Mega-Thread: Democratic 2020 Primaries

[Grapemask]

Here's a reason to vote: Donald Trump is an existential threat to our democracy. His re-election almost certainly assures a 6-3 Conservative majority until Clarence Thomas dies, potentially a 7-2 majority. Clarence Thomas is 71. He could easily serve another 2 decades, probably a decade at the minimum. This could be the end of a women's right to choose, civil rights for LGBTQ citizens, including gay marriage, sensible gun laws (lol those haven't even started), and a continuation of disastrous decisions like Citizens United, preventing any sort of campaign finance reform. Donald Trump will try, again, to gut your healthcare, which has one less obstacle with John McCain's death. He will continue to be a failure in foreign policy, and treat asylum seekers and refugees as animals. He will curb or outright deny rights to marginalized groups. He will continue to waste money on an ineffectual border wall, while cutting funding for things like, say, the CDC pandemic response team, which could be useful right around now.

If that isn't enough for you to vote for Biden, who is on the other side of ALL these issues - I don't know what is.

I think the problem with a lot of those issues is that they start to wear thin on people who have heard it all before. For literally every conservative president, this one is going to define the next generation of justices. This one is going to limit these rights. This one will blow up the budget. I personally have heard it going all the way back to Bush (senior), and I'm sure the older generations have heard it further still.

And it's all true. And it's all concerning. And it all needs to be stopped.

But at some point you realize you've given up half of your life waiting for a More Convenient Season.

At the risk or once again triggering the frothing zealots - and again to reiterate to the same frothing mass that I'm voting for Biden if he's the nominee, because like any majority, you have to constantly remind them that you're under control or they lose their mind - it gets easier to see why people at the very least lose interest in running in the wheel.

[Edge-]

I mean after tonight...it's safe to say Sanders wasn't able to expand his camp.

He lost states he won in 2016. He's not getting the youth vote out in anywhere near the numbers he needs despite saying he would.

Interestingly, I was hearing about how white men swung hard from Sanders in 2016 to Biden in 2020. Sure makes it hard to not view their 2016 votes as being at least partially influenced by sexism at some level but I haven't seen the granular data on it yet.

I'm still not thrilled that Biden is likely getting the nomination, and stand by my earlier fan-fiction as the best possible scenario. Even if the lack of diversity on the ticket would be dumb as shit.

[starlord]

I think the problem with a lot of those issues is that they start to wear thin on people who have heard it all before. For literally every conservative president, this one is going to define the next generation of justices. This one is going to limit these rights. This one will blow up the budget. I personally have heard it going all the way back to Bush, and I'm sure the older generations have heard it further still.

And it's all true. And it's all concerning. And it all needs to be stopped.

But at some point you realize you've given up half of your life waiting for a More Convenient Season.

At the risk or once again triggering the frothing zealots - and again to reiterate to the same frothing mass that I'm voting for Biden if he's the nominee, because like any majority, you have to constantly remind them that you're under control or they lose their mind - it gets easier to see why people at the very least lose interest in running in the wheel.

just makes all the MLK comparisons all the more hypocritical.
easy to lose interest when its not your civil rights at stake.

[Theodarzna]

and yet, dems haven't needed "insurgency" to advance their ideologies.
not too long ago you were crowing about how "the left and progressives have gone too far!! the right wing backlash is well deserved for going so far left!!" along with some other posters.
now here you are painting your face red.

Given their ideology is about the same as garden variety GOP, then its not hard to advance that when its basically the same shared belief system of the other party.

And I criticize Libs who pose as Leftists but in the end don't really want any sort of substantial change beyond tokenism. The Left, to the extent that its bad is that its overwhelmingly filled with fakes.

I've literally NEVER been a free market person or a pro-Capitalism person. Hell, you are so obsessed with this you called me a "Kamala Harris fan" out of left field, like the heck are you even on about?

[cubby]

And if Biden actually wins against Trump, while i hope it is possible, his odds will be lower as they are both relying on the same age group of voters.
@cubby

But Biden's chances are MUCH higher than Sanders chances. Given that Sanders is already today considering closing his campaign, it's clear the (D) made their choice. What Sanders' supporters need to do now is punch some walls (I'd be frustrated too, I was when it became clear Warren wasn't going to get it), regroup, and work to get your progressive agenda forwarded with Biden as President, and then all of us work our asses off to see that he's elected.

[Levelfive]

I mean after tonight...it's safe to say Sanders wasn't able to expand his camp.

He lost states he won in 2016. He's not getting the youth vote out in anywhere near the numbers he needs despite saying he would.

Interestingly, I was hearing about how white men swung hard from Sanders in 2016 to Biden in 2020. Sure makes it hard to not view their 2016 votes as being at least partially influenced by sexism at some level but I haven't seen the granular data on it yet.

I'm still not thrilled that Biden is likely getting the nomination, and stand by my earlier fan-fiction as the best possible scenario. Even if the lack of diversity on the ticket would be dumb as shit.

There's a lot of really interesting analysis with links to relevant papers and data here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/o...ump-biden.html

[cubby]

Stacy Abrams.

She is the only logical candidate. She is the only one who gives Biden that which he does not have.

Biden-Abrams is a terrifyingly good ticket and creates a lot of problems for Trump.

She would be my top-three choice. Considering that she decided not to run for the TWO open seats in Georgia, I wonder if the DNC already asked her to be on either ticket.

[eschatological]

I think the problem with a lot of those issues is that they start to wear thin on people who have heard it all before. For literally every conservative president, this one is going to define the next generation of justices. This one is going to limit these rights. This one will blow up the budget. I personally have heard it going all the way back to Bush, and I'm sure the older generations have heard it further still.

And it's all true. And it's all concerning. And it all needs to be stopped.

But at some point you realize you've given up half of your life waiting for a More Convenient Season.

At the risk or once again triggering the frothing zealots - and again to reiterate to the same frothing mass that I'm voting for Biden if he's the nominee, because like any majority, you have to constantly remind them that you're under control or they lose their mind - it gets easier to see why people at the very least lose interest in running in the wheel.

But you acknowledged that they did do all those things? Like, we're still suffering the ramifications of Reagan's 80s deregulation in the economy, and our immigration crisis was predicated on the culmination of Reagan's meddling in Latin American foreign affairs by literally replacing democratically elected (but left wing) politicians with literal police states and death squads in places like El Salvador.

The larger problem of the American body politic is that progressivism has been shut out by a propaganda war that stretches back to Joe McCarthy. I, frankly, as someone who's been a liberal since the 80s and who has volunteered/worked in Democratic politics since 2000 and has been a lawyer since 2009, have no idea how to reverse that tide other than waiting for the boomer generation to die out. Generation X is a bit apathetic, but nowhere near as conservative as our parents, and it keeps getting more liberal as time goes by.

The march to progress is inexorable and undeniable. As Dr. King said (I believe you're the one who likes to quote him), "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

[cubby]

You believe literally everything will improve instantaneously, ONLY if your tribe has total control and rams their agenda down everyone's throat. remember what happened last time you pulled that shit? Ramming the ACA while screaming we have to trust you? Oh right, that ended in Trump. So yeah, maybe education should be a focus, you could take a history class.

I do also like that they ended the "hey fuck you healthy poor people" tax.

My favorite part about your little diatribe above is that you actually agree with me, and then recognize that it was Trump who ruined the ACA - not the Democrats. It's nice to see you people embracing the truth.

[starlord]

Given their ideology is about the same as garden variety GOP, then its not hard to advance that when its basically the same shared belief system of the other party.

And I criticize Libs who pose as Leftists but in the end don't really want any sort of substantial change beyond tokenism. The Left, to the extent that its bad is that its overwhelmingly filled with fakes.

I've literally NEVER been a free market person or a pro-Capitalism person. Hell, you are so obsessed with this you called me a "Kamala Harris fan" out of left field, like the heck are you even on about?

you mean like gay & trans rights which you love to criticize? "the left has gone too far" had been your mantra for some time now.
and yea i misremembered. you had said gabbard, that most right wing of "leftists".
just pointing out how seriously anyone should take your when you bemoan the fate of progressives.

[Machismo]

Trump supporters are usually unreasonable people. Now that they tasted Trump for 4 years, they'll want another 4. The same people that voted for Joe Biden are also likely to vote for Trump as well. It all depends on the political theater that Trump presents, and so far he's pretty good at cultivating the sheep.

I don't know many Biden supporters who would support Trump over another Democrat.

[Edge-]

There's a lot of really interesting analysis with links to relevant papers and data here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/o...ump-biden.html

Thanks, I'll add it to my pile to read later when I catch up on all the goings-on during yesterday's elections.

[starlord]

Thanks, I'll add it to my pile to read later when I catch up on all the goings-on during yesterday's elections.

took a peek at the article (before paywall went up).
there was that word again.
"hostile sexism".

[eschatological]

She would be my top-three choice. Considering that she decided not to run for the TWO open seats in Georgia, I wonder if the DNC already asked her to be on either ticket.

Again, I don't get the Stacy Abrams love. She's a black moderate when Biden has already sewn up the black and moderate vote. Abrams would be good for a Bernie ticket. Biden is already polling above 70% with black people in the PRIMARY and that'll swing to 90%+ in the general. His support among Southern Democrats can't go much higher than it already is.

Get a midwestern progressive (if such a thing exists) and go to town. Someone mentioned Tammy Duckworth earlier, and while I voiced some concerns, that might be a good choice. Tammy Baldwin is also a good choice, but she might be too Klobuchar-ish in manners and optics. Frankly, I wish Corey Booker was from any state but New Jersey, cause then he'd make a great running mate (and not because he's black, which, again, is largely irrelevant). Andrew Gillum would have been great had he won the Florida seat.

[Grapemask]

just makes all the MLK comparisons all the more hypocritical.
easy to lose interest when its not your civil rights at stake.

I can't facepalm enough at this comment. MLK made exactly this argument. Why do you think I've quoted his Birmingham letter 932 times?

[eschatological]

P.S. I had to double check to make sure both Duckworth and Baldwin were named Tammy. What the fuck is that, Midwesterners?!?

[starlord]

I can't facepalm enough at this comment. MLK made exactly this argument. Why do you think I've quoted his Birmingham letter 932 times?

so maybe you should heed his advice and realize that some people have their civil rights on the line that matters more to them than saving you money?
you mentioned "acceptable sacrifices" before. what did MLK have to say about sacrificing civil rights?

[Theodarzna]

you mean like gay & trans rights which you love to criticize? "the left has gone too far" had been your mantra for some time now.
and yea i misremembered. you had said gabbard, that most right wing of "leftists".
just pointing out how seriously anyone should take your when you bemoan the fate of progressives.

I've not really criticized that stuff because that isn't an acceptable topic on this forum, so again, you'll need to cite something here. Much like your claim that I am a "Kamala Harris fan" which is rather fascinating. Also very original. Like I cannot actually recall ever anyone saying that one so I give you points for originality, that is a fresh new one.

Also Gabbard, Yeah, is basically with Sanders on core economic issues that I care about. She is for raising the Min. Wage, bringing back Galss Steagall, Paid family leave for at least 12 weeks, is open to Reparations (I personally think its a dumb suggestion but I'm not totally against the idea), College should be free, I do wish she was with Bernie or Warren on Student Debt relief (I have a lot of suffering friends), ect. Where I disagree with her is pretty much nuclear energy and debt issues, But she is pro-m4a as well. Plus we share religious sensibilities. And she is Anti-War and Anti-Empire, I'm actually curious why any of that or what she does that is Right-Wing. At this point I don't think labels mean all that much anyway.

Marianne Williamson suites my crystal sensibilities also.

[Levelfive]

took a peek at the article (before paywall went up).
there was that word again.
"hostile sexism".

"Four years ago, in Grant County, Oklahoma, Bernie Sanders crushed Hillary Clinton, 57.1 percent to 31.9 percent.

This year, Sanders didn’t just lose Grant County — 87.5 percent white, 76.9 percent without college degrees — to Joe Biden, his percentage of the vote fell by 41 points, to 16.1 percent.

Grant County reflects what has become a nationwide pattern in the Democratic primaries, including those held Tuesday night: Sanders’s support among white working class voters has begun to evaporate.

What happened?

A crucial bloc of Sanders’s 2016 voters is no longer a part of the Democratic primary electorate. The remnant of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party that in 2016 voiced its hostility to Clinton by voting for Sanders has now turned to President Trump. Many of these former Democrats — particularly men who hold right-of-center views on race, gender and immigration — cast far fewer of their ballots for Sanders and his progressive policies this time around, compared with four years ago, when they shied away from Clinton’s perceived elitism, her ties to Wall Street, her social liberalism and the fact that she is a woman.

The erosion of Sanders’s white working class support this year raises a related question: Why did Elizabeth Warren’s campaign fail?

One source of the frustration felt by many Warren supporters lies in the fact that the Democratic Party is not as free of sexism as these voters hoped. Support for Warren in Democratic primaries fell in direct proportion to rising levels of what political scientists call “hostile sexism.”

One of the first papers to explore this phenomenon, “Understanding White Polarization in the 2016 Vote for President: The Sobering Role of Racism and Sexism,” by Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts, and Matthew MacWilliams and Tatishe Nteta, political scientists at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, was published in 2018 in the Political Science Quarterly.

Trump, according to the authors, deliberately put racism and sexism at the center of the campaign in order to make these issues salient and advantageous to his candidacy:

Trump’s rhetoric went far beyond targeting racial and ethnic groups; he also invoked language that was explicitly hostile toward women. These remarks were often focused directly at opponents, such as Carly Fiorina and Hillary Clinton, or news reporters, such as Megyn Kelly.

In doing so, Trump capitalized on what political scientists call “role incongruity theory,” which contends that women running for executive office face a conflict: on the one hand, “people tend to think that women should behave” but at the same time they believe “that political leaders ought to be assertive and independent.” As a consequence, the authors write, “when a campaign highlights the way in which a female candidate is behaving incongruously, attitudes on sexism may become a stronger predictor of vote choice.”

The authors specifically noted that

when Trump referred to Clinton as a “nasty woman” during a debate, the reaction from voters may have been conditioned by their underlying views about how women should behave. For those with more sexist views, Trump’s remark may have drawn attention to the fact that Clinton was not acting in the stereotypical way that they expect of a woman.

In December 2015, Trump described with relish Clinton’s bathroom break during a Democratic debate as “disgusting, I don’t want to talk about it. No, it’s too disgusting. Don’t say it, it’s disgusting,” and proclaimed that in her 2008 bid for the Democratic nomination, “she got schlonged” by Barack Obama.

Adverse reaction to Clinton among socially conservative voters was compounded, Schaffner and his co-authors wrote, by her “attempt to mobilize racial minorities such as African- Americans and Latinos” when she consistently cited “a number of issues of importance to these groups, such as her progressive positions on criminal justice reform, immigration reform and gender inequality.” Appeals to racial minorities, according to Schaffner, MacWilliams and Nteta, “have historically been viewed in a negative light by white voters, most notably by racially conservative whites.”

Trump’s tactics worked to greatly widen the gap between whites with college degrees and whites without degrees:

The rhetoric of the campaign and Clinton’s attempt to be the first‐ever female president may have combined to prime racial and gender attitudes in the minds of voters. If these factors were associated with support for Trump in 2016, and if non‐college‐educated whites are more likely to hold racist and sexist views, then the explicit role of racism and sexism in the 2016 campaign may account for the uniquely large education gap among whites.

Schaffner elaborated by email on the subject of the decline in support for Sanders as he no longer faces Clinton:

Overall Sanders is running well below his 2016 vote share everywhere. A lot of people underestimated just how much of his support in 2016 was an anti-Clinton vote, and now that he’s not running against Clinton, those voters aren’t backing him anymore.

Sanders describes his campaign as a revolution, but in 2016 he had in fact tapped not just left revolutionaries, but also a faction of old-guard white Democrats, in the North in particular, who had not yet followed their southern counterparts into the Republican Party.

For these men and women, a vote for Sanders was a declaration of their animosity to the liberal establishment as it was embodied by Hillary Clinton.

About 10 to 12 percent of Sanders’s 2016 primary voters cast ballots for Trump in the general election, and another 12 percent either voted for third-party candidates or sat the election out.

John Sides, a political scientist at Vanderbilt, wrote me that interviews with Sanders-Trump voters over the years showed that “only 35 percent of them had voted for Obama” in 2008 or 2012, which in turn “suggests that most Sanders-Trump voters were not loyal Democrats even before Clinton ran.”

Using data compiled by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study and the Voter Study Group, Sides wrote in the Washington Post in 2017 that “many Sanders voters did not readily identify with the Democratic Party as of 2016” and that Sanders-Trump voters “were even less likely to identify as Democrats.”

The key factor separating Sanders-Trump voters from Sanders-Clinton voters was “their attitudes about race,” Sides wrote:

When asked how they felt about whites and blacks on a 0-100 scale, Sanders-Trump voters rated blacks 9 points less favorably than Sanders-Clinton voters. But Sanders-Trump voters rated whites 8 points more favorably.

Those conservative views on African-Americans extended to other groups, Sides found:

Compared with Sanders-Clinton voters, Sanders-Trump voters rated Latinos 11 points less favorably, Muslims 20 points less favorably, and gays and lesbians 31 points less favorably.

Trump is fully aware of the fragile Democratic loyalties of many Sanders supporters. In a February interview with the local FOX television station in Phoenix, Trump was asked: “If Sanders doesn’t win, do you think you can take some of his supporters?”

Trump replied:

I think we will. The last time we had a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters. I think if they take it away from him like they did the last time, I really believe you’re going to have — you’re gonna have a very riotous time in the Democrat Party, because they really — they did a lot of numbers on him.

In the 2020 primaries, as Sarah Longwell, director of Defending Democracy Together, showed in the Times a few days ago, Joe Biden is adding voters to the Democratic coalition who are likely to stick with the party in the general election, reversing the pattern of the elusive Sanders voters who switched to Trump.

Biden, Longwell wrote, is winning over millions of suburban voters who often cast Republican ballots in the past but who “are now firmly anti-Trump.” These voters, she continued, flexed their muscles “on Super Tuesday in the Virginia and Texas suburbs, which saw 74 percent and 87 percent higher voter turnout, respectively, than four years ago.” These de facto Never Trumpers also showed up in large quantities in the suburbs of Charleston, S.C., where 58 percent more people voted in the Democratic primary last Tuesday compared with 2016. They were in evidence all over the map this Tuesday night as well.

The big difference between these voters and the conservative white voters who backed Sanders in 2016 is that these suburbanites will not vote for Trump this year and, if 2018 is any guide, they will support a centrist Democratic nominee.

Nate Silver, editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight, cited data from the Cooperative Congressional Research Study to illustrate Sanders’s current difficulties maintaining his 2016 supporters. In February 2019 Silver wrote:

Roughly one-quarter of Sanders’s support in Democratic primaries and caucuses in 2016 came from #NeverHillary voters: people who didn’t vote for Clinton in the 2016 general election and who had no intention of doing so.

Silver pointed out that Sanders in 2016 won 43 percent of the vote in his primary competition against Clinton, but if “24 percent of that 43 percent were #NeverHillary voters, that means Sanders’s real base was more like 33 percent of the overall Democratic electorate.”

Without Clinton in the race, #NeverHillary voters have no motive to cast a ballot for Sanders:

These voters were disproportionately likely to describe themselves as moderate or conservative. Among the 31 percent of self-described conservatives who voted for Sanders in the Democratic primaries, more than half were #NeverHillary voters, for example.

Equally significant, on two key questions highly predictive of Republican leanings — “Do white people benefit from their race?” and “Should the Affordable Care Act be repealed” — Sanders’s #NeverHillary voters tended to fit the Republican profile, rejecting the view that whites benefit from their race and supporting repeal of the A.C.A., according to Silver. Demographically, the #NeverHillary voters were disproportionately rural, born-again Christians and military veterans, all groups leaning Republican.

A new Pew Research report shows that Sanders is now decisively viewed as the liberal candidate in the race and Biden as the moderate. From Feb. 18 to March 2 Pew interviewed 10,300 American adults, including 5,771 Democrats and Democratic leaners.

Seven out of ten Democratic voters and those who lean Democratic see Sanders as a liberal, 6 percent see him as a moderate, 8 percent see him as a conservative and the rest did not answer. In contrast, 31 percent see Biden as a liberal, 31 percent see him as a moderate and 20 percent see him as a conservative. Sanders’s current profile with voters is much less likely to draw conservative white support.

The departure from the Democratic electorate of conservatives deeply opposed to Clinton reduced the share of voters adverse to the nomination of a woman in the 2020 contests, but even without these voters, about a third of Democrats fit the category of “hostile sexism.” Schaffner, along with other political scientists, uses a “hostile sexism battery” of questions from the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory.

In an article published last week, “Sexism is probably one reason why Elizabeth Warren didn’t do better,” Schaffner and Jon Green, a political scientist at Ohio State wrote, “Warren received little-to-no support from the roughly one third of the Democratic primary electorate that does not reject these sentiments.” In contrast, support for Biden and Sanders rose in proportion to rising levels of agreement with those sentiments.

The pattern, especially the sharp drop in support for Warren, is shown in the accompanying chart:
Surprise, Surprise: The Most Sexist Democrats Were the Least Likely to Support Elizabeth Warren

Among Democratic primary voters, support for Warren strongly tracked responses to sexist statements.

(There was a chart here) By The New York Times | Source: Data for Progress, based on responses to four statements surveyed in August: “Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist”; “Women are too easily offended”; “Most women fail to appreciate fully all that men do for them”; “Women seek to gain power by getting control over men.” Candidates' support based on re-interviews with the same respondents in January.

The role of sexism, or the lack of it, can work to the advantage or disadvantage of both parties.

In a separate paper, “The Emergent Role of Hostile Sexism in the 2018 Midterm,” Schaffner found that in that election cycle, the “sexism-based divide appeared to cost Republicans more votes than it gained them.”

His analysis of vote switching from supporting congressional candidates of one party in 2016 to the other party in 2018 “showed that lower level of sexism were strongly related to switching from voting Republican to Democratic in 2018, whereas increasing levels of sexism produced much smaller swings in the opposite direction.”

Mark Setzler, a political scientist at High Point University in North Carolina, used a different technique to measure sexism as reported in his paper “Measuring Bias against Female Political Leadership.”

“Some of most striking data are for nonwhites and Democrats,” Setzler writes. “Individuals who belong to groups that are historical advocates for social equality are more likely than other individuals to mask sexist beliefs if they have them.”

Many individuals, but most especially those on the liberal side of the aisle, Setzler writes,

will admit their hostility toward women leaders only when they do not realize that they are doing so or when their concerns can be communicated in a way that does not run counter to social norms.

The traditional approach, which asks “respondents whether men, women, or both equally make better political leaders” fails to capture this latent sexism, in Setzler’s view. Instead, Setzler tested asking a similar question carefully in “a face-saving frame that reminds respondents that relatively few women hold high-level elected office.” The goal is to “reduce social desirability effects and lead to more accurate responses, especially for respondents who are unusually disinclined to admit bias openly.”

Setzler said his approach “permits individuals to acknowledge their bias without directly stating that they prefer male leaders or that they ‘agree’ that men are better.” It does so by asking “whether a person thinks that one of the ‘reasons’ that women are underrepresented in government is because ‘generally speaking, males make better leaders’. ”

In another key step, “the alternative measure is presented as one item in a block of questions exploring potential causes of female underrepresentation, thus cognitively masking its purpose”

When asked the conventional question directly, Setzler found, “minority respondents are slightly less likely than whites to say that male political leaders are superior when responding, but they are 10 points more likely than whites to exhibit pro-male bias on the masked measure.” In the case of partisanship, “Republicans are nearly three times as likely as Democrats (34 percent versus 13 percent) to admit to having a pro-male bias when responding to the conventional item.” But, he continued, “Democrats are nearly indistinguishable from Republicans in their answers to the masked question”:

While previous research indicates that Democrats are disproportionately supportive of female politicians, the findings here show that Democrats are three times more likely to express pro-male bias when they are responding to a modestly masked measure of the same prejudice.

What can be inferred from voters who have abandoned not only Bernie Sanders but Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris? Primarily that voters, including Democrats, are not as liberal as some polls suggest and as many on the left assert. The share of Democrats who identify as liberal or very liberal has grown steadily from 27 percent in 2000 to 47 percent in 2019, according to Pew, but self-identified moderates and conservatives stood at 49 percent in 2019

After looking at polling conducted throughout 2019, Lydia Saad, a senior editor at Gallup, found, that

The ideological balance of the country remained center-right, with 37 percent of Americans, on average, identifying as conservative during the year, 35 percent as moderate and 24 percent as liberal.

Since the Super Tuesday contests last week and similar primary results this week, the outcomes suggest that Democratic voters are coming to terms with that assessment by pushing Joe Biden, the de facto candidate of moderation, into the lead spot.

Republicans remained committed to profiting from sexism and racism.

Schaffner, MacWilliams and Nteta put the case well:

There is reason to think that Trump’s strategy of using explicitly racist and sexist appeals to win over white voters may be followed by candidates in future elections,” they write. “There is no longer a price to be paid by politicians who make such explicit appeals. Explicit racist and sexist appeals appeared to cost Trump some votes from more educated whites, but it may have won him even more support among whites with less education.

Republicans, they argue,

have two choices — moderate their appeals in order to restore their advantage among more educated white voters (even if it costs them some votes among less educated whites) or repeat the Trump strategy to maximize their support among less educated whites (even at the expense of winning large margins among college‐educated whites). As the norms governing political rhetoric appear to have largely been shattered in 2016, the latter strategy is at least as plausible as the former, and that may have significant consequences for the stability of American democracy.

There isn’t much doubt which strategy Trump will choose."

[cubby]

Again, I don't get the Stacy Abrams love. She's a black moderate when Biden has already sewn up the black and moderate vote. Abrams would be good for a Bernie ticket. Biden is already polling above 70% with black people in the PRIMARY and that'll swing to 90%+ in the general. His support among Southern Democrats can't go much higher than it already is.

Get a midwestern progressive (if such a thing exists) and go to town. Someone mentioned Tammy Duckworth earlier, and while I voiced some concerns, that might be a good choice. Tammy Baldwin is also a good choice, but she might be too Klobuchar-ish in manners and optics. Frankly, I wish Corey Booker was from any state but New Jersey, cause then he'd make a great running mate (and not because he's black, which, again, is largely irrelevant). Andrew Gillum would have been great had he won the Florida seat.

Abrams might garner a vote demographic that is already secured by just about any Democratic nominee. But the optics of her being on the ticket will bring out a lot of progressives, even if she herself isn't. Abrams would also put Georgia into play, legitimately, and that would force the GOP to spend money in states they would have been counting on.

The Tammy's would be good as well - but they're from states the DNC already has relatively locked down (assume nothing in this election) and don't require any special attention, if that makes sense (and lol re both being Tammy, I checked that last night, too). A southerner on the ticket might also put FL into a larger play than previously, and the black angle just makes it that much more delicious.

And Biden has to pick a woman. There is absolutely no question on this particular aspect. Corey is great, and a couple of other guys would have been good. But women are the largest demographic, and the largest increasing demographic (which is both insane and awesome). So perhaps Abrams isn't perfect, but after going through the analysis, she's the most perfect available. And she's very good in her own right.