Joe Biden the unelectable

As the voters trickled in, neighbors from Council Bluffs’s south side, the Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders corners steadily filled up, as did the Pete Buttigieg region a few rows behind the Biden section. But the Biden section stayed mostly empty.

Biden would fail miserably in this part of Council Bluffs, a blue-collar white neighborhood where his strength was supposed to lie. And in fact, throughout Iowa, Biden would fail miserably in specific ways that demonstrated his campaign’s total failure of organizing. It raises the question of why anyone thinks Biden is the best guy to beat President Trump.

In the Longfellow auditorium, Keith and Ginny Dobler, both in their 70s, sat in the second row near Hassebrook. They had both supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, and both backed Biden this time. “There isn’t a woman that can win,” Keith said, with Ginny nodding along. Bob Allen sat next to Keith and fondly recalled his days as a newspaper reporter. Allen cited Biden’s experience as vice president in supporting him.

Craig Kruse, a man in his 40s or 50s wearing a Hawaiian shirt, sat with Biden, though he said it was “a toss-up” for him: Biden or Buttigieg. And Jeff Plambeck, a union steelworker with one arm, sat in the front row. He opposed Warren and Sanders because of “Medicare for all.” “I’ve got a pretty good union plan,” Plambeck said.

That was it. These five were the only Biden supporters in a room of 80 voters. Hassebrook, the precinct captain, couldn’t vote for Biden, because he’s from Nebraska, where he has run for office three times and lost, twice in the primaries.

The Yang gang, supporting political novice Andrew Yang, was 10 strong by the time the voting started. Amy Klobuchar had four.

With five supporters, Biden was basically a third-tier candidate, not even close to the viability threshold of 12 in this, the 18th precinct of Council Bluffs.

Across the hallway, in Longfellow Elementary’s cafeteria, Council Bluffs’s 14th precinct gathered. Biden didn’t even have a precinct captain there. At the end of the night, the lone Biden supporter slumped at the Buttigieg table, where he had reluctantly realigned, head in hands.

Lisa Lima was Warren’s precinct captain in the 14th. She said she wasn’t at all surprised Biden got shut out on Council Bluffs’s south side. Biden had, after all, canceled a mid-January trip to the city when a snowstorm hit. His campaign lacked the organizational skill to find a single precinct captain who lived in this part of the city.

Across Iowa, at rallies for Warren, Buttigieg, or Sanders, you could find voters truly enthusiastic for these candidates — their plans, their youth, their promise of revolution. At Biden rallies, you consistently found one reason people supported him: electability.

“He just seems to be like the most electable from everything I watch,” Vicky told me before Biden’s rally in Cedar Rapids Friday afternoon. “And so, I’m afraid to be for anybody else. Even though I like Amy best.” Vicky’s friends, Teri and Candace, both leaned toward Biden. Electability was their main argument.

“I’m okay with Biden,” said Jackie, a Des Moines Democrat in her 30s. “I’m just not as excited about him as I am about Warren.”

Supporters of the various candidates got up to speak. Will Costello, speaking for Sanders, emphasized the urgency of “Medicare for all.” Sherry Swanger, speaking for Warren, played up her various plans for everything. And Hassebrook pitched Biden by focusing on electability. Biden, he said, could defeat Trump.

Here’s the question after Iowa, though: How can Biden be the “electable” guy when he keeps losing elections?

I’ve seen the sad Biden corner before. In the auditorium of Kirn Middle School in 2008, only 13 people joined the Biden pack out of 168 total. One of those, Bob Krivanek, has since told me that supporting Biden had been the worst political decision of his life. Biden got less than 1% of the vote in Iowa that day and dropped out.

Biden also ran for president in 1988 and dropped out before Iowa. He kind of ran in 1984 and got one delegate at the convention.

Biden has proven he can win in only two circumstances: (1) When he is the running mate to President Barack Obama, the Democrats’ greatest political talent since President John F. Kennedy; and (2) when he is running in Delaware.

Before Obama tapped him as a running mate, the high point of Biden’s electoral life had been getting 165,000 votes in his 1996 reelection. That year, Biden got the lowest vote total of any sitting senator (finishing behind Alaska and South Dakota senators), and the second-lowest total of any victorious Senate candidate.

This electoral history makes it a mystery why pundits and voters think he’s the most electable. Biden’s biggest contribution to Obama’s elections may have been his suicide-bomber mission to make Paul Ryan look small, which required making Biden look like a raging jerk in the process.

And some voters do think Biden is kind of a jerk. “Biden’s been kind of offensive to me,” said Erin, a Sanders supporter in Cedar Rapids. “I feel like he’s overcompensating,” she said, out of a perceived “need to be confrontational with Trump. I don’t appreciate that in Trump, and I certainly don’t want to see that in another president.”

“Joe is creepy and out of touch,” Natalie, a Sanders supporter, said Friday night. “Yeah, no.”

His poor performance in Iowa this year reflected the ways in which Biden is bad at winning elections. He was in first or second place in all statewide polls. That makes sense, given his high name recognition. Yet despite this advantage, Biden was outraised by Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg.

Biden was clearly out-organized, too, as the caucuses showed. In the two precincts at Longfellow, one precinct captain was from out of state, and the other precinct had no captain at all. To fail to reach the viability threshold in hundreds of precincts, as Biden appears to have done, demonstrates a lack of organization.

Organizing and fundraising are two things “electable” candidates do — if “electable” actually means good at winning tough elections.

Instead, when voters and pundits call Biden “electable,” they may mean something like politically moderate and well-known.

Hassebrook quietly winced late in the evening as two of his voters, Plambeck and Kruse, walked back to the Buttigieg section. The three septuagenarians were happy not to realign, remaining as the Biden rump, sitting in an empty corner of the auditorium as Buttigieg picked up enough candidates for a come-from-behind win.

As the elementary school emptied out, I ran into Lima, a Democratic activist and the Warren captain from the 14th precinct. Lima smiled at me, half sad, shrugged, and said, “Joe’s time has passed.”