Biden is leading literally every serious poll in the OP link, always with Sanders in second, far ahead of the third place finisher.
One interesting recent poll had Biden leading Sanders 28-25, one of Sanders’ better polls. But that poll also asked who voters would choose if Biden didn’t run, and then Sanders led Harris 32-15. Which, if I’m doing the math right, means one-quarter of Biden voters had Sanders as their second choice?! “Ideology be damned, I just want a really, really old white guy!”.
Or that Biden and Sanders share the group that says “I will at this point choose between choices that I think I already know enough about.”
Which is more than just name recognition. People feel they well know who Biden and Sanders are. I don’t think so many can say that about Harris or even Warren, let alone the rest of the pack.
In 2015 we were wondering if Scott Walker or Jeb Bush would be the nominee. Months later, Scott was out and Jeb was pleading with a small crowd “Please clap”.
Plenty of time to sort things out. Best thing for the Democrats is for Biden to jump in. This really crowds out Bernie, who has to share the left plank with Warren and the old white guy lane with Biden.
For me, it’s all about the industrial Midwest. For point of reference: I was a union organizer for 16 years, including 2014-2017 with the Michigan AFL-CIO.
Originally, my top two were Brown and Biden. Now I’m actually leaning Biden and Sanders. Why? These two seem to have the most support with blue-collar families in the Midwest, specifically every union member I know in Michigan. Union members I know in Michigan were and still are most excited about Sanders (there was some serious donating going on on Bernie’s announcement day)- but they also like Biden. And unless something drastically changes, they probably won’t jump for joy for Kamala or Beto or Booker or Butteigeg or Castro or Gillibrand or Gabbard.
Personally, and I know this is anecdotal, but my rule of thumb is who will my Uncle George and Cousin Dylan vote for? One is a retired railroad worker in the Detroit area (66 years old), the other is currently a utility worker and a member of the UWUA, also in Metro Detroit (33 years old). Both voted for Obama; one sat out '16 and the other voted for Trump. Both would vote for Biden over Trump in a heartbeat. As far as Sanders goes, one would absolutely vote for him, and the other would probably vote for him with the right running mate (a vet like Duckworth, ferinstance).
So, yes, there are people on this Board who have Biden and Sanders 1 and 2. If, between now and 2020, some other candidate convinces me they can do better than B & S in the industrial Midwest, I’ll be happy to support them.
I rather like that metric. Obviously most of us don’t know your Uncle George and Cousin Dylan, but most of us do know people who voted for Obama but then didn’t vote for Clinton, and those are exactly the sort of people we need to be winning back.
What about Klobuchar or Hickenlooper? Hickenlooper is a long-shot, but Amy Klobuchar is at least as likely to be the nominee as several you do name. (Is Minnesota considered part of the Rust Belt region?)
Disclaimer: I don’t have evidence that Klobuchar is a great heroine or inspiration. I persist in recommending her by process of elimination. I have great fear that some of the front-runners have “faults”, whether real or imagined, that could lead to miserable failure in the general election.
Klobuchar? No, she honestly fails my George and Dylan litmus test. I just don’t see any way she would catch fire in union halls, and by extension union households. She’s already forced to impossibly balance between being seen as a ball-busting bitch and being too “Minnesota nice” to actually beat Trump. Everything she does will likely be picked apart through those two lenses. Plus, and I know it’s 100% sexist, she’s a bit frumpy, like Hillary, which unfortunately doesn’t help with these guys.
To win the union/blue collar vote, you need a candidate to catch fire within this population. Trump did, Sanders did, Obama did, Biden probably could. On the flip side, “Hillary hatred” also caught fire in the union halls, which led Uncle George and his wife to just skip voting for president last time (they also hatred Trump). I could see “Klobuchar hatred” catching fire too in union households and halls, for better or for worse. And from what I’ve seen, she’s not a great speaker.
This blue collar population also rarely makes political donations, outside of money they give to their union PAC. (Bernie has proven to be the exception to this.) So that means Amy would have to look to other small donors to fill her coffers, and being from Minnesota and largely unknown, she’s already at a disadvantage compared to Sanders, Harris, and probably Biden and Beto. If she can’t raise money, she can’t get her message out, no matter how fantastic it might be.
Okay, thanks for your two nickels, Happy Lendervedder. It makes me sad though. I’m not fond of Bernie’s chances, so are we dependent on Joe Biden? An aging nice guy who wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree even when he was younger?
Polls of the [Democratic race continue to show Biden with a lead over Sanders, sometimes a small lead, sometimes a larger one. The third place contender is always way back. Actually, there was one poll last month (out of like 30) where Sanders held him to a draw.
What’s interesting to me – I know we talked about it above – is that there are now more polls indicating that without Biden in the race, Sanders would be a huge frontrunner. Two national polls show him leading by 17-19 points, and another has him winning Alabama by 10 points! (With Biden in that race, he beats Sanders by 29)
In thegeneral election polls, there’s a consistent picture of all the top-tier Democrats beating Trump (not the lesser-known ones, though, who generally lose to Trump, but with a huge number of undecideds; it appears independents aren’t necessarily on the anyone-in-the-freaking-world-but-Trump wagon). Mirroring the Democratic polls, Biden always does the best against Trump, and Sanders is always next.
Although there were some lower-rated polls showing Trump doing well in PA and MI, polls of the PA/MI/WI group generally look very good for the Democrats; one suggests that with Biden or Sanders as the nominee, even Iowa might be within reach. OTOH, a recent poll shows Trump running strongly in Nevada, with only Biden beating him, and that barely.
Big picture is that, especially recently, Biden seems to be pulling away from Sanders; there’s even one poll in which Warren beats out Bernie for second (although, to be fair, there’s also now one poll which has Sanders leading).
A couple polls show Beto with a lead in Texas. That’s a good sign for him; home-state popularity is a good early predictor of success.
Possibly the most striking result there is the South Carolina polls, showing Biden ahead…but if Biden isn’t among the choices, Sanders wins! Even in a Biden-free environment, Harris and Booker only get 27% between them, in a State where the Democratic electorate is two-thirds black. Presumably those candidates expected African-Americans to be their base; by that measure, it doesn’t seem to be going too well for either of them. (Oh yeah, there were three polls of California this month, two won by Sanders and one by Biden; more less-than-great news for Team Kamala).
General election polls continue to indicate that Biden is our best matchup against Trump, with Sanders a clear, though distant, second.
Happy news in the months’ swing State polling: One poll shows ALL the Democrats beating Trump in Wisconsin, while a poll of PA/MI/WI showed Sanders beating Trump by 8-11 point margins (it didn’t ask about other Dems).
At this point in '08, I think the majority of black Democrats supported Hillary Clinton. I think it’s still too early to be making much of these polls.
That’s right, they did. I think black Dems place a lot of value on “electability” and question whether black candidates can appeal to white voters. IIRC, Obama’s black support only surged after he addressed that issue by winning Iowa. It appears that that dynamic hasn’t changed in the last twelve years.
Doubt that is it this time. Then Black voters by and large were not thinking enough whites would vote for a Black candidate … they now know that is not true. They have other reasons that they like Biden and just are not choosing based on shared identity alone.
Dig into the crosstabs of the HarrisX/Rasmussen poll - on the question of favorable to unfavorable (not the who would you vote for) his strongest approval is among Black Democrats at 62%(!) strong approval and 78% approval overall. The same demographic says they will vote for him too, but not by as much. That’s at 49%.
OK, but it looks like SC Democrats also have “reasons” for preferring Sanders, Buttigieg or Warren over Harris or Booker. Black candidates aren’t doing any better there than they are in New Hampshire.
The race is young and Biden and Bernie are far and away the best known contenders at this time. Warren and Harris are distant 2nd and 3rd. There was actually an interesting article about he “media primary” a week or so ago that talked about this and how these four are already well ahead of everyone else.
While it’s early, I still think the 2020 polls serve a useful purpose as a baseline and a starting point for discussion particularly for established candidates like Biden, Sanders and Warren.
I think Biden’s numbers accurately capture his broad appeal to the working class. While he will undoubtedly be attacked in a general election, I think most people have a reasonably good idea of who he is and I don’t think his numbers will change all that much. At this stage I would back him to win the general if he wins the nomination. Some of the left attacks he will face in the primary may actually increase his appeal to moderates.
Sanders also has a certain working class appeal but I also think he is the most vulnerable to a classic 1980’s Atwater-style Republican attack campaign. There is enough weird lefty stuff in his background which hasn’t really been aired but will be perfect fodder for attack ads targeted at older voters. I don’t actually think Trump is a very skilled attack politician (he is too undisciplined to sustain a consistent line of attack) but presumably he will be able to hire competent operatives who can cut decent ads.
Warren polls the worst but I think she has the most upside potential. I think the Native American stuff is already baked into her numbers and not all that damaging anyway but she has a compelling personal story which ties with her policy message. As a general election candidate I would put her above Sanders but still well below Biden.
In terms of what, media coverage? In the polls they haven’t separated themselves from Beto, Mayor Pete, and Warren. Those five pretty consistently finish third through seventh in some order.
Maybe they have similar reasons as other Democrats have elsewhere?
Sanders is Jewish. I’m Jewish. Is there an expectation that I should prefer him over other candidates? I most definitely do not. Shared identity can help a candidate but it very often is not the prime driver.
I have great fear that some of the front-runners have “faults”, whether real or imagined, that could lead to miserable failure in the general election.
I’m not fond of Bernie’s chances, so are we dependent on Joe Biden? An aging nice guy who wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree even when he was younger?