A new Fox News poll finds Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential race nationally with 35%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 17%, Elizabeth Warren at 9%, Pete Buttigieg at 6% and Kamala Harris at 5%. They are followed by Beto O’Rouke at 4%, Cory Booker at 3%, Amy Klobuchar at 2% and Julian Castro at 2%. Everyone else is at 1% or less.
General Election Matchups in the Fox Poll:
- Biden 49–Trump 38
- Sanders 46–Trump 41
- Warren 43–Trump 41
- Harris 41–Trump 41
- Trump 41–Buttigieg 40
Pete Buttigieg insisted that he wasn’t in danger of peaking too soon, Politico reports. Said Buttigieg: “It’s not like we’re in first place. While I’m thrilled with the fact that we are obviously running ahead of a lot of our competitors — we’ve gotten a lot of favorable attention, and our organization is growing more and more strong in terms of recruiting and finance — it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a long run. This is a marathon. We have a long way to go.”
President Trump told Fox News that he thinks “it’s great” seeing openly gay Pete Buttigieg appearing onstage with his husband. Said Trump: “I think it’s absolutely fine. I do.” He added: “I think it’s great. I think that’s something that perhaps some people will have a problem with. I have no problem with it whatsoever. I think it’s good.”
“Joe Biden will base his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, setting up in a city where he has deep ties and in a state that is central to his strategy,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
A new University of Virginia/Ipsos poll find that by a 77% to 16% margin, respondents did not think that the 2020 election should be delayed and President Trump given an extra two years in office.
“This question was based on a recent tweet by Liberty University President Jerry Falwell suggesting that because of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the president’s term should be extended two years (Trump retweeted Falwell).”
“Joe Biden is trying to snuff out his Democratic competitors before the race really gets going,” Axios reports.
“He’s running like it’s a general election, cresting the aura of inevitability and readiness to stare down Trump. He’s effectively dancing around topics like the Green New Deal, which could be a killer in the general election, and instead telling voters about the climate proposal he’ll unveil as early as the end of this month.”
Perhaps most important: “He’s promised to never attack a fellow Democrat. As the frontrunner, he’s the one who benefits from a primary with minimal infighting.”
Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) deputy presidential campaign manager announced on Twitter that she donated to the campaign of rival 2020 candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), urging others to do the same to ensure that Gillibrand qualifies for next month’s Democratic primary debate, Politico reports.
“As a party, we should be 100 percent pro-choice, and it should be nonnegotiable. We should not settle for less, and if our party cannot support women’s basic human rights, their fundamental freedoms to make decisions about their bodies and their futures, then we are not the party of women.” — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), quoted by the Washington Post.
Jonathan Bernstein: “Not only was the stage opened to 20 candidates, but the qualifying standards were set extremely low: Candidates had to reach either a very low polling threshold or get 65,000 unique donors, metrics that are both objective and largely out of the hands of party actors. Usually, winnowing happens early on when candidates try and fail to win encouragement from party actors. This time, however, candidates can simply focus on reaching a qualifying goal rather than assessing the reaction they got from party officials or key politicians.”
“In fact, the new rules actually encouraged on-the-fence candidates to stick around for a while. After all, the DNC basically gave them a list-building challenge. Marginal candidates might well have decided that that alone was worth a formal run. Anyone who met or exceeded the donor threshold and then dropped out would’ve earned themselves a valuable resource in the meantime, not to mention increased national exposure, CNN Town Halls and a shot at a debate appearance. That’s a lot of rewards for what may turn out to be very little effort by some of the candidates.”
Washington Post: “So many Democrats are running for president that the chair of the National Governors Association, the mayor of America’s largest city and the senior senator from Colorado may not even qualify for the first debate — even though it allows for 20 candidates.”
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