WEEKLY SNAPSHOT
In yet another week where 98% of the political reporting is focused on the impending House impeachment of President Donald Trump, most of the current crop of candidates have remained below the radar, whether they wanted to or not.
Joe Biden, as for longtime frontrunner, is probably happy to be out of the spotlight for awhile, considering his political exposure on the Ukraine scandal, and his recent decision to embrace super-PACS to help give his finances a shot in the arm. But he has something new to worry about. Or rather, someone new, in the form of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Bloomberg, who as a billionaire, could easily self-fund a presidential campaign, reinserted himself in the national dialogue this past week when word began spreading that supporters where collecting ballot signatures in the various states in order to met qualification deadlines for a presidential run. And as a centrist (who wasn't even a Democrat until just last year), he would most likely cut well into Biden's support base.
Needless to say, none of the other candidates are all that warm to a Bloomberg run, even if other billionaires seem happy about the possibility. Neither are potential voters, at least in the very early polling. An over-70, white male billionaire with some fairly outside-the-Democratic-mainstream positions on health-care, the environment, bank regulation, and taxation of the wealthy just doesn't seem like someone the rank-and-file Democratic voters have been waiting for to enter the race.
As for the rest of the candidates, Elizabeth Warren unveiled more details about her "Medicare For All" plan, Bernie Sanders is trying to figure out what to do with all his cash, Pete Buttigieg, who is now second in Iowa, has also picked up the support and advice of Obama's former chief economist, Kamala Harris continues to falter and has her campaign basically on life support, while the rest of the pack are sticking around for reasons known only to the candidates and their (seemingly few) supporters.
UPDATED NATIONAL RANKINGS
Over ten national polls dropped in the past week, and overall there was virtually no change in the status quo other than the re-entry of Amy Klobuchar into the rankings, based on her finally breaking our 2% polling threshold.
The Top Three
- Biden -- 26.4%
- Warren -- 19.6%
- Sanders -- 16.2%
The Rest Of The Pack
- Buttigieg -- 6.8%
- Harris -- 3.9%
- Yang -- 2.4%
- Klobuchar -- 2.1%
Outside The Polling
All of the other announced candidates were below 2% or did not show in the national polling from the aggregate of the past ten national polls.
NEW STATE POLLS
Our State Polling page breaks down the states into two relevant sections: the first four caucuses and primaries in February, and the then the "Super Tuesday" primary on March 3rd. We are tracking the other states, but are focusing on the first two groups for the time being.
We have one poll from Iowa and two new polls from Nevada, each with very different stories to tell. In Iowa, as we mentioned above, Pete Buttigieg has now moved into second place behind Warren and just a whisker ahead of Sanders, while Biden has dropped into fourth place. However, in Nevada, Biden maintains a decent lead atop the polls ahead of Sanders and Warren.
In the "Super Tuesday" states, we have new polls from Minnesota (where Warren leads and Amy Klobuchar has her best numbers), North Carolina (Biden holds a dominant lead), and in Texas (here Biden likewise holds a strong lead). The big question in Texas is where Beto O'Rourke's 14% or so slice of the pie will end up. The next few polls from the Lone Star State should be fairly interesting to break down.
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