A new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll in California finds Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential race with 22%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 18%, Bernie Sanders at 17%, Kamala Harris at 13% and Pete Buttigieg at 10%.
No other candidate topped 3%, and many received less than half a point of support.
Said pollster Mark DiCamillo: “Our poll indicates that the contest is a wide-open affair, with five candidates in double digits and none dominating.”
Orlando Sentinel: “There are only a few key battleground states in the 2020 presidential campaign, and much of the focus so far has been on places such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin where President Trump pulled shocking upsets over Hillary Clinton three years ago.”
“But when Trump kicks off his 2020 re-election campaign on Tuesday, he won’t be in any rust belt town or coal mining community – he will be right here in downtown Orlando, holding a rally at the 20,000-capacity Amway Center.”
“Trump’s choice of that location may be surprising to those who look at an election map of Florida and see Orange County colored in solid Democratic blue. But experts say Florida is the true key to victory next November, and the red, GOP-leaning suburbs in Central Florida are imperative to winning the state.”
“A host of top Buttigieg donors who have been in regular contact with the campaign tell CNN that they expect the mayor to raise more than $15 million in the second quarter. The Buttigieg campaign set a goal of $15 million — just more than double the $7 million it raised in the first quarter — at the start of April.”
“But the quarter has been more successful than anticipated and the campaign is working to exceed its goal in the final 18 days.”
“Signs are growing that voter turnout in 2020 could reach the highest levels in decades—if not the highest in the last century—with a surge of new voters potentially producing the most diverse electorate in American history,” The Atlantic reports.
“But paradoxically, that surge may not dislodge the central role of the predominantly white and heavily working-class voters who tipped the three Rust Belt states that decided 2016: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Even amid a tide of new participation, those same voters could remain the tipping point of the 2020 election.”
A new MIRS News Service poll in Michigan’s 3rd congressional district finds challenger Jim Lower (R) leading Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) in a Republican primary, 49% to 33%.
“You cannot go back to the end of the Obama administration and think that that’s good enough… We had real problems before Donald Trump became president. We cannot return to the past.”
— Beto O’Rourke, in an interview on Morning Joe, arguing that Joe Biden is “a return to the past.”
New York Times: “More than most of his Democratic rivals, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., has cracked the code of the early months of the presidential campaign, embracing TV appearances while mastering the art of creating moments for social media and cable news. The 37-year-old’s campaign was the first to grasp that the early primary race would unfold on mobile devices and televisions instead of at the traditional town-hall gatherings and living rooms in the early states.”
“He’s not alone: Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has inundated reporters with policy proposals, prompting hours of cable news coverage and forcing fellow candidates to respond to her ideas during live interviews.”
“Over the first six months of the presidential campaign, Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Warren have outfoxed the other 21 Democratic candidates, demonstrating an innate understanding of the value of viral moments and nonstop exposure that drives politics in the Trump era.”
“If Pete Buttigieg beats Donald Trump in 2020, he’d support a criminal investigation into the former president,” The Atlantic reports.
Said Buttigieg: “To the extent that there’s an obstruction case, then yes, DOJ’s got to deal with it I would want any credible allegation of criminal behavior to be investigated to the fullest.”
Peter Hamby: “The first chapter of the Democratic race for president has been defined by its steadiness. A handful of scandals once billed as potentially devastating—shoulder touching! Tupac! Standing on tables!—revealed themselves as little more than Twitter ephemera. The two most famous candidates, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, unsurprisingly remain atop most of the polls. The two candidates who have managed to climb up the ladder, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, have done so by defining a clear rationale for running and pounding their message daily, with a relentless media and travel schedule.”
“The race, though, has remained mostly static, helmed by a pair of durable white-haired front-runners, a platoon of credible second-tier candidates, and a roster of one-percenters who look like they wandered off the set of Frasier.”
“Yes, it’s early. But there’s another article of faith inside the campaigns and network greenrooms: that the first primary debates will shake up the race, ushering in a kinetic new phase of candidate-on-candidate warfare, finally bringing some drama and conflict to a race that’s mostly lacked the kind of fireworks the media craves.”
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