Posts tagged as “2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates”

This is the fourth is a series of posts that examines how the Democratic presidential contenders are faring with black voters. Thus far we’ve considered Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Michael Bloomberg. Here we consider Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders is a self-avowed democratic socialist who wants to outlaw private-sector health insurance, ban hydraulic fracking, eliminate nuclear power, abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies, impose national rent control, nationalize electrical power production, and make corporations quasi-public entities that are increasingly accountable not to shareholders and the market, but to politicians and the state.

In short, if Bernie were to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, he would be, without question, the most radical and left-wing major party presidential nominee in all of American history.

Most black Democrats, by contrast, reject his ideas—or at least there is no great groundswell of support among African Americans for such a radical restructuring of American society and the U.S. market economy.

To the contrary, most black Democrats are moderates or center-left liberals who seek greater government support and protection within a broader market economy.

And yet: Bernie is doing very well with African American voters. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows him just three points behind Biden (31-28) in black support. 

Since January, reports the Post, Sanders “has more than doubled his support among black voters and has gained among whites without college degrees.”

State Polls. In South Carolina, Sanders is losing the black vote to Biden 43-20 according to a new UMass Lowell poll. But South Carolina is just one state, and it is the one state where Biden has cashed in all of his chips, so to speak, because it is truly a do-or-die state for him, politically. 

Still, for Sanders, 20 percent of the black vote in a state where he hasn’t been especially active and where the electorate is fractured among several competing candidates ain’t bad. In North Carolina, Virginia, and other southern states with large black populations, Sanders is holding his own, with roughly 17-20 percent of the black vote.

That may be more than enough black support for Sanders to win his share of states with large African American populations.

At the very least, it will be more than enough black support for Sanders to amass a large share of the delegates, since the Democrats award their delegates proportionately in accordance with a candidate’s share of the overall vote tally vice a winner-take-all approach.

Moreover, as the primary race moves further north and west, into New York, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, and California, Sanders is poised to do even better with black voters.

That’s because he polls better nationally among black voters than he does statewide in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and other southern states. This suggests that Sanders has greater black support outside of the south in the cities and in other urban and industrial areas.

Sanders Connects. In any case, what accounts for Sanders success with black voters, given the ideological divide between him, a self-avowed socialist, and them, more moderate, center-left types?

Two things: First, as David Frum has observed, although he is a socialist, Bernie is not especially “woke” or politically correct. In fact, he tends to eschew or avoid identity politics, focusing instead on bread-and-butter economic issues—jobs, healthcare, education, student debt relief, the social-safety net, et al.

These are the types of everyday, “meat-and-potato” concerns that resonate with ordinary voters, black and white.

Democratic primary voters thus tend not to see Sanders as the radical or socialist that he genuinely is. Instead, they see him as a pragmatic liberal politician eager to use the power of the state to extend economic opportunity to people who’ve been left behind, while interjecting greater fairness back into a system that, in their view, has been skewed and corrupted to favor the wealthy.

Second, Sanders support is heavily tilted toward younger voters, and his African American supporters are no different: They are conspicuously younger than, say, Joe Biden’s African American supporters.

Indeed, today’s Washington Post/ABC News poll shows Sanders with a commanding 50-12 lead over Biden among Democratic-leaning votes who are less than 50 years old. Among Democratic-leaning voters older than 50, by contrast, Biden bests Sanders 20-14.

This matters because younger voters today are far more left-wing and open to socialism than older voters, who actually remember the Soviet Union and 1970s era of domestic stagflation caused by an overweening and stifling government.

The bottom line: Bernie may be a self-avowed socialist; but he is also a smart politician who has been able to connect with an increasingly large swath of the Democratic Party primary electorate, black and white.

This puts him in a unique and enviable political position. Sanders is not desperately scrambling for black votes like, say, Pete Buttigieg; but neither is he utterly and completely dependent on black votes like, say, Joe Biden.

Instead, Sanders’ winning coalition occupies a middle ground between these two extremes of political need and political dependency. And that is why he is the undisputed—and perhaps unbeatable—frontrunner in this Democratic presidential primary race.

Feature photo credit: NBC News.

This is the third in a series of posts about the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential contest and the black vote. We previously examined Joe Biden’s prospects and Pete Buttigieg’s challenges. Here we consider former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s chances.

So, can Michael Bloomberg win the black vote? Well, that depends on what you mean by “win the black vote.” Can he get a majority of black votes in a Democratic primary election contest that has a fractured electorate and multiple candidates?

No, he cannot. But then, no candidate—including Joe Biden, the candidate who polls strongest among black voters—seems poised or able to do that.

The real question is: can Bloomberg win a sufficient share of the black vote to deny Sanders and Biden the nomination short of a contested political convention in July? And the answer to that question, surprisingly, is: yes. At least that’s what his surging poll numbers suggest.

A Feb. 10, 2020, Quinnipiac University national poll, for instance, shows Bloomberg with an impressive 22 percent share of the black vote, behind Biden (27 percent), but ahead of Bernie Sanders (19 percent).

An NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll released today (Feb. 18) shows Bloomberg winning 16 percent of the black vote nationally to Biden’s 31 percent and Sanders’ 28 percent.

Bloomberg chose not to compete in Iowa (Feb. 3) or New Hampshire (Feb. 11); and he won’t be on the ballot in Nevada (Feb. 22) or South Carolina (Feb. 29) either. Instead, he has opted to focus all of his time, money, and resources on the 14 “Super Tuesday” states that have primaries March 3.

No successful presidential candidate in American history has ever done this; but as FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich notes, “a handful of state polls that suggest that investment may pay off” for Bloomberg.

In Virginia, for instance, a new Monmouth University poll shows that Bloomberg is tied for first place with Sanders (they both have 22 percent of the overall vote) and holding his own among black voters, with a respectable 18 percent.

That puts Bloomberg in a tie with Sanders and behind only Biden, who is preferred by 37 percent of Virginia’s likely black voters.

Similarly, in North Carolina, a new WRAL News poll shows that Bloomberg has 25 percent of the black vote, second only to Biden’s 35 percent. That leaves him tied for first place overall with Sanders. They both have 22 percent of the overall vote versus Biden’s 20 percent.

Left-Wing Ire. A similar story is playing out more or less in other states with large numbers of black voters—Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, et al. Bloomberg is doing surprisingly well, and, as a result, is now a serious electoral force in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaign.

This despite arousing the ire and opposition of the more progressive or “woke” elements of the Democratic Party. Leftists angrily denounce Bloomberg for what they say are his “racist” remarks and his “racist” record as Mayor of New York City.

Such vitriolic criticism has caused Bloomberg to backpedal politically, and to renounce some of his previous positions, while apologizing for some of his past remarks. Most notably, Bloomberg has disowned his previous support of “stop and frisk” police tactics, which helped to dramatically reduce violent crime in New York City.

But as Jason Riley observes in the Wall Street Journal, “if black lives matter, then New York’s former mayor has nothing to apologize for… If anything close to the crime rates of the early 1990s had persisted for another quarter-century,” he writes, then “tens of thousands more black men might be dead or incarcerated.”

Moreover, as Fox News’ Brit Hume and the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board explain, Bloomberg’s so-called racially insensitive remarks are factually true but politically incorrect. Big deal. Or at least they may be a big deal to “woke,” left-wing progressives; but as the polls suggest, ordinary black voters don’t seem overly alarmed or concerned.

“I don’t think his problem is that he’s racist,” says the New York Times Bret Stephens. “If he [Bloomberg] were, he wouldn’t have won nearly 50 percent of the African-American vote when he ran for re-election as New York’s mayor in 2005, or be drawing considerable African-American support today. “

Genuine grassroots black support, in fact, helps to explain why a significant number of elected black officials—including four members of the Congressional black caucus and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter—have endorsed Bloomberg.

Big Money. Critics charge Bloomberg, a billionaire worth an estimated $62 billion, with trying to “buy the election.” He’s already spent, after all, an unprecedented amount of money (more than $338 million thus far) on television, radio, and digital advertising.

As Business Insider’s Eliza Relman reports, that’s more than Obama spent on advertising in his entire 2012 reelection campaign, and we still have eight months to go before the Nov, 3, 2020, general election. 

Bloomberg, though, has been able to turn this criticism on its head by noting that he has the money and resources needed to defeat Trump and will spend freely to ensure that Trump isn’t reelected.

Bloomberg’s desire to beat Trump and to put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, has clearly resonated with Democratic primary voters, black and white, brown and Asian.

Limited Appeal. Still, we shouldn’t overstate Bloomberg’s appeal. For the most part, he still trails Biden and Sanders and will have trouble getting more than 25-30 percent of the primary vote, black and white, in any state.

That’s in part because the Democratic Party is now fractured with multiple presidential candidates; but it’s also in part because, even with his embrace of new left-wing positions, Bloomberg is still well to the right of most Democratic primary voters.

Woke, left-wing progressives view him with tremendous scorn and suspicion. His embrace of school choice, for instance, is anathema to them.

Plus: Bloomberg hasn’t yet been tested in the crucible of political combat. As we’ve noted, he sat out the first two primary contests and hasn’t appeared in any of the Democratic Party debates. Thus how he performs in his first debate tomorrow in Las Vegas will be telling and instructive.

I seriously doubt Bloomberg can win the Democratic presidential nomination, but if he fails, it won’t be because of a lack of black support. Bloomberg, as I point out, is holding his own there. Instead, it will be because he is a bridge too far ideologically for a party that has become increasingly woke and “progressive.”

Indeed, FiveThirtyEight gives Bloomberg just an eight percent chance of winning a majority of the pledged delegates. Sanders, by contrast, has a 40 percent chance of doing that; Biden a 10 percent chance.

Bloomberg’s only plausible path to the nomination is to do well enough to deny Sanders and Biden a majority of the delegates and thereby create a contested convention.

If he can do that, then he has a sim chance of winning the nomination—especially if, before the convention, he can get a dynamic and appealing African American woman (Stacey Abrams, say) to serve as his running mate.

But that’s a very big and unlikely if.

Next up, we’ll review how Bernie Sanders is faring with black voters, and we’ll examine his success—and failure.

Feature photo credit: NBC News.

This is the second in a series of posts about the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential contest and the black vote. As Joe Biden has observed, it is impossible for any Democratic presidential candidate to win that party’s nomination without significant support from black voters.

We examined Biden’s prospects in our last post. Here we consider the prospects of former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Pete Buttigieg may be a once-in-a-generation political talent; but he has a huge political achilles heel: black voters don’t seem to like him much. As the New York Times’ Trip Gabriel and Richard A. Oppel Jr. report, Buttigieg’s problem with black voters

came to national attention on June 16, when a white sergeant fatally shot a 54-year-old black resident, Eric Logan. The officer’s body camera was not turned on, which was widely seen as a sign of lax standards in the department. Mr. Buttigieg found himself flying home again, regularly, to face the fury of some black citizens and the frustrations of many others.

In addition, there are legitimate concerns about Buttigieg’s record as mayor and the disproportionately adverse impact his policies may have had on African Americans. Again, the New York Times:

Reports of violent crime increased nearly 18 percent during the first seven months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. The number of people being shot has also risen markedly this year, after dropping last year. The city’s violent crime rate is double the average for American cities its size.

More recently, adds Michelle R. Smith in the Associated Press:

Buttigieg, who spent eight years as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has tripped up in recent days as he was grilled about his record, including the racial disparity in marijuana arrests in South Bend and decisions that led to him having no African American leaders in his administration during a crucial stretch of his tenure in a city where more than a quarter of residents are black.

Finally, political analysts note that black Democrats are more religious and socially conservative than the Democratic Party as a whole. Thus they may be less inclined to support Buttigieg because he is a gay man who is fully committed to the LGBT political agenda and its corresponding infringement upon religious liberty.

This would explain why, last week, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh explicitly observed that Buttigieg is gay: Limbaugh seems to sense that, within certain segments of the Democratic Party, Buttigieg’s homosexuality and commitment to the LGBT political agenda may be an electoral vulnerability.  

Regardless, the bottom line is this: a Feb. 10, 2020, Quinnipiac University poll shows Buttigieg with just four percent of the black vote nationwide versus 27 percent for Biden; and unless and until that number increases dramatically to at least 20 percent or more, Buttigieg doesn’t have a chance at winning the nomination.

What Buttigieg can do, and to some extent has done already, is listen to his black critics, show empathy and understanding, and forthrightly address their concerns with specific and concrete policy proposals.

His record as mayor, after all, is not all that different from other mayors, black and white, who have had to confront vexing problems surrounding police and public safety, drug use, and economic inequality in predominantly black and minority communities.

What is different for Buttigieg is that he is new and unknown. Most black voters don’t know him. The big question is: does he have enough time to build bridges and inroads with the African American community?

Probably not. The South Carolina Primary (Feb. 29) and Super Tuesday (Mar. 3) are both roughly two weeks away. Mayor Pete may be better suited to win in 2024 than in 2020. We’ll see.

Next up, we’ll consider the prospects of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Feature photo credit: Logan Cyrus/AFP/Getty Images via FiveThirtyEight.