So...Kyle Kulinski covered a poll by Atlas that discussed the early numbers for the 2028 presidential primary. it's only one poll, but I really felt like giving my own commentary here as this is giving me 2020 PTSD.
The poll had the following candidates:
Pete Buttigieg- 31.8%
AOC- 19.4%
Kamala Harris- 16.6%
Cory Booker- 10.4%
Gavin Newsom- 7.1%
Josh Shapiro- 4.8%
Gretchen Whitmer- 3.7%
Raphael Warnock- 1.4%
Chris Murphy- 0.4%
Ro Khanna- 0.3%
Stephen A Smith- 0.3%
Andy Beshear- 0.2%
Rahm Emanuel- 0.2%
JB Pritzker- 0.1%
None of the above- 3.6%
So....yeah. let's discuss.
Here's the thing. This reminds me of 2020 in a way. I remember Joe Biden started off around 30-35%, Bernie having less, around like 15-20%, and then the field being split between a bunch of other, mostly centrist candidates. And that's what's happening here.
Pete Buttigieg is the new Joe Biden. He's an inoffensive white male centrist after they ran a woman/POC and yeah, he seems to be getting the nod here. And I just have to ask...why?! Why do people like these boring ### centrist candidates? Like, really, Buttigieg is like...well....like a piece of the pre cut store bread to me. Ya know, bland, tasteless, you kinda gotta put stuff on it to make it good, even then, it's not the best bread in the world. It's inoffensive, but it's maddeningly so.
And I kinda get it, a lot of democrats have this weird mentality of wanting boring and inoffensive candidates, believing running candidates that can actually run on something and are "too spicy" are risky. We might "lose" if we do that in their mind. And a lot of democrats are like these conservative gen Xers or older who just want a stable leader who wont do much. Like, they should be conservatives, because they are, but because trump is, himself "too spicy" for them, want bland crap.
But the problem is, the country, as a whole, wants more tasteful options. While after the roller coaster that is trump, bland and stale might sound kinda good, kinda like, well, saltine crackers (biden reference) when you just ended up puking your brains out from food poisoning, it's not actually gonna stop the country from wanting that spicy meatball full of e coli again. So in 2032 we'll be in the same situation, we'll vote for some batcrap insane republican again, and the cycle will continue. We are in hell.
Now, AOC is the second choice, and that's good, but bernie was the second choice in 2020. Again, 20% for the progressive wing is normal. And even if AOC takes off, the dems can still rally around their candidate, get the others to drop out, and everyone is a team player around buttigieg. Just like with Biden in 2020.
And yeah, then we got Harris at #3. I'm kinda surprised, i thought she was still the top candidate, but I guess she might be falling off. I think she's kinda done as far as candidates go. The country was clear they didnt want her in 2024 and I think her running again would be a mistake.
Beyond that, numbers drop precipitously. Cory Booker is at like 10% due to his filibuster stunt. Not gonna lie, he has balls, and balls is what we need. he might be another bland centrist, but he does have a little more spice right now just from that.
Gavin newsom, ew. His numbers for 2024 were TERRIBLE and honestly, he's been going full compromise mode post 2024. Now he's for work requirements for medicaid and he's selling out on everything. Even if I could vote for a bland centrist at this point just to stop trump, newsom is just too compromised. He's literally making too many deals with the devil thinking his political future is kissing up to maga and becoming half republican.
Josh shapiro, meh, I'm from PA, i dont mind him as governor, but after seeing how he was around harris with how ambitious and forceful he was, I really dont like him for president. Stay here in PA, josh.
Gretchen whitmer, I discussed her before, mixed thoughts but somewhat negative.
And beyond that, do I even need to bother?
But yeah. That's the field according to this one poll, and I'm not going to lie, I don't like this. At all. I honestly think the whole centrist brand is toxic. I think running another corporate moderate who runs on "abundance" or some crap is gonna just be a losing strategy. And even if they pull off 2028, they'll lose 2032 again. When are dems gonna get the memo? PEOPLE DON'T ACTUALLY LIKE CENTRISTS. I guess there's a lot of dem primary voters who do but general election wise these candidates are just horrible and boring and no one likes them. There's a reason why even with as bad as Trump is acting, people will still approve of republicans more. Because at least they have flavor, even if they give you a bad case of food poisoning after eating them. I hope this is an outlier and that things change as time goes on.
As a matter of fact, let's look for more data. Race for the white house does seem to be aggregating stuff. Their results are:
Kamala Harris- 24%
Pete Buttigieg- 20%
AOC- 14.1%
Cory Booker- 8.9%
Gavin Newsom- 6.6%
Josh Shapiro- 4.8%
Tim Walz- 4.4%
This isn't much different. Harris is better. Buttigieg is worse. AOC is worse. People still seem to be hanging on to Harris, which shows how unimaginative a lot of dem voters are. Yeah, let's run the lady who JUST LOST again...Buttigieg is challenging her though and within range to pass her. She's on the down based on the trend line they have, while buttigieg and AOC are gaining ground in her place. So the atlas poll is probably...where the trajectory is going. Buttigieg is looking to be the #1 pick. AOC is at #2. Harris is probably gonna continue to decline.
Again, I dont really see buttigieg as an improvement over harris. He's the same thing just about. Biden, Harris, Buttigieg, they represent that same crappy centrist lane of politics. The same kind of politics that needs to just drop off faster than harris herself is dropping off here. Seriously guys, "abundance liberalism" isnt the answer. Outside of maybe housing where legit supply bottlenecks exist in the biggest cities, it's just rebranded third way crap AGAIN. It's not gonna solve the problem. They're trying to address the issues in conservative terms, arguing that instead of focusing on redistribution, we focus more on things like "growth" and "opportunity." It's BS. When will we fricking learn? How many times do we have to keep losing to the fricking republicans? Jesus christ, these guys are like the 85 year old who wont hand over the keys already. You cant drive any more, youre just gonna crash the car again. STOP!
...*sigh*...I hate these people. Not as much as the GOP right now, but almost as much. If the GOP is evil, these guys are half evil because they meet them half way on everything. And if the GOP wasn't literally dismantling our democracy and trying to go full 1984, I'd still be protest voting them.
No comments:
Post a Comment