A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds Joe Biden leads the Democratic field nationally with 26%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 19%, Kamala Harris at 13%, Bernie Sanders at 13% and Pete Buttigieg at 7%.
Beto O’Rourke and Andrew Yang follow at 2%. No other candidate gets more than 1%.
Key takeaway: “Biden performs best among African Americans, older Democrats and those who are moderate or conservative in their political views, while Warren runs strongest with self-described liberals and those ages 18 to 49.”
Nate Silver: “Biden, Harris and Warren represent three relatively distinct, but fairly traditional, archetypes for party nominees…”
“On an empirical basis, the Biden and Harris strategies have produced more winners than the Warren one, although all three approaches are viable. That doesn’t mean that Biden, Harris and Warren are the onlycandidates pursuing these strategies. Cory Booker’s coalition could look a lot like Harris’s, for instance, were he ever to gain traction. But they’re the only candidates who are both (a) taking approaches that have worked well in the past and (b) polling reasonably well at the moment. That puts them in the top tier.”
“How you would rank them within the top tier is harder. But we should probably start with the fact that Biden is still ahead of the other two in the polls. It’s closer in early state polls, and it’s closer once you account for the fact that Harris and Warren still aren’t as well-known as Biden is… Also, it’s worth noting that whichever candidate wins the plurality of black voters usually wins the Democratic nomination — something that Biden and Harris probably have a better chance of doing than Warren does.”
Jonathan Chait: “A singular climate debate only serves its purpose if every faction within the Democratic Party agrees that climate change uniquely merits a dedicated debate. But progressive activists are unlikely to accept this. The nature of the party is that it is divided into activist nodes organized around singular issues or groups. What happens when activists request a debate on racism? Inequality? Health care? Gun violence? Voting rights? Abortion rights? Immigration?”
“Once Democrats have broken the seal, the pressure to expand the number of single-issue debates would be intense and continuous. Saying no to any particular cause after having already agreed to elevating another cause would be untenable. Can you really imagine the party standing behind the position that racism is not important enough to merit its own debate, but climate change is? I cannot. The endpoint would be a proliferation of single-issue debates that negates the entire point of elevating climate change to begin with.”
Politico: “Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren raised about $100 million in the last three months combined. Together, they share a large majority of the public support.”
“They were already spending millions of dollars more than many lower-polling contenders have even raised. Now, in a powerful compounding effect for their campaigns, these top tier candidates are poised to plow that new money back into their field and digital operations — further reinforcing their fundraising and organizing advantages in the 23-candidate field. It’s too early to be an inflection point, but late enough that the rest of the field needs to start worrying.”
A new Crooked Media/Change Research poll in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina finds five major Democratic candidates: Elizabeth Warren at 19%, Bernie Sanders at 19%, Joe Biden at 18%, Kamala Harris at 17% and Pete Buttigieg at 15%. No other candidate gets more than 3% support.
Post debate movement: “Of those who said they switched from one candidate to a new one, 55% went to Harris, 22% to Warren. Of those who went from undecided to a new candidate, 38% went to Harris, 20% to Warren, 13% to Buttigieg, and 10% to Sanders. And 42% of those who switched from Biden to another candidate went to Harris, 21% to Warren.”
A new Fox News poll in South Carolina finds Joe Biden way ahead of the Democratic field with 35% support, followed by Bernie Sanders at 14%, Kamala Harris at 12%, Elizabeth Warren at 5%, Cory Booker at 3% and Pete Buttigieg at 2%.
“Republicans are facing an early headache of nightmare primary fights as they plot to keep control of the Senate,” The Hill reports.
“In Alabama and Kansas, two deep-red states that should be safe GOP seats, the party is facing bids from conservatives Roy Moore and Kris Kobach, respectively, who are viewed as unelectable in a general election and have a history of stealing the national spotlight.”
“Republicans say they feel good about their chances to hold onto the chamber in 2020 — when they will be playing defense in mostly red territory — but bloody fights in those two states could help widen Democrats’ path back to the majority.”
Tom Steyer said in a video that as president he would let voters make laws directly through regular national referenda, NBC News reports.
“It’s part of Steyer’s new structural reform plan, which also proposes fairly novel ideas like 12-year term limits on members of Congress, a national vote-by-mail system, public campaign financing, giving the Federal Elections Commission more teeth and different composition, and imposing independent redistricting commissions to tackle gerrymandering.”
Said Steyer: “Here’s the difference between me and the other candidates: I don’t think we can fix our democracy from the inside. I trust the people.”
“Elizabeth Warren on Thursday unveiled her plan to reform the nation’s immigration system amid a deepening crisis over detention at the southern border and a fraught debate across the country and within the Democratic Party on the way forward,” Politico reports.
“Among other things, the proposal calls for allowing more immigrants to come into the country legally, lifting the refugee cap from 30,000 under the Trump administration to 125,000 and then 175,000; a revamp of the immigration court system to establish independence from Justice Department leaders; and the creation of an ‘Office of New Americans’ tasked with facilitating integration, including teaching English.”
“Hours after saying she would have voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Kentucky Senate candidate Amy McGrath changed her stance,” USA Today reports. “McGrath, a Democrat hoping to unseat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2020, wrote on Twitter that after ‘further understanding’ of Kavanaugh’s record, she would not have voted to confirm him.”
0 comments on “The Campaign Report – 7/11/19”