2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part III

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Segnosaur said:
The way I see it:
- Too far left to be seen as a moderate
- She doesn't have the "cult of personality" that Sanders has, or the name recognition from a 2016 presidential run, so some of her far left polices won't get her much traction

Overall, I think she's seen as a lot of voter's "second choice", but since very few states use a ranked-choice ballot, her status as people's second pick doesn't really help her much.
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As the moderates see the Sanders train barreling down, they surely realize they must unite behind someone quickly if it is to be stopped.
Warren may very well end up being that someone.
"Bernie Lite"
 
The_Animus said:
Within the margin of error, yes they did. They gave Clinton like a 87% chance of winning. She got 3 million more votes but lost because of a relatively small number in key states. The polls were fine.
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You are talking about polls taken immediately before the 2016 election. The 2020 general election is still over 8 months from now.
 
theprestige said:
The polls that assured Hillary she had the popular vote and didn't need to put any effort into contesting certain key states were demonstrably not fine at all.

How many mainstream polls actually told us (paraphrased), "Hillary will likely win the popular vote nationwide, but to win the election she'll need to flip X number of voters in Y key states, and that isn't happening yet"?

Or even "Hillary will likely win the popular vote nationwide, but things are so close in these key states that any little thing could cost her the election, and to lock it in she'll need to move the needle a bit further her way in those states, and that isn't happening yet"?

I'd say that just as "but the popular vote!" is a silly argument after the fact, it's also a silly polling prediction before the fact. So no, I'd say that the mainstream polls were not fine.
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In 2016 there were few polls in states like Wisconsin that Hillary lost by a small margin. The polls that did exist focused on likely voters. Trump won those states in part by mobilizing people who didn't normally vote. White, low information, working class Americans who could be motivated by appealing to their darker side.
 
Kestrel said:
In 2016 there were few polls in states like Wisconsin that Hillary lost by a small margin. The polls that did exist focused on likely voters. Trump won those states in part by mobilizing people who didn't normally vote. White, low information, working class Americans who could be motivated by appealing to their darker side.
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And that is going to be less of a factor in 2020 because....
 
theprestige said:
Polls are sometimes right and sometimes wrong*.

Thus, the weakness of Appeal to Polls as an argument is that it's difficult to determine in advance if the polls you're appealing to are gonna be right or wrong in the event. This dilutes the strength of a poll-based argument. Often to the point where it's too weak to hold up its end of the debate, and should probably be discarded in favor of something more robust.

At the very least, if you appeal to polls, you should expect to have that appeal challenged, and be prepared to show that the specific polls you're appealing to are especially reliable. Unfortunately, the general miss by mainstream polling in 2016 is gonna make challenges to this argument extremely likely, and also difficult to rebut. IMO. YMMV. HTH. HAND. ETC.

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*In the sense of being reasonably accurate predictors of future events.
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I agree with that, my complaint is that many posters proffer the argument that once the GOP begins their smear campaign, Sanders will automatically lose to Trump. It's inconsistent to reject polls and yet accept this pure speculative reasoning about future events.
 
JoeMorgue said:
And that is going to be less of a factor in 2020 because....
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The left is more motivated by Trump, and less confident of victory than they were when Clinton was winning in all the polls.

The Republican and right-leaning voters ,who are not rabid Trumpsters ,have little to get them to turn out. (as yet, I am afraid a Sanders nomination will motivate them as well)

We only lose if we wake up the sleeping conservatives.
 
Cabbage said:
I agree with that, my complaint is that many posters proffer the argument that once the GOP begins their smear campaign, Sanders will automatically lose to Trump. It's inconsistent to reject polls and yet accept this pure speculative reasoning about future events.
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The "smear campaign" will be unnecessary. The non-trumpster conservatives already consider Sanders a Socialist.
 
Distracted1 said:
The left is more motivated by Trump, and less confident of victory than they were when Clinton was winning in all the polls.

The Republican and right-leaning voters ,who are not rabid Trumpsters ,have little to get them to turn out. (as yet, I am afraid a Sanders nomination will motivate them as well)

We only lose if we wake up the sleeping conservatives.
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As you say wake the sleeping conservatives by doing something stupid like nominating a "Socialist"/scarequotes you mean?
 
JoeMorgue said:
And that is going to be less of a factor in 2020 because....
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Well, Bernie blunts it a bit because he presents relatable visceral anger and frustration at the status quo.

There is a decent size band of voters that are apologetic about having voted for Trump to some extent but felt he was the only one that spoke to them in any meaningful way.

If Sanders becomes the nominee and shares a stage with Trump so they see what he is rather than just "that socialist nut" and that he's going to go straight for Trump's neck and hammer him on populist issues like healthcare and labor rights rather than try to seem more presidential, he'll peel a significant number of these voters off.
 
JoeMorgue said:
In 2016 there were few polls in states like Wisconsin that Hillary lost by a small margin. The polls that did exist focused on likely voters. Trump won those states in part by mobilizing people who didn't normally vote. White, low information, working class Americans who could be motivated by appealing to their darker side.
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And that is going to be less of a factor in 2020 because....
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I think it will be less of a factor because:
- Trump has a dedicated base (including many of those low-information voters), but he hasn't done anything to grow the base
- While many of them will undoubtedly stick with Trump, at least a few of them will likely have second thoughts. Things like the manufacturing recession and Trump's assault on Obamacare may make an occasional 2016 Trump voter think "I voted for him to make me rich, but I'm worse off now".

Will it be enough to actually win? I do not know. I think all candidates (even Sanders, who I think would be the riskiest bet) have a shot at beating Trump, but its far from a sure thing.
 
Cabbage said:
I agree with that, my complaint is that many posters proffer the argument that once the GOP begins their smear campaign, Sanders will automatically lose to Trump. It's inconsistent to reject polls and yet accept this pure speculative reasoning about future events.
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Ah, cool. I agree with all of that.
 
Suddenly said:
Well, Bernie blunts it a bit because he presents relatable visceral anger and frustration at the status quo.

There is a decent size band of voters that are apologetic about having voted for Trump to some extent but felt he was the only one that spoke to them in any meaningful way.

If Sanders becomes the nominee and shares a stage with Trump so they see what he is rather than just "that socialist nut" and that he's going to go straight for Trump's neck and hammer him on populist issues like healthcare and labor rights rather than try to seem more presidential, he'll peel a significant number of these voters off.
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Well it seems a Sanders candidacy is inevitable so I hope you're right.

I'm not thrilling about putting my faith in someone who it took him 3 times to win the primary, but hope is all I've got left.
 
JoeMorgue said:
As you say wake the sleeping conservatives by doing something stupid like nominating a "Socialist"/scarequotes you mean?
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Yes.
Putting someone at the top of the ticket who already carries considerable Socialist cred.

People who would stay home, not vote for President at all, or vote Libertarian, need to be allowed to stay that way. Give them a "socialist" to be afraid of, and they vote Trump.
 
Suddenly said:
If Sanders becomes the nominee and shares a stage with Trump so they see what he is rather than just "that socialist nut" and that he's going to go straight for Trump's neck and hammer him on populist issues like healthcare and labor rights rather than try to seem more presidential, he'll peel a significant number of these voters off.
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Yes, I can just see how the debate will go, when those "populist" issues come up during a debate:

Trump: You want to outlaw private insurance
Sanders: People don't like private insurance. They like their doctor
Voter: Wait a second, I like my insurance. Why is Sanders telling me what I like and don't like?
Republican party (After the debate): Sanders supports government-run death panels!
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Buttigieg doesn't have the needed experience on the national stage.
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He's also gay. I'm not sure America is ready yet for a gay president.
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Possibly true.

Of course, anyone who's NOT a white christian straight male probably has at least a little bit of a disadvantage in an election. (That also means that a woman will have a slightly harder time to become president.)

But, its not impossible.... just more difficult.
 
The Bulwark (home of the never-Trumpers) runs an article on how the Democrats can prevent an outsider (Bernie) from taking over their party as Trump did the Republicans. It starts with a timeline:

Barring a drastic change in the race, Bernie Sanders is going to be the presumptive Democratic nominee 11 days from now.

Eleven days.
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Yep. Despite the relatively relaxed pace so far, the primaries are about to shift into overdrive. There's no more time for retail politicking. California and Texas are up for grabs on March 3, as are a bunch of other states. The only way to campaign in those big states is via television, and that costs lots of money.

The recommendations are pretty much obvious; some of the big-name Democrats like Obama and Clinton have to get off the fence. The other candidates have to stop squabbling among themselves and target Bernie, 24-7. Sanders must have loved that the stories coming out after the last debate were about Warren going after Bloomberg and the tiff between Klobuchar and Buttigieg.
 
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