This probably doesn't work, and it's probably not as good idea as anyone hopes (genuinely or not). It might happen anyway, but no matter what, we're coasting toward a second Trump presidency, just like all the Russian agitprops here wanted all along.

If Biden is polling down 10 points or worse at the convention, they could drag someone else onto the stage, but my suspicion is that no one else outperforms him on short notice, even after his abysmal performance in the debate.

A few reasons:

Newsom probably doesn't want it. If he calculates Trump wins either way (not unreasonable), he's not going to want that loss on his record since he's already gunning for 28. He would be the best chance at getting an up-and-comer who already has good name recognition and looks and sounds good.
Harris. If Harris wants it, she has a lot of leverage to make it hard or outright impossible for the party to push anyone else out in front of her. She's a poor candidate for a lot of reasons, but she's also the most attached to Biden. That's both good and bad for her. If they want to run anyone else, they have to have her playing ball too. Ask yourself, if you were Kamala Harris, would you give up your only conceivable chance at the Oval in favor of another non-Biden candidate? Remember, in any scenario the odds are good Trump wins anyway.
The truth may be that the party would rather just let Trump win. That sounds unthinkable, but this isn't a secret cabal of idealists we're talking about: it's a bunch of self-interested rich people who want to put themselves in power. Getting them to do anything for the public good is difficult under the best circumstances. They could easily decide--rightly--that Biden is still their best shot at beating Trump. That was the call in 2020, and it paid off. Don't forget that many of these same names being batted around now were active in the party four years ago. Newsom loses to Trump, and he's largely seen as the best alternative. If you're running the party and looking at those odds, you should run Biden if you actually want the best chance at winning. You might decide it's just a lost cause and start planning for a four year long nightmare.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Newsom probably doesn’t want it. If he calculates Trump wins either way (not unreasonable), he’s not going to want that loss on his record since he’s already gunning for 28. He would be the best chance at getting an up-and-comer who already has good name recognition and looks and sounds good.

Bro Newsom was on MSNBC 15 seconds after the debate ended. Newsom is 100% gunning for the job.

Harris. If Harris wants it, she has a lot of leverage to make it hard or outright impossible for the party to push anyone else out in front of her. She’s a poor candidate for a lot of reasons, but she’s also the most attached to Biden. That’s both good and bad for her. If they want to run anyone else, they have to have her playing ball too. Ask yourself, if you were Kamala Harris, would you give up your only conceivable chance at the Oval in favor of another non-Biden candidate? Remember, in any scenario the odds are good Trump wins anyway.

This is a real issue that I think you are right to bring up. Harris can basically put the brakes on/ gatekeep whomever the nominee is going to be.

If you’re running the party and looking at those odds, you should run Biden if you actually want the best chance at winning.

Yeah you are just wildly off base here. Biden was at between a 5-20% chance of winning the election prior to this debate (not polling, but probability). He'll be in the 3-10% range after this. Did you watch the post debate coverage? CNN's only topic of conversation was that we need to replace Biden. This is CNN! They are the party insiders. He's cooked.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Newsom was on MSNBC singing Joe's praises, just like he would have done regardless, because Newsom wants to be president, but Newsom also polls worse than Biden. That's not hypothetical. Those polls already exist, and a drop in Biden's numbers isn't automatically a boost for Newsom. If Newsom thinks losing in 24 hurts his viability in 28, he wouldn't do it. And who could blame him? It's five months to the election.

The point is: It's possible that all of the options are bad. Biden was in the mid-forties before the debate and the thirties after. He went from near toss-up to probably losing if the election were yesterday/today. Newsom might out-poll Biden today, but that's not the contest.

The contest is with Trump. It's not good enough to poll better than Biden. You have to actually carry all of Biden's states and then some. If I'm Newsom and deciding whether to try to cobble together a five-month campaign and limp to November to save the DNC from itself and protect Amtrak Joe's legacy when I'm starting 15 points in the hole or run my own campaign against the likes of a Haley or DeSantis also-ran once Trump is term-barred, dead, or both in four years, I'm not taking a risk at the convention unless someone makes me very, very confident that I could win.

And there's the rub. Newsom wants to be president, and he'd love to be president in six months, but he's not going to take over a campaign that's already lost. If the party thinks Trump wins no matter what--not an unreasonable conclusion--why on earth would they burn their best shot of a rebound in 28?

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Biden was in the mid-forties before the debate

Bro Biden was in the mid thirties before the debate.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Uh... okay, bro. You know that Donald Trump is also running in this election, right? Biden could be running single digits, and it still wouldn't change the calculus: If a Biden alternative can't beat Trump, they're not going to put an albatross around the neck of their political career just to lose in November.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You've got the entire thing backwards: Biden is the albatross.

ANY other democrat polls better than Biden. Biden is the worst possible democrat to be running. Period. Except maybe Hillary, and even then, she'd be doing better than Biden right now.

You swap out Biden with literally any hollow blue suit, and you are suddenly 10 points up in the polls.

[–] xhieron@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Except there's no such thing as a hollow blue suit! Any alternative to Biden has to be a real live human being, probably with real live political aspirations of their own. That means they're going to want to win. Anybody who stands any chance of being anywhere remotely close to competitive also stands a chance of outright winning under better circumstances in four years.

You're asking an ambitious politician to take a real, serious risk of political suicide just to save face, and the reality is that no matter who your replacement is, polling better than Biden isn't a win condition. Winning the election in November is the only good outcome. All other outcomes are bad not only for the nation but also personally for whoever replaces Biden.

Sure, you can run a would-never-win-or-even-run-anyway candidate, but like I said: that's essentially conceding the election, and Biden can do that on his own.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago

Just bumping this to remind you how entirely and completely wrong you were.