Last time we checked in, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of a small, liberal college town, had crept up into the low teens in national polling, making a bid for top-tier status in the Democratic presidential primary. The time since then, including a rocky debate performance, hasn’t been kind. While he still retains the inexplicable support of too many, his single-digit performance has rendered him moot, and not even a strong showing in Iowa can save him anymore—not when his standing with black voters is utter shit. And with that, it’s a three-person race.
First, the polling aggregate:
There have been some ups and downs, but Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are pretty much exactly where they were a year ago. Elizabeth Warren is better off, for sure, given she started from basically zero, but she’s well off her highs, done in by her health care plan. Michael Bloomberg has spent an obscene $200 million in television ads to show signs of existing, which is more than Tom Steyer can claim for the $140 million that he has spent (though Steyer did just qualify for the next debates, unfortunately). Imagine those $340 million spent on actual progressive infrastructure …
Why can’t our billionaires be more like the Kochs and Mercers, more interested in infrastructure building than egoistical self-aggrandizement? Meanwhile, Iowa is coming! And the gold-standard poll there shows us that the Hawkeye State is pretty much a jump ball:
See Buttigieg’s drop? His boomlet is thankfully over. But where are his supporters going? In fact, much of everything will depend on second choices, period. 35% or so of Democrats nationally support a candidate that isn’t in the top three. No one gets more than 30%. It’s a real contest, folks. It’s easy to see how each specific candidate doesn’t win, and hard to see how one of them can win. Anyway, let’s rank!
1. Biden ⬆️ (Last cattle call: 1)
His national lead is comfortable, at about 10%. His support among older black voters is unflappable, giving him a solid base to work from. He is within striking range of a top finish in Iowa, which would keep him from suffering any early embarrassment. During the past year, all I heard from Iowa observers was how Biden had no field operation in the state. Don’t know if any of that has changed in the new year, but he’d better hope so. There are not a lot of black folks in Iowa to prop him up.
Also, Iowa shouldn’t go first, precisely because it doesn’t properly reflect the party’s diversity. But yeah, I’ve been beating that drum for nearly two decades now …
Biden’s path is clear: survive Iowa and New Hampshire, win big in South Carolina, then raise a buttload of cash in the wake of that win to coast through Nevada caucuses and into the big Super Tuesday in early March, in which about 40% of the total delegates will be chosen. If he can get there without too many stumbles, the Bernie-Warren split among the left will allow him to consolidate the rest of the party around him, and ride that into victory.
Counterpoint: he’s Joe F’n Biden, and 70% of the party wants someone else.
2. Bernie Sanders ⬆️ (Last cattle call: 3)
Buttigieg had muscled his way up to the No. 2 spot a month ago, but no more. Bernie has done something I said he couldn’t do—grow his support past his core base. Now, we’re talking a couple of points at most, but hey, it’s growth. Gotta give props that it’s there.
Furthermore, Bernie seems to be the biggest beneficiary of Buttigieg’s collapse in Iowa. Of course, it’s hard to say that it’s a one-to-one correlation, that Pete’s supporters are moving to Bernie. It’s like musical chairs with this many candidates. But regardless, that five-point rise, to the front of the back (however narrow and tennis it might be) shows that Sanders can build on his core base. And it might not be a massive increase in support, but again, it’s a split field, and winning is winning. You don’t need 50% plus one. You need “plus one” from everyone else.
Bernie’s path is clear—win Iowa, ride that to New Hampshire victory, shrug off South Carolina, win the Nevada caucuses, and then hope that momentum delivers California and other big non-Southern states on Super Tuesday (Colorado, Minnesota, Maine, Virginia).
Counterpoint: If Biden has 70% of the party arrayed against him, and that’s a problem, what does that mean for the guy that is far more divisive, and has 80% picking someone else?
3. Elizabeth Warren ⬆️ (Last cattle call: 3)
Observers have consistently rated Warren’s Iowa operation as the best of the lot, and the bulk of organizers working for Kamala Harris and Julian Castro have moved on over to her campaign. Is that determinative, in a race that appears to be a four-way tie?
Maybe? Supposedly, sure. But this race is so fluid, I wouldn’t bet my first-born on it. And there are so many factors at play, it’s truly hard to apply analytics to it. For example, there’s the idea of “electability,” one which is clearly having an impact on the campaign (to Biden’s benefit). But how do you define that concept? It is utterly subjective. For some, it means "white male.” For others, it means "unifies the party," or “best known,” or even, let’s be honest, simply "the candidate I like." So it is impossible to determine whether someone’s electability argument is impacted by, say, a poor debate performance, when everyone defines that concept differently.
You can’t even analyze this race based on ideology. The political press wants to assign “lanes” to the contest. Such as “Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg are the centrists, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren represent the left.” Yet Biden’s strongest support comes from Black voters, among the party’s most liberal supporters. People are choosing based on gut and instinct and subjective intangibles that have nothing to do with anything that anyone can track or define.
That’s not to say that ideology is unimportant. Warren got knocked off her front-runner pedestal after releasing her health care plan. People didn’t like that it was too liberal. Meanwhile, “wine cellar” seems to have singularly knocked Buttigieg out of contention, as voters clearly didn’t like his coziness with monied and wealthy interests, and his impassioned defense for the influence of big money in politics.
But also, were there people supporting Warren that didn’t know she was liberal? Were there people supporting Buttigieg that didn’t know that he’s a big favorite of Wall Street? Clearly, there were! Which, again, shows that people are picking these candidates based on intangible criteria that are unique to each individual person. And as they find out about these candidates, they’re clearly willing to jump ship.
That’s all a long-winded way of saying “who the heck knows what’s going to happen.” What I can say is that Warren’s support has stabilized and found its floor, and it’s not the worst place to be. Not as good as it was pre-Health Care Plan debacle! But well within striking range of the nomination.
Warren’s path is clear—win Iowa and New Hampshire, survive South Carolina (but with at least one-quarter of the black vote for credibility’s sake), take the Nevada caucuses, and then ride that momentum into Super Tuesday. If she can take a clear delegate lead over Bernie, she can argue that she’s the vehicle for the left to prevent Biden from winning the nomination. And ugh, no one on the left wants that.
Counterpoint: Bernie isn’t going anywhere, and his core supporters aren’t either, so how do you unite the left in that scenario? Biden runs away with it because the left remains fragmented.
The rest ⬇️
Whether any of the rest of the field deserves this fate (I’m looking at the billionaires) or not, their importance at this point really comes down to one question: Who is the second-choice candidate of their supporters? With no one above 30%, and with 30-40% of voters choosing candidates who aren't the top three above (or are still undecided), there is a lot of room for candidates to leapfrog (or not) over each other.
So there we are. The Cattle Call will be a weekly Sunday feature through the end of the primary campaign. See you in a week!