Care to explain how both of these statements can be true at the same time? If a Biden vote isn’t a pro-Biden vote, but instead an anti-Trump vote, then why would replacing Biden with a younger and more coherent Democrat hurt anything? The anti-Trump vote would still go to the Democrat unless the new candidate had some completely disqualifying issue.
The first post-debate polls show almost anyone only a few points back of Biden's levels against Trump. The question is whether or not increased familiarity with Newsom or Whitmer would move the needle the extra few points. Biden still polls as the best non-Trump option today. This means the generic Dem has a very high floor, but it remains an assumption, not a guarantee, that other candidates have a higher ceiling than Joe Biden, the sitting president.
And yes, before we get into this, if there had been a competitive primary with candidates that had better than a snowball's chance in hell (or a Minnesota congressman's chance of toppling a sitting president), the resultant candidate would be well known, but that's done and dusted and cannot be fixed or changed, so no point complaining now.
The question is whether or not a parachuted candidate can 1) hold the Biden coalition meaningfully, 2) close the awareness gap favourably, and 3) actually win this election. There's also a question as to whether or not the GOP would use dirty tricks to hold the new candidate off the ballot in places like Ohio, but I tend to think that'll be resolved because the GOP recognizes they need ballot access in the blue states.
History does not look kindly on 1. The only modern-ish time we've seen anything close to a parachuted candidate was 1968. I don't know if LBJ could have won that election, but I do think he would have had a better chance than it originally seemed, but Humphrey sat atop months of chaos before losing in a pathetic fashion. It's worth noting that progressive activists in 1968 fought back against Humphrey for many reasons, not least of which was that he hadn't bothered to enter a competitive primary beforehand. Say what you will about Newsom and Whitmer and others, they chose not to force the issue by entering the 2024 primaries Teddy Kennedy style, not least because they saw what happened to both modern presidents with insurgency runs from a major primary rival.
We don't have a comparable for 2. Newsom has been trying to raise his national profile but he still isn't well known outside of California, and his brand in California has taken a hit. Whitmer is well regarded in Michigan, and hated so much by the hard right that they were going to kidnap and possibly assassinate her, but I don't know if voter #47 in Nevada or Arizona has ever heard her name before. Likely, they'd be well introduced by the party apparatus.
So we come to 3, and in 3, I wonder if there's any comparable for switching horses this late in the race that I'm unaware of.
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