Joe Biden never thought he’d have to do this. Positioned, as he was, as the affable veep to an immensely popular president, the veteran of three previous bids for the Democratic nomination assumed a presidential primary was just a way to garner free media until the main event, the general election. But, since declaring his candidacy at what was, in American political terms, the eleventh hour, Biden’s campaign has been marked more by the sheer number of gaffes delivered than by any soaring rhetoric or roaring crowd of supporters. So far, his defining moment was not the unveiling of a visionary policy or a particularly poignant exchange with a supporter, but rather, by a debate face-off with Kamala Harris, in which the California senator attacked Biden’s documented record of opposing court-ordered busing as a means to integrate public schools.

And yet, through it all, Biden has held on to a commanding lead in most opinion polls.



But that lead may be illusory. There’s a growing sense that Biden is something of a starter nominee, a candidate that voters can glom onto while they search for someone who better suits their values. “I did not meet one Biden voter who was in any way, shape or form excited about voting for Biden,” Patrick Murray, who heads the Monmouth University Polling Institute (which recently released a poll giving Biden a significant lead in Iowa) told The New York Times. “They feel that they have to vote for Joe Biden as the centrist candidate, to keep somebody from the left who they feel is unelectable from getting the nomination.” JoAnn Hardy, who heads the Cerro Gordo County Democrats, concurred, telling the Times, “He’s doing OK, but I think a lot of his initial strength was name recognition. As the voters get to meet the other candidates, he may be surpassed soon. I would not be surprised.”



It’s an important, if still-emerging shift. At the start of primary season, “electability” was seen as the key attribute voters wanted in a presidential candidate. But as the election has heated up—and as voters begin to know more about the candidates—its importance appears to be dimming. And candidates who voters are actually excited about are rising. That’s good news for Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but it may be a bad omen for Biden.



Biden has made the “electability” case explicitly, arguing that defeating Donald Trump should come first and everything else—like, you know, the stuff he would do as president—second. While other candidates have issued white paper after white paper, the former vice president has harped on the necessity of voting for the candidate who has the best chance at defeating the incumbent next November—a candidate who, at least as the early polls tell it, just happens to have the name Joe Biden.

