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Congratulations to our presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden!
How Mike Gravel Could Win The 2020 Democratic Primary
FiveThirtyEightMany things, most of them unlikely, would have to transpire for former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel to win the Democratic nomination for president.
A few possibilities: All the other candidates drop out, and no successful write-in campaign is waged. A capricious President Trump orders a catastrophic invasion of another nation, lending massive credibility to Gravel’s perennial anti-war stance (he helped put the Pentagon Papers into the public record). The Democratic primary electorate all of a sudden decides that it would prefer an octogenarian candidate to the current septuagenarian front-runners. (Gravel is 89 years of age; meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is a youthful 77 years old, and Joe Biden is a spring chicken, at 76.)
But last week, Gravel became the 23rd Democrat to count as a “major” presidential candidate by FiveThirtyEight criteria, pushed over the edge from minor to major candidacy by his inclusion in a majority of polls. And that means we have to imagine what we call the “theory of the case” — how can Gravel win the Democratic nomination?
It would be easy to laugh at Gravel’s campaign — while he has said he is running to win, he hasn’t campaigned, and he has turned his operation over to a handful of teenagers who voice his Twitter account with the dually earnest and sneering cadences of the internet. And his political performance art ads have certainly left him open to mockery. But while he’s not likely to win the nomination, Gravel is carrying on a grand American tradition: the protest candidate.
A few possibilities: All the other candidates drop out, and no successful write-in campaign is waged. A capricious President Trump orders a catastrophic invasion of another nation, lending massive credibility to Gravel’s perennial anti-war stance (he helped put the Pentagon Papers into the public record). The Democratic primary electorate all of a sudden decides that it would prefer an octogenarian candidate to the current septuagenarian front-runners. (Gravel is 89 years of age; meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is a youthful 77 years old, and Joe Biden is a spring chicken, at 76.)
But last week, Gravel became the 23rd Democrat to count as a “major” presidential candidate by FiveThirtyEight criteria, pushed over the edge from minor to major candidacy by his inclusion in a majority of polls. And that means we have to imagine what we call the “theory of the case” — how can Gravel win the Democratic nomination?
It would be easy to laugh at Gravel’s campaign — while he has said he is running to win, he hasn’t campaigned, and he has turned his operation over to a handful of teenagers who voice his Twitter account with the dually earnest and sneering cadences of the internet. And his political performance art ads have certainly left him open to mockery. But while he’s not likely to win the nomination, Gravel is carrying on a grand American tradition: the protest candidate.
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
9 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Undecided
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Undecided
If I were to vote in a presidentialprimary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
