How Trump Reshaped the 2020 Democratic Primary

After a long campaign of ideological clashes, policy debates and talk of a grand reckoning on the direction of the Democratic Party, the presidential primaries starting on Monday will be shaped by a less lofty but increasingly urgent matter: determining the best candidate to defeat an incumbent who has already proved to be a political survivor. …

If impeachment rarely comes up on the Democratic campaign trail, the imperative of beating Mr. Trump has come to outweigh all other considerations for many voters — an extraordinary turn of events for a party that spent the last year sparring over plans to implement “Medicare for all” and how far to go in overhauling immigration laws, the financial sector and the criminal justice system. CONT.

Jonathan Martin & Alexander Burns, New York Times