Exactly. There are probably a couple of ways win.
one is exciting huge turnout (which Trump himself will help with massively this time round, almost irrespective of the candidate)
the second is taking votes away from Trump or denying him swing voters.
The calculation for any individual candidate is who can increase the first category the most without decreasing the second, or vice versa.
This probably does give the likes of Biden an advantage in the general over the others, because turnout is going to be up on the left whoever the candidate is, as a result of Trump, while Biden does hold more appeal in areas that need to be taken back from Trump.
not saying that means he should be the nominee (it’s a balancing act between “Trump must be defeated” and having someone in the office whose policies are aligned with what you want to happen going forward)
Yeah I believe Biden/his policies won’t be particularly off putting to a swing/nonvoter but whether that is enough to get them to cast a vote for him, especially if the economy is still OK, is another matter.
Whilst all the candidates are going to try to have a wide appeal they will probably have a “best path to win back the electoral college” that they focus resources on to avoid joining Clinton/Gore in the unenviable position of not being president despite winning the popular vote.
The first, Northern Path, is to Flip WI, MI & PA back to blue and hold MN and is almost certainly what Biden is going to pitch that he can do and probably Bernie/Warren/Buttigieg/Klobuchar/Booker as well.
The other path, Sunbelt strategy, is lose the Mid West but compensate by winning FL and any of NC, AZ, TX(!), GA. That is probably what Harris, Beto and Castro are aiming for.
Whilst the latter path looks like it might be good in the future I think winning Florida is going to be a lot harder than flipping Pennsylvania and Michigan back and hoping to win either Wisconsin or Arizona.
