Riding the Caucus Rollercoaster 2020: “Squad” Endorsement, Harris Failing, Poll Volatility (late October 2019)
This is part of a series of posts that will provide my discussion and analysis of the 2020 Iowa Caucus races.
The last post was long because of the debate, so I’m keeping it short this period.
Three “Squad” Members Endorse Sanders
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and two other members of the “Squad” endorsed Sanders. This isn’t particularly surprising given their agreement on various policies. These endorsements would seem to give Sanders a boost with the more progressive Democrats. One possible downside, however, is that he will be associated with whatever they say or do going forward. I’ve heard that AOC will be coming to Iowa on behalf of Sanders, but it’s not clear if the others will act as surrogates for Sanders. Even if they don’t, he will likely be asked to respond to things they might say that could be poorly received beyond progressive Democrats.
Harris Failing
Although I dropped Harris out of the top five in my power ranking last period, I’m still amazed at how she continues to not be a good candidate. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper she claimed Giuliani had “clearly broken many laws.” Cooper then asked, “Are there specific laws you believe Giuliani has broken?” She sputtered and said “I don’t know” then “there are a number of questions to be asked.” It seemed like she was surprised that a journalist actually asked that kind of question and didn’t do well when off her talking points.
About a week later she tweeted that she would end contracts with for-profit prison companies on day one of her presidency. This received a lot of immediate pushback. Aside from questions about whether she could actually do this as president, people also wondered whether government contracts could be so easily voided, whether the prisoners would just be released, whether the prisoners would be put into other prisons causing overcrowding, how quickly government staff could be hired and trained to replace the contract workers, and so on. This type of bold statement without apparent consideration of details has proven to be a weakness for Harris.
At the end of October I saw a report indicating that Harris was consolidating her campaign, again, and that her plan was to focus on Iowa. She was down to 2% in some polling and apparently in an interview (which I didn’t see) blamed it on her race and sex. As someone on Twitter pointed out, however, that polling is among Democrats, so to the extent she’s making that argument she’s basically calling her fellow Democrats racist and sexist. Oops.
Poll Volatility
We seem to be seeing more volatility in the polls of late. Part of the reason is that the polls are sampling different groups of voters. As I’ve complained about before, a lot of times articles describing a new poll often fail to note prominently who was being sampled (all Democrats, likely voters, etc.) and what the margin of error was. Most articles on websites will have a link to the original pollster’s report (assuming it’s posted), but that would require the reader to click on that link and dig through the original report to find that information, which usually isn’t going to happen. I can be a bit more sympathetic about the need for brevity when the poll results are summarized in a tweet, but even if a link is included I suspect that few will click it to get the necessary information to put the poll into proper context.
A second problem is that not all polls are created equal. By that I mean that the methodology used by pollsters will vary. That includes differences in landlines versus cell phones, how the polls are conducted, how the questions are asked, and how the results are weighted. Some pollsters are better than others, but those reporting the polls infrequently mention the methodology and rarely mention the quality of the pollsters.
A third problem is that we have to be aware of vast differences between national polls and state polls. As with the Electoral College, votes are cast and delegates awarded on a state-by-state basis during the nomination process. National polls have value, especially very early in the election or nomination cycle, but now that we are about three months from the Iowa Caucuses, with the other early states to quickly follow, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to focus so much on national polls.
Having said all that, these last few months before the Caucuses is when more people start paying more attention to the candidates, at least until we get closer to the holidays. That means we might see more movement in support for certain candidates. This may be particularly so as a few more candidates drop out and potential caucus-goers assess the chances their preferred candidate won’t make the 15% preference group threshold. That helps to explain the movement we are seeing.
Biden continues to slip in the polls, particularly in Iowa where a report in Bloomberg suggested that he was in danger of a “humiliating loss” here (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-29/biden-in-danger-of-humiliating-loss-in-iowa-top-democrats-warn). Warren continues to surge. Sanders seems up and down, at least as far as poll results go. Buttigieg is also surging. Harris is out of it at this point. We might see a few others move up, such as Yang and Klobuchar, but they still have a lot of work to do if they want to pass the top four or even get to the 15% threshold for preference groups.
Odds and Ends
Representative Tim Ryan dropped out. Sadly for him, dropping out got him more media attention than his campaign did.
Hillary Clinton gave an interview in which she said Jill Stein was a Russian asset and that the Russians were grooming a Democrat running for the president. She didn’t name Gabbard, but it was pretty clear that’s who she meant as some Clinton supporters made clear. Gabbard responded by saying Clinton was the “embodiment of corruption” and challenged her to enter the race. At about the same time, apparently David Duke said something positive about Gabbard, which generated additional anti-Gabbard talk. According to a Daily Mail article, of the other Dem candidates, only Yang and Williamson came to Gabbard’s defense (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7592415/Tulsi-Gabbard-says-Hillary-Clinton-blood-hands-embodiment-corruption.html). Booker mocked Gabbard’s response to Clinton by posting a sarcastic gif to Gabbard calling Clinton a “warmonger.” Clinton backed out of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit at which Gabbard was also scheduled to speak, a Clinton confidante insisted it was because former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was on the schedule not because of Gabbard. All this got Gabbard and her campaign a fair bit of attention, but it’s not clear it will help her all that much.
On the last day of October the House approved procedures for an impeachment inquiry. Many Democrats tried to make clear that it was just a vote on the procedures not a vote for impeachment. To some extent that distinction rang hollow given how some Democrats had been calling for Trump’s impeachment since he took office. It was also interesting that the vote was almost exclusively along party lines, with no Republicans voting for it and only two Democrats voting against. One effect of this in terms of the nomination race is that if it suggests the House is on track to actually impeach Trump, then the trial in the Senate could occupy the time of several of the candidates (Warren, Sanders, Harris, Klobuchar, Booker). That could give them a chance to get in the news, but could also divert their attention from their campaigns at a time when the states are starting to vote. We’ll see.
Democrat Power Ranking
Slight changes for this period.
1. Warren
I moved Warren up to the top spot last period and I think she’s firmed up that position over the last two weeks. As much as polls in Iowa have her leading, I’m also seeing near unanimity among pundits, etc., that she has the best ground game and is still surging. Changes are still possible, but she seems to be the one to beat right now.
2. Biden/Buttigieg/Sanders
Biden continues to fade in Iowa. Aside from the Bloomberg article mentioned above, and Iowa State University/Civiqs poll had Biden at fourth with only 12% (https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2019/10/24/caucuspoll). This was an online poll and the margin of error was rather large at 5.0%. Although I don’t think Biden had dropped that much by that point, the results did seem in the right direction.
That same poll had Buttigieg at second behind Warren and a couple of points ahead of Sanders. With Biden fading, Buttigieg surging, and Sanders either holding steady or fading a bit, it seems we have, as one pundit put it, a bit of a traffic jam for second place in Iowa. I agree.
5. Klobuchar/Yang
I’m now comfortable dropping Harris out of the top five (for now anyway). With Buttigieg firmly in the top four the question is now who might slip into fifth place. If the top four are all in double digits it might not matter that much in terms of actually getting delegates at the Iowa Caucuses. Still, if Biden or others in the top four continue to fade or there isn’t a strong breakout candidate, then someone like Klobuchar or Yang may still have a shot to make a strong showing. Klobuchar became the ninth to qualify for the November debate, so she still has a chance to make her case for the more moderate/practical lane.
