This year's Democratic primaries were bizarre beyond belief. Normally someone who had served as Vice President would be a shoe-in for the nomination but this is the same party that disowned their 2000 Vice Presidential candidate. Biden began the race at the top then slid. By the Iowa caucus, he was behind in polling and in donations. Just from memory, I think he was 5th in both. He didn't do any better in New Hampshire. These two early contests are considered important because no candidate had won the presidency without winning one of these states. Some people write that off to coincidence but there's probably more to it than that. These are the states where the candidates spend months campaigning. The voters know the candidates better than those of any other state. So, regardless of these states having the wrong demographics, they are in a better position to judge the candidates. And they didn't care at all for Joe.
But after Bernie Sanders did well in several races, the party came together behind Biden. The more centrist candidates were pressured to drop out while Elizabeth Warren whose platform was nearly identical to Bernie's was left in the race. Super Tuesday came and Biden was suddenly the winning candidate. He even won in states where he hadn't been able to open a campaign headquarters (remember what I said about him placing 5th in fund-raising?).
Why did he win? Did a win in South Carolina suddenly wake the country to this dusty jewel in its midst? Hardly. People voted for him as the moderate alternative to Sanders. The reasoning was that anyone to the right of Sanders could win and Joe was a reliable moderate guy.
So, Joe Biden is the candidate and the Democrats are in a lot of trouble.
First, Biden only seems like a moderate because the party moved so far to the left. When it passed, Obamacare was seen as a huge step to the left and Biden's "moderate" position calls for expanding it. It's only moderate because the other candidates want to nationalize health care.
Obama was the furthest left president since FDR but he's now dismissed as a moderate by the party and Biden is seen as a moderate by association. Never mind that Joe was always to Barack's left. Joe is also seen as being moderate because he's been around for decades and the positions he championed in the 70s and 80s seem conservative today. But Biden has no fixed principles. He's always been to the left of the party. As the Democrats moved to the left, Joe moved with them.
Look at what he's done since effectively winning the nomination. He's named Beto (I'm comming for your guns) O'Rourke as point man on gun policy and appointed AOC to his panel on environmental policy.
Democrats are supposed to run to the left during the primaries and to the center for the general election. Hillary Clinton forgot that rule and lost the working-class white votes she needed to win.
In addition, the Democrats are already putting together plans for reshaping America when they take over both houses of Congress and the Presidency. And they're nor bothering to do it in secret.
All of this would be a hard sell in normal times but we are not in normal times. We just shut down the economy for months and are facing the highest unemployment numbers since the Great Depression. Voters tend to be more conservative during depressions. Yes, they will turn out a president if they believe that he caused the downturn but they are not in the mood for wrenching societal changes.
The Democrats are going to have a hard time blaming Trump for the economic downturn. That's because he's been a big cheerleader for reopening the economy. It's the Democrats who want to keep everything closed.
There is a gamble here. The Democrats are in the position of hoping that the COVID-19 virus continues to kill thousands and that there's a second spike in the Fall. You are in a bad place when you are hoping for thousands to die so you can win an election.
The Democrats may well lose this gamble. The states that opened first did not see a spike in infections and the more we learn about the virus the less scary it is. There's a natural curve that nearly all viruses take where they spike then vanish on their own without stay-at-home orders or vaccines. If COVID-19 follows that curve then we will see the states that opened first recovering first with no ill effects from the virus. This is still a big "if" but the Democrats have already committed themselves to COVID-19 being different from other viruses.
Then there's Joe Biden himself. He's old. He gets confused. He makes really terrible gaffes. Just last week a popular black talk-show host said that he had more questions for Biden and Joe shot back that anyone who still has questions "ain't really black". Joe is also really old. If he wins he'd start his first term older than Trump will be when he ends his second term.
But the biggest problem for the Democrats is that Biden was the "not Bernie" candidate. He didn't win the primaries because people wanted him. He won because he was the safe choice. Look at the fund-raising. Joe was way behind. Most of his support comes from his being "anyone but Trump". Trump on the other hand is very popular with his base. He's had a 90% approval rating among Republicans for years. And there's a 20% enthusiasm gap between Trump and Biden. Trump voters are eager to go vote for him. He already set records for votes for an encumbrance in the primaries. Democrats are much less excited by Biden and many Bernie supporters are outraged at the way the primaries were manipulated to steal the nomination from Sanders.
This makes a big difference in who actually shows up to vote. The more motivated a voter is the more likely he will turn out to vote.
A final word about polls. Biden is currently way ahead of Trump. So was Clinton at this point. So was Romney in 2012. So was Kerry in 2004. And Trump is running strong in the states he needs to carry. States like California and New York muddy the polls because of the Electoral College.
There are rumors about the Democrats recognizing that Biden is an uninspiring candidate who can't beat Trump but they're stuck. Short of Biden having to withdraw for health concerns, there's no way to replace him without alienating even more voters.
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