2020 Democratic Primary Draft, October 2018
Picked by Clare Geoff Sarah Nate
1 Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Joe Biden
2 Eric Holder, Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders
3 Michael Avenatti, Amy Klobuchar, Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown
4 Dwayne Johnson, John Hickenlooper, Mazie Hirono, Oprah Winfrey
5 Michelle Obama, Deval Patrick, John Delaney, Eric Garcetti
6 Mitch Landrieu, Andrew Gillum, Jay Inslee, Doug Jones
The Rock is ahead of Deval Patrick? Okay then.
I trust Nate on numbers. Polls at this point are useless and I have no reason to trust his political analysis. That list is meaningless.
Lighten up, Francis. It’s not meant to be trenchant analysis.
Hickenlooper after the Rock makes no sense, nor does him, Sherrod Brown, and Amy Klobuchar all after Avenatti. There’s no reason to even mix the real candidates and the jokes in the same list at all.
And yes, I know that two years ago, a joke candidate beat all of the serious candidates. But that was on the Republican side. Both sides don’t do it.
This isn’t an official FiveThirtyEight ranking of candidates. It’s four of their staffers doing a mock draft of the candidates. I wouldn’t take it any more seriously than I would a mock fantasy football draft. Plus, it was from before the midterms. A lot’s happened since then.
In other words, this was a fluff piece done for fun by the writers at 538, and it’s already outdated. Let’s not get hung up on the candidates’ order.
Also, Johnson is a registered Independent.
No Hillary, even with a 6th round pick?
I mean, I hope she stays silent and as far away as possible, but I have to believe she’s one of the 24 most likely Democrats to win the nomination.
Well, when you have obvious big name front runners like Oprah and the Rock, someone has to get dropped off the list.
This isn’t even their most recent draft, but unfortunately they’ve switched to doing these via video:
The joke is the media on a left-leaning site think they are real candidates. They are not alone.
I’m not even sure what the Rock is. Oprah for sure is a Democrat and has spent some time in politics. To run would destroy her brand of trust with millions of people, depending on what she says. Yes-- I think if Oprah ran, she would get support, and she ceritnaly has enough of her own money to spend. I also think Trump would demolish her.
But both sides ***could ***do it. No, the Dems are ***not **immune, especially if they get desperate or overeager. I mean, we’ve seen each of the two parties in the past try to present themselves as the serious party and proceed to blow it. While OTOH the one time that the GOP says, oh fck it let’s go Full Raving Reality TV Wacko, they go all the way. Wrong lessons are being learned.
I agree with you on every point but the last: Oprah would get destroyed by fellow Democrats showing how gullible she is and how she’s supported seriously cranky and woo-heavy bullshit in the past.
Well, Oprah could be destroyed from within jus like you said, but suppose she has the Obama’s or Clinton’s support? Not too far-fetched, then the establishment would treat her with kid gloves. At least I think so.
The race should have at least one front-running state governor it yet there are none.
I’ve mentioned here before that I thought Oprah—provided she was prepared at least as well as Trump was for things like debates and other campaign tasks—would beat the snot out of most challengers. Including Trump, if ‘he gets caught in bed with a naked business recession.’
Really though, I chimed in to point out that Hickenlooper is a front-running state Gov, and he’s on line 4. Jay Inslee should count too, though I think Hickenlooper’s got greater experience and more appeal to the middle. And then there’s Deval Patrick, who should at least do better than the last time a MA Governor ran for President. Mitch Landrieu made Lieutenant Gov. No idea if it’s as powerful a position as LG is in Texas.
How about James Mattis as a true wild card? Half of the Trump supporters who’ve bothered to think about it, suspect that the former Secretary’s a closet leftist anyway?
Just out of idle curiosity: Back in the 1950s, when Eisenhower’s handlers were worried that Americans would have trouble with a “funny” name, they wisely decided to emphasize “Ike” as the way to refer to the candidate.
Would Hickenlooper go with “Hick”?..that would create some obvious problems.
“I like the Loop.”
The race should be HRC running for re-election yet here we are. 
"Should"s really need not apply at this point.
I don’t know if he “goes” by it, exactly–but some people refer to him that way. It certainly has not created any problems for him yet.
Except for the bitter schism, about to erupt, between Loopers and Hickers!
(maybe)