Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency

by Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes

Almost no one thought Joe Biden could make it back to the White House—not Donald Trump, not the two dozen Democratic rivals who sought to take down a weak front-runner, not the mega-donors and key endorsers who feared he could not beat Bernie Sanders, not even Barack Obama. The story of Biden’s cathartic victory in the 2020 election is the story of a Democratic Party at odds with itself, torn between the single-minded goal of removing Donald Trump and the push for a bold progressive agenda that threatened to alienate as many voters as it drew.

In Lucky, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes use their unparalleled access to key players inside the Democratic and Republican campaigns to unfold how Biden’s nail-biting run for the presidency vexed his own party as much as it did Trump. Having premised his path on unlocking the black vote in South Carolina, Biden nearly imploded before he got there after a relentless string of misfires left him free falling in polls and nearly broke.

Allen and Parnes brilliantly detail the remarkable string of chance events that saved him, from the botched Iowa caucus tally that concealed his terrible result, to the pandemic lock-down that kept him off the stump, where he was often at his worst. More powerfully, Lucky unfolds the pitched struggle within Biden’s general election campaign to downplay the very issues that many Democrats believed would drive voters to the polls, especially in the wake of Trump’s response to nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd. Even Biden’s victory did not salve his party’s wounds; instead, it revealed a surprising, complicated portrait of American voters and crushed Democrats’ belief in the inevitability of a blue wave.

A thrilling masterpiece of political reporting, Lucky is essential reading for understanding the most important election in American history and the future that will come of it.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, American History, Audiobook, Biography, Journalism

528 pages, Hardcover

First published March 2, 2021

About the author

Jonathan Allen has covered national politics for Politico, Bloomberg, and Vox. He is the head of community and content for Sidewire, and writes a weekly political column for Roll Call.

Photograph by Stuart Hovell.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes follow up their post-mortem book on Hillary’s failed 2016 campaign, Shattered, with this new book, reviewing Biden’s successful 2020 campaign defeating Trump in Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency. As middling as Shattered was, Lucky isn’t even as good as that and I found it an often frustratingly tedious read.

Compared to the drama of the plague year that was 2020 - the pandemic, record unemployment as a result of said pandemic, the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing race riots, Trump pouring gasoline on everything - the Democrats’ political campaign was very milquetoast.

Allen/Parnes recount the crowded primaries with Bernie Sanders emerging as the frontrunner - until Super Tuesday when progressives’ hopes were thoroughly dashed. And this was the main reason I wanted to read this book: to find out whether Obama put his thumb on the scale, which was the theory, enabling Biden’s rise and Bernie’s fall? The answer, disappointingly, is yes. Fucking Obama. A mediocre and vastly overrated president, a faux progressive, and a company man through and through - he’s as corrupt as the worst of them. Bernie could’ve beaten Trump too and the country would be the better for having him in charge. Well, we’ll never know now - thanks for rigging the primaries, Barry, wouldn’t want the people to actually make the choice themselves democratically, would we?

Once Biden is established as the Democratic candidate, it’s a dreary slog to the general election with mountains of dreary detail covering, really, nothing much. Biden was stuck in his basement the whole time, occasionally slipping up (telling Charlamagne tha God, a black radio host, 'If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black'), and relating strange, rambling stories about nothing (remember Corn Pop?) when he wasn’t calling voters “fat” or “lying dog-faced pony soldiers”!

In particular, there’s so much dross surrounding the VP pick. It’s hella dull. And the end result is Kamala Harris, only marginally less unpopular than Biden was in the primaries, and an authoritarian and corrupt candidate, going by her record as DA in San Francisco and AG of California.

It turned out to be a very close election but I don’t think you could say that that means America is populated with MAGA racists, etc. who supported Trump. I think it speaks to the choices the Democratic establishment went with: Biden and Harris, two career politicians with abysmal records, who ran a poor campaign, and had nothing substantial to offer people in terms of practical policy. “Restore the soul of America” - what the hell does that mean?! I wouldn’t be tempted to vote for them on the basis of that empty wishy-washiness and, if I’m a non-partisan voter, and I saw something specific Trump was offering, compared to the vagueness of Biden, I’d vote for Trump too.

But America has become so saturated in identity politics for some time now that the Democrats didn’t need to offer up policy specifics, they just had to be not-Trump for the people who didn’t like Trump. Virtue-signal by putting up a non-white woman and an old man who appeared calmer than Trump, and cross your fingers. Identity politics is so wretched and it harms everyone in the end.

The Trump parts were the only entertaining moments in the book. Trump was such an unbelievable trainwreck. His coronavirus briefings were unhinged (suggesting people inject themselves with bleach to cleanse themselves of the virus), ranting about how mail-in ballots were rigged, telling racist groups to “stand by”, deploying police so he could have a photo op outside a church near the White House where he held up a Bible. Trump was his own worst enemy - he couldn’t stop shooting himself in the dick throughout 2020.

Because it was Trump’s election to lose - never Biden’s to win. If Trump had taken the coronavirus pandemic more seriously, he’d still be in the White House. Instead he went completely mental - denying it was real, underplaying the severity of it, glossing over the staggering loss of life - and then failing to meet the challenges of that fallout. Millions of unemployed Americans suffered as they lost their jobs and couldn’t pay the bills (a great many still can’t - good work, Joe!) and showed his ineptitude as a leader by causing further division during the George Floyd race riots when he should have tried for unity.

But all of that is dependent on Trump not being Trump, so of course he lost. That doesn’t mean America wins in the end as the pandemic is still a real threat, the economy is still weak, and police continue to murder ethnic minorities. Biden’s barely a band-aid to the deep problems in the country and neither he nor Harris are capable, or seem interested, in fixing these.

If you followed the election like me then you’re going to be especially bored reading this as there’s little here that’ll be new to you. Only seriously nerdy political junkies could possibly get anything out of the minutiae of detail that make up the majority of this book. Allen and Parnes are objective for the most part though and, to those who didn’t experience it, this is a good summary of the election, even if it’s overloaded with too much detail.

I’ve enjoyed reading books on US political campaigns ever since I read John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s brilliant overview of the 2008 election, Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House, but Lucky is nowhere near as gripping to read. A thoroughly dry and thuddingly bland read, this is basically the Biden administration as a book: unrewarding to pay attention to.

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you feel lucky?

Here I am on Election Day Eve, tomorrow’s election an absolute toss-up, all the important polls within the margin of error, seeming like the last shreds of democracy and over 200 year of American political process are the stakes. I’ve just finished reading this appropriately name history of the 2020 presidential campaign, and I feel like tomorrow is one of those old slasher movie sequels — you saw the monster destroyed in the last movie, but now, somehow the horror is back and you’ve got to do it all over again.

Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency is a solid campaign book. It details the drama, the political strategies, the personalities of the crowded Democratic primary field, and the rather extraordinary circumstances that allowed an aging Joe Biden, perhaps the least dynamic candidate, to outlast the rest and gain the nomination. It recreates the historic, crazy election season where a deadly pandemic, the police murder of George Floyd, and the street action of the Black Lives Matter movement that murder sparked created a perfect storm that allowed Biden to run a passive, jujitsu style campaign to take down the sitting president. It was a close thing, and he needed every break he got.

And now, here we are on the eve of the sequel, and I’m just hoping the luck holds.

[Steve Nolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fuck 'em all.

Unsurprising that most of the book's sources are from super party insiders, and I hate them all. (There was no more oft repeated refrain than, "we have to stop Bernie." Fuck 'em!!)

It's also pretty bullshit that they took the "we lost because of defund!!" shit and just put it at the end of the book. Editorialize a bit, my guys! But I mean, not really a fault of the book, this is mostly, "hey this is what my sources said." (It was because Trump sent out checks w/ his name on them and the superdole, you idiots. If you do things for people they will vote for you.)

It was at least nice to continually see Elizabeth Warren eat shit. Silver linings.

Oh, and it should have been more specific about Biden yelling at potential voters at his events. "Listen, fat" is insanely funny and it should be in more books.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He was a childhood stutterer who grew up to filibuster on the Senate floor"

A heartwarming and inspiring story that was written from an unbiased view, on how luck has helped Joe Biden throughout his entire career. More specifically, on securing the 2020 democratic nomination and presidency. The story is intriguing and fascinating since it acts as an insider into the campaign and strategy behind his historic win. As someone that is politically active, I was able to recall nearly all of the moments in the 2020 race from the book. However, It was fascinating to see what occurred behind the scenes. The book has accounts from insiders of several campaigns during the democratic primary, and both insiders from the Trump and Biden campaign during the general election.

I would classify the book like this: 15% on Biden planning his run/launching his campaign, 45% on the challenge of winning the nomination, and 40% on the general matchup against trump. The book starts by reliving Hillary Clinton's narrow loss in 2016, and how people inside democratic circles did not believe anyone in the party could take on Trump for the 2020 election. Even revealing that Hillary was thinking about putting in another bid for the White House since she thought that none of the candidates were viable options for the party. The beginning of this book is a referendum on how everybody doubted Joe Biden on winning the nomination, let alone the presidency. Yet, this story demonstrates that Biden constantly proved them wrong. You see and learn about moments in this book where the stars aligned for his candidacy. He constantly caught luck in the primary, and a lot of luck in the general election as well. As you read the book, you think: Does a storm just hit everything that may be an issue for him?

Like I said earlier in this review, you also learn very interesting aspects of the 2020 race that you probably don't know about. For example, Joe Biden's view on Hillary Clinton's 2016 candidacy/loss, Kamala Harris almost costing herself the vice presidency multiple times, what occurred behind Trump's disastrous Tulsa Rally, The moment that brought Joe Biden out of 'retirement', Joe Biden's reaction to being accused of inappropriate conduct, or the actual truth behind the Obama-Biden relationship. During the book, you learn about a two-year effort to win the presidency, and it is truly a rollercoaster experience. You also learn about the campaign's strategy in winning the democratic primary and its strategy to defeat an incumbent president. For example, debate on certain policies inside the campaign, reaction to scandals the campaign ran into, the messaging/advertising of his candidacy, the planning behind the democratic national convention, pre-election polling, and inside the campaign on election night. You also get takes in the book on the Trump Campaign, and how they ran their operation. For example, Messaging and the planning of the RNC. The book starts from around mid-2018 and finishes in November 2020

An inspiring, uplifting, and vivid lesson on not giving up and how Joe Biden survived under harsh circumstances. The book is an accurate account of why and how Joe Biden won the presidency. The book focuses on his appeal to a broad amount of the electorate, being the perfect candidate for 'that moment', and on his ability to get lucky.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have once again decided to embark on a mission to read a number of books on subjects that will be of great importance to the upcoming 2024 US Presidential Election. This was a great success as I prepared for 2020, with an outcome at the polls (and antics by both candidates up to Inauguration Day) that only a fiction writer might have come up with at the time! Many of these will focus on actors and events intricately involved in the US political system over the last few years, in hopes that I can understand them better and, perhaps, educate others with the power to cast a ballot. I am, as always, open to serious recommendations from anyone who has a book I might like to include in the process.

With the events of July 21, 2024, when Joe Biden chose not to seek re-election, the challenge has become harder to properly reflect the Democratic side. I will do the best I can to properly prepare and offer up books that can explore the Biden Administration, as well as whomever takes the helm into November.

This is Book #34 in my 2024 US Election Preparation Challenge.

Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes deliver a stellar book that takes the reader well behind the curtain in the lead-up to the 2020 US Presidential election. While many will have heard all about how Trump botched COVID-19 and planted seeds that the election would likely be rigged (a subtle admission of knowing he could not win the end result), little time had been spent on the nitty-gritty within the Democratic Party to find a viable candidate to clash with The Donald. This book seeks to explore the race for the Democratic nomination and how one candidate would rise through the clash to become the party’s standard bearer, though he almost did not secure victory to keep the country from more Trump vitriol. With detailed explanations and countless behind-the-scenes commentary, Allen and Parnes offer up this electrifying tome, where tense truths emerge and some things the Democrats may not want revealed about their in-fighting come to light.

Joe Biden returning to the White House was a pipe dream that few had and many thought was a joke when told about the option. How did this man, who had been part of the past era in Congress, make it not only to become the Democratic nominee for president in 2020, but also win the contest over the wily Donald Trump? This book explores the long and overly contention journey that Biden took in a brutal two-year journey. It was not easy and it did not start well, where large Democratic donors shied away from him, the people thought he did not have the chops, and the field was full of vibrant ideas from all corners vying for the nomination. Allen and Parnes seek to peddle things together and maker a story out of this meteoric rise to greatness.

As the book opens, it is clear that Biden is in a tough place, where he cannot use his charm and history on the Hill to garner significant support. Even his former boss, Barrack Obama, would not outrightly support him and push Biden into the lead. He had to claw for the votes, the support, and the recognition. That the field for nominee of the Democratic Party in 2020 was full proved to be an understatement. Many filed and ran to see change to the system in order to win over the ever-cringeworthy Donald Trump. There were those on the left who were nipping at the ankles of the Party—namely Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—as well as those who sought to instil a newness in the Party—Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar—and a slew of centrists who sought to use their name recognition to garner some support. The debates were bloody and the campaigning throughout the primaries was exhausting. Was this something that Biden could do? Might he have made a better promise to his dead son, Beau, than trying to climb this mountain?

As the months wore on, the truth was beginning to appear. Biden did not have what he needed to succeed and make a difference. Voters were not accepting him, particularly when he showed poorly in the first few primaries, and some of his opponents were taking advantage of his long career to hop onto some of his landmine issues that painted Biden as a has-been and racist. But Biden would not give up and sought to find his niche, whatever that took.

As Allen and Parnes examine in the latter portion of the book, Biden’s win in South Carolina sparked what the candidate needed to begin gaining momentum. Many of the candidates saw their campaigns dry up and shifted power to Biden. This left the Democratic nomination open to two septuagenarians—Biden and Bernie Sanders—whose attacks would not desist, all while the country was trying to understand this mysterious COVID-19 pandemic. As the run to the nomination heated up, many began looking at the candidates in comparison to President Trump, a man who was sure he could crush anyone placed against him.

In a gritty battle that left Joe Biden as the nominee, the Democrats needed not only to pull in the Sanders supporters, but target how to dismantle the power Donald Trump had over the country and his rhetoric. While Biden was not averse to tossing off the gloves, this was not how he liked to run a campaign. That said, Biden had never crossed paths with anyone like Trump before. The book explores a presidential campaign against the backdrop of the pandemic, where Biden sought the careful road and Trump—shock—chose the aggressive route as he dismissed many of the precautions put before him. After securing Kamala Harris as his running mare to ensure the Black vote was secured, Biden sought to make the final push. The campaign got down to brass tacks and was as dirty as one could imagine. When all was said and done… nothing was either said or done to the sitting president.

Joe Biden eked out a victory, both with the popular vote and in the Electoral College. As the challenges mounted and Trump cried foul, the courts, the public, and the election officials saw the transformation of a man who foreboded his own catastrophe, yet when it came, he decried outrage. The book was completed the day after the January 6, 2021 insurrection, so it was not included in the narrative. It was not needed, as the themes within show just how lucky Biden was to rise above it all and sit in the Oval Office as president.

I love a good political tome, especially one that explores things that are not reported by every source. Allen and Parnes do an amazing job here to illustrate the slow and determined journey Joe Biden took, as well as the many stumbles along the way. This book seeks not only to show how resilient Biden was in 2020 (and thankfully we did not need it again in 2024), but also how the entire Democratic Party’s primary process left the field wide open and made it anything but predictable. Allen and Parnes develop these themes in thorough chapters that explore the journey while educating the curious reader. The history is there, as is slow momentum gain this story needs before climaxing in a tense presidential election between two men who sought to present completely different ideas of how America ought to be run. The narrative is clear and informative, keeping the reader in the middle of the action until all is said and done.

While no one doubts Biden was lucky to eke out a victory, the projections for 2024 had another election that could be close. Worry not, Trump has already salted the soil when he loses again. What mess will he unleash this time?

Kudos, Mr. Allen and Madam Parnes, for this sensational piece that taught me so much.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someday the full story of the 2024 presidential campaign will be written. Don’t you want to know what was really said between Biden and Pelosi, whether the polling we’re seeing today is accurate or wildly off base again, and whether Trump ends up in the White House or in prison? 

I generally prefer actual history books to “first draft of history” political books like this one. But I happened upon a copy and thought, as long as we’re in the middle of a presidential campaign, maybe it would somehow be instructive to read more about the last one, and to do it soon before the story starts to feel really stale.

And, it must be said, a lot of this book already feels like ancient history. With the next generation of Democratic leaders on display at the party’s recent convention, the likes of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Mike Bloomberg - not to mention Hillary Clinton and even John Kerry who flirted with the idea of late primary runs in 2020 - all seem like relics of campaigns long past. 

The book seems to anticipate the eventual passing of the torch that hadn’t happened yet when it was written. “Between Obama and the two Clintons, there hadn't been enough sunlight for other Democrats to fully develop,” the authors observe, calling Biden's very candidacy “evidence of that in and of itself.”

The theme of the book is that Biden was the beneficiary of a whole lot of lucky breaks. He wasn’t the best campaigner, he wasn’t the strongest candidate, but he stuck around long enough for circumstances to shift his way, and for his opponents to flame out, winning the primaries as the “anyone but Sanders” candidate, and winning the general election as the “anyone but Trump” choice. 

The primary process is the most interesting part of the book, as it contains a lot of behind-the-scenes stories of the large cast of candidates strategizing, courting high-profile endorsements, and coldly calculating who to hit hard in debates and when. These are the kinds of stories that generally don’t come out during campaigns, so are best recounted in a post-election book like this.

Trump doesn't appear until more than halfway in, by which point the narrative loses some steam. The general election basically becomes a story of Biden sitting on a lead, trying not to rock the boat. And aside from stories of infighting among Biden campaign staffers, the book loses much of its insidery feel, as events like Biden campaigning from his basement, Trump’s flouting of Covid precautions, and the chaotic first presidential debate are all described pretty much how we all witnessed them ourselves.

There are a few moments that shed some potentially prescient light on the 2024 campaign. Before his first primary debate, for example, the book describes Biden aides worrying that “his pension for gaffes and other slips of the tongue became noticeably more pronounced later in the day.” And Kamala Harris is described as being “great at hitting her marks in big moments and terrible at following through afterward. She was often better at playing the part than living it” - the truth of which, this time around, remains to be seen.

The problem with campaign books like this is that they’re contracted before the campaigns even start, so there’s a baked-in presumption that they’re going to be interesting enough to be worth writing about, and worth reading. Every so often I’ll see Bob Woodward’s book on the 1996 election in a thrift store, and while I’m sure he thought at the time it was going to be a fascinating subject, there’s nothing that has so far made me want to spend even just a couple of bucks to read about what turned out to be one of the dullest presidential election campaigns in recent memory. 

That said, the 2020 election was far more interesting than 1996. And this book bests any Bob Woodward book that I’ve read - the sourcing is more well-rounded and the story is more fully told, as opposed to Woodward books that don’t always get all sides of the story, don’t age as well, and it’s often transparent who his self-serving "anonymous" sources are.

But then the 2020 election was also arguably a lot less interesting than, say, 2000, or 2008, or 2016. Or 2024, for that matter. This book is an easy, breezy read, and there are some anecdotes and insights in it that make it worth a bit of your time, hence the generous four stars. But I don’t think it necessarily leaves you with a greater understanding of how the 2020 presidential election campaign played out. We know how that story ended. And once whoever gets the first book about the 2024 election in print, we’ll know a little more about how the story that we’re currently living through turned out the way it did as well - for better or for worse.

[Greg Stoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is pure guilty pleasure - lots of gossip, and since it was mostly sourced on background I'd be willing to bet some of it is exaggerated. (see this Perry Bacon Jr. article on the danger of unnamed sources) But it's a pretty quick read, and it's been long enough since the election that I was happy to relive some parts of it.

The main thesis of the book is that Biden was unusually lucky to win the primary and the general election. I'm not sure I buy it - sure, he was lucky in a number of ways, but so is every candidate that wins, right? Maybe he was a little luckier than most but I don't think it was a dramatic difference. Although the final result was so close, I suppose you could argue that every lucky break he got was necessary?

And maybe this is just the style of books like this, but the authors seem to go out of their way to say negative stuff about everyone involved.

Odds and ends:
- Sanders supporters were notorious for having a toxic online presence in 2016, insulting Clinton and Clinton supporters. (some of whom, as we found out after the fact, where Russian bots, although this may have been true of aggressive Clinton supporters as well) When Bernie entered the race in 2020 he condemned "bullying and harassment", but at the same time was taking advice and later hired David Sirota, one of the more aggressive people on Twitter.
- In October 2019 (when it was basically down to Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Buttigieg), Obama made some private remarks where he sort of endorsed Warren!
- The whole fiasco around the final Des Moines Register poll did help Biden - he was in fourth place (the results were Sanders 22, Warren 18, Buttigieg 16, Biden 13), but since the results didn't get released his supporters didn't jump ship, and it didn't give Sanders a boost that he probably would have gotten.
- The book recounts Warren's dislike of Bloomberg and her preparation for the Nevada debate where she eviscerated him. (I realize the trope of one person "destroying" another one have become so common as to be passe, but I think it fits here!) Other than making me smile remembering how all that went, this was another "lucky" point for Biden, as it seemed like Bloomberg was poised to lure a chunk of Biden voters. The book also mentions that after the debate, each candidate had a staff member assigned to escort them back to a holding room, but no one came to pick up Bloomberg so he stood alone by himself just offstage🙂
- I wasn't a huge fan of Biden saying he would nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court at the time (it seemed like pandering to me, although I agree it's a good idea), but the book recounts how Jim Clyburn kept pressing Biden to announce this, including running up to Biden during a commercial break in the debate before the South Carolina primary to lecture him to do it tonight. (and Biden did!)
- This is not at all surprising, but it is interesting to hear how Biden and Obama called Buttigieg right after he dropped out to ask him to endorse Biden. (Obama pointed out that Buttigieg would never have more clout than he did right then) Apparently Obama tried to make a similar call to Klobuchar, but she realized what was going on and dodged his calls🙂
- The swing towards Biden between South Carolina and Super Tuesday sure appeared dramatic from the outside, and although winning South Carolina and gaining momentum from that was Biden's plan, a senior adviser said that stuff was "nuts and incomparable to anything I've ever seen".
- Just as the primary was effectively wrapping up, Biden changed campaign managers and hired Jen O'Malley Dillon. I missed all of this, which isn't a surprise because this was mid-March when the coronavirus started hitting the US, so her first action was to hold an all-staff meeting at headquarters, introduce herself, and announce that headquarters was shutting down!
- The book says that Biden had a lot of trouble acknowledging that his past statements or positions were wrong (not unlike Trump!), but he was quick to offer personal apologies to people who felt harmed by him. (very unlike Trump!) I hadn't quite noticed this duality...
- The book posits that Biden running his campaign from his basement was good for Biden because it kept the focus on Trump, which made the election more like a referendum on Trump than a choice between two candidates. Which feels right to me. The book says that this was another way Biden was lucky, which sort of makes sense, although I think even in normal times Trump sucks up a lot of oxygen so I'm not sure Biden would have made a ton of news.
- Trump's first big indoor rally after the pandemic hit the US was an indoor one in Tulsa in mid-June. The story at the time was that a million people signed up for tickets, but most of these people were TikTok users trying to mess with the Trump campaign, which is why the actual attendance was embarrassingly less than that. The book says that Brad Parscale (Trump's campaign manager at the time) thought there were 100,000 people that had signed up that were within 50 miles of the rally, so a big crowd was very possible. But Trump warned of protests and violence and that plus the police presence scared a lot of people away. Hard to say if this is accurate or not.
- Some of the people that had been with Biden's campaign from the beginning didn't like that O'Malley Dillon was the new campaign manager. Apparently O'Malley Dillon's kids would frequently pop up when she was in meetings, and one "male campaign aide who did not have children" thought that she was bringing them in on purposes, like it was staged. As someone who worked for a long time from home with young kids, that male campaign aide may go to hell.
- Putting together a virtual Democratic National Convention was a big job which worked out pretty well in the end. One idea was to have a map with lights to show where the current speaker was broadcasting from, to show the geographical diversity of the Democratic party. This idea was scrapped when they realized how many speakers were broadcasting from places like Martha's Vineyard🙂
- They asked Lin-Manuel Miranda to write and record a new song for the convention. But some wires got crossed, and Miranda wrote an instrumental piece played on the piano, and the organizers couldn't find a good place to use it. #ReleaseTheLinManuelMirandaSong
- Especially after the recent allegations, there's an amusing bit where the organizers asked themselves the same question they apparently ask every four years about Andrew Cuomo: "How is he going to f*** us this time?" In 2016 he spoke for double his scheduled time. This time, he was late delivering his recording, and it was more of a tribute to himself than to Biden. The words "Joe Biden" were first spoken four minutes and fifty seconds into a five-minute speech! And he refused to refilm it. (did this actually get aired? I don't know...)
- The prose of the book is a bit heavy-handed at times, like this quote about the captain of Biden's analytics team on Election Day: "Siegel sipped coffee from Elixr, a small chain of boutique Philadelphia coffee shops that boasted of the 'transformative' power of their lights roasts. She didn't want a transformation, just an outcome that fell within the expected range." 🙄
- The book points out that Trump lost by a total of 42,918 votes in three states (Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin), and flipping those states would have given him a victory. This irritated me because I had already done this calculation for my state election map and came up with a different number. But it turns out the book was right (not a big surprise!) and this prompted me to find some bugs in the map, about which I'll write later🙂

[andré crombie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thoughts: Several hundred pages of lame beltway goss and tawdry horse-race bullshit.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good Overview of Biden’s Win

A blow by blow account of the election of Joe Biden as viewed from his side. Pretty brisk and fun.

[David Allen Hines · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a lifetime Democrat and former Democrat elected official who nonetheless enthusiastically supported Donald Trump both times he ran for president, I wanted to read this book to understand better how Joe Biden managed to come from behind to win the presidency over the incumbent because as someone involved in politics for over 30 years now, I did not, and do not accept the the COVID-19 pandemic was the only explanation.

Unfortunately, from the get-go, I almost put this book down without finishing it. The incredible bias of the authors against Trump was on display from the first pages, with a vitriolic anti-Trump mantra over the riots at the US Capitol on January 6th--events that were plainly wrong--but which yet even the Biden Administration FBI has concluded were neither an "insurrection" nor planned or coordinated in any way by the Trump Administration. I put the book down for a few weeks after reading their biased nonsense, but ended up picking it up again, because, disappointingly it seems few other insiders are writing accounts of the 2020 election.

The anti-Trump bias of the authors was soon proven to not be their only bias. Anyone dispassionately reading this book will soon arrive at the conclusion the authors were as biased against initial Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders as against Trump. Time and time again, as with their almost every remark on Trump, almost their every remark about Sanders is demeaning and dismissive and negative.

What I found valuable thoug was that the authors clearly had a lot of inside information on Biden to the degree I have seen related nowhere else. And while I hoped to hear an account of a strong leader bringing decades of valuable experience to play, what came across time and time and time again was how feeble, unimaginative and hapless Joe Biden was throughout the campaign. His entire strategy seemed to be to offer nothing, say nothing, do nothing, just try to not make a mistake and let Trump hurt himself. Unfortunatley, Biden's strategy did not work even though he won the election.

Truth is Biden only won the election in the Electoral College by less than 50,000 total votes across 4 hotly contested states and Trump challenged the result from day one. Biden entered office lacking any kind of mandate whatsoever, and his lack of strong campaign stances meant his administration was immediately captured by extremist liberal progressives who have led him in less than a year into political stalemate, sharply increasing inflation, and a sharp decrease in popularity.

I was stunned reading this book to learn how many Democrat insiders were lukewarm about Biden including most notably, former President Barack Obama, who made it clear both in 2016 and 2020 that he did not think Biden was the man for the job. It comes across clearly in this book that Obama tried everything he knew of to get the 2020 nomination to others; only endorsed Biden after it was clear he would win the nomination and who didn't even call Biden to congratulate him on his election until some time after the result was clear. At first I wanted to be angry with Obama for not backing his own very loyal VP, but as we end 2021 a year into the faltering feeble Biden Administration, it is clear now that Obama's concerns were valid.

The authors also present Bernie Sanders in the worst possible dismissive light even though Sanders was the front-runner until he suffered a heart attack. Sanders engaged many young people and non-traditional Democratic voters, none of which Biden later reached out to. It's not clear at all that Biden would have won the nomination had Sanders not taken ill.

I wish there was more in this book about Biden's VP Kamela Harris. By saying he would discriminate and only select a black female for the position, Biden handicapped himself from day 1. As a Democrat and as an American, I believe he should have selected the best person for the job rather than chosing someone based on sex and race. With Harris now considered ineffective at best and harmful at worst to Biden and with her popularity the lowest of any VP since Dan Qualye, these concerns seem validated.

This book tries to validate Joe Biden's campaign strategy-- do nothing and let Trump hurt himself-- but it fails. In the end, despite the pandemic; despite losing 2 weeks of campaign time when he got COVID himself; despite race riots after the George Floyd killing; despite having problems with developing a campaign message and holding onto a campaign manager; Donald Trump managed to turn out more voters for him than any incumbent president in history and lost re-election by less than 50,000 votes. As you read the book, despite the authors continually presenting Trump in a bad light, they make it clear that Biden had little to offer and had Trump not taken ill and been sideline for 2 weeks it seems clear he might well have pulled off reelection.

As a Democrat and as someone who genuinely likes Joe Biden as a person, I wanted this book to give me some confidence in Mr. Biden; that even though I did not vote for him he was someone I could at least tolerate, maybe even find some common ground with. Instead this book reinforced all the doubts I had of him and as we end 2021 with Biden 10 points down in the polls, the highest inflation in 30 years and my Democrat Party captured by out of touch extreme liberals, I see all the doubts set out in this book as sadly validated.

The authors so far have the most insightful insider view of the 2020 Biden campaign I just wish they could have presented their material in a less partisan, more even-handed way that was not so clearly anti-Biden and anti-Sanders. In the end this book will not be the overall book of the 2020 campaign, but it might be the book on the Joe Biden campaign and do a lot to explain why Biden is floundering so badly in a job perhaps he was not meant for.

[Alex Greenblatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Definitely got way stupider once I read this book. Very salaciously written and had some skewering of progressive candidates that made me roll my eyes multiple times. At times a complete slog to read through. best parts were the primary sections because you have candidates with braincells. Another good reads reviewer said this but it's crazy how despite the wild events of 2020 like the pandemic and the blm protests, the democrats ran a deeply boring campaign. This book definitely made me despise politicians more.

It's very very very odd that democrats all knew how terribly close 2020 was and spent 4 years with seemingly no plan for 2024. Obviously we'll see more when it all comes out. That's what revisionist history is for. Anyways this was my review for the book Lucky by Jonathan Allen. I will probably not read another one of his books.

[Joshua Landeros · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a political junkie and avid history reader, I want to say first and foremost that I was already aware of much of what is written in this book. In the same way that I followed the 2016 primary closely, the same went for 2020. And what a ride it what was. For attention to detail, the book has my praise. There are several quotes and pulls from history, all verifiable if one doesn't believe it. I remember seeing a lot of it as it happened, from Warren's Judas like betray of Bernie to Biden's frequent run-ins with a shady past, campaign fumbles, and endless gaffes. They capture these moments in a meticulous fashion.
What's lacking for me is a full spectrum analysis of the election. Namely, how HUMONGOUS the national media's influence was The media and various establishment figureheads spent most of the Democratic primary smearing, ignoring, and mocking the likes of Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Marianne Williamson, and Andrew Yang. I believe candidates should be judged on these key things: consistency, record, and honesty. These were hardly the critiques the media labeled on these candidates. Tulsi was an Assad apologist, a Putin puppet, and a supposed Modi fan. The media called Marianne nuts. They called Bernie a communist loon, a Nazi by some liberal media figures, a misogynist, and so forth. In sharp contrast, mainstream media outlets treated Biden with kid gloves basically the entirety of the primary. No deep dive into his record really, and I mean for both policy and Biden's blatant scandals and lies. We're talking MULTIPLE abuses of plagiarism, outright lies about war stories, civil rights participation, and so much more. Let alone his statements about "racial jungles" and worse. The media shapes the nature of every political cycle when they deem who is and who is not a worthy candidate. WikiLeaks proved how tightly the Democratic Party controls it's primaries, and the media largely goes along with it.

While the aforementioned candidates were shat on endlessly, the likes of Mayor Pete, Corey Booker, Kamala, and other establishment favorites were handed soft ball interviews and were rarely if ever called out for their dark money funding, lies, and voting record. The very fact that in the year of the George Floyd tragedy Biden picked a cop as his VP says it all. The book mostly avoids this while spinning a few things. This did not go unnoticed.
For example, Biden's relationship to segregationist figures is described more or less as a side effect of his willingness to be bipartisan in the face of adversity. Meanwhile Bernie's campaign staff, in one hilarious moment in the book, is referred to as a reactionary and a "minion." Calling out corruption blatantly as opposed to playing along with establishment-polite-society-norms is painted in a very odd light here. it is unfortunate because it is something I have seen all too often in academic literature and lectures. To go along with the establishment is largely written away as rational, pragmatic, and consensus driven while opposing power in direct ways, even in just RHETORIC, is painted as naïve, dogmatic, idealistic, or the scariest of the words (often weaponized by the likes of CNN, MSNBC, FOX, the usual suspects, etc.) RADICAL.
As much as I liked certain sections of the book (especially those that did point out glaring mistakes and humorous failures in the Biden, Bernie, and Trump campaigns), the framing in certain sections literally made me cringe.

[David Moberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not inclined to read palace intrigue tell-all books, and that was more or less absent in this book aside from the editor probably encouraging the co-authors to dish out the dirt here and there. Also, I don’t know why italicized internal dialogue profanity gets used repeatedly, as in making me wonder if all political operatives must swear when encountering the inevitable challenges in running campaigns. Still, if ever there was a time to pause on how a perfect cosmic alignment oversaw Biden’s victory, here the reader discovers that in abundance. In the end, though, the decency, resolve, and commitment to,life-long held values for what America should stand for is a tremendous take-away in this work.

[Karin Mika · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't normally read contemporary political books, but I do like biographies. I thought this was a biography of Joe Biden, but it was a "behind the scenes" look at the Biden presidential campaign. I had a hard time with the book. To me, the book basically provided a narrative of what was already on the internet or being gossiped about on shows like the view. I think my biggest issue is that I do not think it was very well-written. The phrasing was awkward and repetitive, a mix of description and opinion masked as description.

[Deirdre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biggest takeaway from this point is that even though Joe Biden won the presidency by millions of votes, he only won the electoral college by 44,000 votes which is a slimmer margin than the electoral votes that separated Clinton from Trump. This is definitely a point to remember in future elections.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allen and Parnes provide a detailed post mortem of Joe Biden's ultimately successful 2020 campaign, pointing out missteps, flawed plans and flawed characters (evidently they decided that not a single person mentioned in the book should come out looking all that good - which, in most cases, fair enough), and plenty of lucky breaks. From my outsider's perspective, observing the campaigning and election process felt a lot like the lead-up to the 2016 election all over again - brief elation at hearing that exceedingly rare thing, a US politician espousing ideas and policies that I actually agree with and even embrace, which soon enough fizzled out as once again the Democratic party decided to pick a bland, centrist candidate who elicits precisely zero excitement and brings the election down to a choice of the lesser evil. On the upside, this time they actually elected the lesser evil... at least we're almost two months into Biden's first term and he hasn't done anything particularly terrible yet, so things are clearly going better than last time around.

[TJ West · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went back and forth on whether I was going to read Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency. I had steadfastly avoided the authors’ previous book, which lambasted Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid and, since the title gave away the game, I wasn’t all that interested in reading a determinedly negative take on Biden and his campaign.

Now that I’ve finished the book….well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I liked it, nor would I say that it offers a particularly generous portrait of Joe Biden, his campaign, or really anyone, Democrat or Republican. I suppose there’s something to be said for training one’s fire on both sides of the ideological spectrum, but the average reader will probably come away from this book with the distinct impression that our current president, like his most recent predecessor, doesn’t know how to run a campaign, doesn’t really stand for anything, and only won the election because of, well, luck.

As is often the case with these sorts of books, much of what we read comes from sources that remain anonymous. Unlike a lot of other people, I don’t see that as a problem in itself, but it does make most of the book seem like a huge gossip fest, one in which many people try to get in jabs and digs at their enemies. This makes it a fun read, to be sure, but given how obviously self-interested many of the parties are, it really makes you question just how objective this account really is. This is especially the case when Allen and Parnes convey information through reimagined interior monologues of some of the key players. It makes for good drama, of course but not, I personally think, for very convincing reporting.

Lucky lays out, in sometimes excruciating detail, just how it came to pass that Joe Biden won the presidency. While at first he seemed to be a sure thing, as the primary wore on his political future seemed less and less certain, as he faced challenges from left and center. The book includes both inside-the-campaign revelations--including the power struggles that are common in any presidential run--as well as recaps of the most noteworthy moments of the 2020 Democratic primary. This latter includes Kamala Harris’s (in)famous confrontation with Biden about his attacks on busing, certainly one of his most bruising moments in the entire campaign.

Indeed, if anyone comes out of this account more poorly than Biden, it would have to be the current Vice President. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the authors are outright hostile to Kamala Harris, but they put their toe right on that line. They seem to take an almost fiendish glee in reciting each and every one of her missteps, and they also dwell with prurient interest on the fact that, in their framing of the issue, Biden’s choice of her as his running mate was a matter of going with his head rather than his heart. The authors can’t seem to decide whether Harris is some sort of political genius monster or a candidate as inept and prone to failure as her future boss. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at such hostility to the first woman of color to

To be fair, though, Allen and Parnes don’t shy away from showcasing Trump’s failures, too, particularly when it came to the COVID-19 pandemic. At this point, anyone who doesn’t believe that the former president actively made this health crisis is delusional, but it’s still helpful to have two established journalists show us in detail specifically how he did so.

At best, Joe Biden emerges as an overly cautious politician who relied on his reputation for moderation to win over voters yearning for a return to some level of normality after the non-stop madness of the Trump era. As it turned out, however, his cautiousness worked to his advantage, allowing him to take advantage of the many strokes of fortune that came his way: the squabbling among the various other candidates (the tension between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the two most prominent progressives), the endorsement from Jim Clyburn that allowed him to win South Carolina and numerous other states on the subsequent Super Tuesday; and, in a perverse way, the pandemic itself, which gave Trump so many opportunities to immolate himself. To my mind, however, they don’t give Biden, or his campaign, enough credit for simply enduring so much and so many defeats and setbacks. Though I thought from the beginning that Biden could very well emerge as the eventual victor, there’s no question that there were quite a few times when he almost didn’t make it.

To give Allen and Parnes credit, however, they do at least make it clear where they stand on Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and they frame their account around America’s close-call with electoral disaster. At the same time, they also show us that the numbers are rather ominous, and that we all came far closer than we should have to having Trump in office for a second term. Joe Biden might have been lucky, but we were, too. We shouldn’t count on catching so many breaks the next time around.

Overall, Lucky is an enjoyable read, particularly for political junkies like me. However, it never quite gets away from its disingenuous take on Biden and his campaign, even though Biden himself emerges as a man of conscience, dignity, and compassion (hardly surprising, I know). Aside from everything else, Lucky is at the very least a fascinating bit of history, an insight into one of the strangest political seasons that most of us can remember. Given how quickly everything fades from memory these days, it’s important to have histories like this, to remind us of how things were and how they happened. Trump isn’t going anywhere soon, unfortunately, and as we stare down the gun of 2024, it’s important to recognize just how perilously close we are to a repeat of history.

Let’s just hope we’ve learned our lesson.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A more boring election than 2016 and thus a more boring book than the authors' Shattered. Most interesting takeaways: Hillary Clinton and John Kerry both seriously considered running in 2020 (nooooo); Obama really doesn't seem to have thought Biden would be a good president (he was initially rooting for O'Rourke, then switched to Harris, then Warren); and if not for a kamikaze debate attack from Elizabeth Warren on her way out we probably would have ended up with Mike Bloomberg as the Democratic nominee.

[Thomas Terence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes are probably my favorite current political writers. They do a great job of giving a good overview of presidential elections and getting their book to the presses fast.

[Josh Bramlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the hardcover copy but can't find that option on Goodreads. I enjoyed reading this book for what it was. It is full of on-background accounts from various staffers of the primary and general campaigns. There's gossip and people getting their last two cents in on the campaign. A lot of this is good information such as hearing from Biden's main data analyst several times. We learn more behind the scenes details on several key events such as the Kamala vs. Joe primary debate, the machinations happening with Buttigieg and Klobuchar after South Carolina, and Trump campaign deliberations on where to hold rallies. We also learn about Obama's opinions throughout the primary which was interesting.

The title of the book can be interpreted as a classic "hot take" title meant to garner headlines and clickbait. However, the authors make their case for the premise throughout and by the end I was sold on it. First, it did take a lot of luck to win the Democratic primary. If the Iowa caucus results had been dramatically announced on election night, Pete and Bernie could have gotten big boosts and Biden could have been more heavily criticized. If Bloomberg hadn't loomed for months as a potential candidate, others such as Hillary or Kerry may have gotten in the race. If Warren hadn't destroyed Bloomberg on the debate stage, he may have cut into Biden's Super Tuesday margins. Second, while the book details how Dem operatives were worried about Biden's basement strategy, in hindsight it appears to have worked. The campaign would have been much different in a normal year and Biden, with his history of gaffes, definitely benefited from socially distanced campaigning, not just to "hide in his basement" but because his campaign's fundraising efforts on Zoom worked so well. Third, even though the popular vote margin was larger than 2016, the electoral college difference was smaller. It was a tight race by EC standards. Fourth, this book does detail accounts of how Trump's campaign managers repeatedly tried to convince him to appear more empathetic and to do outreach to undecided voters. Instead, he stuck to his base appeal rhetoric. Different governing and campaigning approaches from Trump could have led to different election results. In sum, I was convinced by the authors' premise, especially in the primaries. This book is worth reading as a beach book for political junkies.

[Alex Gruenenfelder · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the authors who covered Hillary Clinton's shattered campaign comes this work that covers how Joe Biden, an old politician of another era, captured the most important election of ours so far. His pitch is articulated quite accurately by the authors: this would be a campaign about electing an insider to clean things up, proving wrong the outsider rhetoric popular for decades. And, thanks to a lot of luck, this flawed old white guy would become the most powerful man in the world.

Though Biden was viewed positively within the party, at least for awhile, the authors show just how hard the primary was for him. This is a book that mostly covers the Biden campaign, but it does get into the primary coverage territory of many books like it. The authors capture the aggressiveness of the primary, and how even people like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry laughably considered giving it another shot. In a quote that could describe Biden as well as anyone else, one politician says, "Once they get in their head that they might want to be president, that never, never goes away."

This is by no means a perfect book, for all books on current events and recent elections are subject to bias. The authors' harshness toward Sanders, a holdover from their previous book, might rub some progressives the wrong way. The authors also have contrarian opinions on a number of major topics in the race, such as their belief that law-and-order messaging was indeed effective for Trump. Having read a number of books on the 2020 election already, I appreciate the spice it provides.

Joe Biden got through a terrible primary season for him through moderate consolidation behind his name: luck. Biden was able to take time off the campaign trail responsibly due to COVID-19, avoiding gaffes in the process: luck. And the world turned to racial justice at a time when Biden was trying to accurately paint Trump as a racist: luck. Joe Biden was lucky, but all elections take luck. He worked hard for decades and eventually won out, as this book shows. As his presidency continues, and with 2024 already looming, let's see how long his luck lasts.

[Pablo Argote · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really fun to read. It is nice to read a recount about a process that was so present in my daily life for a year and a half. The book is addictive and well written. The best part is the primary: the anecdotes about Obama, Clyburn, Warren, and the internal conflict in Biden's campaign. Then, in the part of the general election, the book has the typical exaggerations of journalistic reports, giving too much weight to ordinary and irrelevant events. Besides, the main argument -that all random events play out in Biden's favor- was better justified in the primary than in the general. In my view, even if Biden was sometimes lucky in the primary, he didn't win because of that. The simpler explanation is that he was the preferred choice of the vast majority of primary voters, but he didn't deliver in his public appearances before February. Once he demonstrated that he was up to it (by winning South Carolina, for example), voters went to him. The book fails to mention that he definitely improved his debate performance in 2020, especially in the one-on-one against Sanders.

Another point. It is hard to say that massive events such as the pandemic or BLM inherently favors a candidate; things just happen, and politics is about reacting to those things in a sensible way. Finally, it is true that the margin in the three possible pivotal states was thin. That is not a good argument to say that Biden was lucky. The question is: could have been any other way in the era of polarization? I doubt it. Here, the books fall in the same fallacy as my other analysis: they seem eager to give more credit to Trump for his 74 million votes than Biden for his 81 million.

[Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in 9 days, I inhaled it. Last year, I admittedly avoided watching the news. I still would check NYTimes, but the trauma of the 2020 election and the 45th presidency took a toll I attempted to avoid looking too much into. 1 year removed, knowing the outcome was not 4 more years of you-know-who, this book is a bit of an autopsy for what was a brutally close election. I think it's easy to rest easy knowing Biden won, but 'Lucky' is an abrupt reminder that he barely won. The margin for error was less than that of Hillary's defeat. He probably only picked up Pennsylvania because he had home-field advantage with his roots in neighboring Delaware. The messy Democratic primary all but folded into Biden's lap in the end. Oh, and the popularity vote is aptly described as "a meaningless beauty contest." But despite his major weaknesses as a candidate, Biden was the right person for the job at the right time, and a whole slew of world events, including COVID-19 and George Floyd (and on a smaller level, Stacey Abrams' 2018 defeat), all boosted his was to notching just enough to win.

The book is an inside baseball, borderline salacious, beat-for-beat analysis of the 2020 election in a way that makes logic of madness, and gently reminds readers that we're still in this mess despite the victory of Biden. I learned plenty of tidbits that inform my armchair politics, though recommend it to others so I don't have to recount it all if I ever talk about it, and will continue to inform myself about the imperfect union we life in that we can only hope will bend toward improvement.

[Joseph Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the title suggests, Lucky is a telling of the 2020 election through the lens of Joe Bidens presidential bid. The central theme of the book is how Biden won the presidency through a series of ""fortunate"" events such as the chaos of the Iowa caucus, democratic infighting, a pandemic, Trump being his own worst enemy, etc.

The book is strongest in the first half with the democratic primaries. It's laden with drama of infighting, personal attacks, and campaign strategies. The book argues that Biden eeked out the nomination due to him not being the focus of ire among the democratic contenders (save for Kamala Harris in the first debate). From the progressive split between Sanders and Warren, the swift rise and fall of Bloomberg, Klobachar and Buttigeg, Biden silently rode through the storm.

The book does begin to drag a bit in the middle as the pandemic relegates Biden to his home for months. However, it does pick back up toward the back half with the debate, Trump getting covid, and ultimately the election.

The book ends with Biden getting the presidency in the days following the election. It does not go into the fallout from the election (i.e. Trumps claims of election fraud). Although the foreward of the book does mention January 6th.

Overall, this was a good book for anyone looking into more insight on the 2020 election.

[Budd Margolis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely well written and filled with Election 2020 insights. I agree with how each candidate is described and their strategies forensically dissected in a political landscape mired in division, tinged with racial discord and feudal infighting. Jonathan Allen cuts through the propaganda fog and provides crystal clear analysis, with moments of humor and loads of background and stories one does not know or can recall among all the media bias.

What many do not realize, including myself,m was how very close the Biden victory was. It was a surprise to learn that his margin was less than Trump's in 2018.

Biden was painted as too old to run, few thought he would make it, or be able to fight in the social media virtual campaign times, But he proved, despite mistakes, that when compared to any other alternative, most importantly the threat of a 2nd Trump term, he was most suited to succeed despite himself.

This approach surprised me, then delighted my fascination with how this first ever pandemic inspired virtual campaign progressed. It is beneficial to have all the stories so well crafted in one book and I know, for those politico's, this will be of great interest.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucky tells the story of the 2020 election and the person who eventually, against all odds, came out on top of it. Joe Biden, the man who was underestimated by everyone--his opponents, his friends, the media, and especially his former political partner, Barack Obama--had one of the most peculiar and unpredictable presidential runs in modern history. As a political junkie, I had been hooked on the election since January 2019, and remember all the ways the pundit class had written Biden off--he was too old, too inarticulate, had too much baggage, made too many gaffes, was past his prime, didn't excite anyone. Even as he consistently polled better than the rest of the field, the Democratic establishment didn't want him as their candidate; they wanted Kamala Harris, then Beto O'Rourke, then Elizabeth Warren, then Pete Buttigieg, then Mike Bloomberg, then Mayor Pete again. Much like Trump in 2016, Biden was thrust upon his party by the voters, and the Democrats were faced with coalescing around him or giving Trump another four years in the White House.

The world may have underestimated Joe Biden, but Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes assert that this was only one part of the story. Rather than winning solely based on his political savvy, the pair contends that Biden stumbled upon a series of freak chances that allowed him to advance from a fourth-place finish in Iowa to the US presidency: a colossal vote-tallying malfunction that distracted from said results in Iowa, embarrassing debate performances from his top competitors, a timely endorsement from Representative Jim Clyburn, a narrowing of the field on the eve of Super Tuesday, a pandemic that allowed Biden to eschew in-person campaigning, and, most importantly, the continuous self-immolation of Donald Trump, who squandered every opportunity he had to improve his standing with the American people. Put together, all this combined to give Biden the edge he needed in a handful of swing states to deliver him the presidency.

Despite what leftwing critics may infer based on the book's title, Allen and Parnes are not conservatives. Hillary Clinton did allow them to follow her around for not one, but two bestselling books about her political career, after all--HRC and Shattered--and they don't forget to mention how racist/sexist/xenophobic Trump is every fifty pages or so (although, in a rare slip-up for such accomplished journalists, they also propagate Trump's "very fine people on both sides" remark following the Charlottesville riot, which has since been heavily criticized for being taken out of context). They refuse to shy away from the many Democratic players' faults, however, which is part of what makes their work so consistently compelling. Throughout Lucky, we see how today's politicians are acutely aware of everything being said about them online, how they mobilize their digital armies, and just how willing they are to take each other out. Certain SNL parodies are revealed to have been not too far off base (Kamala the TV lawyer, Pete the Obama-drone) and there are plenty of revelations about the candidates' character and behavior. Hillary still refuses to take any blame for her 2016 loss and was seriously considering another run as late as November 2019. Amy Klobuchar despised both Buttigieg and Warren, and tried to thwart Warren's chances of being named VP by publicly encouraging Biden to choose a woman of color. Kellyanne Conway correctly predicted that the crowded primary field would help Biden rather than hurt him, and that Trump's abrasive performance in the first debate would backfire. Buttigieg's campaign manager successfully bullied a top pollster into withholding the Iowa poll results based on a technicality, which would have revealed Bernie's lead. Despite publicly condemning online shenanigans, Bernie privately delighted in and encouraged the Bernie Bros--the fanatical Sanders' stans whom Allen and Parnes have no qualms dubbing the most abusive and obnoxious of all the candidates' supporters--in their harassment of other campaigns and reporters. Like most journalists, the two have a soft spot for Warren and Buttigieg, although you can practically hear them rolling their eyes as they recount Warren's version of the conversation where Sanders supposedly "mansplained" why a woman couldn't beat Trump.

The most caustic characterization in Lucky is of Kamala Harris, who is depicted as borderline-sociopathic. The narrative never questions Harris' intelligence or drive, but it does paint her as a deeply cynical and manipulative politician who is addicted to the limelight, demeaning to her staff, reluctant to interact with her constituents, and not particularly well-liked by her colleagues. Biden was deeply hurt by her attacks on him during the first debate, and was apparently desperate to find someone, anyone, who could fill the necessary qualifications for VP in her place, before eventually resigning himself to Harris, who had the best chance of pleasing Democratic voters. We're told how Harris' primary campaign crashed and burned, and how her DNC speech failed to land (although, in a curious admission, Allen and Parnes fail to even mention her heated debate exchange with Tulsi Gabbard, where the latter sharply criticized the former's prosecutorial record, which was then followed by Harris' poll numbers plummeting shortly afterwards).

The image of Joe Biden is far less revelatory, but much more sympathetic. It's impossible not to feel for the former Vice President, who suffered a string of humiliating blows before finally hitting his stride in South Carolina, or his campaign team, who stuck with him through thick or thin, only to find themselves overshadowed by big-league staff additions once he won the nomination. Although Biden had his fair share of disastrous canvassing moments (see: "lying, dog-faced pony-soldier") he was able to connect with working-class voters in a way the eluded most of the Democratic field. Early on in Lucky, Biden notes that the working-class resents his party because they believe the Democrats look down on them. As the election progresses, and it becomes clearer that working-class people of all races are slowly migrating towards Trump and the GOP, we're reminded that Biden, who often seems so out of place among a sea of young, "woke" liberals and progressives, is also among the last remnants of a generation of Democrats who were the party of the poor and struggling, and not the cosmopolitan and highly-educated.

The writing in Lucky is strong, although it can be indulgent; we didn't need a full chapter about Trump's botched Tulsa rally, nor did we need an extended inner-monologue about Harris watching a fly rest on Mike Pence's head during the Vice Presidential debate. Yet Lucky's greatest weakness isn't in what details it analyzed, but in the ones it left out: the sexual assault allegation lobbed at Biden and covered by every major news source right as he won the Democratic nomination, the task forces he established with Sanders to please progressives, Andrew Yang and his Yang Gang, Beto's epic flame-out, Obama taking a stand against wokeness, the controversy over Sanders receiving an endorsement from Joe Rogan, the personal insults exchanged onstage between Klobuchar and Buttigeig, the concerns over Biden's health, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death and the rapid Supreme Court confirmation of Amy Coney Barret, several news outlets refusing to cover the Hunter Biden story in the weeks leading up the general election, the aforementioned Harris-Gabbard debate (or, more bizarrely, when Hillary Clinton accused Gabbard of being a Russian asset, leading to Gabbard dubbing Hillary the "queen of the warmongers" and Biden coming to Gabbard's defense when asked to comment during a press junket). All these episodes may have added more bulk to the book, but they capture much of the chaos and atmosphere of the 2020 election, and the story feels incomplete without much of it, especially for someone who watched it all happen in real-time.

All this and more occurred against a backdrop of a massive pandemic, months-long lockdowns, protests and riots following the murder of George Floyd, and the continuation of a great political realignment that may well change both parties forever. In the midst of it all, Joe Biden was a safe harbor for the American people--a calm and steady presence that promised to bring back some stability after years of turmoil. Whether it lasts remains to be seen. As of now, we can only hope for another inside account from Allen and Parnes in 2024.

[Daniel Silliman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can gulp down campaign books without taking a breath. I find them incredibly easy and fun to read, even as I harbor serious criticisms of the entire genre and increasingly think parts of the genre are simply bad.

This one, however, makes an interesting argument that cut against the genre and the industry of political operatives and made a pretty good case that Biden's victory had only a tiny little bit to do with Biden and nothing to do with his actual campaign. I think it's persuasive, and think the argument should probably go further, to challenge a lot of assumptions about political campaigns. But as far as it goes, and despite a ridiculous overuse of anonymous sources, this was worth reading.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once I finally got past the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday, I found the book to be a little more interesting. (And that was close to 40% into the book.) The beginning spent a bit too much time on the tensions in the campaign itself, which for some reason I didn't find compelling. But after Biden's campaign picked up momentum, the book's momentum picked up as well and I began to enjoy the last part as the election itself approached. The authors managed to get comments from campaign staffers from both the Biden and Trump campaigns which was really interesting to see how the folks on opposite sides saw things differently. Worth a read if you are a political junkie.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

True to the title of the book, it's amazing the party didn't cannibalize itself and that Biden pulled off a victory. My goodness, so much infighting...

Also, not sure if this is politics as usual or if we are getting a view of how the sausage is normally made, but not a fan of what transpired.

As a general note, it seemed like the narrative dragged on. I read the bulk of this while on a recent flight, as I have a related assignment due soon for a graduate course; somehow it made the flight feel even longer as time stretched on.

[Jay Gabler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Random House for the free book. Not just a chronicle of the Biden campaign, “Lucky” is an inside look at an election year like none other. Even though I knew how it would end, I couldn’t put it down.