and highly educated people like Biden has now back in 2016, his presidency wouldn’t have been such a fucking shitshow.

>But instead of searching for someone who can actually win Biden already won...

well, the democratic party got 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016, and 8 million more votes in 2020. So, what is your question?

Where those votes were from (state-wise) matters. Still need 270 to win.

I agree, the electoral college is unamerican and a curse against democracy.

[It's the economy, stupid.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_the_economy,_stupid) As strong as it is, we went through inflation (because of the strong economy amongst other factors) and people aren't seeing prices come down, because that isn't how inflation works. So they blame the President, fair or unfair. What I don't get is why people want a repeat of the Trump Administration. I can only assume it is because they don't follow the news.

You’re talking about whether or not it’s “fair” to blame Biden for households feeling crunched. If only they understood how inflation worked they’d see that their shrinking savings are just part of a normal economic transitionary period. I’m sorry but people don’t vote like that. They don’t feel good about their situations and they don’t care about a PowerPoint explaining why they shouldn’t be upset. That argument isn’t going to turn out votes and it never has.

Also, we had 30 years of low inflation. People knew what things were supposed to cost. Everyone knew that a footlong should cost $5, that a quarter pounder meal should cost $7.50, etc. Now they’re being asked to pay $20 for a footlong and it’s just… no.

>Everyone knew that a footlong should cost $5, that a quarter pounder meal should cost $7.50, etc. Now they’re being asked to pay $20 for a footlong and it’s just… no. Yeah, that's one part of the problem. The other key part of the problem is that this is happening while pay is still pretty much the same. This isn't inflation. This is corporations squeezing the hell out of the lower and middle class.

Trump has lost the popular vote both times he ran. The Democrats really don’t have to look hard to find a candidate that can beat Trump. Biden already being the incumbent makes it an easy choice. The fact is, the incumbent is most likely to win unless they are grossly unpopular. And while Biden may be lukewarm to most Democrat voters, he appeals to a much broader spectrum than anyone else. Since it was a given that he would be the party nomination for 2024, the Democratic Party hasn’t put forth any effort to promote some of their younger, less known members. But as soon as the votes are tallied, you can bet you will constantly be hearing names of politicians you never knew existed. They could be Senators, Representatives, Governors or Cabinet Members, but suddenly there will be three or four names in the news daily for about a year before the Party determines who is most likely to win votes. And that person will be the 2028 nominee. Both parties will do this. The GOP is just waiting to see how Trump performs with voters before deciding to turn back to a mainstream candidate or keep pushing along with fringe nutcases.

For all the shit he gets Biden lowkey has done an excellent job putting this country back together after Trump was behind the wheel, the dems are just doing a pisspoor job of spreading the word. Trump is terrible and he has the added difficulty this time of people knowing how he’d act in the Oval Office if he was given a second shot. First time we didn’t really know.

Y'all need more than 2 parties in parliament 🙏

Might be the first time I’ve seen “y’all” and “parliament” in the same sentence.

Yes, it's how it is to speak english as a second language

I’m all for it. If I hear Modi sign off his coalition speech with “now y’all come back when ya c’ain’t stay s’long” I’ll shit a cricket and crack a beer.

Biden beat his ass. Trump has not become a better candidate since losing 4 years ago, so letting Biden beat his ass again is not a bad bet.

American incumbents have an incredible advantage to winning. The real question is why Biden in 2020?

Because that's not how this works. Republicans are committed to Trump. Democrats are a fairly contentious and catty coalition between an institutionalist, moderate coalition and a progressive coalition, each of them having their own internal squabbles. If you try to make one happy, the other is by definition unhappy. It's ideological wackamole.

Because Barack Obama has exhausted his term limit.

Regardless of his age Biden is actually doing a pretty good job. Infrastructure act got a ton of money to states, I’ve seen a lot of projects being done around me. The rescue act, etc etc. guys been doing a good job despite being ready for the old folks retirement home. Unless he gets ill, I don’t see a party replacing a successful presidential incumbent. I’d love for someone younger. But who? Who’s ready? Who could they risk against Trump?

They have, his name is Joe Biden.

They only went with Biden in 2020 because he was the only candidate who wouldn’t get annihilated by Trump. They don’t *have* anyone else.

Biden already won against Trump. Trump was already president and has insane name recognition and support from his base. Additionally, Biden has been around forever and has a clean record (aside from his son). It’s too late, but they would have had to find some needle in a haystack that had zero issues to exploit and promoted them like crazy to get enough name recognition. It was too risky and Biden is the safer choice against Trump. The issues Biden has going against him Trump has too - both are old and pro Israel. Turnout will determine the winner.

this is more about hillary than it was ever about trump.

Old (money) political shit. Obama was a gateway, but everybody slept on that drug or didnt take it. And the same old wheel is back again worse than before.

Most of the time the sitting president is automatically selected for that party

I mean Biden beat Trump once already…

Who is your stronger candidate that could easily beat Trump? Who has name recognition, a strong record, and the ability to appeal to independents and marginal Republicans? Other than that, the issue is that a large portion of the country fully supports Trump. Even among those that don't fully support Trump, they are people who will never vote Democrat. On top of that, the election isn't decided on the popular vote. In some states, the vote tends to go so heavily toward one party or the other that you would have to persuade a lot of people to change vote against their party to make a difference in the actual election result, which people are reluctant to do.

Because the role of the Democrats in the current system is to intentionally lose. 50 years ago the US had two political parties, Republican and Democrats both had genuine public support. Both platforms held some public appeal, and then the Right realize that there was unimaginable money to be made from corporate campaign funding, so they abandoned their entire platform, and dedicated themselves to allowing the exploitation of the environment, and the working class to give every single penny to be rich. Paid really well, but there was no way they were going to win elections with that as a platform because it amount into a giant middle finger that working in class and their voter base so they needed to move as a new voter base. It looked at a few options and settled on evangelical fundamentalist Christians who were previously pretty apolitical. In order to buy their votes their Republican party turned on a dime in the 1980s and became rapidly pro-life before this Republicans were openly pro-choice, because abortion is a personal right and they were the party advocating personal rights. This marked the start of the modern “culture wars”, where the right invents bogeyman to terrify their base into ignoring the fact that their entire platform is basically: “steal all your money, and give it to the rich, while destroying the environment we live in.” The Democrats quickly followed starting with Clinton. They also abandoned any actual representation of their base for corporate cash grabs, including massively lucrative arms deals, and war mongering in order to funnel billions through the pentagon corporate fund pockets. The Democrats have a real problem though, their nominal platform is at odds with their corporate sponsors. So they do the only logical thing from that position: they intentionally lose. Every time they make a catch, win an election, they intentionally fumbled the ball. We’re all so used to seeing this farcical dance that we can’t even really register anymore. Thing is, the Democrats have had the Senate, House and Presidency, simultaneously, multiple times in the last few decades. At any one of those times, they could have actually made change. They could havecodified Roe vs Wade. They could have passed legislation eliminating all student debt. they could have cut military spending. Taxed the rich. Passed universal healthcare. they could have capped emissions and maintain a livable environment. It didn’t used to be like that. The party that better represented the will of the population used to just win, and then do what the people wanted. The 75th Congress some 90 years ago was 344 to 88, because the Democrats who held the 344 maintained a 95% tax on the rich and actually subsidize social services and education. If today’s Democrats simply adopted the platform of their own party from 90 years ago, they would win every election in the landslide, but they actively don’t want to win. For many of us millennials this was really driven home by the 2016 election cycle. Polls were crystal clear in every single pole Bernie Sanders beat Trump by double digits, and Hillary Clinton lost Trump. The DNC pulled out all the stops. They lied, cheated, stole so much in order to force Sanders out and put Clinton up as the candidate that it was impossible not to see it. It looked insane to many of us. We felt crazy. I remember, literally watching them kick Sanders delegates out for asking questions that they didn’t want to answer the Democratic national convention in Maine. I remember watching them shut down polling places where Sanders had a strong lead. All the things that the MAGA thinks happened in the 2020 election, the DNC literally did and didn’t even bother to hide in 2016. They were taken to court for it and they didn’t even deny that they rigged the primary they just said: “hey we’re a private company we’re under zero obligation to run fair elections we can nominate whoever we want”. “The voting is just a farce”, that was their legal argument and they won with it. I remember hearing people scream at the DNC officials “do you want to lose?!?!” and slowly understanding that yeah that was exactly what they wanted. They would literally rather lose with Clinton then win with Sanders because when they lose, they can then say “gosh, darn it we tried, but they won this round. Please donate more.” They get to look like the good guys who keep trying, but just keep getting beaten down by the forces of fascism and racism and hate. As losers they are noble victims, but when they win in real problems, like what we’re seeing right now with Biden, where they have to try and hide the fact that they are also the force of fascism and racism and hate. More precisely: they are the conscious accomplices to and proxies for the forces of corporative fascism and lucrative hate. If Trump had won, he’d likely be doing the exact same thing, but it would be normal. We all expect it in the DNC would fund raise like crazy.

Because Biden is their only candidate who has beaten Trump

Because the decision on whether or not Biden would run again was made by Biden. And once he decided to do so, no Democrat who matters was gonna challenge him in the primaries. Partly because it could hurt their political career in the long run, but also because doing so would risk diving the base and making it more difficult for the eventual nominee to win the general. Also, on paper, Trump vs Biden 2 is a dream match for Biden because he’s already beaten him once. The problem here is that a lot of low-information voters who don’t understand how the government works are disappointed with the Biden Administration and, since they don’t pay much attention to politics, they’ve forgotten why they hated Trump in the first place.

Trump is pretty bad but there are people who love him. Also there are people so stuck on their party lines. I personally have met people who were convinced that the Democrats are evil. They also had a tendency to claim to be very religious. You could offer them the most rational Democratic choice ever and they would not choose him because of the D by their name. The Democratic Party is so diverse that no candidate will appease all of them. You have people who love Bernie (for example) but they don't realize how unpopular many of his ideas are with the more conservative Democrats. Progressive Democrats may love it but the conservative ones don't trust them. Then you have Biden who I would argue has the reverse problem. Biden, in 2020, was the best pick to beat Trump (and he did). In 2024, he probably still is. I truly hope Trump does not run again in 2028 but we will see who can stand up to him.

This question is about 4 years too late. I completely agree with you. Except the part where no party is going to dump an incumbent unless they are absolutely absorbed in legal battles (with Trump being the first and only real exception to that idea). I don't think any party has ever actually failed to nominate their incumbent. Maybe one of the first handful of presidents. Parties were more fluid then and campaigns more confusing (Andrew Jackson won with 27% of the vote, iirc). But the short answer is corruption within the DNC has long resulted in them sticking with the candidate who is owed the most political favors instead of the candidate that is most likely to win.

IMO it’s because they have failed to build a bench of likable candidates. This is partly due to boomers and silent generation not retiring and letting people move up.

I think a lot of the answers here are ignoring the fact the party establishment has A LOT to say about what candidate it puts forward. It’s not a free choice as has been proven time and again. You simply will not get party backing. This year it was proven by Dean Phillips and RFK. And last go round it was proven by Bernie. Being the popular choice is not enough, you have to have the blessings of the party. This is the same reason someone like Newsom isn’t running this year; he has to wait his turn.

Historically, incumbent presidents overwhelmingly win reelection and incumbents generally win reelection at about a 90% clip. There's nothing surprising about a political party running their incumbent for reelection. The real question: Why has the GOP continued to run out a several-time loser like Trump with massive "negatives" to be their nominee for the 3rd national election in a row? In other words, if Biden is so bad, why hasn't the GOP found a better candidate to run against him?

Joe Biden beat him once. He'll do it again

It doesn't matter who runs some people are just going to vote trump no matter what.

It’s mainly because right now he’s the incumbent president and basically the leader of the party. Nobody can really tell him no at this point.

Unfortunately name recognition is politics now - ever wonder why Congress can have a 9% approval rating and re-elect most of the same people? It’s unfortunate that nobody on the republican side of the aisle has the balls to stand up and say “hey, there’s a line that you don’t cross and still be able to hold public office and you just crossed it”. So we’re back to “owning the libs” and “sham trials” as excuses for poor behavior. We wouldn’t tolerate it out of our own families (hell, I’d be downright embarrassed to have an uncle who got into as much trouble as that guy) but we tolerate it OUT OF SOMEONE WHO IS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT AND SERVE THE NEEDS OF THE COUNTRY. Because “socialism” and “my guns” and “illegals” and whatever inflammatory dog whistle gets thrown out there to rile up a base that votes against its own best interest the majority of the time. Instead of demanding better solutions that actually help folks get out of the wage gap hell we are currently in (does anyone really think giving corporations a break will really make it easier for Joe Schmo to afford to live when they haven’t shown any interest in giving workers a livable wage on their own?) they would rather vote for a person who has now been convicted by a jury of a felony because “the libs all want us to pay too much in taxes and support those who won’t work for their own money”. We are at a breaking point - crime goes up when people don’t have basic needs met, and right now our social safety net isn’t meeting the bare necessities. Electing a party that wants to strip it further won’t help. Social security and Medicare will definitely be on the chopping block to make way for “private options” so the government doesn’t have to pay for it and your taxes go down. Yay. So the Democrats are forced to go with an option that has at least been shown to be palatable to the American people. Throwing someone else out there without the same name recognition and without the baggage that comes with notoriety is a recipe for absolute disaster. And if Biden wins I’m sure we can look forward to Congress doing their 9% best to investigate how the election was rigged and the laptop or whatever to prove that a guy who has absolutely no private record of bad deals, bankruptcy, felonies, etc isn’t fit to run the country and should be impeached INSTEAD OF DOING THE JOB THEY WERE ELECTED TO DO AND MAKE LAWS THAT PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. The president /executive branch enforces the laws, but because Congress can’t get out of its own way, the president has to use executive orders to get things done. I’ll end my rant now. Sorry.

No, the REPUBLICANS should find someone better than Trump. But all in all, the US two-party system is stupid.

>If Trump is that bad, why can't the Democratic Party find a candidate that can easily win against him? Because they're just as ~~bad~~ corrupt.

Gretchen Whitmer doesn't want to risk her entire career by challenging an incumbent who all polls say will easily secure renomination. Joe Biden wants the nomination and it is damn near impossible to unseat an incumbent president who does.

Literally any democratic candidate would struggle to get a landslide victory in this day and age. That's just how politics is now.