The Sausage Factory
The debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday was a night of attacks and retorts. The whole field went after Mike Bloomberg, but Bernie Sanders got his fair share of shots as well. And then there was the “in-fighting,” as Buttigieg went after Klobuchar, who responded in kind.
But after “the sausage is made” and all the dust settles; there will be a Democratic candidate. He or she will face a single task: to end the Presidency of Donald John Trump, impeached President of the United States. It won’t be easy.
Predicting how any Democratic candidate will fair in November depends on what you believe about the electorate of the United States in 2020. And it’s not just about winning the most votes; as we discovered in 2016 that doesn’t necessarily result in winning the Presidency. It’s about winning the most electoral votes.
Trump Wins all Ties
There’s no such thing as a “winning” tie. If the Electoral College doesn’t settle the Presidency, the “tie-breaker” is the House of Representatives. Democrats might initially be satisfied with that, but in an Electoral College tiebreaker, the House votes by state delegation, each state getting one vote. Even though Democrats control the House, if it’s a state-by-state vote, Republicans control 26 states, Democrats 23, with Pennsylvania tied (UVA).
So whichever candidate Democrats choose, he or she needs to be able to win enough states to win the Electoral College outright.
There are four “models” of the 2020 electorate that Democrats are examining. Pick your model, and that will direct your choice of the Democratic candidate with the best chance to beat Donald Trump. Choose the wrong model, and it’s four more years, and perhaps and end to the American Republic, as we know it.
The Moderate Model
The “moderates” running for the Democratic nomination believe their model is the strongest path to the White House. Take the voting turnout of 2016, with its Democratic majority of over three million votes. Add to that the disaffected Republicans, the “Never-Trumpers” and suburban women who are turned off by the President. And finally, juice the Democratic turnout, well aware that a low turnout model re-elects the President.
Add all of that together, and the numbers should be overwhelming enough that even in critical states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the Democrat should win. Add to that the possibility of reversing the razor thin 2016 Trump margins in Florida and North Carolina, and a Democrat should win the Electoral College by a comfortable margin (Politico).
The Moderate model depends on two factors that are in question. Will there really be a “disaffected crossover” vote, or will those voters who “held their nose” and voted for Trump in 2016 do the same thing again? And perhaps more importantly, is there a moderate candidate that can excite the Democratic base, generally more liberal, to come out and vote? More specifically can any of the current moderates get African-American voters to come out and vote at the 2008, Barack Obama level of 65% turnout? Or will African-American voters remain at the 2016, Hillary Clinton level of 59.6%?
It’s a very traditional Democratic approach to the general election. Get your base out, and move to the ideological middle to pick up voters in the center.
The Bernie Model
Clearly Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren cannot depend on the “moderate model” to work for them. Their ideological stands on the left, with Warren following the Social-Democrat line, and Sanders just declaring himself an avowed “socialist”, will chase the middle to Trump. Even the avowed “Never-Trumpers”, sworn to vote against the President, may find themselves either sitting out the election, or writing in a symbolic third party.
The Bernie Model depends on getting workers to back the more extreme ideas of Medicare for All and a high minimum wage. It also counts on exciting an entirely new base of voters who have failed to come out in the past. Voters 18 to 29 years old represent a huge untapped voting block. In 2016 only 46% of them actually voted, as compared to a national turnout of 61% of all people eligible to vote. And voters in that age group now represent 31% of the total possible vote, meaning that over 15% of young people who could be part of the total vote sat out the 2016 election (Forbes).
That 15% sitting “on the sidelines” is the force that Sanders believes he can mobilize to re-write the Democratic path to the Presidency. And in elections as narrowly won as was 2016, that 15% is a game-changer. The question to ask, though: is Sanders, or Warren, powerful enough motivation to overcome a half-century of low voter turnout in the youngest voting set. Even after getting the Presidential vote in 1971, the young vote has never gotten above 45% (Census). The “Bernie Model” is dependent on them voting at the highest levels, where “old people,” those over 65, vote: near 70%.
The Trump Model
The Trump campaign has its own difficulties in finding a path back to the White House. The improbable “confluence of events” that triggered the electoral victory of 2016 is difficult to replicate. Trump has the highest negative ratings of any candidate for President this election cycle. In 2016 Hillary Clinton’s negatives matched his. This is one of the reasons that Trump was so focused on damaging Joe Biden in the Ukraine scandal: Trump can’t really get much higher negatives, but Biden’s candidacy had to be damaged. Impeachment was a cost that Trump was willing to accept to do so.
Trump has to mobilize his base and get them to the polls, something that is likely anyway. His campaign is then looking to their “hidden majority,” voters who publicly disavow the President, but in the secrecy of the voting booth, still mark down his name. They believe that this “hidden” group doesn’t appear in public polling, because those folks won’t admit in the open that the support the President. But election results in 2016 and 2018 don’t seem to support that conclusion.
The Trump campaign isn’t worried about the popular vote. California, New York and the other “blue” states are giveaways. Trump is targeted on the swing states that won him the election in 2016. And he got mixed news today about that problem, as current polling shows him losing to almost any Democrat in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but beating almost all of them in Wisconsin (Politico). This strategy also depends on his “firewall” of winning Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina as well.
Polling Theory
Then there is the final theory, that Trump has so disaffected the entire nation that literally any Democrat, from Sanders to Bloomberg, can win. It is the one that every Democrat hopes in their heart is true, and one that would lead to a Democratic sweep of the Presidency, House and Senate. And there are plenty of polls to back it up, not just nationally, but state-by-state. Real Clear Politics shows Sanders, Biden and Bloomberg all besting Trump in Florida.
No Democrat can trust in this theory though, there’s too much at stake to just assume any Democrat can best Trump. We all believed that on November 8th, 2016. We all woke up to a new reality on November 9th, and no one wants to do that again. So choose your “model” and pick your candidate. We are all rolling the dice.
