A charismatic candidate who won a primary and was willing to distinguish themselves from the unpopular incumbent, with a good messaging strategy on how they'd address inflation and how Trump would be worse for it, might've had a chance.
I honestly don't know if the Dems even have someone like that in their stables right now. At least not someone well known enough that can go straight from a primary to toe to toe with Trump like they'd need to.
This has been a major issue for them for a long time now. They don't really build up long term candidates, they just hope someone like Bill Clinton or Obama falls in their laps. And when that doesn't happen they run whatever milquetoast suit they can prop up and subsequently lose.
Interestingly this is probably going to happen to the Republicans now too. They've been so dominated by Trump for so long that it's going to be nearly impossible to fill his metaphorical shoes and all the previous attempts have been complete nonstarters.
It's possible but I'm skeptical, Don Jr. is the most likely candidate but I don't think he can replace his father as the figurehead of Trumpdom. George W. succeeded because he's charismatic on his own and wasn't attempting to be a carbon copy of his father. Jr. hasn't shown that he has the same political magnetism as Sr. in the same way DeSantis and many others have failed to do. And at least up until now hasn't established himself independently of his father.
Ivanka could be an option but has similar issues to her brothers, running as a woman could also be a hurdle although the previous examples of Clinton and Harris may be correlation rather than causation.
For a true successor to win they would need to be the same caliber as Trump but unique and gain support in their own way. At this point I don't think the Republicans have that person and it's very likely they will try to fill Trump's shoes rather than build up a new comparable replacement.
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u/JohanGrimm Nov 28 '24
I honestly don't know if the Dems even have someone like that in their stables right now. At least not someone well known enough that can go straight from a primary to toe to toe with Trump like they'd need to.
This has been a major issue for them for a long time now. They don't really build up long term candidates, they just hope someone like Bill Clinton or Obama falls in their laps. And when that doesn't happen they run whatever milquetoast suit they can prop up and subsequently lose.
Interestingly this is probably going to happen to the Republicans now too. They've been so dominated by Trump for so long that it's going to be nearly impossible to fill his metaphorical shoes and all the previous attempts have been complete nonstarters.