• TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    They cooked that one up months before the campaigns even got underway. Hillary was always a terrible candidate I. this regar; that they had know she’d do a big run, and had literally decades to build oppo research and a smear campaign. I mean, it was obvious that she was a bad candidate in this regard as early as 2013.

    Harris I think really did catch them off guard. Which is a bit surprising?

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, I don’t understand how Biden dropping out really surprised anyone. Even a year in advance, I gave it a 50/50 that he’d run again. Once he decided to run, I gave Harris a 60-70% chance of taking over his campaign and becoming the nominee.

      If I were on Trump’s campaign team, I would have already prepared for Biden and Harris, and maybe RFK in case he switches to the Dem ticket at the last moment (very unlikely).

      • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Personally I didn’t think another candidate would be able to campaign as successfully as Harris has in the few short months she’s had.

        I thought it would disrupt the Dems demographic and cause the whole thing to fall apart. Kinda like what happened when Bernie dropped out.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Completely agreed. She basically took BIden’s platform, tweaked it a bit, and was able to use the Biden/Harris campaign funds that was already raised. She was also already gearing up for VP debates and whatnot, so yeah, it makes a ton of sense for her to be able to hit the ground running.

          I don’t think demographics are particularly important here since it’s a literal handoff from one candidate to another. There was no primary, so no mudslinging from other candidates and whatnot, just a smooth baton handoff.

          That said, I don’t like her as a candidate. In 2020, she was dead last in my list of candidates, and there’s a host of potential candidates I’d prefer over her. But those other candidates didn’t actually run because Biden was the presumptive nominee, so she didn’t have to deal with the polls in a primary. And that’s why I think she was able to keep the majority of Biden’s support base and get a bit of her own.

      • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Because the last time an incumbent President didn’t run for re-election was in 1968, it happened a lot earlier in the election cycle then and it resulted in a devastating loss for the incumbent’s party?

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Sure, but Biden is also super old (way older than previous presidents) and was showing clear signs that his age was catching up to him, hence the 50/50.