原标题：
Joe Biden is the Democrats’ Best Hope at Defeating Donald Trump
A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for political normalcy and calm.
Guest Column by Theodore Weng
Joe Biden wasn’t supposed to win as big as he did on Super Tuesday. The former
vice president finished a disappointing fourth in the Iowa Caucuses and an
even weaker fifth place in New Hampshire. Just a few weeks ago, Biden’s
campaign aides were brainstorming how he could bow out of the race with some
shred of dignity. Perhaps a close first or second place finish in South
Carolina, and, if Super Tuesday went as poorly as it was projected to, they
would put a quiet end to his bid for presidency. Mr. Biden was being outspent
and outmaneuvered, and struggling in the polls. And yet, name recognition as
the party’s most popular sidekick, relationships with crucial Democratic
heavyweights (like Representative Clyburn of South Carolina), and centrist
policy positions to win over moderates propelled him to a much-needed victory
in South Carolina, and one week later, and huge wins on Super Tuesday.
In wake of the results of Super Tuesday, Joe Biden is the candidate best
equipped to defeat Donald Trump in the presidential election.
Frankly, Joe Biden is one of the least impressive candidates to grace the 2020
campaign trail. In comparison to Elizabeth Warren’s mastery of policy, Bernie
Sanders’ ability to cultivate grassroots enthusiasm, and Pete Buttigieg’s
sleek resume, Biden seems like an outdated fragment of the Democratic Party’s
past. His weak fundraising, feeble campaign organization, and continuous
blunders throughout the Democratic debates seemed to suggest that Biden was
slowly digging his own political grave. Nonetheless, voters seem to agree that
Biden is still the safest nominee to challenge Donald Trump.
Super Tuesday exit polls seemed to suggest that Biden has the greatest
capacity of all the candidates to pick up the largest demographic range of
voters. In Virginia, Biden dominated across all demographic lines, including
race, gender, and age. Biden won support from men, women, whites, and African
Americans, college graduates, and non-college graduates alike, by significant
margins over Bernie Sanders. In several of the demographic categories, Biden
won a share of the vote greater than Sanders’ and Warren’s votes combined.
Biden even made major inroads with other crucial Democratic constituents,
including Latinos, which he won by a margin of 13% in Virginia. Biden
accomplished this spending minimal amounts of money ($2.2 million vs Bernie
Sanders’ $18 million and Michael Bloomberg’s $234 million) on Super Tuesday
ads.
The only demographic that Sanders won in Virginia was younger voters. But even
this triumph raises alarms about Sanders’ viability in the general election.
Mr. Sanders often points to the fact that polls have him beating Donald Trump
by the largest margin, in comparison to other Democratic candidates. This is
true, but a new political science study conducted by David Broockman of UC
Berkeley and Joshua Kalla of Yale shines some light onto this claim. In a
survey of 40,000 possible voters, Sanders loses swing voters to Trump by a
large margin. He ultimately makes up for this through support from young
voters, particularly support from “Bernie or Bust” voters, those who say they
will not vote if Bernie is not the chosen nominee.
While the prevalence of young “Bernie or Bust” voters may seem to make a case
for Bernie’s candidacy, relying on young electorate turnout is a dangerous
game. Choosing Sanders as the nominee would mean trading some of the
electorate’s most reliable voters (ages 50+) for some of the least. Broockman
and Kalla have calculated that Sanders would need a surge in youth turnout by
almost 11%. For reference, Barack Obama was only able to raise black voter
turnout by 5%. Furthermore, Broockman asserts that opposing party turnout
tends to swell the farther left or right the rival party candidate is – bad
news for Sanders, who already struggles with swing voters. That’s not to say
that Sanders is necessarily a bad candidate. It merely suggests that Sanders’
polling numbers are not as optimistic as they seem. 2020 is not the year to
take such a dramatic risk. Why should Democrats bet their chances on a “youth
wave” that has historically never materialized?
Biden has shown that he can win over the electorate with minimal amounts of
funding. His name recognition and connections with Democratic Party leaders
alone may be enough to make up for his less than stellar performances on the
debate stage and at campaign rallies. Still, in the eyes of the voters, the
strongest argument for Biden’s viability as a candidate has nothing to do with
poll numbers, fundraising, or even policy. It’s true – a vote for Biden passes
up on a chance to pass radical and systematic change. But perhaps voters
aren’t ready for something like that quite yet. A vote for Biden is a vote for
another four years of the Democratic establishment, but also the possibility
for a calmer presidency. Divisive politics is exhausting for the average
citizen. The average American doesn’t want to be bombarded by daily headlines
of contentious Supreme Court nominations, looming threats of impeachment, and
nasty social media spats. A Biden presidency may be just what the nation
needs, where politics fades into the background for most, and the nation gets
some much-needed time to heal. A vote for Joe Biden is a vote to bring decency
and humanity back into the white house.
Theodore (Teddy) Weng is a first-year in Wharton studying Business Economics
and Public Policy and Legal Studies and History. He is from Cincinnati, Ohio.
He can be reached at tweng@wharton.upenn.edu.
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