Only one lone wolf is running in the Dem primaries, Dean Phillips, a House Rep from Minnesota.
Dean’s been hitting the talk show/podcast circuit claiming that the Dems in charge are actively trying to derail his campaign and keep him plus other qualified Dems from challenging Biden. Dean says this dooms the party to a presidential loss in 2024. He further goes on to claim the party is run as a corrupt Duopoly which is an affront to American voting rights.
Is he right? Let’s start by looking at what’s required to get elected (or more importantly re-elected).
Members of Congress report they spend up to 40% of their time fundraising. As of 2023 the average Senator running for reelection raised about $6 million per year. A House member around $1.3 million. As Milt Friedman famously said, people, whether in politics or not, spend their time pursuing their own individual interests. The #1 job in Congress is to get re-elected which is expensive.
The Dems run three organizations that raise money for the party and divvy up to candidates. The Democratic National Committee(DNC), the Dem Senatorial Campaign Committee(DSCC) and the Dem Congressional Campaign Committee(DCCC). In a typical year (2022 for example) these three raised $966 million.
Let's do the math. In 2024 213 Dems are running for re-election in the House and 23 in the Senate. Plus there are a number more who the Dem leadership wants to promote. Depending on how many new faces they choose to fund, these three organizations can give an average of $4 million per sitting candidate.
There’s a famous quote, attributed to the Wizard of Id Comic Strip (1965) "The Golden rule…whoever has the gold makes the rules". The DNC and its sister organizations have absolute power because they provide the money to get their members elected. House & Senate members generally have a tough time raising all that money on their own. Dean is an exception (since he uses his own money).
The GOP. Trump has such a large core of voters, a large net worth, plus free media that he is in a position to tell the GOP leadership what to do. He's their boss. The complete opposite of the Democratic Party. They have zero control of him and will eventually give him money.
Is it likely the Dem/GOP Duopoly will break down? Will we have a coalition Gov? I wouldn't count on it. Independent candidates have impacted two elections in US history. Ted Roosevelt running for the Bull Moose Party and Ross Perot. Both candidates broke from their party affiliation and tanked their party's main candidate as Robert Kennedy will likely do to his fellow Dem Joe Biden.
So given the DNC runs the show, why let Joe tank the party’s chances for the White House in 2024? I suspect the last thing they want is a primary free-for-all- all with their best horses taking shots at Joe (& in the process the party's own record). Harmful to their brand.
Better to have Joe breeze through the primaries (while his polling #s against Donald drop) and in late Spring announce he's stepping down for health reasons. That leaves the DNC free to pick whomever they want which is a not unlikely scenario. My money is on Gavin Newsom (who will BTW also get trounced by Mr. Mean, again with much help from Kennedy).