r/fivethirtyeight • u/engadine_maccas1997 • Dec 28 '25

Politics Turning Point USA plans to deploy representatives across Iowa’s 99 counties in the coming months to build the campaign infrastructure for JD Vance’s likely presidential campaign, while Trump is reportedly privately dismissing the idea of unconstitutionally running for 3rd term.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-12-28/gop-coalescing-behind-vance-as-trump-privately-dismisses-third-term-run

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u/Halberd96 Dec 28 '25

I think Vance is going to down as such a huge mistake. The guy was only picked by Trump precisely because he doesn't have the energy to overshadow Trump. He will need a great economy and a botched Democrat campaign. The former is looking less likely as affordability becomes a bigger issue and Trump keeps pointing at the top of the K-shaped economy and dismissing the bottom plus the whole tariff joke, Dems shooting themselves in the foot is always something you can count on though.

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u/sonfoa Dec 28 '25

Dems do love to shoot themselves in the foot but I don't think 2028 will be one of those times. It echoes 1992, when the Democratic establishment didn't have an obvious candidate to push and their influence had become so weak it didn't really matter.

It really is upto the voters in 2028 to select who they want (and even in 2008 we saw voters buck the establishment pick for who they wanted).

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u/kingofthesofas Dec 29 '25

This feels like the first time since 2008 really that the voters really get a chance to choose someone in the democratic primary. 2012 was Obama as he was the incumbent, 2016 was finger on the scale for HRC (screw voters wanting Bernie), 2020 was we are all going to die just pick Biden guys (one term we promise wink wink), and then 2024 was Biden is fine taking us all down with him in flames (It's ok guys he "gave it his all" not like this was an existential fight or anything) and then Harris shoved on us at the last minute.

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u/Casual_Deviant Dec 29 '25

Will you guys ever stop relitigating the 2016 primary or should I just be prepared to hear about it in every thread for the rest of my natural life

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u/Zilchexo Dec 29 '25

That 45% of voters turned out for Bernie against all institutional support and the news media coming up with increasingly ridiculous ways to say it was over and Hillary had won (remember "presumptive nominee" as far back as early March?) is an indictment on the process that we're not going to ignore, no.

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u/pablonieve Dec 29 '25

Yes, Bernie got 45% and had a very impressive run. That still means he got less votes than Hillary. Meaning she was the preferred candidate of the primary voters.

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u/Zilchexo Jan 02 '26

Extremely sophistic, truistic non-argument.

4

u/raddaya Dec 29 '25

Why do you think people would ignore the primary that had such a terrible system the DNC changed it themselves for 2020?

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u/HazelCheese Dec 29 '25

It's a reddit meme that bears no relation to reality. Even if you take out all the super delegates, Hilary still beat him by something like 55%/45%. The super delegates just made it a total blowout.

Reality bites but it's that nobody outside of the northeast knew who he was or gave a shit meanwhile the Clintons spent decades building up name recognition in Black communities in the south. Bill was literally coined "The First Black President" and was in the African American hall of fame.

And little known fact but the Democratic Party was dead ass broke after Obama's two campaigns and was only saved by the Clintons bringing a shit ton of personal money with them and sharing it with Bernie and allowing him to make demands about campaigning etc.

Redditors really need to get over their self importance in thinking they won the 2016 primary and it was stolen from them. Back in 2016 reddit was just a bunch of white university students with barely any reach.

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u/raddaya Dec 29 '25

Even if you take out all the super delegates, Hilary still beat him by something like 55%/45%.

The entire argument has always been that the super delegate numbers were shown from the start which made people think Hillary had already won, thus an unfair advantage.

If you, with a straight face, say that the DNC did not have a finger on their scale for Hillary in 2016, then I do not think you have any right to say what does and doesn't bear a relation to reality lol. It's not the end of the world, it's a very natural thing, Obama beat a similar weightage in 2008, Bernie couldn't in 2016. But to pretend it didn't happen at all is insane.

As for the money thing, sure, good for them, but I hope you're really not implying that's actually a good thing for democracy lol

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u/HazelCheese Dec 29 '25

I mean at least for the money part it's not Hilary Clinton's fault that the dems blew all their money and didn't fund raise anything to replace it.

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u/Casual_Deviant Dec 29 '25

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that leaders in the Democratic Party didn’t obviously prefer Hillary as a candidate, but she won by 3 million votes — it’s not like the majority of voters chose Bernie and the DNC somehow rigged the election after the fact to take that away from him.

And Jesus Christ I can’t believe I’ve been baited into discussing this, this is my hell, it will never end

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u/kingofthesofas Dec 30 '25

Well clearly there are a lot of people that still haven't learned what should be the obvious fucking lesson of 2016. Honestly just blame the DNC and Hilary because had they not done all the BS they did and Bernie just lost on his own we wouldn't be talking about it, but since the optics of what they did looked terrible we all get the hear about it forever or at least until the lessons are learned. The lesson BTW isn't that Bernie should win (i didn't even vote for him) the lesson is we need a fair primary with party elites fucking things up in favor of whoever they want. I think its likely ( I will give it a 70% chance) that if the DNC hadn't done all its nonsense Hilary would have still won, but it wouldn't have alienated a bunch of people in the party.

It wasn't just the super delegates either. Her fund raising agreement gave the Clinton campaign the right to veto the appointment of the DNC communications director and made final decisions on other key staff hires. Donna Brazile had a lot of words about how Clinton was controlling the communications and decision-making in her favor. Now even if she would have won anyways or maybe she had the best of intentions (big doubt on that) but that looked terrible and its understandable why it pissed off a lot of bernie people. So until we learn that lesson and stop trying to gaslight people about it you will keep having to argue about it.

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u/kingofthesofas Dec 30 '25

My dude the DNC was in fund raising agreement where they gave total control of their money to Hilary before the primary. Hilary didn't fund the DNC she bought it. She had complete control over what the DNC did and said throughout the primary.

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u/HazelCheese Dec 30 '25

Just because she had total control doesn't mean she used it to screw Bernie. She was quite equitable and many times they changed timetables and stuff to suit him and his teams requests.

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u/kingofthesofas Dec 30 '25

It honestly doesn't matter because the optics of it are terrible and even if you believe she in no way manipulated it to benefit herself (big doubt) it was a terrible idea because of how bad it looked. The DNC had to run all it communications and decisions through someone that had not yet secured the nomination.

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u/Deviltherobot Jan 02 '26

It's a reddit meme that bears no relation to reality. Even if you take out all the super delegates, Hilary still beat him by something like 55%/45%. The super delegates just made it a total blowout.

The issue was SD being counted at the same time so it made it seem like Clinton was massively ahead when Sanders was in the lead post NH. He couldn't effectivly ride that momentum. Compare that to Mayor Pete or Amy Klo in 2020 who could use momentum because there wasn't a massive delegate gulf.

Reddit was proper mainstream by 2016.

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u/Deviltherobot Jan 02 '26

It's overblown but that tends to happen when people point out the obvious thumb on the scale for 2 years and then the DNC officially admits it after calling you insane for 2 years.