Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard and the rest.

On December 31st, 2018, Elizabeth Warren announced that she was forming an exploratory committee to consider a run for president. This is the first step many candidates take in their journey for the presidency, and Warren is already touring through early states like Iowa and New Hampshire. It would be, to put it mildly, pretty damn unprecedented for her to not run for president after announcing an exploratory committee.

I have been pretty bullish on Elizabeth Warren in the past, but she’s had some rough patches since I published my last entry on this blog: bad net favorability ratings, dwindling enthusiasm, poll numbers falling, etc. And let’s not forget the whole DNA test debacle. All in All, the senator from Massachussets has seen her stock in the upcoming primary decline in the last month.

However, she still is one of the leaders of the progressive movement in the Democratic Party, and even if her results end up underwhelming she would need to be shut down before she wasn’t a force to contend with anymore. What I’m trying to say is: Senator Warren is going to be a pretty formidable candidate, and most other candidates who plan on winning are going to have to deal with her very high ceiling of possible support.

Candidates like Elizabeth Warren work because she appeals to both Party Loyalists (as Nate Silver calls them) and the left. She has been very progressive on a wide range of issues; from Medicare-for-all to free college, while also being part of senate leadership. She has influence inside the Senate’s Democratic caucus and has worked with leadership since she was elected in 2012.

I have already talked extensively about Warren in different entries, so I won’t repeat myself. But her running doesn’t only impact her chances.

Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont was probably counting on an Elizabeth Warren run not happening, as they both have strength among Millennials and the left. If Warren hadn’t run, then Sanders would probably have had more of a base to build upon and, consequently, an easier time. Sanders doesn’t seem to be going back on his efforts to run though, and POLITICO just released a piece about how he has «staffed up» recently, so who knows. Most relevant candidates should have announced by March, April at the latest, and the campaign will start to heat up soon thereafter when the first debate happens in June.

Another candidate that has announced her candidacy recently is Tulsi Gabbard, representative from Hawaii. I don’t believe Gabbard will really register at all in polls or debates, purely because there are so many attack lines. The social-conservative views that she used to hold, her meetings with Assad, etc. She has said that she has left her conservative views behind, but a lot of people are still skeptical. Just look at a recent debacle, where the congresswoman called senator Mazie Hirono «bigoted» for opposing the nomination of a catholic judge with a conservative record (Gabbard has gone on to oppose his nomination).

To point out another example of just how problematic her past views may be, just look at how she referred to a newspaper approaching her for a comment when she was still a state senator. Long story short, she called them the «homosexual extremists of Ed Case». A lot of voters may hear that and think «yuck. I’m not voting for her.».

Given everything I just mentioned, It’s hard to see her making a breakthrough. Her candidacy is predicated on progressive values, but they may be hard to reconcile with her past views and some present actions. If it was my choice, I would put Gabbard below the top 10 candidates that are most likely to win the nomination. Betting markets think there’s a 20% it won’t be on of the top 10 folks, so Gabbard is sharing a not-so-big percentage with a lot of people. We’ll see how this unfolds, but it’s hard to see her winning the presidency. After all, she may just want to gain a national profile.

We are far from over though. Kirsten Gillibrand is supposed to announce her run tommorow on the Colbert report (Tuesday). Harris and Booker are both expected to make announcements before the end of January. Sanders is starting up the old campaign machine he had been saving since 2016. Other prominent Democrats like Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke and Joe Biden are reportedly very close to a decision. And some lower tier candidates like Julián Castro and the aforementioned Tulsi Gabbard have already announced their intentions and are getting out the door quick. The 2020 machine is gearing up, and you won’t hear it stop working until November of next year. I say: god bless.

To anyone who has been wondering where I was for the past couple months, I was finishing exams and enjoying the Holidays. Didn’t really feel like writing back then, but I’m back in shape.

Mike Espy does have a shot. It’s also not a very good one.

On November 6th, 35 elections to the senate took place. Most of them weren’t that competitive, but a couple stuck out as potentially very interesting. Indiana, Missouri and West Virginia had democratic incumbents in red states who could be in trouble. However, today we’re not going to talk about that, because those races are pretty done and dusted. We’re here to talk about the only senate election that is yet to be called, the Mississippi special election.

The election is taking place today, on Tuesday November 27th, because it is a runoff, which means no one candidate surpassed 50% of the vote in the first round where there were 2 republicans and 2 democrats. So, the race moved forwards to today and eliminated everyone on the ballot but the top two vote-getters, who were republican Hyde-Smith and democrat Espy.

Let’s be real here: incumbent senator Cindy Hyde-Smith is a pretty heavy favorite, and that’s the case for a couple of resons:

1: Mississippi is a very red state, among the reddest in the country.
2: Mississippi is a very inelastic state, that is to say, there aren’t many swing voters.

However, there’s also a couple of reasons why we’re in this mess. For one, Hyde-Smith is an incumbent, yes, but she’s an appointed incumbent, not an elected one. What that means is that this is her first time facing the voters, because she’s been appointed to the office by the governor because of the death or retirement of another senator. In this case, it was senator Thad Cochran who resigned. This may seem minor, but appointed incumbents typically do worse than elected ones. Just look at Minnesota’s two senate races this cycle. Both of the victors were democrats, but elected incumbent Amy Klobuchar won by a very wide 30% margin, while appointed incumbent Tina Smith won by a comparatively anemic 10%.

However, the most important reason are Hyde-Smith’s inflammatory comments on race. She joked about attending a public hanging to a supporter, and she also talked about making it harder for liberals to vote. In case you couldn’t tell, THESE AREN’T THINGS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SAY. She has, apparently, gotten away with a half-apology-but-not-really, but this is probably the main reason why this race is competitive. Probably the worst part about the comments is Mississippi’s history of lynchings, being the worst offender among all the states way back when. Truly, Hyde-Smith has proven to be an incredibly inept candidate.

So those are Hyde-Smith’s weaknesses, but what are Espy’s strong points? Let’s go through a couple of them.

First off, he’s a very good candidate. He’s a former Secretary of Agriculture during the Clinton administration and he also was a longtime Congressman from Mississippi’s only blue district. He’s a well trained, well prepared candidate for the job, and he has put up more of a fight than some former city council member would have.

Furthermore, the timing of the election could favor Espy. This is happening a couple of short days after Thanksgiving, so folks who aren’t energized by a campaign may not even realize that they are being called to go to the polls today. If the turnout is similar to those of a special election, then he can make it close.

So, what would an Espy win look like? It’s actually pretty simple: bolstered turnout among black communities, probably needs to go a bit higher than on election day, and depressed turnout among white republicans. If that’s what happens today, then it’ll be very interesting. However, if there are any exit polls that fundamentally contradict this narrative (I don’t know if exit polls will be conducted), then Espy’s probably toast.

And how likely is an Espy win? Nate Silver says it’s around 15%, and I agree. That’s the range where it really could happen and it’s pretty unlikely, so prepare yourself. Mentally. It might be a long night.

2020 candidates ranked.

It’s been a week since I started my «The case for» series, and I’ve writen about all the major candidates and three minor ones since. On Sunday, I promised that today I would bring you my power ranking of 2020 democratic presidential contenders, a mere 15 months away from the Iowa caucuses. I’m not going to beat around the bush now, but I’m going to do a whole lot of that after the ranking itself, so there’s no shortage of information. Without further ado, here they are:

1: Joe Biden.
2: Elizabeth Warren.
3: Bernie Sanders.
4: Beto O’Rourke.
5: Kamala Harris.
6: Amy Klobuchar.
7: Cory Booker.
8: Kirsten Gillibrand.
9: Sherrod Brown.
10: Steve Bullock.

Some of you may be shaking your clenched fists at the screen in rage, wondering how I could be so stupid to put Harris in 5th or Sanders in 3rd, etc. Just hear me out, ok?

We’ll go from bottom to top, and look at each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.

10: Steve Bullock: Steve Bullock’s standing in a hypothetical 2020 primary has greatly diminished, at least in my opinion. He’s a moderate governor from the midwest who has been elected thrice to statewide office in a red-ish state, so he could have appeal with rural voters. However, what he was probably hoping for was a lesser wave by Democrats or no wave at all, so that the more moderate narrative about how the party has moved too far to the left would be more palatable among the party’s base. His best chance at staying in public life will probably come from challenging senator Steve Daines, rather than a run for president.

9: Sherrod Brown: the senator from Ohio has proven that he has appeal beyond partisanship, as he won reelection with a comfortable 6% margin while democratic candidate for governor Richard Cordray lost by 4%. He’s part of the populist-progressive wing of the democratic party, somewhere close to Beto O’Rourke, and he would have more appeal in the midwest than other candidates would. He’s also publicly mused about a 2020 campaign, so it’s not like he’s a Michelle Obama. He would be a force to be reckoned with.

8: Kirsten Gillibrand: the junior senator from New York has moved decisively to the left in recent months. She was the first member of the senate to call for abolishing ICE, she’s no longer taking corporate/PAC money, she has endorsed medicare-for-all, called for a 15$/hour minimum wage and criticized Amazon’s opening of an HQ in Queens. She would certainly be a well-funded candidate from a populous state, but she would have to explain some very moderate votes from back when she represented upstate New York.

7: Cory Booker: Booker is an eloquent, charismatic speaker, and he has also moved to the left recently, in a similar way to Kirsten Gillibrand. I’m pretty Booker skeptical for 2 reasons, though: 1- He’s not well liked among progressives for his dealings with Big Pharma, and 2- he may turn off moderates with his newfound lefty message. He could turn out to be a great candidate or a paper tiger, but we’ll just have to see.

6: Amy Klobuchar: it would be hard to imagine a worse year for a candidate like Klobuchar to really shine, because she would almost certainly be the front-runner in a year like 2016 if she had gotten the type of attention that she’s getting now. She’s eloquent, soft-spoken, comes across as truthful and she’s also more of a centrist, which means she could be a female alternative to folks who don’t want to back Biden. She could be a very good candidate, but she’s fighting for the same lane as Biden, and it’s unlikely that she’d emerge victorious from that fight. Oh, and she won reelection in a landslide.

5: Kamala Harris: you may have deducted from my piece on her a couple of days ago that I’m a little bit Harris-skeptical, and you would be correct. I don’t think she’s doing as much as she needs to do to have as good of a shot as folks on CNN think she does. She would, presumably, be a good unity candidate between black voters and the more liberal wing of the party, but none of those groups strike me as incredibly enthusiastic for her. I don’t know, maybe I’m just stupid, but I don’t see it.

4: Beto O’Rourke: I’m still not sure what to make of O’Rourke’s hypothetical campaign, or whether he would actually have a lane to run in. But I basically think there’s 2 ways this can go: either he runs a grassroots campaign that’s very energizing and convinces moderates in the general, or tries to be a unity candidate in the primaries and goes down in flames. We’ll just have to wait; we’re not even all that sure on whether he’s running or not.

3: Bernie Sanders: some people may think this is too high, some may think it’s too low, but I think that it’s about right. The senator from Vermont has proven that he can win over votes by mounting an incredibly competitive challenge to Secretary Clinton in 2016, and he’s currently second in public national polling. The only reason why he’s third and not second in my ranking is because I think Warren is more likely to convince Sanders that it’s her moment than the other way around. But if Bernie runs and Warren doesn’t, then Bernie moves up a spot, perhaps even two.

2: Elizabeth Warren: she is the darling of the left wing of the party and a political behemoth; she has made a name for herself in a matter of a couple of years and has been able to fight for both sides of the aisle occasionally. She just seems like an actually good unity candidate, which is something that’s pretty rare these days. While I’m sure a lot of progressives wouldn’t vote for her because she’s not «pure enough», most would pull the lever for her over someone like Biden in a heartbeat. And establishment dems are largely okay with her too, seemingly classifying her as «good enough».

1: Joe Biden: I’m not sure I’ve thoroughly convinced myself that Biden still deserves to be number one, and it also doesn’t feel right. But it feels less wrong, and that’s really what matters. Biden is a mainstay in democratic party politics, a familiar face, and most democrats would be perfectly fine with him. The reason why he’s so high is that he’s likely to crush anyone in the moderate lane of the primary, thus securing that part of the electorate for him. Bernie, Warren, Harris, Booker, Gillibrand: they would all have to fight for the same voters. Biden doesn’t need to do that. Oh, and he’s polling first.

I’m sure people will have their disagreements, I personally disagree with most of the picks on CNN’s list. But I hope I persuaded you on at least one of these picks, and be sure to let me know how much of a cuck I am.

I’ll be right back with you all tomorrow with a piece on the Mississippi special election.

The case for Richard Ojeda, Andrew Yang and John Delaney for president.

During the 2018 election, there was a lot of buzz around the race for West Virginia’s third congressional U.S. House district. The incumbent at the time, Evan Jenkins, was retiring to run for senate, so he left an open seat that West Virginia state senator Richard Ojeda thought he could take. It was, by any standard, a tall order; WV-03 was 37% more republican leaning than the nation as a whole, the 43rd most republican district out of 435. His rival, Carol Miller, was ostensibly just a party-line republican, so it’s not like she was Roy Moore bad. However, not everything was uphill for Ojeda. West Virginia is ancestrally democratic, and he was on the ticket with Joe Manchin, a democrat who was running for reelection statewide (and won). In the end though, it wasn’t enough for Ojeda to eke out a win. He lost by 13%, which is still a really good result for D’s. In fact, the WV-02 race -a VERY deep sleeper- ended up being closer than WV-03, democrat Talley Sergent lost by about 11% there.

Not a week had passed since his election loss, but Ojeda decided to jump into the 2020 democratic *presidential* primary. Whether he only is doing this for shits and giggles or really believes he can win remains to be seen, but it’s a bold move to be sure.

He hasn’t been included in any public polls, but I suspect he’d be polling in the Bobby Jindall zone, which is to say pathetically low. Does Ojeda really think he can win?

Probably not, but he’s going to give it a shot anyways. Here’s my thesis: Richard Ojeda, someone who borrows from the left and right wings of the democratic party, won’t be popular with a national electorate, who want someone they can absolutely be sure they can trust for president. He would be too left wing on issues like healthcare to appeal to centrists and too right wing on issues like guns to appeal to progressives. Also, he voted for President Trump.

But, let’s not fool ourselves, he’s probably just doing this so that he can run for a spot at congress again while being remembered in West Virginia. Whether that be challenging Carol Miller or Shelley Moore-Capito, only time will tell. But that’s probably Ojeda’s endgame here.

But Ojeda isn’t the first major (using the word major very loosely) candidate to enter the race. That would be Maryland U.S. Representative John Delaney, who has been running for president since July 28th. July 28th 2017, that is. He’s been running for about a year and a half, and he’s already putting up ads in Iowa, although they don’t seem to be helping much. He hasn’t been included in any Iowa public polls and, to my knowledge, hasn’t been included in any National polls either. He even gave up his House seat to focus on his run for the presidency, which he really didn’t need to do, and may very well result in political suicide. What did he expect?

I also suspect he would be polling in the Bobby Jindall zone, mostly because he’s a moderate, and moderates are seriously considering a group of candidates like Biden and Klobuchar. Delaney, presumably, isn’t in that group.

To be brutally honest for a second here, I don’t know what he expected. Did he think he was the next Donald Trump? That he’d come back from behind and shock everyone? Well, at least for now, he certainly hasn’t, and it doesn’t look very good for John.

The last minor-league candidate we’ll be looking at today is Andrew Yang, a young, leftist businessman running an anti-automatization and pro-UBI campaign. He’s about as likely to catch fire as the other two, but he’s appealing to the purest of progressives. You know the ones, those that think Elizabeth Warren isn’t liberal enough. I really don’t know what else to say about Andrew Yang other than this: if this is just a setup for a future political career then bravo, he’s certainly got the attention of the people he needs, the berniecrats. If he truly believes that he can win and seriously wants to make a run then I’d say he’s doing well so far. He’s doing what he needs to do to have a tiny chance, basically. What he really needs is some kind of major, incredible, unprecedented shift from Sanders and Warren to him, and that would presumably happen by them not running. If neither Sanders nor Warren run, then Yang might have a chance. If they do, he’s probably doomed.

To borrow a phrase from Ezra Klein, these kinds of candidates are the underpants gnomes of the presidential run, and here’s what they’re basically thinking:

Step 1: Run for president!

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Yay I won!

Ok, maybe it’s not exactly that, but you get the idea. Thay all think they are going to be the next Donald Trump. A candidate that no one saw coming and took the party by storm. However, there’s one main difference: Donald Trump started rising in polls almost inmeaditely after he made his announcement. John Delaney has been running for a year and a half. Andrew Yang has been running for a year. We still don’t know what’s going on with Ojeda but I suspect it’s not favorable to him. So, with just a tad bit of caution, I think these candidates are going to fail. Especially John Delaney. Who would make a decision like that?

So, to bring this series to a close, here are the strengths and weaknesses of minor-league candidates:

STRENGTHS:

Upset potential.
Less political baggage, as they haven’t been closely followed by the press for months.
Excluding John Delaney, they look like outsiders, which can be a major plus.

WEAKNESSES:

Literally everything else.

You might scoff at that last part, but think about it. What else do these candidates have going for them? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They are running against well-funded, often well-liked candidates. These lesser-known candidates might not be disliked by the public, just unknown. One thing is certain though: almost no other candidates have a steeper hill to climb.

This is the final entry of «The case for…», at least for now. I’ll bring you my power rankings on Monday, and I’ll also write a short piece about the Mississippi senate election on Tuesday. Hope you enjoyed this series.

The case for Warren for president.

After Scott Brown won the vacant seat for U.S. senate in Massachussets, an upset that stunned many, it became clear that his seat would be a prime target for democrats come 2012, and that they would have a pretty good shot at taking that seat back. Try to think of something similar to the Doug Jones situation we have on our hands right now.

Ultimately, his challenger was law proffessor Elizabeth Warren, who had never held elected office but managed to get the nomination. While Brown started off with a lead, it kept dwindling until there was nothing left and Warren won with a pretty comfortable margin of 8%.

Since then, Elizabeth Warren has been one of the major voices of the progressive wing of the Democratic party, up there with Bernie Sanders. She has called for universal healthcare, she has endorsed a federal jobs guarantee and has been a staunch defender of a 15$/hour minimum wage.

She’s also not Bernie Sanders. While the senator from Vermont prefers to use the term «democratic socialist», Warren does call herself a capitalist, albeit what she calls «capitalism» is very similar to what Sanders has proposed: a free market economy but with tight regulations. The senator from Massachussets has also consistently voted for military budget expansions, something that most senators do but that Sanders typically doesn’t.

I’m not going to beat around the bush here: Elizabeth Warren is interested in running. She has said so publicly, so she’s at the very least thinking about it, even if a decision hasn’t been made yet. I also find it unlikely, although not impossible, that both Warren and Sanders run. I say this as a kind of disclaimer, because it’s very easy to get trapped in the narrative of vote-splitting and forget that it’s not all that likely. My reasoning for this is the Dave Weigel tweet that I mentioned a couple of entries ago (i.e. this one), the more liberal wing of the party is apparently talking amongst themselves trying to find a candidate so that there are less internal shenanigans. but I’m not ruling out the possibility of both running because, well, disagreements happen, and they could both decide that the other has no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to a path to victory, and that they are totally the guy or gal who is going to win. Just an FYI.

So, I don’t think there is much disagreement on where Warren would fit in the ideological spectrum in the primary. Slightly to the right of Sanders, far to the left of someone like Biden, and perhaps slightly to the left of someone like Kamala Harris. However, what I think is more interesting is where you draw that line. Will Warren be supportive of a jobs guarantee after all? Will she align more with Sanders on foreign policy? Will she break new ground (and I assume it would be to the left)? I guess that’s up to her campaign to decide, but she’s never really been one for changing positions on the fly.

But, assuming she doesn’t, in some way, piss the party’s base off big time, then she probably has a spot guaranteed on the primary. But would she have a chance in early states?

Yeah, definitely. She would probably do worse in Iowa than in New Hampshire, but she could have robust showings on both states. What would that look like? I’m not entirely sure, actually. If I had to guess, I’d say she can pull-off wins in both: a pretty standard 3-4% win in Iowa and a blowout of somewhere around 15% in New Hampshire are very good case scenarios for Warren. For that New Hampshire prediction to hold, she would have to put away some of the competition in Iowa, like Biden and Sanders. I say this specifically because Biden and Sanders would both have major influence in New Hampshire, as would Warren, but if she wants a blowout then she needs to put the New England competition away.

Nevada and South Carolina tend to vote somewhat erratically, but if she does as expected in both and holds the frontlines on Super Tuesday, she’s halfway there.

Now, onto the general election: where would Warren be competitive? She would certainly have appeal in rural, midwestern states like Iowa, Wisconisn or Michigan. Also, a good shot to take back Maine’s second is an honorable mention. However, I’m unsure of how she would do in southern states that are becoming crucial for democrats in recent years. There’s a competitive senate election in Mississippi for crying out loud. In 2020, midwestern states still look like the path of least resistance to a democratic win, but we’ve got a long ways to go. Bottom line is: Warren has a pretty solid map.

So, strengths and weaknesses, here we go!

STRENGTHS:

Appeal to the progressive wing of the perty.
Appeal in some early states.
Warren is, in my opinion, a good debater and a charismatic speaker.
She could have the opportunity to unify the progressive vote.
Good general election map, with wide appeal in rust belt states.

WEAKNESSES:

Potential to fizzle out in between Nevada and Super Tuesday, as more southern states vote.
Less appeal with southern voters of color than other potential candidates.
Although she has a bit more than Sanders, her appeal to the establishment wing is not very widespread.
She has shown that she’s prone to make some gaffes, like the whole thing with the DNA test.
Warren hasn’t proven that she can mount a strong campaign outside of Massachussets, and that could be a real problem.

On the whole, I do think Elizabeth Warren has a pretty good chance of winning if she runs, but I’m a bit more skeptical than other analysts. If her and Sanders and whoever else manage to sort everything out internally and none of it spills out into the primary, then she’s sitting pretty. However, if Sanders or Gabbard or X progressive runs simultaneously or some of the internal fighting spills onto the press, she could have a hard time. Time will tell, but it remains that Warren is one of the strongest candidates for the democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

I’m going to make a couple more of these, but be ready for this series of entries to stop. after that, you’ll get my power rankings.

The case for Beto for president.

For way too many months, the Texas senate race was both closely followed by most people and utterly dismissed by some prominent personalities. Kavanaugh seemed to give Ted Cruz a bump, even if it probably wore off, and early indicators looked good for his challenger, Beto O’Rourke. Early voting, while it doesn’t mean much, looked pretty decent for democrats, an some final polls showed the race really close.

And it was. The Texas senate race was closer than many expected. Early on election night it even seemed like Beto had a puncher’s chance at unseating Ted Cruz, which would have been an upset by a lot of standards. However, Cruz retained his seat by about 3%, and he should be happy that he was up this year and not 2022 or something similar, as Texas is getting bluer.

Things aren’t over for O’Rourke, though.

If you were following this election very closely, as I was, you knew that Beto could potentially run for president and that his ideal scenario in the Texas senate election if he wanted to make a run would be for Cruz to pull out a squeaker. If he had won that senate seat, inmeadiately launching a presidential run a couple of months afterwards would be very bad optics, and wouldn’t bode well for him while seeking reelection. Meanwhile, let Cruz prevail by 10 points and you just look like a loser who lost by more than Hillary Clinton in a way better year for D’s. This way, he looks like a good candidate that got unlucky, and it would be a shame to let a very good candidate go to waste like that right?

I’m not even close to certain that Beto is running, but let’s speculate anyways. What would that apparatus look like?

Well, out of all the field he probably has the most options when it comes to choosing a lane to run in. Candidates like Sanders or Warren can’t lose their cred with more liberal voters, otherwise they would be left with no base and collapse. Joe Biden has to be Joe Biden, he can’t just become liberal all of the sudden after more than 40 years of being more of a centrist. Other potential candidates like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar have reserved themselves a bit more flexibility, but they have also boxed themselves into a corner somewhat in recent months (Booker and Harris have moved left while Klobuchar has stayed put).

While Beto would also have some baggage (he ran in Texas mostly as an open liberal) he was also a very party-line democratic backbencher in Congress, so if he decides he’d rather run a more establishment campaign then he can certainly do that, albeit losing trust with the more progressive wing of the democratic party.

But enough about campaign ideology. What about the primaries? Would he have a chance? In short, yes.

Beto has proven that he can attract white voters even in a red state like Texas, and guess what kinds of voters Iowa and new Hampshire have? You guessed it, white, working class and, at least within the democratic party, largely progressive. He would need to have a strong result in Iowa to allow himself to have a weaker result in New Hampshire, and if that didn’t kill his momentum then he’s off to the races.

He could also have a real chance to pick up some sun belt states, particularly Arizona, and he would obviously wield a massive lead in Texas, which has tons of delegates. I’m unsure about how he would fare in Nevada and South Carolina, but if he can pull off a win in either then he would probably be the frontrunner.

Furthermore, what about the general election? What would his particular map to 270 look like?

It would be an understatement to say that I have no idea. It seems like O’Rourke is strong with all constituencies but not particularly so with any specific one of them. Do southern voters feel the «Beto-mania»? Are white midwestern voters excited by his message? I think the former is more likely than the latter, but I can’t say for sure.

So, finally, here are the main strengths and weaknesses:

STRENGTHS:

Good enough appeal in early primary states (and in most states, really).
An ability to excite the democratic base.
An ability to convince moderate voters.
A wide array of ideological possibilities for his campaign.
A wide map to get to 270 electoral votes.
He would be one hell of a VP pick.

WEAKNESSES:

His potential strategy to appeal to both wings could backfire and end up appealing to no wings.
He could just fizzle out like so many «rising stars» (also see, Marco Rubio).
We don’t yet know how strong his appeal would be nationwide, and he needs more than just Texas to win.
A presidential run, if not terminated soon enough, would prevent him from running for senate again and do lots of damage to his career.

Overall though, I really think the pros outweigh the cons here for O’Rourke. He has proven that he can run an intelligent, effective, good campaign, and that’s pretty much all he needs here if things go his way. He would be a very robust candidate.

But perhaps this is getting a bit ahead of ourselves. We don’t even know if he intends to run or if he is just keeping his options open. One thing’s clear though: the future is bright for Beto O’Rourke.

The case for Harris for president.

In 2016, then attorney general Kamala Harris defeated longtime US House representative Loretta Sanchez in an election to Barbara Boxer´s senate seat. Shortly thereafter, rumors spread that the democratic establishment had chosen her as the DNC pick for president in 2020. They thought Harris could appeal to minorities enough to secure a path to 270 electoral votes, and they also thought that she could have enough appeal to both wings of the democratic party to win a primary.

Will that ultimately be how things shake out for Harris?

Well, it depends. Pretty much everything I mentioned above has to happen for President Kamala Harris to happen. If you are going to run in the primary as a progressive but also someone who has the baggage of usually being more conservative *cough cough* Kirsten Gillibrand *cough cough*, then it´s very hard to strike a balance, given liberals are always incresing their standards for purity tests.

It’s also not very rosy elsewhere for the Harris campaign when it comes to early states. If her campaign does very well, she could pull-off an Obama type win in Iowa, and go on a run after that. However, she would almost have no chance in New Hampshire. Obama lost there pretty badly and Biden, Sanders or Warren would probably go on a run there before anyone could catch them, given that they are from New England and New Hampshire tends to vote for candidates from neighboring states.

So, of the early states, Harris really needs to pull off a win in Iowa, or she’s rather doomed. But it can’t just be a squeaker, or a pretty weak win. It has to be an upset.

That’s how it worked for Obama in 2008. He took Iowa and his main rival, Hillary Clinton, came in third (John Edwards finished second). Yes, Obama lost New Hampshire, but he won most of the remaining states (especially southern states) because he had built up momentum from that Iowa win. Harris has to pull off a similar feat.

To be completely clear, I’m not saying candidates can’t come from behind in primaries and win, or that any candidate who does poorly in Iowa mandatorily has to lose, but it’s just pretty unlikely. Iowa and New Hampshire are your two big chances if you’re a candidate, and you better deliver in at least one of those states if you wanna keep your campaign alive. It’s not impossible to imagine Harris losing both Iowa and new Hampshire, but then going on to take Nevada and South Carolina by good margins. Pull off a California blowout on Super Tuesday and she’s probably the frontrunner. But I think it’s also pretty likely that she faulters in both of the early states, her momentum erodes nationally and she pulls a Marco Rubio in California.

But, let’s assume for a second that Harris does well across the map, gets a large enough number of delegates from southern states and goes on to get the nomination without a contested convention. What would a general election map for Kamala Harris look like?

Well, kind of the opposite from Biden and Sanders. She would probably do worse in the rust belt and midwest just by virtue of being a black woman and she would do better in the south and the sun belt for pretty similar reasons. She would have a built-in advantage in Florida, especially with the passing of Amendment 4 on November 6th, Georgia, and maybe Texas and Arizona, although I’m a bit less confident about that. While I also think she wouldn’t have much trouble in Minnesota, she could have a bad time in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and especially Michigan, which is getting swingier.

So, you know the drill. Strengths and weaknesses:

STRENGTHS:

Great appeal to voters of color.
Real path to the nomination through southern states.
Establishment backing.
Some progressive backing, as Harris has pivoted to the left.
Built-in advantages in states with lots of electoral votes (FL, GA, TX, AZ, more?).

WEAKNESSES:

No appeal to white working-class voters.
A tough first couple of states for the campaign that she would presumably run.
Trying to run in both lanes of the primary could prove to be difficult.
A real possibility of stagnation (more on that below).

You might be noticing a pattern here. Most candidates have more strengths than they have weaknesses, but that’s mostly because these are the ones that have the best chance to win so it’s not a very good way to look at it. Harris also has less of both because, well, I’m unsure of what kind of campaign she will run. But if you want my opinion, I think it’s more likey that we’ll be looking at the story of a paper tiger, a la Marco Rubio, rather than the story of president Harris. But, she’s in here for a reason, after all.

Also, you may have noticed the lack of an article yesterday. It happened for unrelated reasons, but I guess that Wednesday is now official Young Politics day off.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

The case for Sanders for president.

Throughout 2014 and most of 2015, Hillary Clinton looked poised to take the democratic nomination for president. most polls had her polling around 60%, sometimes even higher, and her possible challengers were way down below. The only one who came even remotely close was Joe Biden, and even he was a longshot.

Needless to say, this is not how things shook out.

Yes, Clinton did get around 55% of the vote, which is kind of close to what early polls showed. However it was not uncontested. The junior senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, put up a serious challenge, garnering 43% of the vote. The Sanders’ campaign’s wins were mostly centered in the midwest and the rust belt, while Clinton wins were more notorious in southern and very populated states like New York. Obviously, these last states have more people in them, thus are awarded more delegates. That was one of the main downfall of the Sanders campaign: he just couldn’t connect with southern voters of color, and those make up a great deal of the democratic base. Y’know, the people who ususally turn out in primaries.

Now, to shift the focus back to 2020, Sanders really could run again. There have reportedly been meetings with senior aides that dealt with a potential 2020 run. Those same aides have sometimes publicly encouraged Sanders to run again, as Jeff Weaver did in his book. And, perhaps most notably, Dave Weigel recently tweeted this out. To me, this is the nail in the coffin of those who say a second Sanders run is impossible. It’s obvious he’s thinking about it. Not only that, but he’s talking about it with other potential candidates.

So, let’s just assume that he does run, although I’m not entirely convinced. What would a Bernie 2020 campaign look like?

He would certainly be, at least, a force to contend with. He is in second, sometimes first place in the public nationwide polling, and he was first in a recent New Hampshire poll too (although the sample size was pathetically small). The question is whether or not other progressives decide to jump into the race. If, say, Elizabeth Warren ran, I think most of her votes would have backed Sanders if she didn’t run. However, this scenario is pretty unlikely IMO, as we have already touched upon the fact that Sanders is talking to other people.

So, with that said, let’s go down the calendar. What’s the first state in primary season? You already know the answer. It’s Iowa, and it’s electorate is particularly favorable to Sanders, I’d even argue that it favors him over Biden. A larger portion of Iowa democratic caucus-goers identified themselves as «liberal» relative to the rest of the country, so there’s obviously something in that for Bernie. The demographics favor him too: over 90% of the state’s population is white and only around 3% is African-American. Even if his campaign faulters and does worse than expected overall, he should still have a strong showing in Iowa.

Then we get to New Hampshire, which is kind of the same story, except it may be even more favorable to him, mainly because this state tends to like candidates from neighboring states, and Bernie would be exactly that. I mean, he blew Hillary out of the water 3 years ago. It’s unlikely that they swing against him.

And then we get to Super Tuesday (yes, i’m capitalizing that), which may be more of a bleak spot for Sanders. Lots of southern states, including Texas, and also California, which could be awesome or awful depending on how other factors shake out.

But that might not even matter. After all, it’s rare for a candidate to take both Iowa and New Hampshire and lose the nomination. Obama took Iowa but not New Hampshire and won. Same thing with Clinton. With Trump it was the other way around, but same point being made here.

You might have noticed that I completely skipped both South Carolina and Nevada in my roundup above. That’s because I don’t believe they have that much influence. Future articles will elaborate.

The general election map would look similar to Biden’s, except that Bernie could have more of a chance in a state like Arizona or Texas, given that he’s massively popular with latinos. So, moving over to the strengths and weaknesses:

STRENGTHS:

Very favorable demographics and political environment in the first few primary states.
Runner-up status from the last presidential primary.
Strong polling, he’s consistently seond in most national polls.
He doesn’t have to pivot to the left to appeal to the base of the party, he’s already there.
Broad electoral college map.
A possible opportunity to appeal to African-Americans.

WEAKNESSES:

Trouble winning over people of color (this would mainly be a problem in the primary).
He is an old, white man in a moment when the party is looking for diversity.
He is not a natural debater, nor is he specially charismatic.
Another left-wing candidate like Warren could split the vote.

Overall, I believe folks aren’t giving Sanders enough credit here. He literally got millions of votes last time around, so he’s proven he can do that. He just needs to win over a few more votes so sure up the nomination. And, frankly, I think it’s ridiculous that CNN and 538 have him so low in their rankings.

The case for Biden for President.

After 2016 there was a lot of doom and gloom within the Democratic party about how they were losing white, working class voters in the rust belt. However, after the election a couple of weeks ago, democrats are not nearly as concerned. They took Governor’s mansions easily in Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania and dethroned Scott Walker in Wisconsin, a 2 term Republican governor who democrats despise. They also retained 6 senate seats in the rust belt, and you could say that they did so quite easily.

What I’m getting at here is this: democrats are looking stronger in the rust belt now than they did 2 years ago, but this was also a very favorable environment for them, so you’d expect them to make gains. The real question is: was this a realignment election or was it a wave in the traditional sense?

Joe Biden is the former Vice-President of the Obama administration. He was a senator for 46(!) years and ran for president twice (1988 and 2008). He is known for being a centrist democrat who compromises with Republicans and, more recently, by his inflammatory comments during the Anita Hill hearings.

If he ran, Biden would certainly be a formidable candidate. He’s a proven winner, having been elected to his first term in the senate through an upset, he’s a darling of the party establishment and, perhaps most importantly, he is leading in most polls right now. While polls this far out are really only a matter of name ID and not much else, early front-runners typically win their primaries, so Biden should feel hopeful.

The former Vice-President could have a pretty easy path through the primaries after all. If no champion of the left runs and campaigns like Harris’ or Booker’s eventually implode then he could, potentially, have a pretty easy path to the nomination.

However, things are almost never this easy.

There is almost certainly going to be another high-profile centrist Democrat fighting for that lane with Biden. Amy Klobuchar comes to mind. Michael Bloomberg comes to mind. Even if no one contests that lane, he could still have a hard time if a good candidate runs a good campaign, which almost certainly will happen because the field is so damn crowded with people stepping over themselves to run.

But let’s get back to the point I elaborated at the beginning of the article. Assuming Biden wins the primary relatively comfortably, what hardships would he face in the general election?

Well, for starters, there’s the problem of identity politics. If black voters in Florida weren’t enthusiastic enough to go out and vote for a black man, why would they be for an old, white male? Biden would almost certainly have problems in the sun belt. After all, it seems like that region isn’t quite there yet for Democrats. But this is also somewhere where Biden shines. He would probably have an easier time winning over midwestern, white, male voters. He could, conceivably, easily take Michigan Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and maybe put up a fight in Ohio (or maybe even take it, too).

In that sense, it’s easy to see why Biden could be a very good general election candidate. He would have a lot of electoral votes locked up and leaning towards him that other candidates might have a hard time taking (E.G. Pennsylvania).

So, that said, what are the main strengths and weaknesses of a potential Biden run for president?

STRENGTHS:

A more uncontested lane in the primaries than the progressive left.
Biden has led in most early polls.
Potential appeal in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
Biden is a good debater and a charismatic speaker.
A real path to victory in the general through the midwest.

WEAKNESSES:

Potential trouble winning over voters of color in the south (this could be especially devastating in the primaries).
A track record of losing presidential bids.
The Anita Hill hearings (this could prove to be a decisive factor or a paper tiger).
The fact that he is a centrist democrat at a time when the party is moving leftward.
The fact that he is an old, white man in a time when the party is looking for diversity
Potentially being viewed as an insider and therefore not appealing anymore to the aforementioned white male voters.

All in all, I think he would be a really good candidate, electorally speaking. He would certainly get some big name endorsements and he would have an advantage in some early states just because of who he is. But, after all, this will be a very crowded primary, so whenever I say I think a candidate would be a good candidate that means I think they have a 1/5 shot at most. There’s just too many people. Who knows, maybe the 2020 democratic nominee will be a wild card like, say, Michael Avenatti. *Shivers*.

2020 candidates. Strengths and weaknesses. Next Week.

With the 2018 election fading from view, the focus is quickly shifting to 2020. Most of us know who the main presidential candidates will probably be, but how likely is each and every one of them to win? What is the ranking?

Harry Enten and Chris Cillizza rank the potential 2020 democratic presidential candidates in this article and, while I think they are doing great work, I can’t help but feel like they are missing a couple of things. Why is Harris so high up? Why is Bernie so low? I will try to answer these questions in a section I’m opening next week called «The case for», in which I will try my best to explain every potential candidate’s strengths, and also some of the hardships that they may face during the campaign. Initially, I will do this for 1 week, and if I feel the need to do any more I will do so over the week after that. I also intend to release my ranking of top contenders whenever this is all said and done. In the meantime, I think this other article from Aaron Blake at The Washington Post is better, although it still has its flaws. We will see what those are over the coming week.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be better than any of the analysts mentioned above. I’m just expressing my own opinion.