Eh, I’d probably still lean towards Inslee if it meant anything. But it almost certainly doesn’t - he’s going nowhere fast.
Last time I leaned towards O’Malley. That didn’t exactly take off either ;).
At a certain point you get what you get. I don’t care for sweet tea, but it is better than drinking sewage. Most likely we’re getting Biden, maybe Harris, maybe Warren. Probably not, though. Everyone else is a dark horse in a coal mine, including Sanders IMHO.
It might, or it might not. I have to admit that I was absolutely stunned at how poorly prepared Biden was for the attacks he sustained by Kamala Harris in the first debate.
If Biden is thinking about confronting Harris and taking her on directly, I’m not so sure that’s a great idea. Harris is a bad-ass who can think on her feet, and she’s very, very well-prepared for debates.
Of course, we’re assuming it’s Harris who attacks Biden this time; it might be someone completely different.
My guess is Biden will be careful. He’ll have a couple zingers ready for the main opponents but mostly hold to the game plan: like he’s already running against Trump.
I think Harris will try a brand new track for sure. I’m sure she got an earful from the DSeid-like members of her advisers. Can’t be as personal a reference either. It would look like a shtick. I’m going to think on this.
Huh, this is weird.
Mr. Sanders is supposed to be the “socialist” candidate, but some of his campaign workers are taking their grievance before the NLRB. That is not good optics for him, I think.
I am of the suspicion Cory Booker is only running to stop Biden. I know nothing about what he is for and he entered the race fairly early. But I have seen several digs at Biden and I expect him to be the one who really goes after him.
This!
Could this be your younger, midwestern white knight?
“As 20 Democrats debated on national television, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and his wife, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz, texted each other a running critique of the candidates.
This was not just another politically engaged couple talking about the 2020 race.
“You can’t help but think, ‘I could have done that better,’” Mr. Brown recalled in an interview…”
He had his chance to make that decision and declined. Yes, he would have likely have been a very good candidate (even if his win cost a Senate seat). He didn’t have the spine for it though. Seller’s remorse? Little sympathy.
I saw a poll on Morning Joe (a Fox poll?) showing Biden beating Moscow Don by 10 points nationwide and handily ahead in Ohio. No other candidate comes close to those numbers. Maybe Biden isn’t your ideal candidate and maybe he isn’t perfectly aligned with your politics. Tough. The US needs to defeat Donald in this election if democracy is to survive. Put your best foot forward, and that foot belongs to Joe.
“Who would you vote for in theory” polls at this point don’t mean anything. This poll really doesn’t at all tell you how, say, Kamala Harris would really do.
Much of the gap between Biden and Harris (or Buttegieg (sp?) or whomever) in such a poll is recognition. Biden is much, much, much better known across America than even major candidates - even Elizabeth Warren. But in November 2020, that gap in awareness won’t exist for whomever won the nomination.
Yes, a lot of Biden’s poll numbers is name recognition. But I think he can hold the left and the center simultaneously, something others cannot do.
Of the top tier, the only one I see having a chance in the general election is Harris. I can’t see Joe Sixpack getting home from the factory and saying “Yep, I’m going to vote for that screechy liberal woman from Massachusetts”, or “I’m going to vote for that old man from The Muppet Show balcony who openly calls himself a socialist”, or “I’ll vote for a mayor of a modestly sized city.” Why run so far left of the Republicans and cede the center lane?
Thing is we are getting into a shifting the goalposts territory when it comes to Biden’s polling.
He was leading the pack several months before he even entered the race. And the common wisdom at that point was: name recognition. That he would drop as other candidates who formally declared their candidacy made their pitch.
Then when he had the bad news week about being too handsy the pundits were saying this is the beginning of the unravelling and that he may not even enter the race now.
Then when he entered the race we were told the first day would be his best and from then on his numbers would dip. Well his numbers held up fairly well until the first debate where he took a big hit. And now they’ve recovered a bit.
At some point the polls have to be taken as a judge that while being the weakest frontrunner the Democrats have had since the 1980s, he is the frontrunner in his own right. Because his campaign has been on the end of hitjobs from his left, self-inflicted wounds from his foot in mouth comments and a media that no longer sees Uncle Joe as the charismatic and affable lout of the Obama years but a relic from the past…the polls maintain his status as the one to beat. And the polls are rank and file democrats. Name recognition isn’t always a positive when your name is used in criticism but until someone nails a knockout punch he just keeps getting up.
IMO Elizabeth Warren can dismantle Biden on the debate stage by making the contrast between her and him, rather than going personal. But she won’t have that chance until September.
Historically, some of the poll shifting can occur even after the first one or two debates. A lot of Americans don’t start paying close attention until we get closer to the primaries. As comfortable as Biden’s lead over the candidates is, there’s still time for some shifting.
That said, the most discouraging sign, particularly for Kamala Harris, is Biden’s continued strength in Southern states, which is the territory that Harris is probably banking on to have any chance to win. I see Warren winning only if she can knock Sanders out of the race. Harris is arguably the candidate with the best chance of clearing out her own trail, but she’ll have to convince Southern Black voters that it’s she, and not Biden, who is the party’s best chance for beating Trump. And while Biden got beaned in that first debate, he’s pretty much recovered from that.
Sanders is as well known as Biden at this point. Warren nearly so. Hell Morning Consult has even Harris with only 14% having not heard of her. And if all of those who haven’t heard of her decided they liked her she’d still be behind Biden in favorability.
National head to heads are not of predictive value for November 2020 outcomes but this is NOT just name recognition. It is this snapshot of time a real thing that he is preferred to Trump and others are not. Including in frikken Ohio.
Yes, things can change and often do change. But it does mean what is true right now, between several D choices that are known names.
That’s kinda what I’m thinking as well. Harris doesn’t need to take digs at Biden this time; she got hers in. Booker will be trying to make a name for himself, and he’s not one to shy away from a good fight.
Speaking of Ohio, I’ve rejected the notion that Ohio is a completely red state; it’s a purple state that leans red, which is the way it’s been since at least the early 2000s. Ohio has not fundamentally changed that much in the last two decades, IMO. If anything, some cities like Columbus and Cleveland have brought in a modest immigrant population that probably tends to lean blue.
But Ohio is America’s Heartland, and any candidate that emerges from the Democratic scrum is going to have to reckon with that. To that extent, I would also submit that Iowa and Wisconsin are not that much different, though Wisconsin might be slightly more Democrat-friendly and Iowa slightly more Republican-friendly. The bottom line is, these states are still very much in play but only to Democrats with broad centrist appeal. I really don’t see Warren or Sanders winning in any of these states unless Trump is just horribly, impeachably unpopular.
The biggest difference between 2016 on the one hand, and 2008 and 2012 on the other, was in working-class households. Historically, those have been mostly Democratic, because of unions, but in 2016, they felt that Clinton was taking them for granted and ignoring them, and went for Trump. But nobody would think that Sanders or Warren is ignoring working-class folks. So, yes, those two really could beat Trump in key states like Ohio. Will they? I don’t know. They could fail in completely different ways than Clinton did. But they certainly can.
I’m not sure the key to winning Ohio is trying to woo back the white working class, although it would be nice to lose them by as much.
My concern with the Midwest is how much the demographics may have changed with brain drain of younger and college educated people moving out of the lousy climate of the Midwest. Or, if they’re not moving because of weather, they’re moving to more urban places like NYC, Boston, Chicago. and DC. I think the recession caused a lot of people to stay put, but now with a low jobless rate, a lot of people with the ability to move are doing so. So, I think those states are going to be tougher over the next few elections as the Midwest becomes older and less educated.
Agreed. Clinton carried Ohio twice by pluralities with Perot in the race; Obama carried it by majorities both times. Trump won it by 8.6%, but is underwater in polling here now. No Republican has ever lost Ohio and won the White House, and a good Democrat could definitely carry the state next year.
Really? What sort of numbers was Obama polling at this time? 2007? Infinitesimal, iirc.