Was DeSantis’ campaign as bad or even worse than Clinton’s 2016 primary campaign?

[AltWorlder]

From a listicle of bad primaries by Ettingermentum, bolding mine:

Contender #2: Hillary Clinton, 2016

Among the candidates on this list, Hillary Clinton in 2016 is unique in that she actually won her race. In fact, not only did she win her race, she won her race decisively. When all was said and done, she won 34 contests, received a majority of the vote, and beat her main opponent by 12 points. As far as open primaries for the presidency go, this, on paper, isn’t all bad. It was certainly a larger victory than what Barack Obama managed over her in 2008, and you won’t find him anywhere near this list. If you just look at national vote share, you’ll find that she outdid a large number of other successful campaigns, from Trump in 2016 to McCain in 2008 to even her husband in 1992. But you won’t find those campaigns on this list, either. It’s a good example in how not everything in politics can be judged by how things look on paper, because you know, I know, and even Hillary Clinton’s supporters probably know that her placement on this list is entirely warranted.

Still, it’s hard to make a 1:1 comparison between her and DeSantis, because the nature of both campaigns were entirely different. Coming into 2024, DeSantis was merely a strong candidate. He had name recognition, major backers, and a wide appeal, but there was never any point where he downright dominated the field. Hillary, on the other hand, was a lot more than just a strong candidate when she began her 2016 bid. She was the de facto nominee. Nearly every single elected Democrat in the country endorsed her. The entire national network of liberal NGOs, foundations, and PACs lined up behind her. None of the party’s major figures even attempted challenging her. If you wanted to find a comparison, it wouldn’t have been Bush 2000, Reagan 1980, or any other example of a primary dominated by one figure. Hillary wasn’t just a “dominant” candidate at the start of the race. As far as her party was concerned, she was the only candidate. From day one, they treated her like she was an incumbent president.

How can you quantify something like this falling apart? How can you even measure the sheer failure of a coronation transforming into a bloody, 12-round ideological clash? You can try to do it in numbers. You can track how Hillary’s lead started at over 50 points during the summer of 2015, fell by half over the following months, dwindled to single digits by Iowa, and nearly vanished entirely by April. A near-unprecedented collapse. But for as hard as this still can be to fathom, the thing it all stemmed back to was surprisingly simple: a failure to unify her party around her.

Countless unforced errors both before and during the campaign, coupled with an imperious, dismissive attitude in her inner circle, left her completely unable to win over large parts of the Democratic base. As this problem mounted, her efforts to fix it often only made things worse. By the time the primaries came around, she gave up on this entirely and retreated to a divisive defense that prioritized winning a bare majority over everything else. Instead of trying to win over the progressive left by meeting them on their own terms, she mocked their concerns and demonized their movements. Rather than broaden her appeal across the country, she retreated to her strongholds and polarized a race that never needed to be polarized. This approach succeeded in the end, but it was about the worst way that she could have “won.” It forsook what a coronation could have afforded her: excited base and a clean image. Four months later, it was her lack of those exact things that would cost her the entire election.

How can DeSantis, for as poorly as he did, even compare to this? Honestly, I don’t think he can. While his collapse may be similar to Hillary’s numerically—he began only down by 10 and ended down by 50—the challenge he faced was just completely different. DeSantis didn’t have the luxury of an entire party united around him, with only unknown opponents in his way. He faced nobody less than Donald Trump. While I don’t think that this fact excuses everything about his campaign—I wouldn’t be making this list if I thought it did—it definitely does a lot to separate him from Hillary, whose main opponent was an unknown self-described socialist. So, even though she won her race, I find it easy to conclude that Hillary 2016 was worse than DeSantis 2024. Hell, she may even beat him twice. Don’t forget that her 2008 campaign was awful, too.

But this is an easy one. We all know that Hillary is a terrible politician. Beyond the fail queen of American politics, who else is Ron’s peer?

[Progressive Pessimist]

Clinton won, so this answer should be obvious.

[AltWorlder]

Clinton won, so this answer should be obvious.

Turning a surefire blowout into a life or death struggle is pretty bad. In the context of the article, some losses are less bad than others, too.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

I'm curious, who else was on the list?

[Epaminondas]

Hard to tell right now, since what matters is the long term imprint on the party. If Trump goes on to lose resoundingly in November, DeSantis may rise from the ashes.

Clinton won, so this answer should be obvious.

Has she really, though?

[LabourJersey]

I understand his reasoning, but Ettingermentum is ignoring the fact that the existence of open primaries complicates his narrative.

Part of the reason why 2016 was close (in my opinion) was that Sanders energized a large number of independents and Democrats who were not engaged in the Democratic party previously to vote for him. These voters are not the type that are swayed by institutional support, and aren't the sort of "high social trust" voters that would find it appealing to go with an overwhelming, well know favorite.

Had the Democratic primary been exclusively closed primaries, she would have won more convincingly (and she would have won in 2008, but that's another argument).

[Landslide Lyndon]

Clinton won, so this answer should be obvious.

She won comfortably. The only reasons the campaign continued after March were the media's hate for everything Clinton and Sanders's monstrous ego.

[ClassicElectionEnthusiast]

Worse. At least Hillary won the nomination in 2016.

No one was realistically expecting DeSantis to win the 2024 GOP nomination while Donald Trump was in the running, but off the heights of his re-election win he was looking to at least make a better showing vs. getting knocked out in Iowa and barely managing to hang onto 2nd place in the polls.

[SInNYC]

I think a better comparison for DeSantis would be Harris. Both were kind of annointed the perfect candidate that could gain support from all factions of their party. Both were to win the presidency and young enough to be the party's future. Both could work with and/or be controlled by party leaders. DeSantis could keep the grifter Trump from winning if anybody could (and there are even now some Rs that are secretly against Trump), while Harris could keep an elderly Biden or progressive Bernie from winning.

The coronation of neither worked, as neither showed any ability to run a campaign. The reasons for their failings were different though.

The OP article is paywalled so I cant see beyond Bernie and Hillary. Who were the others mentioned?

[Sir Mohamed]

Worse. At least Hillary won the nomination in 2016.

No one was realistically expecting DeSantis to win the 2024 GOP nomination while Donald Trump was in the running, but off the heights of his re-election win he was looking to at least make a better showing vs. getting knocked out in Iowa and barely managing to hang onto 2nd place in the polls.

Yup, it was much worse.

I'd even argue it was a misscalculation to run in the first place. His candidacy just didn't make sense in a world that has Trump running as well.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

So tired of people consistently treating Hillary this way. Even when she wins decisively, she can’t win, apparently? And it’s all her fault? What sort of double standard is this? Hillary is the one who polarized the race? What a pile of f-cking drivel.

I will accept that she was frustrated to be running against a candidate who was making hopeless and unrealistic promises—she was a pragmatic candidate and he was an “Overton window” candidate, and that sort of politics is difficult for her to understand. However, I cannot stand by and accept that she was the cause of polarization when it’s always been Hillary who’s had to stand there and take it when insults are hurled her way. It was Sanders who implied she was corrupt and laid the groundwork for legitimizing Trump’s most stinging attacks. It was Sanders who said she was unqualified to be president. It was Sanders who cast her as a Wall Street bigwig and took from her the fact that no, she was actually just a highly successful figure who people would rightly pay a premium to have come speak. It was Sanders who stayed in the race and talked about a floor fight when his chances became nil and more conventional candidates would have bowed out much earlier, creating the illusion of a competitive race. It was Sanders who poisoned a generation of voters against the eventual nominee and then did nothing to walk back the personal attacks (note, he almost never vouched for Clinton the person after the convention).

Hillary never—and I mean never—went down to the level he did. He is amongst the most responsible people for her loss in 2016. This article follows a long tradition of treating Hillary Clinton like garbage and ignores the basic facts of the race.

[AltWorlder]

However, I cannot stand by and accept that she was the cause of polarization when it’s always been Hillary who’s had to stand there and take it when insults are hurled her way.

She's a politician, she's supposed to be able to take it and dish it out. This isn't a parasocial fandom.

If her opponent was so detached from reality, then it should've been child's play for her to handily defeat him early on, not drag out the primary.

Hillary never—and I mean never—went down to the level he did. He is amongst the most responsible people for her loss in 2016. This article follows a long tradition of treating Hillary Clinton like garbage and ignores the basic facts of the race.

Sanders was barely a Democrat. If she ran a good primary then she would have done what was necessary and beaten him earlier. The fact that she refrained from doing so is her own responsibility.

[AltWorlder]

The OP article is paywalled so I cant see beyond Bernie and Hillary. Who were the others mentioned?

Contender #1: Bernie Sanders, 2020

As for Sanders, he reportedly chose early on to make the extremely dumb decision to rely on a small-tent strategy, where he would win in a crowded field with roughly 30% of the vote. This was an absolutely disastrous choice. In going down this path, Sanders hinged his entire bid on the assumption that the Democratic establishment would inexplicably be dumb enough to keep the field divided and let him win for no reason. When they weren’t that dumb and ended up uniting against him, he was left with no recourse. It singlehandedly ruined all of the efforts of what was otherwise a pretty solid campaign.

Contender #3: Jeb! Bush, 2016

Still, for as many similarities as there may be between Jeb Bush and Ron DeSantis, it’s worth giving Jeb a tiny bit of grace here. There are a lot more things that make his collapse understandable than there are for DeSantis. For one, he was simply positioned far more poorly than the current Florida governor. He wasn’t an incumbent who had been in the news near-daily for years on end. He wasn’t enjoying mass coverage from all quadrants that cast him as an exciting rising star. He was old news—an essentially retired politician who hadn’t served in office for nearly a decade and hadn’t run in an election since 2002. It’s no surprise, then, that his strength in the race never corresponded with the amount of hype he got from pundits.

Contender #4: Rudy Giuliani, 2008

Where Giuliani truly erred was that he neglected the next step of this strategy: prioritizing New Hampshire.

This was absolutely inexplicable. While it was entirely understandable that Giuliani, a former New York City mayor with a pro-choice, pro-LGBT record, would back away from Iowa’s infamously conservative electorate, nothing about New Hampshire’s independent-leaning voters should have been intimidating to him. He had every reason to place his hopes there. But, for whatever reason, Giuliani decided not to do this. He punted on both opening contests, instead staking his candidacy on Florida, a state later in the calendar that nobody cared about. All this ended up doing was giving John McCain free rein in the Granite state, which he used to pull off a last-minute polling surge. After he managed a come-from-behind victory against Mitt Romney in the state, the rest was history.

Still, I’d hesitate a little before declaring it to be worse than DeSantis’ campaign. While Giuliani did enjoy a national polling lead for quite some time, observers at the time considered this to be skin-deep, almost entirely a function of his staggering name recognition and national popularity following the 9/11 attacks. Beyond this, he faced tremendous structural challenges, with elites on the religious right coming out early in steadfast opposition to him. It was never really a surprise that as Republican voters tuned into the race and got to know the candidates, the more they’d migrate towards more “normal,” traditionally conservative options. Unlike DeSantis, it’s hard to think of any obvious things he could have done to avoid this doom-loop, especially when his presence in a particular state supposedly made his numbers worse, not better.

Contender #5: Gary Hart, 1988

What’s truly indefensible, if judged by the standard of winning a presidential campaign and nothing else, was Hart’s response to it. He just…dropped out! The runaway frontrunner quit the race immediately after one scandal dropped. I’d say that he made a mistake in not at least waiting to see how people reacted to the information, but a poll did come out, and it revealed that most voters didn’t care! A majority of Democrats still trusted him. Substantial numbers just straight up didn’t care at all. Among voters at large, most were angrier at the media over how they treated Hart than they were at Hart himself for having an affair. It was the definition of a manageable scandal. But Hart blinked, and, in doing so, blew up a campaign that was still well on the path to victory.

How do I know this? Because by the end of the year, months after he had dramatically quit national politics, Hart came crawling back and restarted his campaign! It was pathetic, indecisive, obviously power-hungry—and it worked! Hart’s baseline appeal was so strong that he still polled in the lead nationally after he re-entered the race. It wasn’t enough to win, of course—the damage had been more than done by that point. Other candidates who, you know, had actually stayed in the race and ran real campaigns quickly outmatched him in the early states and sent him to oblivion. At the age of 52, his entire political career was over.

There’s actually no comparison to this. Not Hillary, not Jeb, not Rudy, not even Ron. This wasn’t a matter of poor strategic planning or a nasty sequence of bad moments. It was a case where one guy probably could have easily succeeded in his goals if he made literally any decisions other than the ones he did. If he didn’t have the affair, he was the nominee. If he didn’t goad reporters to discover his affair, he was the nominee. If he didn’t drop out instantly after the affair he asked people to discover was discovered, he still probably was the nominee. It was a true self-immolation in a near-literal sense. No number of awkward campaign trail moments can compare with the sheer degree Hart choked 36 years ago.

Extras: Dean 2004, Kennedy 1980, Muskie 1972

[MABA 2020]

Absolutely worse

[Zohran "The Sword of Islam" Mamdani]

Clinton's entire campaign was arguably the worst in all recorded history. You can't even compare it to DeSantis, who was fighting an uphill battle from day one against what was effectively an incumbent president. Did Ron even lead in a single nationwide poll at any point?

[DrScholl]

Worse considering that Clinton obviously won the primary. DeSantis lost badly to an opponent with 91 indictments.

[DaleCooper]

I'm sure if DeSantis had as big of an initial polling lead as Hillary in the primary he would've still lost. I also think he would be capable of losing a general election to someone like AOC or other Squad candidates.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

I'm sure if DeSantis had as big of an initial polling lead as Hillary in the primary he would've still lost. I also think he would be capable of losing a general election to someone like AOC or other Squad candidates.

That would just be hysterical if it actually happened

[DaleCooper]

I'm sure if DeSantis had as big of an initial polling lead as Hillary in the primary he would've still lost. I also think he would be capable of losing a general election to someone like AOC or other Squad candidates.

That would just be hysterical if it actually happened

I don't see how anyone could argue that it wouldn't at least be possible. For as out of touch as AOC is, she'd at least be attempting to campaign while DeSantis hangs out with Elon Musk talking about Mars on a Zoom call.