-
Many voters are not happy that they have to choose Biden and Trump again.
-
Here’s the truth: Several credible Republicans ran against Trump, and he defeated them all.
-
But the Democrats were given no real choice. No credible candidate challenged Biden in the primaries.
You’ve probably heard friends or family say it.
Maybe you’ve said a version of this yourself: “I can’t believe we’re stuck with Donald Trump and Joe Biden again.”
If you feel this way, you have quite a bit of company. A Pew Research Center poll in April found that 49% of voters would replace both candidates if they could.
This scenario might tempt some to rail against the so-called “duopoly” of politics, or to lament the fact that neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party are able to field more popular candidates to bring.
But it’s important to understand that Biden and Trump will be their parties’ nominees for very different reasons.
Republican voters had many choices. They resolutely chose Trump.
It may be easy to forget at this point, but Trump had many detractors.
More than a dozen people challenged Trump for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination, including a senator, a governor, three former governors, a former member of his Cabinet and his own vice president.
Trump handily defeated them all, winning a majority of the votes in all but two: Vermont and Washington, DC.
It’s not that they haven’t raised enough money, gained enough experience, or failed to effectively prosecute the case against Trump. Nikki Haley, the candidate who lasted the longest of all the contenders, did all of these things.
It’s just that Republican voters — who make up roughly a third of the electorate — overwhelmingly chose Trump, and the highest levels of the party once again backed him.
Polls showed Democrats open to alternatives. They never got a credible one.
On the other hand, Democrats ultimately stuck with Biden, despite ample evidence that there was room for an alternative.
In July 2022, polls showed that nearly two-thirds of Democrats did not want Biden to run for a second term. In February of this year, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that 45% of Democrats said Biden should not be the nominee, compared to 46% who said he should.
The same poll found that only 23% of Democrats were enthusiastic about his candidacy. Polls also show that most Democrats think he is too old to serve.
Sensing the possibility of an opening, only one elected Democrat stepped forward to challenge Biden: Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota.
But the Minnesota congressman’s campaign failed to catch on. He didn’t have the magnetism of a senatorial governor, made occasional blunders along the way, and most importantly, he was marginalized by the top brass of the party.
In short, if you’re frustrated with your November choices, you can blame two very different groups: Republican voters and Democratic Party elites.
Read the original article on Business Insider
