(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . .. and, some evidence the debate really didn't move the voting needle much, results not so dire [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-28 This is just causing whip-lash, argh… Like a lot of progressives here on and off DKos, we watched the debate on Thursday night in dismay, and even long-time supporters and even friends of Biden such as columnists Paul Krugman, Nicholas Kristof and Tom Friedman at NYT and elsewhere were calling for him to step aside and allow another Democrat to lead at the top of the ticket at the convention. It’s been a serious enough outcry (and the debate performance was dismal, let’s be honest about that at least) that we put up a Diary to discuss those options. Well we’re hard-core realists, and part of that realism is also acknowledging and, even high-lighting evidence showing that our own earlier conclusions (grounded in some evidence) may themselves be wrong and contradicted by other evidence coming out. In other words—maybe the Kossacks here saying that as bad as Thursday night was, Biden may be in better shape than we think, that the debate wasn’t heavily watched and won’t heavily move Americans either way (or swing the election either way), may be right after all. Yeah, we’re as confused, stuck and uncertain as rest of you, but have to look at all the evidence we can get here. It’s here, from Ipsos and 538, basic summary of it is—“yeah Biden’s debate performance on Thursday really was absolutely shitty and worse than Trump and raised questions, but it doesn’t look like so far, it’s done much to translate into votes for Trump, and undecided voters weren’t too thrilled at his performance either”. We’re not sure what to conclude now, but at least in pondering where to go from here, this at least is the one bit of reliable solid, somewhat objective evidence that things may not be as dire as they seemed Thursday night. Too many of the arguments trying to sugarcoat last night were a mix of either wishful thinking, or echo chamber thinking and preaching to our own choir—“blaming the ref” arguments attacking CNN or the moderators, chastising voters if they pay too much attention to optics vs. substance, frustration at not enough fact-checking (or even confusing criticisms of Biden’s performance with lack of support for our ticket). Again, all of these points are irrelevant—we have to win in November, we can’t allow Trump in there and in a reality-based discussion, it’s useless to whine about the imperfection of voters and the media, it is what it is and we and our candidates have to deal with it. But the Ipsos data is far different. It sounds like this has been getting talked about in a few places here and maybe DU, but it’s the first bit of objective data that those trying to calm the trouble waters now after Biden’s debate flop on Thursday night.. may be right after all, and we’re still in this. It looks like it really didn’t move the needle much. Here are the key points from that page: “if there was any silver lining from the debate for Biden, this was it: The face-off doesn’t seem to have caused many people to reconsider their vote.” From their polling of likely voters, Biden maybe lost about 1.6% of support. That’s it. And basically no real gains for Trump, at all, just a round error basically: “Trump’s support, meanwhile, barely budged, perhaps a reflection of the fact that, while Biden performed poorly on Thursday night, voters weren’t especially impressed with Trump’s performance either. The share of likely voters who said they were considering voting for Trump after the debate climbed from 43.5 percent to just 43.9 percent.” The Ipsos data actually does seem consistent with what we’re hearing from the CNN poll because both showed Biden performed dismally in the debate and was the worse debater up there.. but from this bit of data, it doesn’t seem to have moved much as far as doing anything with votes, and seems like may do even less the more out we are from the debate. Not exactly confidence inspiring, but not the utter disaster that we feared. So first a bit of a vent in figuring out where to go from here: We honestly don’t know what the fuck to make of all this, or where to go from here, with so many confusing and contradicting pieces of data. Absolutely no idea. Add in the general difficulties of doing polling at all right now, with the way cell phone calls get automatically screened out, and we’re even less informed and more confused about what to make of things. The point from the previous Diary still stands—if Biden is not cognitively up for going toe to toe with Trump in public debates and campaigning, then yes, it’s best to work on a replacement at the top of the ticket now, while it’s still early and long before the convention. But it’s not clear he actually was hurt all that much by the debate and that lousy performance. We have to confess here this is as confused and baffled as we’ve ever been, in all our collective years of campaigning and canvassing for progressive Democrats. Usually we have at least a general sense of trends and the right thing to do. Right now, after last night, we just have no idea. Doubt we’re alone in expressing general frustration at what looks to be a by now ridiculous way of selecting our Presidents, where a multi dozen convicted felon even has a viable candidacy like Trump does. Not a meme here, the US really does look like a total laughingstock to the world right now. Yet it’s even weirdly.. comforting? in a way. That Biden had probably the worst public outing last night of his entire political career, and it didn’t help him, but doesn’t seem to have hurt him as bad as feared. At least from this data (more will be coming in) This is the best we can come up with as a plan, with this new information: ---— First, let’s admit that Biden’s debate performance on Thursday night really was dismal, he needs to do better, needs to be out campaigning and connecting more with voters in public, and we even need at least some basic cognitive testing to make sure he’s able to fully engage in these kinds of public tests and environments. We think that’s a fair conclusion either way, and it’s tiresome hearing what sounds like coping about it. That was just bad. The 2024 Presidential election is too important to just leave to chance, and we need some reassurance and confirmation that Pres. Biden really is up to this, with some real testing and vetting to make sure he won’t blunder around like that again. Again this isn’t about the “too old” bullshit or just age issues—many 90-somethings, even over 100 are very sharp and fast, and better than 20-something and 30-something professionals. It’s about whether Biden in his case is up for this. If not, then yes, he should step aside for another Dem to lead the ticket. ---— Continue to collect whatever data we can about how the public is responding to things on Thursday, and plan contingent options. Maybe Biden was affected worse from that cold than we realized (in such case his team and Biden himself should’ve made that clear to the media). Or maybe the more serious concerns are valid. We have a deeper and stronger bench of Democrats to run than we often give ourselves credit for, including governors or Senators from Red or Red-leaning Purple states, in a good position to beat Trump in a general. Some names from the previous Diary (based on who seems to be at least open to the idea, and not said they’re not running)—Andy Beshear in Kentucky, Raphael Warnock in Georgia, Michelle Obama, Roy Cooper from North Carolina, maybe even Wes Moore from Maryland (not a Battleground State but he connects very well even with conservative demographics). Gavin Newsom’s name gets mentioned a lot but CA’s financial troubles suggest he wouldn’t be as strong. The parties have wide freedom to decide candidates late in the process—there’s a name for their nominee on the ballot regardless—and we’re still early in it. And in most of US history, candidates have been chosen often very late in the convention balloting. This might actually be one of those cases when a smoke-filled room can at least help to narrow things down and arrive at a strong option we could immediately get around and support if need be, Beshear especially seems to look stronger and stronger the more we hear. ----- Yet while we keep these options open, continue to GOTV and canvass for Democrats, contact voters, donate, work the phones and doors, do the ground game, register voters and do everything we can to support our nominee, whether that winds up being Biden or someone else. Keep working hard and showing why Trump just isn’t fit for office—maybe those better than expected numbers from Ipsos were partially because we’ve been working so hard on the ground to show that Trump shouldn’t be in there. We’ll admit that after what we saw on Thursday, and talking to and reading the points made by other progressive activists, and seeing the calls to step aside so clearly from progressive journalists who’ve been longtime supporters and friends of Biden—we’re still leaning somewhat in the direction of having Biden step aside for a stronger candidate to take on and take down Trump, whether Beshear or one of our other options. That sucked to watch and those performances need to be better. But we’ll also admit that we just don’t know, and with the Ipsos data there’s a decent counter-argument that as much as this debate performance didn’t look good at all, it may in fact not have had much of a big impact either way. Biden had his worst performance in public and he’s still in much better shape than we expected, and if he can get things together, he can only improve and look better to voters. And Biden has shown himself to perform well in public for ex. at SOTU recently and in the 2024 debates, and in other public appearances. So he does still have that in him, and we don’t think the cognitive issues are as bad as some of the media has been making them out to be, though it would be good to confirm for sure, and reassure voters and volunteers. So then yes, that’s a big if. And we really should do our best to get answers to these questions now, while it’s early before the convention and we can float and work with different options. And to be open and flexible to options, including bringing someone like Gov. Beshear at the top of the ticket to run for President. This is too important to mess up for the country and the American people. At least though, we can be assured what we’ll continue to work hard and work as a team on this. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/28/2249492/-and-some-evidence-the-debate-really-didn-t-move-the-voting-needle-much-results-not-so-dire?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/