Who would be the Democratic nominee if Biden didn’t run?

[Landslide Lyndon]

I can see one of three things happening. Bernie wins due to divided opposition like Carter in 1976 or Trump in 2016, Warren wins by building a coalition of enough  center left and progressive voters, or Bloomberg gets in earlier and buys the nomination.

Sanders barely broke 30% even after the field consolidated. With proportional allocation he would never get a majority of delegates. Hell, his own campaign manager admitted that their goal was to get about 40% of delegates and then strong-arm the convention to nominate him.
Trump did it because of the WTA system that favored him is critical states like Florida and Missouri.

[dw93]

I can see one of three things happening. Bernie wins due to divided opposition like Carter in 1976 or Trump in 2016, Warren wins by building a coalition of enough  center left and progressive voters, or Bloomberg gets in earlier and buys the nomination.

Sanders barely broke 30% even after the field consolidated. With proportional allocation he would never get a majority of delegates. Hell, his own campaign manager admitted that their goal was to get about 40% of delegates and then strong-arm the convention to nominate him.
Trump did it because of the WTA system that favored him is critical states like Florida and Missouri.

He'd likely fare better in this scenario, unless Biden not being in causes butterflies that make Warren run a significantly better campaign. There were Bernie supporters that had Biden as their second choice and vise versa, I was one of them (initially supported Bernie then went to Biden and ended up voting for him).

[Landslide Lyndon]

I can see one of three things happening. Bernie wins due to divided opposition like Carter in 1976 or Trump in 2016, Warren wins by building a coalition of enough  center left and progressive voters, or Bloomberg gets in earlier and buys the nomination.

Sanders barely broke 30% even after the field consolidated. With proportional allocation he would never get a majority of delegates. Hell, his own campaign manager admitted that their goal was to get about 40% of delegates and then strong-arm the convention to nominate him.
Trump did it because of the WTA system that favored him is critical states like Florida and Missouri.

He'd likely fare better in this scenario, unless Biden not being in causes butterflies that make Warren run a significantly better campaign. There were Bernie supporters that had Biden as their second choice and vise versa, I was one of them (initially supported Bernie then went to Biden and ended up voting for him).

No, he wouldn't do better for a simple reason: he didn't want to. That's why he ran an exclusionary campaign that burned all bridges and alienated every other candidate's supporters whenever he had the chance to do so.
He wanted a rock solid 30% behind him and as far as it concerned him the other primary voters didn't even exist.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I can see one of three things happening. Bernie wins due to divided opposition like Carter in 1976 or Trump in 2016, Warren wins by building a coalition of enough  center left and progressive voters, or Bloomberg gets in earlier and buys the nomination.

Sanders barely broke 30% even after the field consolidated. With proportional allocation he would never get a majority of delegates. Hell, his own campaign manager admitted that their goal was to get about 40% of delegates and then strong-arm the convention to nominate him.
Trump did it because of the WTA system that favored him is critical states like Florida and Missouri.

He'd likely fare better in this scenario, unless Biden not being in causes butterflies that make Warren run a significantly better campaign. There were Bernie supporters that had Biden as their second choice and vise versa, I was one of them (initially supported Bernie then went to Biden and ended up voting for him).

No, he wouldn't do better for a simple reason: he didn't want to. That's why he ran an exclusionary campaign that burned all bridges and alienated every other candidate's supporters whenever he had the chance to do so.
He wanted a rock solid 30% behind him and as far as it concerned him the other primary voters didn't even exist.

Kyle Kulinski spouting off about the divided field in the final stages of a primary does not mean Sanders would not have or try to appeal to groups he didn't reach in a non-Biden primary.

So many of the takes here involving ideological lanes are off the mark because they place too much emphasis on the existence and importance of these. You have to factor in other issues: electability, incremental progress vs radical measures (a lot of progressive voters were willing to buy into the former theory of change in this cycle, more so than in 2016 - and that is probably because Democrats weren't in office), social progressivism, etc.

Despite how divided the online faction wars were, the wider primary electorate was filled with people who liked Biden, Harris, Sanders and lots of politicians in between; in terms of satisfaction with the field, polls suggested voters were about as content with this field as they were with 2008's, which was the most satisfying to Dems in the history of primary polling as far as I'm aware. Sanders was actually less controversial than in 2016; he was less able to hold onto his former base, but had a consistently high favourability within the primary electorate (and he wasn't the only one - most of the frontrunners, bar Bloomberg, were at least doing better than 40%). This idea that when someone was only polling at 30% repelled the other 70% is ignoring that the fundamentals of a primary are different from those of a polarised GE scenario.

[NewYorkExpress]

Probably Warren, with the African-American vote being divided between Booker and Harris.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Probably Warren, with the African-American vote being divided between Booker and Harris.

I think the black vote would have been united no matter what would have happened. Look at how divided they were this time until Jim Clyburn endorsed Biden and he won SC.

[NewYorkExpress]

Probably Warren, with the African-American vote being divided between Booker and Harris.

I think the black vote would have been united no matter what would have happened. Look at how divided they were this time until Jim Clyburn endorsed Biden and he won SC.

I can easily see Black men backing Booker and Black Women backing Harris (the lure of having the first female President and another biracial President might be quite strong.)

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Probably Warren, with the African-American vote being divided between Booker and Harris.

I think the black vote would have been united no matter what would have happened. Look at how divided they were this time until Jim Clyburn endorsed Biden and he won SC.

I can easily see Black men backing Booker and Black Women backing Harris (the lure of having the first female President and another biracial President might be quite strong.)

Um, no. Outside of NJ, Booker doesn't have much appeal to Black men nationwide. He's viewed as a "softer" version of President Obama. Also, the fact that he's unmarried wouldn't help him either (being married to Michelle did a lot of wonders for President Obama).

[Rookie Yinzer]

Clyburn would have endorsed Harris much earlier without Biden in the race. So I think it would have been a Harris v Sanders primary. IDK who would win that. She loses a lot of votes that went to Biden by being a Black woman.

[NYSforKennedy2024]

Hot Take - Howard Schultz.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

WORST Take - Howard Schultz.

*Fixed

[NYSforKennedy2024]

WORST Take - Howard Schultz.

*Fixed

Not really, no.

Biden announces he won't run.

Schultz continues his book tour, and likely gathers the support of Steyer and Bloomberg supporters as well.

If his campaign was ran half competently, I think he could stand a serious chance.

[brucejoel99]

WORST Take - Howard Schultz.

*Fixed

Not really, no.

Biden announces he won't run.

Schultz continues his book tour, and likely gathers the support of Steyer and Bloomberg supporters as well.

If his campaign was ran half competently, I think he could stand a serious chance.

These were 2 very different types of supporters.

[Hope For A New Era]

Also, the fact that he's unmarried wouldn't help him either (being married to Michelle did a lot of wonders for President Obama).

What do you mean? I imagine their "perfect generic American family" image may have helped them out a bit in whitepicketfencia, but I don't think it would have done much else?

[MARGINS6729]

Warren would have a good chance for the reasons people have said (able to build a coalition of both moderates and progressives). Bernie always would have been a factional candidate simply unable to appeal to most mainstream Democrats given how his campaign was run.

But, this assumes nobody else runs without Joe in the mix. If Kerry or somebody like that does, possible they win instead.

Also, if most other things go pretty much the same until South Carolina (Buttigieg narrowly wins IA, Bernie narrowly wins NH and more solidly wins NV), it’s possible that Clyburn still endorses someone and that person wins the state, then the establishment/moderate candidates coalesce around whoever that is to stop Bernie. I kinda doubt that would be Buttigieg — maybe Klobuchar? Could even be Warren. Maybe Harris or Booker get more black support in the first place and therefore are still in the race at this point, and one of them ends up as the nominee.

Buttigieg... did better than Warren in South Carolina and Nevada. I know you're not dunking on him but I feel like everybody erases what he accomplished. In all four early states, he did better than Warren did.

[MARGINS6729]

I'm not at all sure, but my initial gut reaction is buttigieg. I know that doesn't seemed initially logical, and of course all this is subject to the complete change in Dynamics as to how the campaign would have progressed pre I awoke without buying as the presumptive FrontRunner for so many months.

Please correct me if anyone has statistics to the contrary, but I'm guessing a significant number of white Biden voters may have chosen buttigieg as their second choice. Buttigieg seem to do well with order Democratic whites who were liberal, but not Bernie Sanders liberal. As badly as fighting did in Iowa and New Hampshire, even winning a plurality abiding voters would have probably given him the victory in both of those close races over Sanders.

I don't think Harris or Booker would have necessarily been able to coalesce the black vote without buying. They had plenty of chances on their own when black support of buying was a mile wide and an inch deep, much like it was for Hillary during the 2007 race pre Iowa. Neither one of them could present themselves to the black community AZ a viable Contender to get behind the way Obama did. I just don't see that Dynamic changing much without Biden in the race. While I suppose either one could have held on through lousy showings in Iowa and New Hampshire to somehow pull off a black voters fuelled victory in South Carolina the way Biden did, neither of them had the national presents and name recognition that Biden does in order to survive such big early hits.

Of course that still leaves open the question of where does the black vote go? Buttigieg?!? Not likely. Warren seems only marginally more likely, and that ain't much.

I bet I mostly spitballing / $hitposting here rather than making a firm point.

Buttigieg... won Iowa. Maybe you made a typo but I'm so sick of him being erased from conversations like this which is why I'm really grateful for your post but let's be clear that Buttigieg WON IOWA.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Hot Take - Howard Schultz.

When people from all across the political spectrum came together to annihilate him for even thinking of running with 0 political experience or history of advocacy was a great day.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

WORST Take - Howard Schultz.

*Fixed

Not really, no.

Biden announces he won't run.

Schultz continues his book tour, and likely gathers the support of Steyer and Bloomberg supporters as well.

If his campaign was ran half competently, I think he could stand a serious chance.

Bloomberg was running if Biden didn't. I think Schultz has done a lot less harm, but it's hard to see how he'd have more appeal than the former NYC mayor in a Democratic primary.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Also, the fact that he's unmarried wouldn't help him either (being married to Michelle did a lot of wonders for President Obama).

What do you mean? I imagine their "perfect generic American family" image may have helped them out a bit in whitepicketfencia, but I don't think it would have done much else?

I was talking about within the Black community.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I'm convinced Booker's problems had less to do with his only base backing Biden (I don't think African-Americans were Booker's only base) and more to do with his candidacy being optimistic in an intensely pessimistic primary dominating by narratives of electability, "settling", #resisting and angry radicalism. No matter which of these prevailed, 2020 just wasn't going to be the happy warrior's year (hence his high favourability and name ID not translating into the same amount others with similar standing got). "Biden locked a candidate out of their most likely lane," applies more to Kamala Harris who was a firebreather when she needed to be.

[morgieb]

It's probably less likely that someone would've ended up blitzing the field like Biden did. I don't think Sanders and Bloomberg had enough broad appeal to win, whereas Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar didn't have enough appeal to minorities. Harris and Booker could've stayed in for longer but what's not to say their campaigns implode anyway? Biden was in trouble pre-SC.

If the primary is still being fought as of COVID lockdowns, I have no idea what would happen. But I think that happening would ruin the chances of Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Bloomberg, especially after George Floyd.

TL;DR - most likely comes down to which of Sanders, Warren, Harris and Booker are still standing as of June, so that probably means a Sanders nomination.

[Empty Rhetoric]

If Biden didn’t run, we probably would have seen a much more evenly divided SC primary(anyone’s guess who takes that one) and a lack of coalescing before ST. In that case, I think it would be likely that Sanders would have held onto his lead and took 8-10 states on ST with the field still divided, and I’d bet Bloomberg would have cleaned up in the southern states. What would happen from there is anyone’s guess.

[VBM]

Harris, because Biden staying out means that the AA vote is up for grabs, and Harris probably takes it. It still would not be Sanders, because the establishment was always going to coalesce around the not-Sanders option. Warren is another possibility, but not sure if she would win AA votes.

Biden got a lot of votes because he was doing the best in polls vs Trump. If I recall correctly, no one besides Biden was doing better than Bernie against Trump, so Bernie probably would have gotten a lot more support since polls would show him being the most electable