It Now Appears To Be A Three-Person Race For The Democrats

WEEKLY SNAPSHOT

 

The closer we get to the first primaries and caucuses, the more apparent it is that the window is closing fast on pretty much all but the top-three candidates. How soon the second-tier candidates realize their quest for the White House has more in common with Don Quixote than a '92 Bill Clinton or a '76 Jimmy Carter is a question that will remain in the forefront of the political mediasphere for as long as anyone other than Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders stays in the race.

 

That said, we do have one less official candidate this week, as Bill de Blasio saw the handwriting on the wall a bit earlier than most and has gone back to being a small town mayor. He joins fellow New Yorker Kristen Gillibrand, who dropped out two weeks ago, along with former candidates Seth Moulton, Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper, Mike Gavel, and Eric Swalwell. 

 

For candidates such as Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, who enjoyed brief moments of higher-than-average popularity only to see their numbers drop back down to earth, the question they have to ask is if there's a way to recapture that early momentum. For the rest of the remaining field, they have to ask what they are hoping to accomplish for staying in the race. 

 

It's long been assumed that many low-polling candidates stay in to increase their public stature for either a future run at higher office or to be considered for a VP or cabinet slot. Another aspect is a quirk in finance law that allows money raised by a presidential candidate to be used for other races, such as a run for Senate or Governor. That may be what several of the candidates are doing, using their national exposure as a presidential candidate to pad their war chest for a run at a slightly less higher office.

 

And while the old adage "all publicity is good publicity" may work in the advertising field, it generally does not work well in politics. Andrew Yang, who has seen his polling numbers start clicking up the past month, is facing blowback for a claim that he once fired a woman who had gotten married over concerns she wouldn't work as hard. Likewise, Beto O'Rourke has raised the ire of not just conservatives but many liberals as well with his public embrace of a mandatory gun buyback program. It's generally good to get in the news when you're a second-tier candidate, but sometimes it works against you. . 

 

Which brings us to the "big three". Of them, Democratic voters have three fairly distinct choices: the traditional moderate-liberal who believes he can make the system work again in Joe Biden, the progressive-liberal who wants to upend the entire system and build something new and more "equitable" in Elizabeth Warren, and the liberal-socialist who wants to spread the wealth to benefit all and is mostly distrusting of all institutions in Bernie Sanders.

So who will emerge from this group and grab the brass ring? Naturally, we don't have a reliable crystal ball (though we do have a Magic 8-Ball), so we have to read the polling tea leaves a bit. And one way is to look at "ranked-choice" polling, where voters rank their first, second, third, etc. choices. This past week, both YouGov and FairVote conducted just such a poll … and the eventual winner was Elizabeth Warren.
 

UPDATED NATIONAL RANKINGS
 

Speaking of the "big three", it's been an interesting week with a large batch of new polls. Biden remains ten points out in front, while Warren leapfrogs Sanders to move back into second place in the polling average. 

 

The Top Three

• Biden -- 28.3 % (up 0.8 %)
• Warren -- 18.6 % (up 3.7 %)
• Sanders -- 16.7 % (down 1 %)
   

The Rest Of The Pack

• Buttigieg -- 5.3 % (up 1.3 %)
• Harris -- 5.2 % (down 1.1 %)
• O'Rourke -- 2.7 % (down 0.2 %) 
• Yang -- 2.7 % (up 0.3 %)
• Booker -- 2.7 % (up 0.4 %)

 

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.

 

A NEW POLLING CHART

 

The polling charts we've been using, which tracked the most recent ten poll results for each of the candidates, appears to have been a bit too confusing and/or unwieldy for some readers, so we've switched to a longer-term chart which tracks the weekly polling average for each candidate going back over the past ten updates. Hopefully this will give a better "at-a-glance" look at how the race is shaping up.

 

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.

Of the "first four", we have two new polls from Iowa that show Biden and Warren in a virtual tie, with Sanders and Buttigieg about ten points behind. It's obvious that Warren is putting a lot of focus and effort on Iowa, which seems to paying off in the polls and in person. Kamala Harris, who is a distant fifth in the polling average, has decided to "move" to Iowa and appears to be putting all her eggs in a corn-made basket. 

 

Of the Super Tuesday states, we have five new polls from California which shows the state is completely up for grabs between the top three candidates. We also have a new poll from Texas where Biden maintains a ten-point lead over a crowded field of three (O'Rourke, Warren, and Sanders).