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If this were really the case then I think the reaction from the top would have come on quicker. Instead the initial negative reaction was among the media and rank and file Democrats. It took several days for any elected officials to go on the record in favor of Biden stepping down, and it took a couple weeks for the heavy hitters to start talking. In the days after the debate, in fact, most of the "official" sources doubled down on their support of Biden. If Biden had suddenly announced he was stepping down in the immediate aftermath of the debate then it could have been perceived as a rash decision and thrown the whole Democratic ticket into chaos. Prudence required them to at least wait until the next round of polls came out before deciding to switch horses. Except the following week was the 4th of July, and the holiday and associated vacations meant that the results of that week would be below standard. So they'd have to wait another week for more reliable poll numbers came out.
They couldn't announce the following week, though, because the focus was on the RNC, and while there was a chance an announcement could have taken the wind out of the GOP sails, there was an equal likelihood that it would create a narrative where Trump was being coronated while Democrats were scrambling. This was especially likely in the wake of the assassination attempt. So instead, they had to wait until after the convention. But then Biden got COVID and couldn't make a traditional prime time announcement from the Oval Office, and rather than delay any further, they put it out on Twitter and scheduled an appearance for several days later, when he would presumably have recovered.
It's worth noting that, prior to last week, it didn't necessarily look like Biden dropping out was the right move. The polls I mentioned earlier? They showed a sharp drop in the days after the debate but quickly recovered to their prior positions. Maybe a little lower, but not the kind of precipitous drop that would suggest changing candidates; if they had dropped like that for no discernible reason then it would just look like normal variation. More importantly, when given the option between Trump and an entire raft of possible Democratic candidates, Biden did better than the competition. Yes, that even includes Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. And while Kamala was the obvious next in line, it wasn't clear if picking her would be well-received or elicit a chorus of groans from the Democratic rank and file.
What they would have feared most, though, was several weeks of infighting among prospective candidates, which would threaten to divide a party that needed unity and a strong message. I'm guessing that once Democratic leadership was on board with a replacement the week of the GOP convention, a lot of time was spent talking to Biden delegates to make sure that one candidate would have enough support to avoid a floor fight. They wanted to be sure that the new candidate would come out of the gate with enough support that any person who could credibly challenge for the nomination would have the entire party apparatus arrayed against them and would be committing political suicide by throwing their hat into the ring. If Biden drops out over the Fourth of July you run the risk of immediately having big names start calling delegates to get support and having a unified party becomes less likely.
One other advantage of waiting until after the convention was that, in the triumphant atmosphere of being at a convention while ahead in the polls (something foreign to Trump), he ended up making a bad VP choice. It's as if he was so assured of victory he decided to name a successor rather than make a strategic pick. In 2016 he chose Pence because there was a legitimate concern that a twice-divorced philanderer might not play well among Evangelical Christians. It was a constituency he needed to shore up his support with. Vance ostensibly shores up his support with working-class whites in the Rust Belt, who are already Trump's core constituency. And I say "ostensibly", because Vance actually polls worse in the Rust Belt than he does in the country as a whole, -16% net favorability to -6%. Having an heir is of limited value if you don't win the election.
That being said, I don't think that much thought was put into it. I don't believe in all this "palace intrigue" nonsense. The Democratic party planned on running Biden. He had an awful debate performance. Party leaders weren't thrilled but they initially thought that stepping down would be worse than staying in, and, in any event, Biden wasn't about to step down after one bad night. But there was a bottom-up groundswell that party leaders couldn't ignore. When local reps start getting calls and letters that all run in the same direction, they tend to bring these things to the attention of party leadership. Eventually, the President was persuaded that things would be better if he turned things over to Kamala Harris. To imply that there's this much coordination among "party elites" is naive; it's based on the assumption that being a smart person in a position of power means you have an almost God-like control over things. But this is rarely the case. Most of the time, what you see on the surface is what's actually happening, and the simplest explanation is the correct one.
You may well be correct, but the two things that remain unexplained are the extent of the panic after a mediocre debate (which you yourself show didn't impact polls long term) and the flavor of the reaction to his withdrawing from the race (which would have made more sense if he hadn't fought tooth and nail to stay in).
I'm not supposing that the elites coordinate that much, or that they have much control. Indeed, I think the world is spiraling out of their control (to the extent they ever had it). My theory only requires the actions from one or two individuals...and responses to those reactions that are quite predictable.
Why doesn't their reaction make sense? Aren't they just being magnanimous? What would you expect instead?
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Swing state polling more important than overall national polls. Biden no longer had a path to victory re the polls.
I based my analysis on swing state polling, which showed a sharp turn toward Trump in the immediate aftermath of the debate but in the ensuing weeks leveled off with Trump gaining about a point. Certainly not the best outcome but it wasn't the kind of drop that would normally have one running toward the exits. The whole "path to victory" thing is hopelessly muddled anyway, with RFK Jr. being in the race. He's polling around 9% in some of these states, but there's no way he actually wins 9% of the vote there. Telling a pollster you're voting third party is easier than actually voting third party. It's not clear who Kennedy voters favor but if, as Republicans have been saying, they lean more left than right, it could make up for the gap. If Trump is up by, say, 4% in Pennsylvania but Kennedy is polling at 9%, half of Kennedy's voters breaking for Biden (and a negligible amount breaking for Trump) would be enough to close the gap. I honestly thought earlier that choosing RFK would be the best thing the Democrats could do because he'd in theory get his own voters plus Biden voters, which puts him in the lead in so many states it's not funny. Trump would have gone from talking about getting 320 electoral votes to being in danger of losing Texas. It's understandable (and probably advisable) that Democrats didn't elect to go this route, but it's an interesting thought experiment.
Except the polling isn’t that different including or excluding RFK Jr. On average, he seemed to bite into both major party candidates.
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