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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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Harris’s current numbers are bad, but I think she has upside once she’s untethered from Biden.

What makes you think so? It's her administration too. It's not just Biden having personally done something terrible, people are actually unhappy with the outcomes of the administration policies.

She's been mostly hidden during the administration; it won't be difficult for her to stake out different positions that people who don't particularly like Trump but really couldn't stomach voting for a guy who appeared to be non compos mentis will believe. This isn't an election about convincing anyone - Trump's taken all the political oxygen in the room for all but a couple of months for the past decade - but instead about limiting discouragement among supporters. Remember, both the 2016 and 2020 elections went to the candidate who avoided having the last negative news cycle.

She is non-senile and capable of staying on message and repeating a talking point without mangling it. Biden runs well behind Generic Democrat on Senate and House polls, and if she can successfully approximate Generic Democrat, she wins.

Oh, I like her chance to be better than Biden, but I don't see much for true upside. The most likely scenario seems like returning to the pre-debate status quo, which was quite bad for Generic Democrat because the majority of Americans think the results from the last four years aren't very good.

The most likely scenario seems like returning to the pre-debate status qu

I would probably agree, other events excepted -- now that ~30% of America probably thinks that the Deep State tried to have Trump offed, and the undecideds literally just saw him putting his life on the line for (his conception of) America on live TV, I think Generic D would have issues, and Uncharismatic Nobody D will struggle hard.

Except basically Generic Democrat's are running ahead in swing state Senate races.

“Generic X” always does better than any concrete candidate because people will think of their own perfect idealized person. Means very little other than as an upper bound.