Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, at 24%, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, at 22%, are now the frontrunners in California’s March Democratic presidential primary. The latest Berkeley IGS Poll finds former Vice President Joe Biden dropping to third place, with 14% support, followed by South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg at […] Read more »
The Democratic Race: Biden 2020 as Romney 2012
Key Points • Biden’s endurance at the top of the Democratic race is reminiscent of Mitt Romney’s endurance in the 2012 Republican race. • Despite considerable liabilities, Romney benefited — and Biden benefits — from splintered opposition and being the best fit for a significant bloc of party regulars. • […] Read more »
The key demographics of the Democratic Party are fragmenting
The continuing uncertainty in the Democratic presidential primary has a hole the size of Barack Obama at its center. One reason the race remains so unsettled is that none of the contenders has reassembled the winning coalition of groups that Obama coalesced during his 2008 run to the nomination, a […] Read more »
The surprising second choices of Democratic primary voters upend political cliches
To many observers, the Democratic presidential primary has highlighted the “profound ideological divides between the Democratic Party’s moderate and progressive wings,” as an Associated Press article put it — two wings locked in a bitter fight for control. … Perhaps that’s how Democratic leaders and activists see the primary. But […] Read more »
Why Democratic voters can’t make up their minds
The campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination is radically unsettled because the party’s primary voters are in a deeply uncertain mood. They try on candidates, find them wanting and move on to someone else. Further confusing the contest is the success of two candidates, former vice president Joe Biden […] Read more »
2020 Democratic Candidates Wage Escalating Fight (on the Merits of Fighting)
… At a basic level, this is a debate over word choice. Candidates have been selling themselves as “fighters” for centuries, ostensibly on behalf of the proverbial “you.” It goes back at least to 1828, when Andrew Jackson bludgeoned John Quincy Adams, his erudite opponent, with the slogan “Adams can […] Read more »