2024: Vice President Kamala Harris vs. Tucker Carlson

[Suburbia]

President Joe Biden announces retirement in 2023, Vice President Kamala Harris wins 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, a battered post-Trump GOP continues the Trumpian populism by choosing TV commentator and author Tucker Carlson as their nominee.

Who wins?

[Alben Barkley]

Depends on a few things:

How popular was the Biden presidency? Did he succeed in cleaning up Trump's mess? Are the American people generally satisfied that he took us back to "normal" and regret ever electing Trump? If so, they probably won't want to touch Carlson with a ten foot pole.

Plus, if Joe wipes Trump out including even states like Texas, the GOP might panic and try as hard as they can to distance themselves from Trump and prevent someone like Carlson from getting the nomination. Whether they can stop the base from nominating him anyway is another matter. If they do, AND the American people are generally satisfied with Biden/Harris and sick of Trumpism, that's a recipe for electoral annihilation for the GOP.

If, however, Biden's presidency is not received well for whatever reason -- perhaps the economy is still in a state of disarray, perhaps culture war issues have flared up worse than ever, etc. -- that might provide an opening for someone like Carlson to win on a populist campaign not unlike what Trump did in 2016. Especially if Trump's loss was fairly close and the R rust belt trends from 2016 have not completely reversed while the sun belt still is not trending D fast enough. And the Trump/MAGA cult has not died down yet.

I think the first scenario and thus a Harris win is more likely though.

[bagelman]

As I've said before, Democrats can defend the white house against a charismatic candidate like Carlson with a good candidate, but Kamala Harris is not a good candidate.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

Carlson wins unless Biden has done an unusually good job as President.