Electability was such a huge concern in 2020 that we ended up in a competition between two old white men in the 2020 Dem primary.
Again, happy to know that this was wrong, but this is the line of thinking that was occurring back then.
It shouldn’t be a big deal to say a candidate is good enough to vote for, but isn’t everything you want.
Agreed, but also recall how greatly gerrymandering has affected this election. Of course you can’t directly gerrymander the presidential election, but the gerrymandering of Congressional seats and State legislature seats, governorships, etc has had a trickle-up effect, essentially. (E.g. laws passed in the name of preventing voter fraud that make it harder to vote and reduce turnout, increasing the odds that a State will swing for the GOP in the presidential election, as per https://www.npr.org/2020/11/08/932880774/how-gerrymandering-efforts-fit-into-2020-presidential-election )
Happily, we now know it was wrong. At the time, there were concerns that only Biden, with his incumbent advantage and the need to win over midwestern voters ( as was the case four years ago, https://www.vox.com/2020/5/26/21264719/joe-biden-election-coalition & https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/3/21155150/electoral-college-2020-bernie-sanders-joe-biden-trump-wisconsin ) would be the only Dem who could beat the GOP’s choice. And it’s not like we could swap Biden out for someone else and then tag him back in if the new choice did poorly in polling and such.
Electability was such a huge concern in 2020 that we ended up in a competition between two old white men in the 2020 Dem primary.
Again, happy to know that this was wrong, but this is the line of thinking that was occurring back then.
Agreed, but also recall how greatly gerrymandering has affected this election. Of course you can’t directly gerrymander the presidential election, but the gerrymandering of Congressional seats and State legislature seats, governorships, etc has had a trickle-up effect, essentially. (E.g. laws passed in the name of preventing voter fraud that make it harder to vote and reduce turnout, increasing the odds that a State will swing for the GOP in the presidential election, as per https://www.npr.org/2020/11/08/932880774/how-gerrymandering-efforts-fit-into-2020-presidential-election )