Advertisement

Bad Predictions, Bad Polls, Bad Pundits: The Legacy Of The Biden Campaign That Never Was

President Barack Obama walks with Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden as they leave the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2015, after Biden announced he will not run for the presidential nomination. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) CREDIT: AP PHOTO/JACQUELYN MARTIN
President Barack Obama walks with Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden as they leave the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2015, after Biden announced he will not run for the presidential nomination. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) CREDIT: AP PHOTO/JACQUELYN MARTIN

Over the last several weeks, much digital ink has been spilled speculating on whether Joe Biden will run for President and what impact that would have on the Democratic primary.

As it turns out, his candidacy will have no impact on the race because he is not running.

Pollsters largely took Biden’s entry as a a given, consistently including him in presidential primary polls for the last two months. Some of these polls included alternative scenarios without Biden but many will now be useless moving forward.

Pundits spent a great deal of time speculating on when Biden would announce his intentions. They were wrong again and again and again — until finally they were right.

Others reported that Biden was definitely — or almost definitely — getting in.

Ed Henry, Fox News:

Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard:

The Hill:

The National Review:

Much of the resources devoted to the coverage of political campaigns is based on this kind of speculation and prediction. For example, since July, the media has repeatedly predicted the “beginning of the end” of Donald Trump’s campaign. ThinkProgress documented 33 times when this exact phrase was used to describe Trump. A poll released today by ABC News found Trump leading the GOP field with 32 percent support, 10 points clear of his closest opponent.

Advertisement

This campaign season started with fervent speculation that Mitt Romney would run for President. “Why Does Drudge Think Romney May Run for President Again?,” blared an April 2015 headline on Boston.com.

On the Democratic side, it was Elizabeth Warren. “Elizabeth Warren can run for president. She should run for president. And despite her denials, she probably will,” David Frum wrote in The Atlantic in January 2015. She did not run.

These predictions will soon be forgotten, to be replaced with new predictions that will either be right or wrong. The people making the predictions will continue to be paid. Time will be wasted, tweets will be tweeted and the world will keep spinning.