Carville says election 'wouldn't have been close' if Biden dropped out in 2023

[pinkstarburst]

96. Too many factors

We had a full primary in 2016 and Hillary still had to contend with the fact that this country is deeply sexist and wouldn't elect a qualified woman over an unqualified man. Kamala had to overcome that same sexism, plus racism. That wouldn't have changed.

That said, I think Biden made a critical error when he didn't step down in early 2023. There was literally no one excited about him running again, no one saying good things about the prospect of a president who would be 86 at the end of his second term. It allowed 3rd party candidates like RFK to elbow their way in because everyone was so horrified by having to choose between Trump and a president who would be 86 while in office, and who was hiding from the cameras, and who in the moment he finally did appear on camera in the debates, gave a very stumbling weak performance, making it look like he'd been deteriorating horribly all along.

We should have had a full primary. One reason Kamala lost was because of low, unenergetic Democratic turnout, and this happens when Democrats aren't allowed to engage in the process and don't feel their voices are being heard. I thought she ran a good campaign and did the very best she could have done in such a short time. I was really impressed. But no one chose her except Joe Biden. It was a repeat of 2016 when there was strong energy for Bernie and his supporters felt the DNC gave Hillary an unfair advantage so she would ultimately triumph. In this case, Harris had to be the candidate in order to keep the campaign funds, but that didn't change the fact that voters who were never enthused by her in 2020, where she had very low support, may have felt their voices weren't heard and that they were being cheated out of a chance to vote in a full primary and that Biden (whether this was true or not--and I do not believe it is) somehow engineered it so she could be the candidate without her having to face the rest of the democratic field in a primary. We need to have a full primary every time.