7.17.24 - An important three weeks stretch in American politics
June 27 - Biden illustrates remarkable aging and cognitive difficulty at the debates
June 28 - NYT editorial board asks for Biden to step aside, followed by steady defections from his party
July 13 - Trump nearly assassinated
July 15 - Trump picks J.D. Vance as VP candidate, Teamster president speaks at RNC
History will probably remember this as a pivotal stretch in the 2024 election, even though its remarkably early. It feels like the contours of the race have been decided this summer.
Predictoins:
a. calls for Biden to step aside simmer down, we slow walk into a lackluster convention, where he gives a competent speech, maybe even as good as the State of the Union, and we get a lot of opinion pieces saying now is the time to get in line. But the energy behind the candidate never recovers from the defections in June.
b. the Biden campaign is a bit muted in the aftermath of the assasination attempt, lower temperature, but will go back to a more confrontational mode once Trump gives them more material from his own campaign
c. J.D. Vance will be an effective surrogate and turn at least some higher information, better educated voters to Trump. I don't actually feel like he does much as far as the "white working class" even though that's how he's marketed. Don't those people already support Trump in the polls? It'll be the suburbs of the midwestern states, the doctors, lawyers, and other professionals where he'l make a bigger, but small, impact. These high information voters have delivered for democrats in off-year elections so this would be bad for them. Low information voters and lower turnout minorities have already shifted towards Trump since 2020; these two minor inroads into the Democratic coalition prove fatal for Biden's campaign.
d. Trump stays more disciplined in messaging than 2020, since he now has effective surrogates and the numbers behind him, he can coast. Trump wins.
I could be wrong, obviously. Maybe J.D. Vance is only appealing to weirdos on the internet and won't be that effective with normie educated suburban types. Maybe Biden gets that dawg in him in a couple of weeks (really doubt this he's looked really bad). Maybe Trump starts talking more again and reminds people that he's insnae. But right now this is how the race looks to me. I've been mostly wrong in the past so let's see if this pans out. At least I'll have another opportunity to adjust my priors.