Why Don’t We Know Which Democratic Candidate Can Beat Trump?
We seem to know less than we did at the beginning of the primary.
By
Mr. Jentleson was a deputy chief of staff for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada.
The Democratic presidential primary is starting to feel less like a political contest and more like an existential experiment. In the era of big data and after a year of micro-analyzing every little twist and turn, we seem to know less than we did at the beginning. In an era when we’re supposed to know everything, we somehow seem to know nothing.
The frustration is compounded by the feeling that we’re not asking all that much. Most Democratic voters aren’t asking a lot of questions. They’re just desperate to know the answer to a single, simple one: Who has the best chance of beating President Trump?
With more public polls than ever, more data scientists on the payrolls of major news organizations and a preponderance of poll-aggregating and analytical sites, it feels entirely reasonable to expect to know the answer by now.
Yet despite all the data and all the analysis, the universe appears dead set on defying our simple wish for an answer, and gleefully raising more questions instead. To the extent that we can put our finger on any reliable facts, many of them are slippery and two-sided.
Let’s review what we (sort of) know.
A stable race is suddenly not.
For the past year, the race orbited reliably around Joe Biden. He was in a tier by himself. Candidates in the tier below him traded positions and some dropped out, but nothing about the fundamental structure of the race changed. Mr. Biden may still bounce back, but the force he exerted on the race appears to be a thing of the past.
The “electability” candidate is bad at running for president.
Mr. Biden seemed to have a lock on the issue voters cared most about: electability. His hold on this issue was strengthened by the preponderance of polls showing him beating Mr. Trump by the biggest margins of any of the candidates. The problem is that the reality of Mr. Biden on the ground has never matched Mr. Biden’s numbers on paper. His debate performances have been generally received as lukewarm to poor, he consistently failed to fill rooms at his events and his performance on the stump has been criticized as lackluster.
The question has always been whether election results would converge with his performance on the ground or his performance in polls. Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire saw more of Mr. Biden than voters anywhere else, and entrance polls showed voters in both states prioritizing electability over all other issues. And they placed him fourth and fifth, respectively. At least in Mr. Biden’s case, the election results converged with the candidate’s performance in real life, not the polls.
The “least-electable” candidate has the best chance of winning the nomination.
Senator Bernie Sanders currently has the most viable path to winning a plurality of pledged delegates before the Democratic convention. His support is the most stable across the widest array of states, and he can claim solid performance across a diverse range of age, racial and ethnic groups. He beats Mr. Trump in most head-to-head polls.
At the same time, the Democratic establishment collectively screams that he is unelectable. These are, of course, many of the same people who assured us that Mr. Biden was the most electable candidate and that Mr. Trump would surely lose the 2016 election. On the other hand, Mr. Sanders’s own theory of electability is premised on the idea that he will bring new voters into the process and inspire massive turnout. So far, that has not happened. In addition, his supporters keep picking fights with other Democrats who may not support him now, but whose support Mr. Sanders will need to secure the nomination and beat Mr. Trump. So he needs to figure out how he can expand what is a factional base of support.
Can a woman beat Mr. Trump?
Women have driven Democrats’ electoral victories, but many Democratic voters are nevertheless convinced a woman can’t beat Mr. Trump. Story after story documents Democratic voters — men and women alike — expressing the view that a woman can’t win. This may explain the lackluster to poor results so far for Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Yet by multiple measures, she is broadly liked by Democratic voters, second only to Mr. Biden in the Economist’s measure of who voters are considering. Her marquee policy position, a two-percent wealth tax on incomes over $50 million, polls at 63 percent, including 55 percent support from independents and 57 percent support from Republicans.
Women have powered the resistance to Mr. Trump: The Women’s March was likely the biggest protest event in American history, and increased support from women drove a “blue wave” in the 2018 midterms. And in many elections, women candidates outperformed men: Among Democrats, “female candidates in 2018 are more likely to defeat male candidates than the other way around,” reports Ella Nilsen of Vox.
Mike Bloomberg’s money can buy a lot, but probably not the nomination.
Big business loves politics because sums that amount to pocket change in major industries buy big influence in Washington. Mr. Bloomberg is investing unheard-of sums in his race — he has more staff than any other campaign, and his ads are everywhere. That spending has quickly elevated his poll numbers.
But there can be diminishing returns on spending: In 2016, Hillary Clinton outraised Mr. Trump three-to-one — and lost. Mr. Bloomberg’s record is dicey: He spoke at the 2004 Republican convention, praising George W. Bush and his war on terrorism. His “stop and frisk” regime was so brutal and discriminatory, it was struck down by a federal court as violating its victims’ civil rights. His presence supercharges the message from Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren that billionaires are buying our democracy. He could win enough delegates to be a player at a contested convention, but it’s unlikely he can win a majority — and if the Democratic Party gave the nomination to a billionaire who supported Mr. Bush, it might as well shoot a big chunk of the Democratic electorate into space and hand Mr. Trump his re-election.
Black voters are the backbone of the Democratic Party, but …
So far, white voters have discounted their views. Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota are flatlining with black voters, polling at 4 and 0 percent, respectively, in the latest Quinnipiac poll. Their records are troubling. Mr. Buttigieg oversaw a sharp decline in the number of black police officers, pushed out both the black police chief and fire chief, and his handling of the shooting of a black man by a police officer prompted anger and outrage among black residents. For her part, a case Ms. Klobuchar cited as an example of her tough-on-crime approach during her tenure as a county prosecutor might have resulted in the wrongful conviction of a black teenager. Sunny Hostin, a former prosecutor and co-host of the “The View,” called the case “one of the most flawed investigations and prosecutions that I think I have ever seen.” But both have been propelled forward because white voters have made up nearly all of the votes cast so far.
There are other mysteries.
Turnout is down, based on Iowa — except that it might also be up, based on New Hampshire. More moderate candidates are more electable, based on a study of congressional candidates — except that the leftier candidate might also be more electable, judging by Barack Obama’s dominant win in 2008 after beating Hillary Clinton for the nomination. Twitter is not real life, based on the composition of the Democratic electorate — except when it is, foretelling Mr. Biden’s fall and Mr. Sanders’s rise. There are two lanes, progressive and moderate — except when there aren’t, as Ms. Klobuchar’s surge in New Hampshire took voters away from both Ms. Warren and Mr. Biden.
One thing we do know for sure.
The last time Democrats unseated a Republican incumbent was in 1992, when we nominated the guy who had to go on “60 Minutes” during the primary to deny credible allegations of infidelity and who did not win a single state until Super Tuesday. President Bill Clinton went on to win 370 electoral votes. And the last time we won the popular majority was when we nominated the black man who had admitted to using cocaine, who was caught on tape calling working-class white “bitter” people who “cling to guns and religion,” and who sat in the pews with a pastor who declared, “God damn America.” Mr. Obama went on to win 365 electoral votes, carrying states like Indiana
No one can tell us who can beat Mr. Trump, because no one knows.
All we really know is that the last two Democratic presidents to win were dynamic performers on the stump who inspired people with optimism and were able to assemble a broad coalition.
As a potential member of that coalition, the single smartest act of political analysis one can perform may be to step back from the data, and ask yourself a simple question: How do the candidates make me feel?
Adam Jentleson, a progressive strategist and former deputy chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, is writing a book about the Senate.
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