Despite resounding victories on Super Tuesday, there are indications that Donald Trump is still struggling to get strong, united Republican support, which he may need in the presidential election.
Speaking to CNN about the Super Tuesday results, columnist and political commentator Molly Jong-Fast said: "There is a real ‘Never Trump’ contingent, and remember, Trump is a primary candidate. He has only ever tried to appeal to Republican primary voters, and he cannot marshal that group together the way he needs to.
“Part of his trick in 2016 was, he got these low-frequency voters out, these people who almost never voted, which is why the polling was so off, and you’re just not seeing that same type of enthusiasm.”
In 2016 the DNC convinced a lot of voters not to show up because they had a presumptive nominee before the primary. In 2020 we had a real primary.
This year we were supposed to have a real primary because Biden had promised to be a one term president but he reneged on the deal - leaving us with, again, a pre-decided, generally unpopular, presumptive nominee.
I’m voting for him, but Joe Biden isn’t as popular as everyone thinks.
I don’t see any indication Biden ever promised to just serve one term, but a lot of people took it that way:
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/flashback-we-were-all-told-biden-would-only-serve-one-term/
https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2019-12-11/joe-biden-suggests-he-would-only-serve-one-term-if-elected-president
All that changed when Trump failed to be imprisoned.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-not-sure-he-would-seek-re-election-if-trump-was-not-2023-12-05/
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 campaign outside of Boston. “We cannot let him win.”
If something happened to take Trump out of the race I’m 80% certain Biden would go “My work here is done…” and step aside.
Unfortunately, DNC leadership would back Kamala Harris, guaranteeing a loss.
The thing I was thinking of was this old news story but maybe I did misread it… it certainly contributed to my vote: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/474027-biden-indicates-he-will-only-serve-one-term-as-president-report/
It seems his campaign did consistently deny it though.
Yeah, he didn’t want the appearance of a lame duck President. He wouldn’t have gotten 1/2 the things he did if the Republicans were confident they could just wait him out.
I don’t recall Biden ever saying he would be a 1 term president.
It was definitely floated as a potential promise. He definitely implied that he would prefer not to run again.
The 2020 Primary felt like high strategy game. I don’t know much about Américan politics but I do remember seeing Bernie Sanders continue the 2016 momentum only for Biden to pick up in South Carolina. The orchestration they did to keep primary candidates in to weaken Bernie while working for Biden felt to me less a Biden thing and more of Biden as a chess-piece. He was not the force behind it. His familiarity and seemingly calm demeanor appealed to most voters compared to the erratic image of Trump. But deep down there was a feeling of “screw you Bernie”. Luckily for Dems, that is not a fault line Republicans are exploiting.
I don’t know if I’d agree with your interpretation fully on the Bernie vs Biden thing, but I think you’ve made an interesting point. Bernie supporters’ anger at Hilary (don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t happy about it but I did vote for Hillary in the general election), justified or not, was exploited by Russia through the 2016 DNC email leak to try to help Trump win. And it’s interesting that we’re not seeing that angle of grievance being encouraged (by Russian trolls?) on social media right now like we did in 2016.
Who thinks Joe Biden is popular? Like, I know all the polls get downvoted to hell or removed for BS reasons around here but I can’t believe the reality hasn’t set in on some level
Most of Lemmy it’d seem, unfortunately.
The same people who keep saying he’s the most progressive progressive to ever progress a progress.