No, Joe Biden is not Jeb! 2016

I‘ve seen a recurring argument from pundits that Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign is like Jeb Bush’s 2016: a front-runner doomed to fail because of low energy.

This is correct if we’re talking solely about polling averages across a disparate field. It’s entirely inaccurate if we look at anything else.

For one thing, a governor nearly a decade out of the job, even a well-liked one, has nowhere near the necessary name recognition and base that the wildly popular vice president to our first black president retains by default. Furthermore, while the younger Bush brother was a sharp policy mind and appealed across demographic lines, his political instincts missed the mark of the pulse of 2015 completely. In contrast, Biden’s political skills earned him a seat in the Senate at 29 years old, making him the sixth-youngest in history.

For another, Jeb ran against one of the most talented primary fields in history. Biden is running against a clown car careening to an ideological spot somewhere between Jeremy Corbyn and Karl Marx. The few candidates refusing to endorse “Medicare for all” plans and $93 trillion Green New Deal bills haven’t cracked more than a few percent. Of those non-Biden candidates who backed neither of the cornerstones of the left lane, the highest polling one is mayor of the 301st largest city in the country at less than 6%.

Jeb ran against two nationally prominent and popular Latino senators (Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz), the most viable libertarian presidential candidate in modern history (Rand Paul), six other famous governors (not including has-beens George Pataki and Jim Gilmore), a female CEO of a Fortune 500 company (Carly Fiorina), a world famous neonatal neurosurgeon who’s also black (Ben Carson). To put into context how powerful this field was, Lindsey Graham was the Seth Moulton of 2016.

Biden’s case for his candidacy is simple: If you’re tired of President Trump’s antics, I can beat him and return us to normalcy. The moment voters become confident he can stand his ground in the primary, he’s crossed the single pivotal threshold that renders his nomination an inevitable. Jeb had no such security. Even if voters became convinced that he was the GOP’s best bet against Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio as an alternative was hardly unpalatable.

Pundits are right to hold their fire on deeming Biden the heir apparent to the top of the ticket, but his candidacy is far more sound and likely than Jeb’s was four years ago.