Yeah, those two aren't for real... I mean that AOC grabs enough attention from the progressive side that by not committing, there was always a chance a progressive comes along to drag out nomination, or even tilt the scales like Sanders did. By her voicing support now (still in 2023), just kills any real threat from the left. In others words, AOC already endorsed Biden, good luck trying to find a second megaphone big enough to sway the progress votes.
True. I’m not sure who would’ve stepped up from the progressive wing and been a strong enough contender, but this pretty much eliminates any possibility.
Who would it even be? Bernie yet may, and has a lot of influence, but isn't going to stand a chance against a Biden reelection. Buttigieg and Harris are already in the admin. Yang is discredited pretty thoroughly at this point. Warren is at such a high level in the party that she'd be committing long-term career suicide by rebelling like that, and would likely worsen the outcomes for her causes in doing so. AOC is actually too young to run even if she wanted to make that big a stink. Who'd it even be?
I'm not criticizing the lack of competition here. Biden's running, the dems are going to go behind him. They know how terrible the consequences of not showing unity could be. It's going to be Biden, and sane people better hope he wins.
I don't know maybe Harris is going for that 2+ term loophole.
If we say for min that Biden wins the national Spanish lottery and decided to retire they'd probably just end up run Harris. I'm pretty sure that's how we ended up with Biden as the nom. There would be an actual primary at that point though so maybe someone else would end up with the nom. Maybe Hillary and Trump can have a rematch.