Results from yesterday’s straw poll along with historical trends:
|
7/17 |
7/2 |
6/11 |
5/29 |
5/14 |
5/1 |
4/15 |
4/2 |
3/18 |
2/18 |
2/5 |
1/22 |
1/8 |
WARREN |
35 |
29 |
34 |
25 |
25 |
19 |
12 |
12 |
12 |
10 |
17 |
18 |
22 |
SANDERS |
20 |
25 |
25 |
34 |
26 |
34 |
40 |
33 |
38 |
44 |
13 |
12 |
11 |
HARRIS |
14 |
19 |
7 |
11 |
11 |
8 |
9 |
11 |
11 |
15 |
27 |
27 |
14 |
BIDEN |
11 |
7 |
12 |
10 |
14 |
18 |
5 |
8 |
- |
8 |
11 |
13 |
14 |
BUTTIGIEG |
7 |
7 |
10 |
9 |
9 |
10 |
21 |
18 |
6 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
YANG |
4 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
OTHER |
9 |
10 |
* |
* |
* |
* |
* |
* |
* |
* |
* |
* |
* |
UNSURE |
** |
** |
3 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
4 |
6 |
6 |
9 |
(VOTES) |
57.2K |
63.2K |
57.5K |
39.8K |
60K |
53.1K |
35.5K |
40.2K |
52.5K |
56K |
42.2K |
28K |
35.5K |
Elizabeth Warren wins her third straight straw poll, further pulling away from fading Bernie Sanders. What was a 9-point lead a month ago, and a 4-point lead two weeks ago, is now a 15-point lead. It also marks Warren’s highest vote percentage ever in this straw poll, even if it’s by a single point.
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have bounced (in different directions) off their post-debate marks. Pete Buttigieg has found a new base of support at 7%. And it’s cute that Andrew Yang’s supporters can drive 2,400 votes to this poll, but that’s about all that he has going for himself.
This straw poll confirms what we’ve known all along—that there are maybe five real candidates in the race. Probably four. We’re seeing it here, we’re seeing it in the public polling, and we’re seeing it in the fundraising numbers.
Meanwhile, Iowa is sitting over there thinking that they have a say in this process. They don’t. Their role next year will be to ratify what we, as an entire nation, are already determining. What are they going to do, hand the victory to Steve Bullock? All we’d do is point and laugh. And the seven (or so) delegates the winner will get out of Iowa will seem hilariously irrelevant in this data-driven era of political analysis. California, voting at the same time, will award hundreds to the winner.
This is a new era, and whether by design or not (I suspect not), the DNC’s filtering mechanism for the debates has in itself become the first-in-the-nation contest, helping weed out the wheat from the chaff.
So we, the small-dollar-donor activist class has determined who gets to play in the Big Leagues, and everyone else is essentially ignored. And really, the also-ran candidates have no one to blame but themselves. If you can’t inspire the party’s rank and file, then they have no business running.
Iowa will have an important role to play—to tell everyone aside from the Big Five Maybe Four, not-so gently, that they’re not going to be president and it’s time to pack it in. And that's fine. Someone has to deliver the news! Might as well be those guys.
But the days in which Iowa alone got to decide who the top players were is long past. This won’t be up to Iowa or New Hampshire. South Carolina will be the first contest that really matters (it will determine whether Harris has consolidated black support behind her, whether Biden will keep his, and whether Warren will compete with that demographic), and then it’s on to the delegate count starting Super Tuesday. About a third of all delegates will be awarded that day, and the race will be whittled down to the finalist 2-3 candidates for the duration of the contest.
I’ve said from the start that I expect it to come down to Warren and Harris. Nothing has dissuaded me from that prediction since.