What did Democrats do wrong?

[wareyin]

Well that's just odd, because I could swear I remember there being Democratic primaries last year 2 years ago (damn new years still messing with me), with Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson and RFK Jr. initially running against Biden. But, d4m10n says they didn't happen, so who am I to judge?

 

[Puppycow]

Dean Phillips could have credibly run as a Democratic Party change candidate, but this is probably true of anyone other than the president, veep, and party operators already working within the incumbent administration. It would have been nice if one of the OP poll options was "Didn't hold competitive primaries to choose a new slate of candidates."

I think that technically most Democratic Party primary voters could have voted for Dean Phillips if they had wanted to. They didn't because voters tend to automatically vote for the sitting president.

 

[Puppycow]

Well that's just odd, because I could swear I remember there being Democratic primaries last year, with Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson and RFK Jr. initially running against Biden. But, d4m10n says they didn't happen, so who am I to judge?

Not last year. Two years ago.

 

[Segnosaur]

It would have been nice if one of the OP poll options was "Didn't hold competitive primaries to choose a new slate of candidates."

I think the whole "lack of a primary" was really a non issue for a number of reasons.

First of all, the only people who think its a problem were MAGAchud who weren't going to vote for the democrats anyways. (I doubt very much whether there were a significant number of voters in 2024 who thought "I really dislike Trump because he is a racist felon, but I'll vote for him anyways because the Democrats didn't have a proper primary".)

Secondly, primaries themselves are a problem. They cost money to run (cash that could be better spent on the general election), and the infighting amongst candidates might leave the eventual winner damaged going into the general election.

Plus, since Biden withdrew rather late into the election cycle, the Democrats would have had to alter the primary process (restart things/condense the process and alter the schedule/etc.) And I am sure that whatever they did, the MAGAchud would still find a reason to complain. "Even though I was always going to vote for a racist con artist, I will pretend like I care about how the Democrats chose their leader and complain because the state primaries were too close together/didn't have enough time for candidates to plan/etc."

 

[Segnosaur]

Well that's just odd, because I could swear I remember there being Democratic primaries last year, with Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson and RFK Jr. initially running against Biden. But, d4m10n says they didn't happen, so who am I to judge?

There were primaries of a sort. But, I think when people claim "no primaries", they are referring to the way Harris was selected as the nominee after Biden's withdrawal. (I have no problem with the way the Democrats handled the switch from Biden to Harris. But, I do recognize that it wasn't "standard" procedure.)