In the News: The Biden Bump?

May 22nd, 2019 // 12:07 pm @ Oliver DeMille

The Biden Bump?

Why is Joe Biden so far ahead in the early Democratic polls? A lot of Republicans, Democrats, and others aren’t sure what gives Biden such a significant lead.

The answer is that he’s the only “real” candidate right now. What does “real” candidate mean?

Will the “real” candidates please step up

First, it requires major name recognition, especially this early in the election. Biden, as president Obama’s vice president, clearly leads the pack in this category. Second, “real” candidate also means someone who leans to the middle. This is even more significant than name recognition.

In U.S. presidential politics, a lot of people always (or almost always) vote Republican, and a lot of others always (or nearly always) vote Democrat. The voters in swing states–those who sometimes vote Democrat and other times Republican–ultimately determine who wins. Such voters are less connected or loyal to either political party, and more interested in non-party factors and issues when they vote. Since they sometimes vote one way, and other times change sides, they seldom vote for candidates who are arch-conservative or far-left. They never choose an extreme candidate, from either party. (Trump was extreme in behavior, but leaned middle in his politics; indeed, far-right candidates like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz frequently questioned whether Trump is even a conservative.)

Looking Back

In the 2016 election, the final decision came down to voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Such voters, mostly from the working class, are not impressed with socialist and other far-left issues, like:

The Green New Deal (kills jobs–the very kinds of jobs that are widespread in these states)
Extreme environmentalist policies
UBI (a universal basic income)
Major tax increases
One-payer socialized medicine for everyone in America
Extreme gun control
Third trimester/late-term abortion
Racial reparations
Abolishing the electoral college (which would allow California, New York, Illinois, Texas, and Florida to determine every presidential election without input from or regard for other 45 states)

The more of these a candidate supports, the more he/she leans left. The fewer of these things a candidate supports, the more he/she leans to the middle. Biden sometimes expresses support for a few of these, in a lukewarm way, but he isn’t consistently adamant or passionate about any of them.

In the current field of Democrat candidates, Biden is the only one with major name recognition who doesn’t lean strongly to the liberal left. Indeed, the only other Democratic candidate with truly household national name recognition is Bernie Sanders, who leans so far left that for many Americans his name is synonymous with “socialism”.

Beyond the first tier of name recognition, filled right now only by Biden and Bernie, the second tier of candidates are known to people who regularly read or watch the news, but are still largely unknown to most Americans. Currently the second tier includes Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Bill de Blasio, Beto O’Rourke, and Pete Buttigieg. Kirsten Gillibrand, Stacy Abrahms, Tim Ryan, Julian Castro, and John Hickenlooper are also known to many who closely follow politics.

Left-leaning

Reality: all of these lean much further left than Biden. All of them. The only middle-leaning candidate other than Biden is Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator with almost no name recognition; the likelihood of her catching Biden and taking his place as the middle-leaning candidate is remote. Plus, Klobuchar has made statehood for Washington DC her major issue. Really? Name one other state that actually likes Washington DC and wants to give it more power.

A couple of entrepreneurs/authors, Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang, have also thrown their hats into the ring. While many readers love their writings (myself included–both have books on my “favorites” list), they have entered the race promising support of far-left polices such as racial reparations (Williamson) and UBI (Yang). Again, Biden leans much closer to the middle than all these opponents.

The name-recognition part of the race will eventually fade away. When the last two or three candidates remain, the national media will make celebrities of them all. But the issue of leaning center versus leaning far left will remain. If nobody can fill that “lean-middle” spot, Biden will have the best chance of beating Trump in the general election, and he will likely be the nominee.

In 2016, internal rules of the Democratic Party kept Bernie from becoming the nominee, despite his appeal to lots of swing voters. Democrats have taken steps to change this; whether or not it works remains to be seen. Bernie appealed to a lot of new voters, including youth, who showed little interest in the general election once Bernie was eliminated. Trump won by appealing to millions of new voters as well, especially in the Rust Belt swing states, many of whom hadn’t voted for a Republican in recent elections. Biden, though he leans more middle than other Democrats currently in the race, probably won’t bring in significant blocs of new voters–unless he can effectively draw in a lot of Hate-Trump youth. This task would be much more natural for someone like Beto O’Rourke or Bernie Sanders; but these two also drive away many voters in the swing-state middle.

Place Your Bets

It’s too early to tell what will actually happen, but it’s hard to imagine much excitement or energy surging around the gaffe-prone “aw-shucks” approach of Joe Biden. The Democratic Party has done well when it introduced inspiring, young, high-energy candidates like John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama–not old-timer Washington insiders like Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, or Hillary Clinton. All of those on the first list won the White House; everyone on the second lost. Joe Biden clearly fits on the second list, and wouldn’t stand a chance running against anyone on the first list. Prediction: no Biden Bump ahead.

Do any of the current Democratic candidates fit on that first list? Short answer: Beto, Kamala, Pete. But they all push far left of Joe Biden. So far.

Note: A good place to read more about all the current Democratic candidates and their stance on issues, from a liberal perspective, which, of cours,e is the only perspective that matters in the Democratic Primary vote: “The Rolling Stone Politics 2020 Democratic Primary Leaderboard“.

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