Divided Democrats can agree on one thing: The other guy would be a disaster. “In 30-plus years of politics, I’ve never seen this level of doom. I’ve never had a day with so many people texting, emailing, calling me with so much doom and gloom,” Matt Bennett of the center-left group Third Way told Politico after Bernie Sanders’ big win in Nevada. Progressives share an equal level of doom and gloom around the prospect of former Vice President Joe Biden winning the nomination. “Very often, we are told — by people on television and in political media, perhaps by the people in our social circle and our families — that Joe Biden is the only way that Democrats can win in 2020,” laments New York Magazine’s Rebecca Traister. “But when I look at these last decades, I don’t actually see how much we’ve won with a party run by Those Guys. I see how much we’ve lost.” Biden’s 2020 campaign, fellow New York Magazine contributor Jonathan Chait predicts, “is going to end in a disaster for the whole party.” Super Tuesday’s super-fast consolidation of the Democratic presidential field has appropriately been framed as a two-man race between Bernie’s progressive revolution and the moderates’ plan to play-it-safe with Uncle Joe. There’s no question that Biden vs. Bernie is another battle in the ongoing “struggles for the soul of the Democratic Party.” The nasty ideological fight is far from Democrats’ only problem. Here are five big challenges facing Democrats in 2020. 1. Democrats are equally divided along generational lines. For a half-century, moderates have battled liberals for control of the Democratic Party. That’s not new. This time, that split is also reflected in Democrats’ age.  According to an ABC News/Washington Post exit poll, nearly 60% of Democrats between the ages of 18 to 29 years old voted for Sanders on Super Tuesday compared to 17% for Biden. At the other end, voters 65 and older went 48% for Biden and 15% for Sanders. The age gap creates problems for how Democrats communicate, the style and tenor of campaign messages and what’s considered civil in political discourse. Young progressives, frustrated by the Establishment, relish the chance to match President Trump’s brash style and in-your-face tone. They see moderate Democrats as weak pushovers. Yet, that style is what’s driving independent older voters away from Trump. It won’t be easy for Democrats to reconcile those radically different approaches.   2. Democrats are overestimating the power of anti-Trump sentiments to drive turnout. Democrats clearly are banking on Trump to be the main driver for their “get out the vote” efforts. That worked to great effect during the 2018 midterms, which showed incredible strength for Democrats in turning out their base. But in the social media age, four years is a long time to sustain the resistance, and there are signs Trump might be losing his power to motivate Democrats to vote. In contrast, he is generating unprecedented enthusiasm among GOP voters in an uncontested primary. According to Rolling Stone, “In New Hampshire, Trump received 129,696 votes, which is more than double what Obama got in 2012 and George W. Bush in 2004.” 3. Enthusiasm among women is down. Trump’s 2017 inauguration was answered in an unprecedented way with the Women’s March on Washington. That enthusiasm was channeled into progressive meet-up groups. The #MeToo movement seemed to add more motivation for women to take action and become politically engaged. What happened to all that energy and enthusiasm among women? Democrats started the race with a promising field of six female candidates: Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, and Marianne Williamson. Now, it’s down to two rich white men who represented mid-Atlantic and New England states, respectively, in the U.S. Senate. “No matter which person or party wins now, the historical grid at the back of my son and daughter’s Little Presidents board book will be getting yet another white male face,” writes Vogue contributor Michelle Ruiz. “It’s a cruel and frankly outrageous bill of goods that women and girls are sold: to be bombarded by bedazzled ‘Who Run the World?’ T-shirts and ‘Girl Power’ buttons, only to be told by the general electorate over and over again that the best you can hope for is vice president (maybe) or first lady.” 4. Young voters aren’t showing up.    The drop in the youth turnout among Democratic primary voters is a big concern for Bernie’s chances to secure the nomination. “Have we been as successful as I would hope in bringing young people in? The answer is no," Sanders told the press after Super Tuesday’s mixed results. It should terrify all Democrats in advance of November.  In North Carolina, overall turnout was up 17% but youth turnout was down 9%. According to the Washington Post, “Youth turnout compared to 2016 is either flat or down in a majority of states that have voted.” 5. Will the two billionaires take their ball and go home? Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg effectively bankrolled the Democrats’ 2018 midterm campaigns.  The latter spent more than $100 million to aid candidates in swing congressional districts. The former kicked in another $123 million to build the “Biggest Political Machine You’ve Never Heard of.” To put those numbers in perspective, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $84 million during the 2018 cycle. Bloomberg and Steyer’s combined spending was nearly three times as much. Both billionaires’ largesse was driven, at least in part, by their 2020 presidential ambitions. Democrats should be concerned that both of them might temper their spending in the lead-up to November.Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

She had a plan for everything, except winning elections. Elizabeth Warren has exited the presidential race. The Massachusetts senator did not prevail in a single Democratic primary or caucus. As the contest now narrows to a two-man race, the question is whether the progressive champion throws her support behind Bernie Sanders or, potentially, even joins the ticket with him. In her initial statement of withdrawal, Warren did not tip her hand. But a national surrogate for Sanders was quick to float the idea of drafting Warren as a running mate. Would the two team up to create a sort of super-progressive candidacy? Nomiki Konst told RealClearPolitics that she hopes so because “Biden can’t defeat a Bernie-Warren ticket. You just can’t.” Other progressives were also upbeat about the exit. It meant the possibility of unity on the left at a moment that establishment Democrats have rallied behind former Vice President Joe Biden and have run the board. The Sanders campaign needs to get busy courting Warren supporters, Neil Sroka told RCP. That support, however, “will need to be earned,” said the spokesman of the influential progressive group Democracy for America. “If you’re a Warren supporter who believes in her fight for big structural change, in taking on the billionaire class, and confronting corporate power, it’s pretty clear that Bernie Sanders is offering, while Joe Biden is offering much, much less.” Both the Sanders and Biden camps will now begin digging into the rubble of the Warren campaign to scrounge for support. They will have to fight over the scraps. Bradley Tusk, a senior adviser to the now suspended campaign of Michael Bloomberg, said that, while “the logical assumption is that her voters default to Sanders,” her base of support “is more mixed than that.” That is also the opinion of Matt Bennett, vice president of the centrist group Third Way. The idea of a default is wrong, he said, “and it's always been wrong.” “She has a pretty good chunk of folks who are fairly far left but she also has a bunch of people who were drawn to her because she is principled and smart,” Bennett told RCP. Those voters “are not necessarily going to be interested in a revolution.” As Sanders and Biden now eye the carcass of her campaign, Warren put the best face on defeat, sounding upbeat during a conference call with her campaign team. She told her staff that she loved them and that their effort wasn’t in vain, that their work “will have ripples for years to come.” Her goodbye continued, “If you leave with only one thing, it must be this: Choose to fight only righteous fights, because then when things get tough – and they will – you will know that there is only one option ahead of you: Nevertheless, you must persist.” This was a direct reference to the time that Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used parliamentary procedure to force Warren to take her seat after breaking the decorum rules of the Senate. It also captures Warren’s essence. Opponents and allies call her a fighter, and with good reason. She attacked her enemies and friends alike. Sanders and Mike Bloomberg know this better than most. Warren and Sanders had met at her Capitol Hill apartment in December of 2018 to discuss presidential ambitions. They were friends. They knew that they might end up running against one another, and during most of the 2020 primary there was an unspoken détente between the two: no friendly fire. Things changed in January when details of that meeting leaked. And then an ugly family argument happened on national television during the Iowa debate. She said that he said a woman could not win the presidency. He said that what she said was wrong. After the debate ended, the microphones were still on, capturing an uncomfortable exchange. “I think you called me a liar on national TV,” Warren told Sanders after walking over to his lectern. “What?” Sanders responded “I think you called me a liar on national TV,” she said again. “Let’s not do it right now,” he replied. “You want to have that discussion; we’ll have that discussion. You called me a liar, you told me – all right, let’s not do it right now.” He went to shake her hand but she wasn’t having it, and the two candidates left the debate stage on unfriendly terms. Warren would finish third in Iowa while Sanders would win the popular vote in the caucuses. And now he, not Warren, remains in the race as the challenger to Joe Biden, who was the choice of the party establishment all along. But she can take solace in the fact that Mike Bloomberg isn’t one of the finalists. She scalped the former New York City mayor on national television in his first debate and never let up the pressure. The billionaire had signed multiple non-disclosure agreements with former female employees, and after her attack, Bloomberg said he would allow three of those women to break their agreements. “If he says there is nothing to hide here, then sign a blanket release and let those women speak,” Warren said at the South Carolina debate. And then she made it personal. She left a teaching job long ago because she got pregnant, Warren said, but “at least I didn’t have a boss who told me to ‘kill it.'” It was another damaging reference, this time to a conversation Bloomberg allegedly had with a female employee in 1995. She was pregnant, and now claims that he told to have an abortion, “to kill it.” Bloomberg denied the allegation but never recovered. And by the time Warren had Sanders in her sights, it was too late.  In the end, Bernie remained the last progressive champion standing. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts senator, the last viable female candidate, is out of the race. Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

The “Resistance” to President Trump was aflame on Super Tuesday, but the young revolutionaries backing Bernie Sanders weren’t the only ones manning the barricades. The Democratic Party establishment showed up in greater numbers to inject energy into the suddenly surging campaign of Joe Biden and render the Democratic nominating contest a two-man race—with Biden once again the front-runner. “People are talking about a revolution,” a triumphant Biden declared Tuesday night in a dig at Sanders. “We started a movement.” Given up for dead as recently as two weeks ago by pundits and donors, Biden resurrected his campaign in South Carolina with a smashing victory Saturday that led to wins Tuesday in North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Texas. In Maine, Biden was leading Sanders in a close race. “This was one of the greatest comebacks in modern American political history,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, declared in a network interview. Sanders carried California, Colorado, Utah, and his home state of Vermont.  Maine was essentially a dead heat, meaning that Sanders and Biden will likely split the delegates there. The same was largely true in Texas, the second biggest delegate prize on the ballot, where voting was extended into the late-night hours as Biden took a slight lead. Both campaigns were intently watching the election returns from California—with by far the biggest delegate count of the night—to see how much Sanders’s win translated into delegates. “Tonight, I tell you in absolute confidence, we are going to win the Democratic nomination, and we are going to defeat the most shameless president in the history of this country!” Sanders told an enthusiastic crowd of Vermonters at his home base of Burlington. “We are going to defeat Trump because we are putting together an unprecedented, grassroots, multi-generational, multi-racial movement.” Sanders then took direct aim at Biden on a host of issues ranging from Social Security to single-payer health care. In Los Angeles, an equally ebullient Biden returned the compliment while celebrating his promotion from political purgatory. “For those who have been knocked down, counted out, left behind--this is your campaign,” he said. “Just a few days ago the press and the pundits had declared the campaign dead, and then came South Carolina, and they had something to say about it. We were told when it got to Super Tuesday that it’d be over. Well it may be over for the other guy.” While Biden and Sanders each had reason to crow, the other three remaining Democrats in the field had precious little to celebrate. Fourteen states and one territory were on the ballot Tuesday night, with 34% of the delegates needed for the nomination. Sen. Elizabeth Warren won none of them, including the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Warren, who led the field in October, had a plan for almost everything. But no candidate has a plan for finishing a distant third in their home state. Warren also pulled off an ignominious exacta—she also lost in Oklahoma, the state where she was born. Until Tuesday, the Warren campaign was counting on a contested convention to keep her presidential hopes alive. Campaign Manager Roger Lau said as much in a public memo Sunday. Their theory of the case was that no candidate would emerge with a path to the majority of the delegates. That scenario seems less likely now after Biden and Sanders nearly ran the Super Tuesday table; Warren’s role looks now like that of a spoiler, not a top-tier contender.  The candidate whom Warren knee-capped in the Nevada debate had arguably an even worse night. Despite spending an estimated $500 million of his personal fortune in the Super Tuesday media markets, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg garnered only one first-place finish—in little American Samoa—a statistical tie for second in Utah and then a close third in Colorado. The California results underscored the drawback of early voting. Mail-in ballots went out to voters the day of the Iowa caucuses. Although a portion of the Golden State electorate waited until after South Carolina to make their decision, more than 2.7 million had turned in their ballots before Tuesday morning, according to the California secretary of state. And many of them had voted before Bloomberg’s Nevada implosion and Biden’s South Carolina ascension. Voters in Colorado and Utah—the other two Western states Sanders carried—also voted early. In other words, if voting had been limited to Election Day, Biden’s very big night could have been even bigger. Bloomberg entered the race believing Biden would continue to falter, and he’d be there to pick up the pieces. It happened just as he predicted, with Biden finishing up behind the track in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada – states where Bloomberg did not compete. But as he rose in the national public polls, Bloomberg qualified under the Democratic National Committee’s rules for the party’s Las Vegas debate. Now it was Bloomberg’s turn to falter—bombed is probably a better word. It turned out not to be a tactically savvy move to debate in a state where he wasn’t on the ballot in the first place, but when savaged by the other candidates, especially Warren, he seemed more than unprepared. The results of Tuesday put Bloomberg in the exact place he didn’t want to be: He entered the race fearing no Democrat could head off the Sanders juggernaut. But on Super Tuesday – and going forward – his presence only helps Sanders blunt the charge of Biden. Both Biden and Sanders could take solace in another trend that emerged Tuesday: Money wasn’t the deciding factor. Sanders rails against “billionaires” on philosophical grounds; and after his weak start, Biden’s campaign was strapped for funds. But it didn’t matter. Biden won Massachusetts despite having spent only $10,000 in the commonwealth. The former vice president spent even less in Minnesota, and never even visited the state, which he essentially ceded to Sanders while hoping home state Sen. Amy Klobuchar could pull an upset. She did better than that. After endorsing Biden over the weekend, she unleashed her political operation on Biden’s behalf, which pushed him to victory. If endorsements helped sway the Democrats’ traditional rank-and-file voters, so did experience and name identification: Biden carried Arkansas and Tennessee without setting foot in either state during the primary season. Will the Democrats’ crowded debate stage now be whittled down to the two men who dominated Super Tuesday? Maybe not. Tulsi Gabbard, an afterthought who hasn’t been on stage since the fifth debate in Atlanta, won one delegate in American Samoa. According to current party rules, two senior DNC officials told RCP, a single delegate would punch the Hawaii representative’s ticket to the next debate. However, they conceded that those rules could be changed at the whim of the party.   Gabbard’s presence might be welcome, however, at least for the television audience. A Biden-Sanders semifinal, let’s face it, pits a 77-year-old man against a 78-year-old man – for the right to run against a president who will turn 74 this June. As feminist writer Jill Filipovic quipped on Twitter last night, “Either way the general election debate is going to look just like that Thanksgiving where grandma invited both her boyfriends. Buckle up!”Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/