I wanted to write an update to my predictions back in the fall about where the 2020 Democratic hopefuls stand and since we are about a month out before the first round of debates, now seems like a great time, so let's do it.
First off I think there were some major developments over the last nine months that have really changed things quite a bit. To begin with we've had a lot of "winnowing" over the last nine months. By winnowed here I mean candidates who basically started
doing the things one does when running for president but for whatever
reason(s) decided to quit in one way or another, even if they never got around to formally
announcing.
Seth Masket has made a great online tracker of people who were "winnowed" and it's quit a few. By Seth's count there are already 16 of these (I'd count some of the people he has still on there as having been winnowed or never run as well) and while the Democrats are still stuck with a ridiculously large field (I think the official count is like 23 at this point) it could be a lot larger with a lot of big name governors, senators, and former cabinet officials in the mix. But they aren't because well, #winnowingworks, as we like to say on Twitter.
Moreover this process of winnowing is good evidence that the presidential nominations process is working as it is suppose to (in theory). That is a huge number of people start doing the things you need to do to be president and that number is winnowed down over the course of the campaign to more manageable number (say 10) by the time the Iowa caucuses roll around. This number is then wacked down further going into New Hampshire, and well, you get the drift.
A major problem for the Republicans in the 2016 cycle, and a key reason Trump was able to ultimately win, is this winnowing process didn't seem work, or kicked in too late. Candidates like John Kasich stayed in way after it was clear they could no longer mathematically win enough delegates to win and thus further split the anti-Trump vote. While the Republican party actors seemed to have failed to rally around one viable "not Trump" alternative. Indeed everyone from Marco Rubio to Mitt Romney seemed to play that role for a time.
So the good news for the Democrats is that the winnowing process seems to be working. But there's one big caveat here. Nobody has dropped out since mid-April meaning the pace of winnowing could have slowed down which could be a problem with a field this size. However, I think the smart money is on the debates winnowing quite a few candidates out between now and the fall, either by candidates failing to break out and calling it quits, or the new formal DNC rules shutting them out.
The second big change is that Joe Biden decided to take the plunge. Which is a great segue into where I think the field stands at this point. Going off a Nate Silver's piece from about a month ago I'll go with "tiers" rather than rank everyone.
Tier 1:
Joe Biden: Folks he's the front runner. He consistently leads by a modest plurality in the polls so far which at this point are starting to get predictive about who will win the nomination. Likewise he 's easily ahead in the endorsement hunt with 94 points in Nate Silver's tracker compared to 57 for Booker and Harris, his closest rivals in that metric. More to the point Biden's support is much more diverse, in terms of types of politicians, regions, and yes race than most of his adversaries. Moreover while we don't have much information on his fundraising so far, what we have is pretty great for him. To be sure, he has a bunch of weaknesses as well, and I'm not really interested in going through them, but at this point it's fair to say he's the frontrunner, although hardly a dominate one. If I had to bet Biden vs the field at this point I'd bet the field, but he's still in the top tier by himself.
Tier 2A:
Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren: These are the candidates that seem closest behind Biden in a broad range of factors. They have decent polling, a large following, have raised lots of money so far, and have racked up a number of major endorsements. Between them I see Harris as being in the better position both in terms of polling and endorsements, but I could easily see Warren blowing up in the debates or any number of other things between now and Iowa.
Tier 2B:
Peter Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders. I know this sounds crazy, but once you adjust for Mayor Pete's relatively low name recognition and Bernie's relatively high name recognition arguably their polling is more similar than you'd think. the reason I would put these two in a lower subgroup than Harris and Warren is they both have pretty major weaknesses as party coalition builders which makes them below the A tier. Both obviously have difficulty winning over non-white voters and party actors, and Bernie's "factional" style candidacy is a pretty major problem. Likewise Mayor Pete's lack of conventional qualifications, even "inexperienced" Barack Obama was in the Senate for four years, makes me more skeptical of his chances. It might be an asset in the GOP to be political newbie, but it doesn't seem to help with the Democrats.
Tier 3A:
Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker: We have now fallen into the "field" portion of the rankings were there's a bunch of people who could in theory win, but for whatever reason don't seem to be quite in the tier above them. Klobuchar and Booker both have impressive resumes, acceptable fundraising, and a slew of home state endorsements giving them an important base. But for whatever reason this hasn't translated into polling. To break out they are going to need something: a viral campaign moment, a big debate victory, or underdog performance in Iowa. If that happens they have they could start a upward spiral of positive coverage causing a spike in the polls producing more positive coverage etc. But right now it's just not there.
Tier 3B:
Beto O'Rouke: In a slightly different boat than Klobuchar or Booker in that he already had his movement in the sun and the press moved on to a new shinny object (Mayor Pete!). The good news for him though is it could always happen again so he'd not finished yet. But he's not doing very well these days either.
Tier 3C:
Hickenlooper, Inslee, Bennet, Bullock, Gillibrand: These are folks who in another cycle might have been a formidable candidate but they are either getting drown out in the noise, or are just not good at this, or something else is going wrong. Anything could happen so I could see any one spiraling up with a breakout moment, but they have less of a base to build on than the A or B tiers so it will be pretty hard. Gillibrand might be a special case in that powerful party actors may be working hard against her behind the scenes due to her role in Al Franken's downfall, but it's not clear.
Tier 4A:
Castro, Delaney, Gabbard, Moulton, Ryan, Swalwell: This is the "Reps other than Beto" category and all of these folks seem like long shots, because they are. Indeed the last person to make the jump from the House to the White House directly was Garfield. Anyway I guess anything is possible, but don't count on it.
Tier 4B:
Bill de Blasio. For various reasons being Mayor of New York City is a dead end job. Just ask Bloomberg, Rudy, Ed Koch, John Lindsey, or LaGuardia for that matter. So I really, really doubt Bill will win. But in the age of Trump anything is possible I guess.
Tier 5:
Everyone else: This is everyone else, they are running for some reason.
(Special case: Stacey Abrams: If she did run I'd guess I'd put her in 3C. She would be the only candidate from the south and could in theory rally a lot of black voters (especially women) to her banner which would be a sizable block. That's not nothing, but then again it is getting pretty late in the process which means gathering the resources you need to win is harder and harder by the day. Moreover I suspect her decision to frame her choice in terms of what's best for her rather than the country or voters wouldn't serve her well if she did run. Sure didn't work for Beto.)
We'll see were we stand at the after the first round of debates!
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