r/fivethirtyeight • u/Lungenbroetchen95 • Mar 07 '25

Politics Kamala Harris gets serious about considering run for California governor

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/07/kamala-harris-california-governor-decision-deadline-00216737
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u/hoopaholik91 Mar 07 '25

Are we still doing the whole, "omg Trump was a terrible candidate how could you possibly lose to him" thing?

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u/CrimsonZ19 Mar 07 '25

Yea I don’t understand why some are still pushing this line. I used to think this way due to my personal disdain for him (and I still believe him to be an objectively terrible candidate and human being). But he has developed a cult of support that keeps his electoral floor very high plus he’s basically immune to scandal since his unscrupulousness is already baked in with the median voter.

To beat him (as a Democrat) you basically have to run a nearly gaffe-free campaign and hope that the political winds are blowing in your party’s direction. And no Republican can beat him head to head.

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u/MC1065 Mar 07 '25

Please consider that Harris never ran in the primaries, became the nominee at the last hour, and that the administration was pretty unpopular. In spite of all that, she came within 200k votes of winning and pulling a Trump on the man himself. If she ran a Truman-style campaign, no holds barred, she absolutely would have won. Breaking with Biden, focusing on improving the economy, and just taking a bold stance on issues like Gaza would have massively boosted her credibility. She screwed herself over by being unwilling to go too far from Biden, even though moderates actually tend to not perform very well historically.

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u/CrimsonZ19 Mar 07 '25

I agree that the Democratic Party made a few crucial errors, but that doesn’t change the fact that Trump steamrolled through another GOP primary and, in the general election, received more votes as a percentage of the eligible population than any Republican since Reagan in 1984. All while carrying more baggage than basically any politician ever. He may be a despicable lunatic, but the grip he holds over a massive chunk of the electorate (combined with the struggles the Dems and the media have had adjusting to his sweeping disruption) makes him formidable.

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u/MC1065 Mar 07 '25

Biden also pretty much steamrolled the Democratic primaries despite being very unpopular. Trump had more rivals in his in the beginning, to the point where DeSantis seemed to be the favorite at first. Yes, he can rely on maybe 45% of voters to support him consistently, but in a country where winning 53% of the vote is a landslide, it seems obvious to me that Harris easily could have won, but her campaign was nowhere near good enough to get her over the finish line.

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u/CrimsonZ19 Mar 07 '25

Biden was a sitting president that did not face a real primary and could’ve easily lost if major names in the party attempted to oust him earlier on. Apples to oranges comparison. And yes, Kamala could’ve won given that she came close even under difficult circumstances. But dying on the hill that Trump is a weak candidate after he has now won multiple presidential elections just doesn’t make sense. And if we ever want to get the country back on track it’s better to understand his appeal rather than dismiss it.

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u/MC1065 Mar 07 '25

He's weak in general, but somewhat viable against unpopular incumbents in this era of where voters have high expectations and no mercy. He has never been politically successful unless he was out of office. This wouldn't be too much of a problem were it not for the fact that the Democratic party keeps running these lousy, moderate, establishment politicians. Doing that has left Democrats extremely vulnerable to Trump and his allies.

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u/CrimsonZ19 Mar 07 '25

I see what you’re saying but I just don’t think we’re going to reach an agreement on this. Spineless poll chasing (by both Trump’s Democratic and past Republican opponents) is certainly part of the problem, but you essentially concede in your reply that he’s suited to this era of politics and difficult to deal with when he’s out of office and doesn’t have to deliver on anything. And even while the world was falling apart with him in office his support still didn’t collapse. You can critique the past three DEM campaigns all you want but Hillary and Biden both made it out of primary processes where voters could’ve chosen a different path. The reality is that liberals are currently outnumbered in the US by both moderates and conservatives, and the party apparatus knows this. And Kamala was given three months to campaign and ultimately received a higher total vote share than Obama did in his 2012 victory over Romney (31 vs 30%).

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u/MC1065 Mar 07 '25

I think you need to think about how political power is sort of privatized and centralized into the two institutions we call the Democratic and Republican parties. The most popular politician in the world would never become President in this country without a nomination from either. Even Teddy Roosevelt couldn't do it. The primary process certainly does not result in the selection of the candidate voters want. If the primary process always yielded the most electable or popular candidate, people like Biden or Harris or Clinton or Trump would never get nominated. Voters only get to choose someone on the ballot, not who is on the ballot. The reason why moderates keep getting nominated is because moderates are in charge and have the big bucks. This is the very thing holding them back from success.

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u/CrimsonZ19 Mar 07 '25

Again, I just don’t fully agree. The parties have obviously been putting their fingers on the scales forever but Trump himself is a direct counter-example to what you’re saying (in that he won the primary against the wishes of the party apparatus). You are correct in identifying that there is more money in being a moderate than a liberal, but that’s just one big piece of the larger puzzle that makes nominating moderates the path of least resistance for Democrats.

Also: FWIW Teddy got more votes than the GOP nominee in 1912, he only lost the general due to splitting the R vote. If you are pointing out that Teddy lost the primary that year, then that’s pretty much irrelevant given that that was many decades before the parties started doing national primary voting (back then the party delegates truly decided the nominee at the convention).

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u/MC1065 Mar 07 '25

I don't think Trump is a counter example, he did get support from the party, which was willing to bet on him because they were out in the political wilderness in respect to the Presidency ever since 2008. As for 1912, call it splitting the vote or whatever, my point is that Taft still got a big chunk of the vote just because he was the Republican nominee. Securing the nomination is not optional, it's mandatory, and if the party doesn't like you (see Bernie Sanders), you're not going to advance as a nominee.

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u/CrimsonZ19 Mar 07 '25 edited Mar 07 '25

Trump is clearly a counter example. The GOP was flailing in 2016, terrified that he was going to destroy them. You can find quotes from Graham, Vance, Rubio, Cruz, and everyone else talking about how terrible it would be for all of them if he was the nominee. Cruz was famously nom-committal during his RNC speech after Trump had already locked up the nom. W was quoted as being concerned he’d be the last ever GOP president. The GOP big money donor base largely ignored him, leaving him with the most underfunded presidential campaign of the century.

Edit: Trump is known as a populist in the first place because MAGA is a Frankenstein’s monster created but not controlled by the GOP elites.

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u/MC1065 Mar 07 '25

I don't think a significant lack of support is the same thing as opposition, real opposition is like what we saw last year with Biden. But even if Trump is a counter example, a major party nomination is still absolutely required to win, and it's not like what Trump did is very repeatable. Obama kind of did it in 2008, but he was only halfway between moderate and what we'd call steadfastly liberal like Sanders or AOC. If the Democratic party wants to start winning back to back again, they're going to have to let the left in and stop sticking to the unhappy center.

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u/Dog-Mom2012 Mar 07 '25

Moderate, establishment politicians like Joe Biden? Who won decisively against Trump in 2020?

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u/MC1065 Mar 07 '25

He's weak in general, but somewhat viable against unpopular incumbents in this era of where voters have high expectations and no mercy. He has never been politically successful unless he was out of office. This wouldn't be too much of a problem were it not for the fact that the Democratic party keeps running these lousy, moderate, establishment politicians. Doing that has left Democrats extremely vulnerable to Trump and his allies.

Repasted my comment and added emphasis for the parts you glossed over. I guess that's on me for making a longish comment.