Winning elections is about only one thing: numbers. In order of importance:
1. Do you have enough voters registered? (Assume you don't and constantly be registering voters!)
2. Will enough of your *most committed* voters/groups turn out?
3. Can you convert any opposition voters?
1. Do you have enough voters registered? (Assume you don't and constantly be registering voters!)
2. Will enough of your *most committed* voters/groups turn out?
3. Can you convert any opposition voters?
Item 3 is really expensive and harder than 1 and 2. Item 3 this cycle is also taking care of itself for Democrats thanks to the existence of Never Trumpers. But getting enough voters registered and base voters to turn out in the worst possible circumstances is the ballgame.
Short of Biden choosing a crazy person, he isn't going to need help with conversion. And conversion, let's just be honest, will STILL not get him a majority among white voters. Party ID has become racial/cultural. Most white Americans ARE REPUBLICANS. The End.
Biden can embark on a right wing uncle rescue party if he wants, I guess. And that may soothe Democrats who remain obsessed with reclaiming the white working class from Republicans. But that won't help him beat a Republican incumbent president. He needs a base voter surge.
This weird theory that adding just the right inoffensive moderate white Democrat from a purple state will magically turn white voters "because Trump" was exactly the theory of the case for the Clinton campaign in 2016. Note how that turned out.
Also part of the 2016 theory: the idea that the Clintons' inherent currency with black voters and proximity to President Obama was enough to deliver an Obama-like surge of black voter. The magic missing ingredient was the right "white guy to soothe the suburbs!" Yeah... failed.
Democrats can keep talking around the fact of who their core base is, and keep pining away for voters who left the party in 1968 and took their kids with them and now they've taken their kids with them and who now view Trump as their savior and nothing about the math will change.
They can pretend not to know why Obama won. They can pretend not to remember his mathematical formula (4/10 white voters + 3/4 of Hispanic & AAPI voters + 9/10 black voters) and that the historic surge among black women (94 percent of whom voted for him) drove that.
And they can pretend not to understand what demographers like @robertpjones of @PRRIpoll and former GOP strategists like @stuartpstevens have stated repeatedly: that voting behavior has fused so completely with race, religion and culture it will be impossible to undo it in 7 mos.
But reality is what it is. The math is clear and obvious. @JoeBiden can do whatever he wants but he is in no way guaranteed a win in November just because @realDonaldTrump is a terrible, incompetent president. Even if he hurts his own voters, they will still support him.
Those Republicans who want out have already exited the party. They are already baked in. Biden needs BASE TURNOUT TO WIN. And he needs that turnout in what will surely be historic disenfranchisement, PLUS a pandemic that will mainly endanger black, brown and lower income voters.
IOW: HIS voters. He needs to find a way to inspire those voters to take the risk. That's the ballgame.
