I think the GOP race offers a good comparison. One, depth doesn't actually matter that much because you only nominate one person. The "deep bench" for the GOP extended to 4 or 5 people with Tim Scott and he's already out of the race. Only one of Haley and DeSantis will make it to Super Tuesday and they might be DOA against Trump by that point as well. From that perspective, stopping at 3 like Faz suggested would probably be reasonable. I do think that all the names on my list would beat Trump though. And given that DeSantis is extremely unlikeable, I think they'd have a good shot against him too. I think even Harris would have a pretty good chance against Trump, though she's a long ways from the best option. Against Haley I think it's a coin flip or worse for the names on my list, but would depend on how the campaign and the economy play out over the next year.

But if you do a side-by-side on depth of talent on the Dems' bench vs. the GOP, I think it's easy to make analogies between DeSantis and Haley and some of the Dem governors. Whitmer cruised to reelection in a swing state in 2022, just like DeSantis. Warnock has the same amount of experience in the Senate that Obama had when he won and has won 2 races in Georgia since 2020. Shapiro is green, but the GOP was talking about drafting Youngkin--who is even greener--up until the VA elections went against him last week. Whitmer, Pritzker, Polis, and Newsom all have comparable experience (2 terms as governor) to Haley, but just lack the UN ambassador line on the resume. Booker and Warner probably wouldn't be the nominee, but their resumes beat Haley's as well.

This is all a way of saying that panic over the depth of talent on the Dems is misplaced IMO. There's plenty of young talent. The issue is that taking Biden off the top of the ticket would be messy and bypassing Harris to run an open primary late in the process would be even messier.