Why Biden? The Electoral Blind Spot

Why Biden? The Electoral Blind Spot

 

The 2020 Presidential race has been full of surprises, anxiety, and anticipation. When candidates began announcing their campaigns, there was no surprise that incumbent President Donald Trump would be running again with little opposition from other Republican candidates. The Democratic candidates were far more numerous and diverse with about twenty-eight candidates announcing their intentions to run for President (full list of candidates found here). However, before primary elections were even over the race came down to two candidates: Joe Biden for the Democrats and Donald Trump for the Republicans. While Trump was the obvious choice for the Republicans since he is the current President, Biden was not always the popular choice. Other runners such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders appealed far more to many Democrats and took stronger stances on issues party members care deeply about. How is it then that Joe Biden survived the fight longer than any of them? Simple: the electoral blind spot.

 

The electoral blind spot is a term coined by Bawn et. al to describe “the policy region over which aggregate electorates do not enforce their preferences”. The diagram below illustrated this and is adapted from their article to fit the political compass commonly used in the politics. There exists an area of political standing wherein the average voter does not perceive enough difference in standing for it to affect their opinion of the candidate; all positions within the blind spot are equivalent to the voter. This is represented by the smaller, shaded circle. There is then another, larger area outside of the blind spot where positions are comparably favorable to one another, but worse than a position within the blind spot (see page 578 of their study).  Parties will typically try and nominate candidates that are positioned at about the same place, so they are perceived as comparable by the voters. They have no incentive to get a candidate more moderate than the other party but if their candidate is more extreme than the other party, they are likely to lose. When candidates are within the same circle, other characteristics such as the individual’s charisma, the state of the economy, and other current factors of life.

 

When this model is applied to the current presidential campaign, it is easy to see how Biden has ended up being the leading candidate for the Democratic party. With a Republican candidate as radical as President Trump, it would be plausible with this model that the Democrats would nominate an equally polarizing candidate. However, the Democratic Party and many voters were looking for a candidate that would help them beat President Trump above anything else. According to the Pew Research Center, about 67% of those who support Biden see it as a vote against Trump. Therefore, they would be seeking for someone that is further in on the circle and closer in on the electoral blind spot than President Trump. Biden has been more centrist than much of the Democratic party for most of his career. Even President Trump acknowledged at his rally in Tulsa that Biden is not radical left. For much of Biden’s political career, he has shied away from strong stances on issues other party members take bold stances on such as healthcare and defunding of the police. Popular candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were strong party members with reasonably large support, but Sanders was “never able to win broad support beyond his base of core supporters” and Warren “was well to the left of most of the voters who opted for Joe Biden” and had too many radically left positions to risk in this year’s election. Biden has even shifted further left than he has been in previous elections, but has done so carefully and slowly enough that his moving has not been at the same rate as that of the general Democratic party. Joe Biden has been able to secure his position as the Democratic presidential nominee because he has stayed close enough to the electoral blind spot that he can win more broad spread support than any of the other candidate options.