For Democrats, it is unquestionably the case that having a white man on the ballot next November will spur turnout and energy among even infrequent voters. That white man is President Trump, whose unpopularity with members of the opposing party led to midterm turnout that we hadn’t seen in a […] Read more »
The Democrats’ Age Divide Is Defining the 2020 Primary
When the progressive tag team of Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez skirmished with Joe Biden this week over climate policy, the altercation pointed toward the former vice president’s most glaring vulnerability in the 2020 Democratic presidential race—while simultaneously underscoring the imperative for him to defend his greatest asset. […] Read more »
Did the 2016 presidential primary debates make any difference?
It’s a natural default assumption that when big-ticket events occur over the course of a presidential election, they are necessarily important. Everyone gets together for a debate that’s watched by millions of people; how could that not shape the outcome of the race? But a funny thing happened in 2016. […] Read more »
The Electability Trap
Every four years, the party out of the White House grapples with the question of who they want to serve as their standard bearer. And, like clockwork, the first thing they think about is what went wrong in the previous campaign. Last time, the thinking goes, we put up a […] Read more »
The Democratic Race: Taking a hard look at electability
As the field of Democratic candidates has grown, the list of theories about how to beat Trump has grown even larger. Some people seem to want a candidate who can be as rude and mean to Trump as Trump is to just about everyone but Ivanka. Others think it’s time […] Read more »
Is Biden Really the Most ‘Electable’ Democrat?
Joe Biden opened his presidential campaign with a sharp, if familiar, message. “I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time,” he said in his announcement video. “But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the […] Read more »