John Fetterman says he'll 'never understand' progressives who refuse to support Joe Biden
businessinsider.com
The Pennsylvania Democrat recalled his time serving as a Hillary Clinton surrogate in 2016, even after he supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.
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As a Californian and with regards to Pelosi that blame is on us--the voters. Incumbents with mediocre records can still win reelection on name recognition alone. Getting progressive challengers in California isn't hard. But getting progressives that can build their brand and base to a competitive size to match incumbents, while surviving the mudslide of bad press from establishment outlets? That's hard.
Hell, my home town despised the previous mayor. Still won his reelection in 2016 by nearly 2/3^rds^ despite a progressive challenger who has been active in city politics and community outreach for over a decade. Had to wait until he termed out in 2020 before we could get the current progressive mayor in office.
Or... Maybe your perception of political candidates' popularity is only what you want to believe.
Unfathomable that others support who you do not?
Not really, we're dealing with a city that slides between 15~23% voter turn out with a bias towards older voters who previously leaned center/center right. So even if 4 in 10 of the total population dislikes the incumbent, the odds were still in their favor due to self selection and name recognition. For the challenger to get over 30% on the first try shows our previous mayor was already experiencing dissatisfaction from swing voters.
At least that's how it was in 2016, as of 2022 we now have a progressive super majority on city council plus the mayor.