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Primaries are only competitive if the people show up to them.
Primaries are only competitive if we actually have them
I feel like if Biden had stuck with something like, "I'm going to be one term and let some younger folks lead, we need some folks who are going to see the consequences of their actions running the show, not 70 and 80 year olds." and had an actual primary, Harris wouldn't have been the nominee and said nominee would have won. There's a few other things that could have helped, but the short campaign was definitely a huge stumbling block.
I’ve seen people argue Biden and Jamie Harrison had a following out, and that Biden never really planned to run again, he just wanted to spoil the primary and push a very unpopular Harris onto the ticket.
Yes indeed, but also primaries can help to attract voters. I think the Sanders campaigns, though he didn’t win, made young people more likely to vote Democrat.
We did, in fact, have primaries. There were like 9 choices for the Democratic nominee in my state. Better challengers could have run but didn't. Yes I know the DNC using funding to "encourage" or "discourage" but that doesn't change the fact that challengers could have, and did, run in the primaries.
Nobody voted for Harris in the 2024 Democratic primary and she was still the nominee, picked by the head nerds at the DNC
That is partially true. We the voters did not vote for Harris, but the Biden delegates who the primary voters sent to the convention did.
Yeah, and Biden was old. Even before his obvious deterioration, there was always a chance he wouldn't make it through the term and Kamala would have to step up. If you voted for Biden in the primaries and were NOT ready for a potential future of a Harris presidency, I don't know what you were thinking.
Like I said: The head nerds at the DNC picked her.
yes, but those head nerds were elected by the primary voters.
The primary voters voted for Biden tho
Yeah and then he dropped out when the voters lost faith in him. And the people that hate been voted to represent the voters at the convention went on to vote for their pledged candidates existing understudy. I'm not saying Biden voters voted for Harris, I'm just refuting your claim that "nobody voted for Harris." The DNC still had a convention where the delegates who voted were the ones sent to the convention by the primary voters, and the delegates voted for the endorsee of the candidate they were pledged to. I'm not saying you should be happy with it. I'm just saying you should be armed with facts instead of hyperbole.
They could have had an actual election at the convention instead of just anointing someone who wasn’t even running in the primary.
And the electors are basically low tier nerds who did the bidding of the head nerds and didn’t have an actual vote, or give it to the second place finisher.
They just assumed that everyone would be okay with it because the DNC is a private organization that can do whatever they want. They don’t have to care what voters think.
Dude, give it up. You're arguing with someone who thinks that the democrats run fair primaries.
It’s like telemarketers: I’m bored and the longer they’re arguing with me the less harm they can do elsewhere.
I didn't say that. I said they had primaries (which I learned Florida and Delaware did not), challengers could run, and delegates voted for Harris. All of those things are true. What is also true but I didn't mention is challengers were still able to declare ahead of the convention after Biden dropped out (correct me if I'm wrong but I believe some did).
The problem was that there were no better candidates to vote for. Which is the fault of the candidates who could have run but didn't. I'm not blaming the voters for candidates not running. An incumbent dropping out after winning the primaries is unprecedented. An expectation of organizing a second primary is just unrealistic.
Arguing with you is pointless for the reason I mentioned.
I'm assuming you mean having all the primary voters vote again. Sure that would have been great but I think the logistics of it make it a non-starter. There was only a month between Biden dropping out and the convention. Are you going to limit it to just the voters who voted in the first primary (which is actually the law in my state)? I would expect law suits of this happened, and probably law suits of it didn't, too. There were only about 30 days between Biden dropping out and the start of the convention. How are you going to organize and execute that in 30 days?
The delegates were pledged to the candidate who won the primary in their state. Second place was Uncommitted. Third (Phillips) and fourth (Palmer) place dropped out (which against goes back to the logistics of having a second primary). The convention was open to new candidates to declare, and they did, and Kamala won the vote at the convention.
This was an unprecedented situation where you essentially had no primary candidates left in the race after the primary. There was no possible outcome where everyone would be happy.
"3 paragraphs is too much for me to read"
The dnc sucks but c'mon, are you illiterate?
I was bored and drunk and you’re taking my shitposting way too seriously
Count the number of states where "others" were not on the ballot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Ballot_access
Your proof that we didn't have primaries is to link a source that shows that not only did 48 states have a primary (I wasn't aware that Florida and Delaware did not, so TIL, and thank you for that), but also that all of them had at least one challenger on the ballot? Show me who qualified to be on the primary ballot in their state, showed up to register for it, and was denied.
I'm not who posted it, but that list is either wrong or varies by county. My state is listed with a couple other candidates in various colors including green, but my actual primary ballot was Biden or nobody. (Or Trump or nobody). I just recycled it.
That sucks. Was there anybody who met the requirements and tried to register but was rejected?
How should I know?
Anyway, I also forgot to mention if this did vary by county, that mine is the most populated county in the state and would have directed the election outcome.
Primaries are kind of a moot point for the incumbent if they want to run again.
Trump in 2020 had 2,549 delegates. The next closest was Bill Weld with 1.
Biden in 2024 had 3,905 delegates. The next closest was uncommitted with 37.
Obama in 2012 had 3,514 delegates. The next closest there was also uncommitted, with 72.
Bush in 2004 had a clean delegate sweep of 2,509.
Yep. But it's generally (just learned that Florida and Delaware Democratic parties cancelled theirs in 2024) not because the state parties just reject any other names to be put on the primary ballot. But there's still a lot of people saying there was no primary or that the DNC wouldn't let any challengers run. Just generally misplaced anger that they didn't have better Presidential candidates to vote for when the reality is that better people just chose not to run. Has there ever been a primary challenger beat the incumbent president for the nomination and then win the election?
There'd have to be a primary challenger who beat the incumbent first, and I don't think that one has happened. I know Ted Kennedy got relatively close (Well, closer then the others I've mentioned, still blown out 1900 to 1200 delegates) to knocking out Carter on the Dem side, other then that, Reagan and Ford in 1976 was decided 1,121 to 1078 for Ford.