How the Omission Bias May Shape the Democratic Party's Presidential Nomination

Imagine you are walking down the sidewalk and you see two people ahead of you. Person A reaches into a stranger’s pocket and deftly removes a twenty-dollar bill. Then you turn the corner and see two more people. This time, a stranger accidentally drops a twenty-dollar bill on the ground. Person B sees this happen, picks up the $20 and pockets it for himself. Who would you consider more reprehensible, Person A or B?
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If you are like most people, you would choose Person A—even though the stranger is out twenty bucks in both scenarios. That is because we tend to be harsher critics of actions that cause negative consequences than inactions that could have prevented them. This ‘omission bias’ is why people usually choose not to pull the lever in the trolley problem, and it has ramifications across a host of behavioral contexts. For the Democratic Party, it could be what prevents a more formidable nomination for the Presidency than Joe Biden.

While it seems like a foregone conclusion, the Democratic ticket is not set in stone. Even though some primaries have occurred, if Biden steps down, the party would make their nomination at National Convention. (Convincing Biden to step down is step one, but let’s allow the thought experiment). Given a recent poll revealing that an unnamed candidate would do better than Joe Biden against Donald Trump, it seems simple: nominate someone else. That is where the omission bias applies its cognitive pressure. In this case, inaction is nominating Biden. It’s the default. If he were to lose, there would be disappointment and head-shaking, but it will have been the logical, justifiable choice. Nominating someone else would constitute an action. It is pulling the lever, which means if that person loses, it will be seen as a completely preventable misstep.
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When the dust settles on the 2024 Presidential election, everyone will look in the rearview mirror at the road that brought us there. If the Democrats lose with Biden, the rhetoric will be woulda, coulda, shoulda. “We woulda won if voting block XX turned out,” “We coulda done better if we campaigned more in XX counties,” “We shoulda directed more messaging toward XX issues.” If the Democrats lose with another candidate, the rhetoric will be about second-guessing. “Why did we rock the boat?” “If it wasn’t broke, why did we try to fix it?” These questions of why the party did something will be more salient than questions of why they did not. Essentially the party will be judged more harshly for making a wrong move than for making no move at all, and if the omission bias is working proactively in the minds of the Democratic strategists, nobody is going near that lever.