Handing VP Kamala Harris the Democratic presidential nomination without having her compete in primaries is a throwback to less democratic ways of picking nominees, a political scientist says.
The politicians in smoke-filled rooms will warn that primary challengers weaken incumbents and might cost the party its electoral ambitions in the general election. They’ll worry that acknowledging the glaring undemocratic nature of the 2024 process will weaken Harris against Trump.
We need a competitive primary every four years no matter what.
We need the party leaders to stop treating primary challenges as a threat, and a way to engage voters.
Incumbents still have a huge advantage, but currently it’s almost a political death sentence to run against an incumbent, or not drop out after the first week even when there isn’t an incumbent.
This is the actual take away we need. Harris is a fine candidate for this situation - we were desperate and needed someone in a snap… but we need to have competitive primaries every election.
It’s highly likely Harris would have beat Biden and then, instead of that disastrous debate we’d have trounced Trump and low information voters would be more familiar with Harris as a candidate.
We need a competitive primary every four years no matter what.
We need the party leaders to stop treating primary challenges as a threat, and a way to engage voters.
Incumbents still have a huge advantage, but currently it’s almost a political death sentence to run against an incumbent, or not drop out after the first week even when there isn’t an incumbent.
This is the actual take away we need. Harris is a fine candidate for this situation - we were desperate and needed someone in a snap… but we need to have competitive primaries every election.
It’s highly likely Harris would have beat Biden and then, instead of that disastrous debate we’d have trounced Trump and low information voters would be more familiar with Harris as a candidate.