Biden will regret jumping in. He is badly leaking support in recent polls.
The DMR poll on Saturday showed him leading in Iowa, as an undeclared candidate.
Sure - but his support is trending down, and he has arguably the most name recognition in the field. Same poll had him at 32% in December, down to 27% now.
Well, yeah. Because all of the other candidates in that poll – save Beto – have declared and are actively campaigning, and Joe has been keeping a fairly low profile over the last few months and was even on vacation for a few weeks out of the country.
Polls this far out are fairly meaningless. Sanders and Biden are by far the ones with name recognition. It’ll be interesting once the Biden gaffe machine gathers full steam (but then again maybe gaffes just don’t matter any more. Just so long that he doubles down and never admits fault.)
Here’s why I think Harris has more of a chance despite the low numbers:
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She has the lowest recognition of the three, so she has more room to go up.
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There’s a lot of folks who don’t want an old white man, they are going to swing to Harris
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Super Tuesday should be very good for her- with Southern States dominated by minorities and her home state- if she doesn’t do well in IA/NH, she just needs a decent showing in SC or NV to show viability, and those are also good states for her.
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I think she’s more likely to benefit as the 2nd-tier candidates drop out, except for Warren (who will help Bernie if/when she drops out)
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She likely wins a 3-way brokered convention if Biden and Bernie play to a draw as the compromise candidate, as she’s between Biden and Bernie. Biden and Bernie supporters are going to despise each other as this wears on , as their visions aren’t compatible.
as for Mayor Pete, he’s not winning, but he’d be a great VP to one of the geezers, and if not that, I’d love to see him in a major cabinet role to strengthen the bench.
Buttigieg Bubble!
Apparently that’s pronounced “boot-edge-edge”, according to Mr. Buttigieg himself. That’s not too hard to remember.
Preet Bharara in his interview last week said “It’s easy to remember - what do you do with a bad judge? You boot-a-judge”, and mayor pete went with it.
Listen at 15:43 on…
Recent WaPo article said it was pronounced Buddha Judge 🤷
His campaign theme song needs to be a sing-along on how to say his goddamn name.
Please to be watching Mayor Pete’s debate, where he basically admits his husband says it “buddha judge” but he says “boot-edge-edge”. (As the possessor of an impossible-to-pronounce last name, I can tell you that by age 15 or so, you answer to anything fairly close and are happy someone’s made an effort…) ;)
At any rate, in other candidate news, Nate Silver announces that entrepreneur Andrew Yang is likely to get the 65,000 individual donors he needs to be part of the main-stage debates this year. So I guess we start including him when we talk major candidates.
I’m not trying to be a jerk, but your comment that “there’s a lot of folks who don’t want an old white man” is probably countered by two people for every one of those who are swing voters that want exactly that and won’t vote for a younger person of any color.
Joe Biden probably has some skeletons in his closet that the more progressive part of the Democratic party won’t like, but I think he’s probably the most electable of anyone who has entered or is thinking of entering right now. He will play really well among all the people who were in the middle in the last election IMO.
Pete-mentum!
Maybe, but if he doesn’t convince the true believers in the primaries, he won’t get the chance.
I don’t think there is any decent track record for predicting the nominee this far out unless there is an effective incumbent (e.g. Gore in 2000). The pundits / polls were wrong in 2008 (Clinton), in 2004 (Dean), in 1992 (Tsongas), in 1988 (Hart).
I think he’ll have the true believers, though. If Joe is one thing, he’s the consummate politician.
If this is the week of the under under dog, I’d like to see some Inslee virality!
Yangmentum!
Yangular momentum!