… Liberated for two years from the compromises demanded of a governing party, Democrats have emerged from the wilderness enamored with a variety of big policy proposals that are deeply unpopular and completely unpractical. … Some Democrats appear to have internalized two contradictory lessons from 2016. They know that Donald […] Read more »
Where I Think The Candidates Stand After The Second Debate
I’m writing this on Thursday morning, before there’s much, if any, polling available that reflects how Democrats’ preferences changed following the two-night presidential debate this week. But even before the debate, some candidates had been on the move in the three weeks since my last comprehensive assessment of the Democratic […] Read more »
Biden’s Rivals Helped Him More Than He Helped Himself
After two nights of spirited debate in Detroit, many Democrats may be feeling anxious: Their 2020 frontrunner didn’t entirely mollify concerns about his political skills, and his three major rivals positioned themselves in ways that could leave the party vulnerable in the general election. … Biden’s mixed performance yesterday highlighted […] Read more »
The second Democratic debate: Opening up the centrist lane
Ever since the 2018 election, the storyline around the Democratic Party has been at odds with the facts. The Democratic Party is, as it has been for many decades now, a center-left party and not a left-wing party in the style of European political parties. In the first Democratic debates […] Read more »
The core debate among 2020 Democrats: How progressive is too progressive to win?
… Given Trump’s success and given the number of 2012 voters who stayed home, is it possible to put together a campaign that energizes infrequent Democratic voters, doesn’t turn off those Democrats who vote regularly — and doesn’t further energize Republicans? Can the Warren-Sanders strategy of whipping up the progressive […] Read more »
Debate Podcast: The Moderates Push Back
After a first round of Democratic primary debates in which the conversation seemed to be guided by candidates further to the left, disagreements between moderates and progressives took center stage on the first night of the second round of debates. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Nate Silver […] Read more »