New book on how Biden barely won

[Roll Roons]

Got around to reading it today. One factoid I found interesting is that Biden's team knew that Texas wasn't going to happen for president or Senate. I seem to remember Dave Wasserman being very bullish on Democrats' chances in Texas across the board.

What exactly did it say about Texas?

Despite some close public polls and all the fuss over massive early voting turnout, O'Malley Dillon knew that Biden wasn't likely to win there and he was better off focusing on the Rust Belt trio + Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. They also knew that Hegar was going to lose, and it wasn't going to be close. But the campaign still sent Kamala to Houston, Fort Worth and McAllen just to humor people who thought Blue Texas might happen.

[sguberman]

Got around to reading it today. One factoid I found interesting is that Biden's team knew that Texas wasn't going to happen for president or Senate. I seem to remember Dave Wasserman being very bullish on Democrats' chances in Texas across the board.

What exactly did it say about Texas?

Despite some close public polls and all the fuss over massive early voting turnout, O'Malley Dillon knew that Biden wasn't likely to win there and he was better off focusing on the Rust Belt trio + Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. They also knew that Hegar was going to lose, and it wasn't going to be close. But the campaign still sent Kamala to Houston, Fort Worth and McAllen just to humor people who thought Blue Texas might happen.

Did they know there was going to be big Hispanic swings?
Were they expecting to lose by the actual margin or were they still expecting a close race just one Biden would lose?

[brucejoel99]

Got around to reading it today. One factoid I found interesting is that Biden's team knew that Texas wasn't going to happen for president or Senate. I seem to remember Dave Wasserman being very bullish on Democrats' chances in Texas across the board.

What exactly did it say about Texas?

Despite some close public polls and all the fuss over massive early voting turnout, O'Malley Dillon knew that Biden wasn't likely to win there and he was better off focusing on the Rust Belt trio + Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. They also knew that Hegar was going to lose, and it wasn't going to be close. But the campaign still sent Kamala to Houston, Fort Worth and McAllen just to humor people who thought Blue Texas might happen.

Jen O'Malley Dillon is an Atlas user, confirmed. I have no proof but deliberately trolling us bloomers is proof enough.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I don't know we have this thread up, Biden barely won due to no Insurrectionists, Evangelicals and Patriotic males only watch Fox news, their wives WC females when their hubby goes to work the now watch CSPAN instead of Fox news. The Viking QAnono mom was a D

[sguberman]

I listened to the book and have so far gotten to the end of the primary in the book a few noteworthy things that caught my eye:

-Bernie was initially reluctant to run and he only wanted to run if he could win
-Warren was planning on running and starting a resistance to Trump before Clinton even conceded
-Biden was so shocked by the busing incident from Harris that he forgot what he was supposed to say and Harris had no idea how well she went until she met with her staffers afterwards
-Bernie's staffers such as Weaver and Rocha thought that Bernie may drop out after the heart attack
-On the night of the Iowa caucus, only the Buttigieg campaign's precinct captain gave them any real data so only they knew anything important
-Rocha and Weaver actually were originally disappointed with how Bernie was doing with Latinos when the Nevada caucus was occurring
-Buttigieg's senior advisors told him the night of South Carolina it was time to drop out and even before his breakfast with Jimmy Carter knew it was the end
-In Alabama Klobuchar planned to meet with Buttigieg to discuss the state of the race but the meeting didn't go thru do to Buttigieg's plane being delayed
-Bloomberg's senior aides thought that he should drop out before Super Tuesday
-Bernie's internal polling had them up in Maine, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma and competitive in Minnesota, Virginia, and North Carolina

[Nightcore Nationalist]

Looks interesting, I was a big fan of Shattered.


Although contrary to what some partisans say Biden's victory was indeed very slim in historical terms.  If Trump's 78K vote win in 2016 was a "squeaker" (as many say) than so was Biden's 43K vote win.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

A few tidbits from my read through-

*Warren and Klobuchar hate each other.
*Warren’s surge really spooked the Sanders campaign.
*Hillary seriously considered jumping in the race around November 2019.
*The Klobuchar/Buttigieg feud wasn’t as bad as the media made it out to be.
*Obama did not think that Buttigieg could beat Trump.

[sguberman]

Looks like there is at least two more books about the election
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/607647/battle-for-the-soul-by-edward-isaac-dovere/

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-general-elections-elections-4f629e092afc92cc7eabd7ec4220cc0c

[sguberman]

Got around to reading it today. One factoid I found interesting is that Biden's team knew that Texas wasn't going to happen for president or Senate. I seem to remember Dave Wasserman being very bullish on Democrats' chances in Texas across the board.

What exactly did it say about Texas?

Despite some close public polls and all the fuss over massive early voting turnout, O'Malley Dillon knew that Biden wasn't likely to win there and he was better off focusing on the Rust Belt trio + Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. They also knew that Hegar was going to lose, and it wasn't going to be close. But the campaign still sent Kamala to Houston, Fort Worth and McAllen just to humor people who thought Blue Texas might happen.

I think if anything your description made them seem more bullish than what the book actually says. The book outright states they knew Biden wasn't going to win no matter what and that Hegar would get crushed.

[Motorcity]

I ordered the book on Amazon. 10 dollars and free shipping if you have prime. Its 30 dollars at Barnes and Noble and Target!

Anyway, I have read the first half of the book, the first nine chapters

A few things that stand out

-Biden was deeply hurt Obama didn't want him to run in 2016 and Obama even told aides he was afraid that Biden would embarrass them both

-Since Hillary lost, Biden knew he wanted to run and was always sure he would. But at some point he hesitated until the Nazi march in Virginia

-Biden had an impressive team of experienced campaign managers but they bickered a lot. And they had no power, Biden had to approve everything. And he hesitated to the last minute with almost everything from campaign HQ to the announcement to catering.

-Obama really liked Beto O'Rouke and preferred he had won the nomination

-Sanders also knew he wanted to run since Hillary lost but also hesitated. He would only run if he knew he could win.

-The Sanders campaign did think they could win unlike 2016, but knew from the start they would lose a head to head race and their victory depended on a divided field going into the convention.

-The Biden campaign was incredibly incompetent for most of 2019

-The relationship between Warren and Sanders have been tense ever since 2018 when they both realized the other was running

-Warren and Buttigieg both thought they could win outright, but Klobuchar and Bloomberg were hoping to be compromise candidates at a contested convention

-When Sanders had the heart attack, all his campaign aides thought he was going to drop out. Instead, he seemed more energized in the hospital and that surprised them.

- Many of Biden's aides thought he was done after New Hampshire and might drop out. The campaign had 15k in the bank while the other campaigns were spending that in a day per state.

-Hillary seriously considered jumping in the race around December 2019 and so did John Kerry, but neither went farther than some discussions with staff. Bloomberg entering ended both these ideas.

-Harris was gunning for VP since the start.  Only after the whole busing comment at the first debate did she think she had a chance.

-The Buttigieg campaign were the ones who demanded CNN nix the Seltezer Iowa poll the Saturday before the caucus. They called CNN and said they would sue if released. The poll had them at 3rd and it would hurt them.

-The Biden campaign was afraid they would not get second in Nevada. Had they came in third, they were afraid their victory in South Carolina would be numbed.

[brucejoel99]

-Obama really liked Beto O'Rouke and preferred he had won the nomination

Not really that, he was just "enamored" with O'Rourke at first but it was moreso just being intrigued by what he saw as opposed to actually being in his corner & wanting to see him go all the way. After Beto bottomed out, he then went through a Kamala phase & then put on that "ready for Warren (if need be)" shtick before coming home to Biden after SC.

-The Biden campaign was incredibly incompetent for most of 2019

Didn't need a book to tell us that

-Harris was gunning for VP since the start.  Only after the whole busing comment at the first debate did she think she had a chance.

Nah, the only one who was really gunning for VP from the start was Klobuchar. The book even explicitly stated that Kamala only made the busing comment in the first place because she'd calculated that she was running to actually win the presidential nomination, not to just wind-up as VP.

-The Buttigieg campaign were the ones who demanded CNN nix the Seltezer Iowa poll the Saturday before the caucus. They called CNN and said they would sue if released. The poll had them at 3rd and it would hurt them.

I think you're confusing that story with the one of Biden's team (Anita Dunn, specifically) threatening legal action against the IA Democratic Party if they released any partial results on caucus night when that particular meltdown was happening. Buttigieg's team (Lis Smith, specifically) wasn't threatening to sue CNN if they still put the Selzer poll out, just making it very clear that they would publicly question the veracity/validity of the poll due to the information that they had about the potential compromising thereof.