What Are Joe Biden’s Odds?
He doesn’t inspire much enthusiasm. But Democrats might want to stick with what they know.
Third time’s a charm?
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP
Former Vice President Joe Biden plans to finally make his candidacy official this week, and so it’s time for some assessments and analogies. Philip Klein asks whether Biden is similar to Rudy Giuliani in 2008. Ed Kilgore is reminded more of Jeb (!) Bush in 2016.
I’d say it’s awfully hard to see Biden as Giuliani. Sure, Biden’s (very, very) long political history includes some votes that don’t fit well with the Democratic Party in 2019, but there’s nothing comparable to Giuliani’s violation of party orthodoxy on abortion. The former vice president at this point basically promises Obama-Biden policies, not whatever Senator Biden favored in the 1970s. That doesn’t mean he’ll automatically inherit Barack Obama’s supporters. But there’s a big difference between what Biden is up against and the absolute veto that Giuliani faced from core Republican groups in 2008.
I don’t think the Bush analogy is quite right either. Bush’s problem in 2016 wasn’t that the party had turned against the “establishment,” whatever that means. It was that many party actors wanted nothing to do with a third Bush presidency. It’s true that Jeb took an early endorsement lead, but he stalled badly afterward and a careful look at his supporters revealed that he was basically the head of a Bush faction, not a coalition-style candidate. I don’t see anything similar with Biden. He may or may not appeal to a wide range of party actors, but he’s not relying solely on his own long-time supporters.
The candidate Biden would like to emulate, I think, is Walter Mondale in 1984. Mondale, like Biden, had been a reasonably successful vice president and a well-regarded senator. Like Biden, he didn’t really inspire a lot of enthusiasm, and his liberal history seemed a bit old-fashioned, certainly compared to first-time candidate Jesse Jackson. Mondale took a large lead in endorsements and in the polls heading into Iowa, won big, and then was upset by the relatively obscure Gary Hart in New Hampshire. He almost lost the nomination to him, but was eventually saved as enough Democrats stuck with what they knew – after all, no one really disliked Mondale, and his policy positions were squarely within what most party actors wanted.
One danger is that Biden will wind up as Mondale lite, and that won’t be good enough. It’s easy to imagine him getting a weak plurality of endorsements (or worse) by Iowa, rather than the solid majority Mondale had. His polling lead isn’t especially impressive so far, and other candidates could easily surge and catch him. I don’t think he has many strong enemies, but Seth Masket’s data suggests quite a few party actors aren’t all that interested in him.
Another danger is that even if Biden winds up in the same place as Mondale – one of the finalists for the nomination – he might not get as lucky with his opponent. If Biden and Bernie Sanders are the only two remaining after the early events, most party actors will presumably swing strongly to Biden. But Kamala Harris? Elizabeth Warren? Cory Booker? Amy Klobuchar? I’m not sure Biden retains his support against any of them.
Add it all up, and I’m going to repeat something I’ve been saying for a while: This nomination fight looks wide open to me, with a dozen or so candidates having a realistic shot and no one having much better than a 10 percent chance of winning. I’ll certainly be impressed if Biden rolls out an eye-popping slate of endorsements this week and surges in the polls. But even then, I find it hard to believe he’ll end up any stronger than Mondale did in 1984. And Mondale barely won.
1. Kate Cronin-Furman at the Monkey Cage on Sri Lanka.
2. Shannon O'Neil on Donald Trump’s policy in Venezuela.
3. Jennifer Bendery on Trump’s judges.
4. Nate Silver on Bernie Sanders. Sounds about right: He certainly could win, but he’s not especially likely to.
5. And Alex Roarty and Katie Glueck on what the women running for president are facing so far.
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