Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., argued Vice President Kamala Harris could win “overwhelmingly” against Donald Trump but said it’s up to President Joe Biden to decide the fate of his campaign amid calls to drop out after his poor debate performance.
The quote:
“Given Joe Biden’s incredible record, given Donald Trump’s terrible record: he should be mopping the floor with Donald Trump. Joe Biden is running against a criminal. It should not be even close. And there is only one reason it is close. And that is the president’s age.”
Yes, but that was before everyone saw a sundowning POTUS on that debate stage.
Attitudes have changed amongst the DNC establishment, at least according to the reporting.
Anecdotally, I've heard similar feelings echoed in far left/socialist circles.
I will say I haven't seen any new polling that take recent events into account. I assume those figures exist, I just haven't seen you come across my feeds yet.
Polls have her doing better than Biden. You could do worse than running a woman when abortion is on the ballot (and by worse I mean, for example, a catholic who's visibly queasy about actually supporting bodily autonomy). She also gets you back the anti-genocide vote, and she's responsible for a lot of Biden's support among black Americans.
I hadn't heard that she's diverged from the administration on this issue. But I would add that the anti-genocide vote is also anti-cop, and Harris is a cop.
She distanced herself when Biden was starting to really commit to the genocide denial, which is probably enough for a lot of people. Biden is pretty extreme, even among democrats who support Israel, and he's been the one driving the wagon. Harris doesn't have the same baggage or history of fantacism when it comes to Israel. She shows more awareness of the generational sea change regarding attitudes towards Israel.
As for the prosecutor thing, I don't think that's something in the same scale of problem as the genocide support. People act like because centerists/"leftists" won't compromise on genocide that means they're unwilling to compromise on everything but that's not true. Such flagrant disregard for basic humanity is a hard limit for many people though. People understand the stakes, Biden's zealotry is just that extreme and alienating. It wouldn't have taken much for him to avoid this problem, but combined with the faltering mental capacity he's too politically toxic at this point to recover.
Polls show that people will vote for the lesser evil that is Harris, they won't vote for the outright evil that is Biden's fanatical, blind support of genocide. The party leadership sees it, they understand the math is against them regardless of how much AIPAC pays them, this doddering debate performance and politically deaf follow-up was the tipping point.
The last polling I saw on her actually had her doing considerably better than Biden. Her approval rating is about the same, but her disapproval is much lower. She's not the strongest candidate, and I don't particularly like her, but she's got a better shot than Biden at this point.
The reason given in the article is "Because I, Adam Schiff, think so" - all the hard data we have (competive polls, opinion polls, historical references) gives a pretty bleak outlook for a Harris presidency.
Without even looking at polls, and knowing how much racism and misogyny there is, as well as the outcome of 2016, I have my doubts about Kamala as a viable candidate.
There was some misogyny involved in Clinton's loss, but she had a special kind of misogyny attached to her that was built up over years. The fallout from the affair Bill had really kind of splashed back on Clinton, she wasn't just hated by misogynist men, she illicited a ton of internalized misogyny from conservative women as well, in part because of the way she presented herself after it came to light.
Harris doesn't have any of that baggage. At this point I think Trump has hoovered up the vast majority of misogynists and bigots already. Most people at this point likely don't care.
He's not asking for the citation for the quote. He's asking for the citation of the veracity of the assertion. We know Adam Schiff said the thing. What matters is the justification for saying the thing.
With no data to justify it (and plenty available showing it's not true), this is just further evidence Democratic leadership is stuck in the mindset of political battles from 30 years ago. If Trump were running in the political reality of the 90s with his current background and record, even current Biden would mop the floor with him. But we're not in the age of the party of Gingrich. This is the party of Trump, and facts and record don't matter to Trump voters and Republicans in general. Welcome to 21st century American politics, Mr. Schiff.
I think that's a fair miscommunication. I was asking for a data driven citation while you were providing a quote citation. I agree that Adam Schiff almost certainly said that, but my question is why he thinks that (or, as I'd suspect, why he's lying).