What Happens If Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams Lose?

Is that it for them?

One of the most common complaints about the modern Democratic party is that it doesn’t have a very deep bench. Whether or not you think Joe Biden should run for President again in 2024 — and I think he should run, and that he will win — it’s undeniable that if he doesn’t, there’s no obvious candidate to take over. Kamala Harris is the Vice President but is seen (somewhat fairly, somewhat not) as a feckless candidate. Pete Buttigieg has built up some bonafide but is held in considerable suspicion by Black voters and the progressive left, the party’s core constituencies. Gavin Newsom sure seems to want to be the next standard bearer, but it seems pretty clear he wants it more than anyone actually considers him a legitimate candidate.

There are many reasons for this short bench: A party with too many warring factions, too many older establishment politicians, Barack Obama being too looming of a figure to groom logical successors. But I’d argue there’s one basic, more obvious problem: Their brightest stars keep losing all the time.

Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams, to me, look like the perfect forward-looking candidates for the Democratic party. They’re young(-ish), they’re ambitious, they’re inspirational, they’re intelligent and they each have something the party sorely…