What Went Wrong with Biden's Campaign

[brooklynite]

Political Wire (paywall)

Although it’s easy to make too much of any one state’s results, Iowa showed that Joe Biden’s campaign was based on a very flawed premise.

Iowa has more counties that flipped from Barack Obama to Donald Trump in the 2016 election than any other state — 31 of its 99 counties.

These are exactly the places Biden thought he would win. He targeted his message to blue collar voters, emphasizing his own middle-class upbringing in Pennsylvania and promising that as president he would not ignore their concerns.

This message was core to his “electability” campaign pitch: That Biden was the best positioned to flip these counties back to the Democrats and defeat Trump in the general election.

But the Iowa results show Biden actually got shellacked in these areas. From results compiled by Steve Kornacki, we find Pete Buttigieg won 21 of the Obama to Trump counties, while Bernie Sanders won seven, Amy Klobuchar won two and Biden prevailed in just one.

The voters Biden thought were his base wanted someone else.

[George II]

1. Nothing went wrong with his campaign. You should be asking what went wrong with the polls?

Biden wasn't expecting to win in Iowa, he probably conceded to at least third. Same thing in New Hampshire - if he finishes as expected third or fourth, will we be asking that question again?

There are still 55 primaries/caucuses, and Biden is expected to with about 30 of them.

What was wrong with the Sanders campaign - they were supposed to win Iowa relatively easily, he lost.

[Peacetrain]

2. And our turnout was so low.. we kept hearing it was going to be a blow out

well it wasn't..

[George II]

5. Exactly - we heard that one campaign had 25,000 grass roots volunteers in Iowa for four months....

....those 25,000 garnered a mere 45,000 votes - that's only 1.8 votes per volunteer (over the course of four months)

So who failed in Iowa?

[Peacetrain]

14. Yep! about 1/2 of 2016

[bluewater]

17. Whataboutism? At least that "other campaign" came in a close 2nd, hmmm?

Not the distant 4th place finish Biden had.

But I understand trying to change the subject is a valid rhetorical technique.

[George II]

18. Check out post #1 above.

[bluewater]

21. Highly rated Polls had Biden winning though, so post #1 is wrong.

There were several A rated polls showing Joe in the lead in Iowa.

For example:

New Iowa Poll Shows Tight Race, With Joe Biden Jumping Ahead

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/us/politics/joe-biden-iowa-democratic-poll.html

That's the notable A+ rated Monmouth University poll.

Suffolk University/USA Today Poll Shows Biden Leading in Iowa

https://www.suffolk.edu/news-features/news/2020/01/27/16/49/suffolk-university-usa-today-poll-shows-biden-leading-in-iowa

And that's the noteworthy A- rated Suffolk University poll.

[George II]

25. Very few polls had Biden winning.

[bluewater]

27. That list shows lots of polls having Biden Winning.

And more showing him coming in a close second.



Try again, perhaps?

[cwydro]

28. Biden himself called it a "gut punch."

So apparently he thinks something went wrong also.

[MoonlitKnight]

38. 9 of the 19

Had him tied or first. Even more if you consider MOE.

[PatSeg]

10. Yes still much too early

Many candidates have done poorly in Iowa and gone on for quite a long time. A lot depends on how much money they have. Not every candidate is viable in every state during a primary.

[emmaverybo]

46. But Biden must be cut off at the knees; otherwise he walks through 10 delegate-rich states he

could win. He must be stopped early to give Bernie a chance. Early is the key.

MSM announcing Sanders and Buttigieg for tonight’s debate as “in the top spot” now that one caucus, which awards a teensy fraction of delegates, has been held.

Fact is that polls show Biden still leads.

All we need is a Comey. As Biden has said Trump wants to pick the nominee for us. Too bad he gets so much cooperation.

[PatSeg]

50. So true

I really shouldn't listen to the TV pundits. They rarely mention the national polls that show Biden in the lead. Also, I've seen most of the candidates being interviewed on various cable news shows, but not Biden. That may be his choice or perhaps no one has bothered to ask him. There just seems to be a dismissive attitude toward him that is not reflected in the polls.

Also, Joe has racked up some really impressive endorsements.

[emmaverybo]

56. Right. He has 15 CBC endorsements to all others' one, and such a great array of individual and union

endorsers who speak to his most undisputed presidential qualifications, his ability to lead and to unify us.

[PatSeg]

57. I just found out

there is a Wikipedia page just for Joe Biden endorsements and they are very impressive.

I was just watching Chris Matthews and it turns out that Joe has been invited to appear on a lot of shows, but until now, he has turned them down. Apparently he is going to be on a Sunday show, but I don't know which one yet.

[brooklynite]

11. And the reason he took yesterday off and shook up his senior staff today was.....?

[Peacetrain]

13. What any good politician would do..

If something did not work out as predicted, you try a different approach. You just don't keep doing the same thing over and over again looking for a different result

[George II]

19. His isn't the first to "reorganize", won't be the last. How many state directors has Sanders had....

....in NH and MA so far this campaign?

[brooklynite]

20. Reorganization five days out from a major election isn't usually a good sign.

[bluewater]

24. It's fine. Don't worry about it.

[George II]

26. New Hampshire has a whopping 24 delegates, that's not a "major" primary.

[bluewater]

34. Right. New Hampshire is small. Don't worry about it.

[emmaverybo]

48. Biden trash talking won't improve your preferred's chances which are still slim to none.

[thesquanderer]

29. You think Biden expected to come in fourth? What evidence do you have of that?

Because if he didn't expect it to be reasonably likely that he would come in fourth, then yeah, something went wrong. Did he have different internal polls? Because I didn't see any polls that showed him coming in fourth. (Though there were a couple tied for third.)

But I think the more interesting part of the article isn't how you define whether or not something went wrong, it's that he was supposedly counting on flipping back the Obama-to-Trump counties as a demonstration of his working class appeal (and therefore his November strength against Trump)... and instead those counties overwhelmingly went for Buttigieg (21 of those counties went to Pete, only 1 preferred Joe). It's an interesting analysis which implies that, based on what Biden considered an important metric, Pete actually ended up, not just with more appeal than Biden, but also with more appeal than all the other candidates combined.

[Bradshaw3]

33. Methinks you are ...

[Kaleva]

42. "Biden calls Iowa caucus results a "gut punch""

"On the trail in New Hampshire Wednesday, Joe Biden called the early results from the Iowa caucuses a "gut punch."

"I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. We took a gut punch in Iowa," Biden said. "The whole process took a gut punch."

Biden finished fourth in Monday's caucuses, the first voting contest of the 2020 election."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-iowa-calls-caucus-results-a-gut-punch/

[Voltaire2]

52. Yeah but what would he know?

We have real experts here who know better than that guy.

[MontanaMama]

51. YES.

Polls are not to be trusted imho. It’s a lesson we haven’t learned. Eyes on the prize.

[randr]

3. Imho

He acted like the nom was his. Never established clear ideas for substantive issues and side stepped a serious attack on Trump.

[PatSeg]

6. Did you see Biden's town hall on CNN?

He presented very clear ideas on substantive issues. The media often ignores Biden, unless Trump and the republicans are attacking him.

[UniteFightBack]

9. That is not true, the media does not ignore him they pay attention all the time to him to bash

him. Seldom praised.

[FloridaBlues]

23. Yes bashing from all sides and unfortunately here on DU.

No candidate should be as the old saying goes "count your chickens before they hatch".
We have a long way to go.

[PatSeg]

49. Yeah, there's that

I'm hearing that in the background right now. I take some comfort that in years past, the pundits were almost always wrong!

[emmaverybo]

54. Biden was the first candidate to identify the big issues here, the essentials--that Trump threatens

our democracy, that he has legitimized the rise of bigotry here and abroad, that this election is “a struggle for the soul of the nation,” and that we must unify to protect our American ideals. He also
offered an optimistic vision for American going forward, reminding us, as Jonathan Capehart put it, of “who we are.”

Yes, many candidates trammeled themselves up in policy details, stumping for a particular economic agenda rather than demonstrating their own presidential qualifications or addressing issues beyond domestic economic policy or suggesting any larger themes than “healthcare for all”—achievable they insisted only through one plan made the more unpopular the more they talked.

In contrast, Biden proposed a sensible way to get to universal healthcare, building on the success of ACA, a way that now Warren is considering and that other moderate candidates embraced in their proposals essentially. As well, Biden proposed a comprehensive education program focused on the most crucial years in a child’s development, justice reform, a climate change policy the Sierra Club approved, and was the only candidate to give a dedicated address on foreign policy and relations—which from a global standpoint should be a crucial area of concern, equally existential to climate change, in that a first nuclear war, which experts say we are closer to than ever before, would spell instant climate catastrophe.

It is Biden, and only Biden, who has drawn a line between Trump’s bungled and corrupt foreign relations and our prospects to achieve progress in sound climate change policy. If another has, the point was buried in constant attempts to sell M4All.

Biden has a number of do-able policies, but unlike his competitors, he has not narrowed his focus entirely to one area in which the president has limited influence and in which she will likely expend most of her political capital to implement one or two major changes.

The other candidates can be excused for seeming to have so little idea of how extensive, beyond policy creation, is the role of the president, how intensive a job it is to get policy done, much more how impossible it would be to fulfill the forty various plans they tout.

Biden does know, and while they are looking for where to turn the lights in the Oval Office off, he will be putting into operation his vast experience and knowledge to change Trump’s crooked direction, repair all his vast damage, and get government up and running so we have any chance at all to put new policies into effect and do what all candidates agree they want: improve life for ordinary Americans.

[empedocles]

4. Biden has been a target, for all those Dem candidates and their particular

constituencies, chipping at the Biden 'base' - and trumpsters for a very long time. Meanwhile, the others have had an easier ride.

[On the 'con side, trump has not had any appreciable contenders to deal with].

[UniteFightBack]

7. Gee I wonder what happened? He was tarred and feathered as planned and instead of Democrats

rallying around and UNDERSTANDING WHAT was happening here they did not.

Looks like Joni Ernst was right and impeachment pays off.

[emmaverybo]

58. Dems voted Obama in and then constantly proclaimed their disappointment when he failed to

do the moonwalk on water. So it goes.

[njhoneybadger]

8. They wanted to look forward, a vote for Joe was looking backwards

[Mike 03]

12. This is a plausible explanation.

[emmaverybo]

59. Who? Oh, the folks who caucused in Iowa! Boy, you acted like you were describing the sentiments

of an entire nation, if not a continent.

[bluewater]

15. Pete sure looks like he's taking the lead among moderate voters away from Joe.

Pete certainly organized an impressive statewide campaign that earned him a hard fought victory in Iowa.

Very impressive.

[Baclava]

43. That certainly has the look of it, what we learned so far, polls dont matter, voters do

[Still In Wisconsin]

16. What went wrong with Biden's campaign? Answer: Biden.

Truth be told Biden was and maybe is still my first choice. The problem is that he excites nobody. Obama was exciting. Trump (in very horrible ways) was and is exciting, to his base. The perception on Biden is that he's "lost his fastball" and represents the old days. He lacks that "excitement factor." This shouldn't be a big issue, but in this country and this time, it is.

[emmaverybo]

35. Premature obituary. In the light if it, clearly you should never have chosen Biden. I find his

experience, qualifications, character, and job specific knowledge absolutely head and shoulders above any other candidates, none of whom are terribly charismatic, not in a good way, and I find the prospect of unifying this country to protect its democracy the most exciting challenge we may have ever faced.

It is Biden who first identified that challenge, consistently, from day one, and it is Biden still who is the most likely to heal us from chaos and division. No other candidate’s endorsers universally identify the ability to unify and heal us as a chief reason they support him or her. No other candidate transcended proposed policy details to make the most pressing issue in America—our
weakening through division, the threat to our democracy through bigotry—his primary message again and again.

I want a strong, honest, accomplished, thoroughly tested and knowledgeable leader at the helm of our broken ship of state to steer it away from disaster. That’s Biden. Don’t need no 15 minutes movie star or demagogue, exciting at student rallies, unprepared to do more than rattle off an economic lecture and a laundry list of promises.

Excitement is beside the point. We need Biden’s sure and steady hand. So does the world.

[Still In Wisconsin]

40. We agree...I think you misunderstood me.

I agree with everything you said. What I'm saying, though, is that Joe's campaign has lost whatever momentum it had because people want a candidate that excites THEM. For a lot of people that's Bernie Sanders. For me personally, I can't stand Sanders; I find his entire schtick to be tiresome and empty, with no real plans to back up all the promises. But, a large segment of the Democratic voter base likes the pie-in-the-sky, shoot for the moon promises. I'll vote for whoever gets the Democratic nomination, but the only person I like less than Sanders is Tulsi Gabbard.

[emmaverybo]

44. OK. But I still disagree. Biden did not lose momentum because more voters value excitement over

qualifications, but because he did poorly in a tiny white state, thus triggering pundits, voters, our political stats guy, Silver, to re-calibrate the entire primary.

Actually, he still leads nationally. It is still bs that Bernie, crowned in Iowa, has a good chance to win ten states that, pre-Iowa, Silver and his own polls forecast Biden to win.

Biden’s momentum has yet to be tested. However, these premature death notices and campaign autopsies are doing a good job of interfering with his prospects across the nation.

[Still In Wisconsin]

45. I hope you're right.

I do think Biden could beat Trump. I do not believe Sanders would have much of a chance at all.

If I'm wrong with my previous posts I'll be glad. I prefer my crow sauteed, over rice, or baked with some seasonable vegetables.

[SWBTATTReg]

37. I think that you nailed it right on the head. Perhaps Biden also came in a little strong being ...

initially ranked so high/in the lead among the other candidates too? Maybe a little taking down might do the trick and get the juices flowing, I don't know. This is all part of the primary/caucus process, where the cream rises to the top and the rest sinks. Exciting and am glad that the primary/caucus process is finally here, and we can all get down to business, of throwing out the current POS in office, and get a far more qualified person in office there and throughout the rest of the executive branch.

[Wellstone ruled]

22. Appears Biden Team

got behind the curve in Iowa. Hope he kicks some ass and replace those who are just plodding along for the ride.

This is not 2016 and the prize is much more important than someones past History.

[emmaverybo]

30. It is too easy and exactly what has been done. A retrospective look at a candidate's mistakes

Last edited Fri Feb 7, 2020, 06:22 PM - Edit history (1)

should not base itself on a poor showing in two tiny white states. We should wait until America has spoken; as yet, it hasn’t had the chance. The race is not over. It has not begun.

In fairness to the many voices that comprise our politically, racially, socially, religiously and culturally diverse country, we should not allow Iowa, N.H., NV, to silence or unduly influence the will of 54 others,

PS Biden still has his base. It hasn’t been tapped yet.

[Jarqui]

31. I really like Joe Biden but

In 2008, Obama represented change.
In 2016, Trump represented change.

Folks are fed up with Washington of the recent past. They want something new - not more of the same.

Joe Biden represents Washington of the recent past - he's way better than Trump - but still closer to Washington establishment than something new.

That and the knee capping via Ukraine are two key things that I think have hurt his candidacy significantly.

Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar & Buttigieg all represent change better than Joe.

In Joe's favor, he represents a return to the sensible management of the country something like Obama provided. He's not as charismatic and lacks Obama skills at oration nearly all politicians would lack compared to Obama. But I'd sleep at night thinking he was a very safe choice.

I am angry at the knee capping of his candidacy via Ukraine BS. The GOP didn't just look the other way at Trumps high crimes - they smeared a man's reputation who had spent the last 50 years or so establishing his integrity. As such, they've already embarked on corrupting the 2020 election.

[rockfordfile]

36. GOP always tries to spear the Democratic Nominee.

[ibegurpard]

47. That's what they do

This is why I just flat-out reject any arguments about who we should pick based upon what Republicans are going to say about them

[FarPoint]

32. Joe just played it safe...a little arrogant.

Not in touch with our true outrage and victimization by tRump... he's using 20 year old campaign strategies without realizing the battle is about saving America from a dictator...

[stopdiggin]

39. it's pretty simple really

The "electability" factor shows up in the general election .. and much, much less so in the primaries (and caucus even less). Do we have to keep pointing out that Bernie Sanders did very well in IA in 2016? Because he was so "electable?" Really?

And any political analysis that misses that point ... Hmmm.

[jmg257]

41. He's shaking things up after a disappointing 4th place...nom bid is in "major trouble".

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is shaking up his campaign leadership just days ahead of the New Hampshire primary, an acknowledgment that his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination is in major trouble after a disastrous fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

Mr. Biden is giving effective control of the campaign to Anita Dunn, a veteran Democratic operative and top adviser to him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/us/politics/joe-biden-anita-dunn.html

[demofan40]

53. When you tell everyone who questions you to vote for someone else

They're going to vote for someone else, it's not rocket science.

Maybe he should give those who have doubts the same leeway he's still giving Mitch McConnell.

[uponit7771]

55. Really ?! 🙄🙄🙄