So, Monmouth released an earth-shaking poll earlier today, as noted by Urs. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have shot up the polls to share a 20% lead, each, while Vice President Joe Biden pulls up just one point short at 19%.
We can trust this one more than some. This is Monmouth, some of the most respected pollers out there, and even though the margin for error is still 5%. It is solid enough that we can take it as gospel that the Democrats have – for all practical purposes – a three-way tie at the top, which is stunning.
I am not writing on behalf of the Politizoom staff or site, one way or another, with regard to taking any side commenting on what the latest poll “means” in a larger sense. Every writer can do that personally, or as an editorial group, and I likely will do so at some point.
That said, “what it means” is pretty self-evident, as explained by someone who knows far more than me, via Politico:
“The main takeaway from this poll is that the Democratic race has become volatile,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “Liberal voters are starting to cast about for a candidate they can identify with. Moderate voters, who have been paying less attention, seem to be expressing doubts about Biden. But they are swinging more toward one of the left-leaning contenders with high name recognition rather than toward a lesser known candidate who might be more in line with them politically.”
Well, okay, that – too. But I couldn’t help but notice that the “liberal” wing now has the support of 40% of Democrats, minimum, before one even factors in the percentages of some of the underlings that fall more on the progressive side.
The progressive wing outnumbers the moderate wing at a 2-1 ratio. That ought to be the headline.
It also says that 40% of Democrats believe that either Warren or Sanders is just as “electable” as Joe Biden. Indeed, these Democrats have some reasons for believing such.
if one looks to the last three Democratic presidents, they all came from obscurity, as up an coming contenders, Carter, Bill Clinton and Obama. When one looks at the Democrats who came up short, they were the icons rooted in machine politics, the people everyone considered “next in line”: Gore, Kerry, and Hillary. Our “elected” candidates share a common link, they were a controversial and dangerous choice, until they weren’t.
Do the winners sound more like Warren and Sanders? Or Joe Biden? True, the only candidate to have gone up against Trump was Hillary, who had to run against two decades of Republican branding, and two years of Russian branding. Perhaps just about any Democrat could beat Trump this time around.
And it is not that I have any issue with Joe Biden, I just do not see him as inherently “more electable” than someone like Warren or Sanders. Biden is perhaps the most likeable of all our candidates, and a fine person. He just may not be the best one to smack back at the chosen one. I sort of relish seeing Elizabeth Warren – a teacher – taking Trump somewhere he’s never been, to school.
The poll also shows that Democrats are demonstrating some needed immunity to the “recommendations” originating from the right. When Republicans “warn” Democrats about going “too far left,” you can bet that it is not because they want what is best for the Democratic party. They simply see themselves as able to deal more effectively with Joe Biden rather than facing a fairly persistent and insistent Elizabeth Warren or the always animated Sanders.
Watch Joe Biden go full left-wing firebrand in 4-3-2-1 …
Watch Warren and Sanders become increasingly embraced by those focused upon “beating Trump” … as if any Democrat isn’t focused on exactly that.
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Peace, y’all
Jason
“I sort of relish seeing Elizabeth Warren – a teacher – taking Trump somewhere he’s never been, to school.”
Really?
Exactly what does this mean? Beating him in ‘the debates,’ like HRC did, like the proverbial drum?
And then what happened?
I remain continually baffled why folks think this benighted country will elect a woman President in the next 2-5-10 years.
Yes I know, HRC by three million votes, etc. etc.
She lost. To Donald Trump.
But hey what do I know … as I always remind myself i thought Johnny Sunshine Edwards was White House bound someday.
But I do know this country better than someone who thinks rampant misogyny can be won over by ‘policy plans.’
I do not think “policy plans” can beat rampant misogyny, I think Elizabeth Warren, full package, can. I also believe Sanders can, and Joe Biden. Hillary had to fight against two decades of Republican branding, and Clinton fatigue, both of which, I submit were more powerful than the misogyny.
And, yes, “really.” I think Warren is a far more effective debated than Hillary, as I think she’s shown time and again. I think Sanders would also slap Trump around, and Biden would call mularky on him.
So you know the country better than me. Okay, good for you.
Not you personally but certainly better than anyone who seems to mistake the electorate at large with folks who comment here or the DK or any other liberal site. And there’s a ton of that going around.
When people are in a bad place that they want to get out of RIGHT NOW, it’s amazing how everything you just said suddenly ceases to matter. It’s a big part of how we got our first black president and I have every reason to believe that a President Elizabeth Warren may well happen due to current circumstances.
Now I can always be wrong…not the first time, it happens, life goes on. That said, I plan on making several dishes of crow for anyone who doubted me in the event that I’m right.
I’ll gladly eat all the crow you can serve, believe me!
But I’ll add we also got our first black President because Obama was a lifetime talent and the GOP had just crashed the economy six weeks earlier. And there ain’t no Obamas this time around.
But the meltdown of the economy is still coming, the original Obama is still around and Clinton proved one need not be a lifetime talent nor have the economic hardship be of recent vintage to win.
Sorry. Obama was NOT a “lifetime talent.” He was the lucky recipient of DNC favoritism (despite what ALL the Sanders backers would say in 2016). The Party was only too glad to back Obama as soon as he entered the race, something that was seen as early as Jan 30, 2008 when the DNC began its near-weekly calls on Hillary to drop out of the race. Even when Obama’s supporters like Ted Kennedy (a man who stubbornly persisted in 1980 against Carter but then called for Hillary to drop out without once acknowledging his own role in Carter’s 1980 loss) decided that the superdelegates HAD to support the candidate who won their state (of course, Kennedy didn’t follow his own demand when Massachusetts went with Hillary while Teddy stayed an outspoken Obama supporter).
Instead of calling for history to be made by electing a Woman President and a Black Vice-President, the DNC could only see getting a 40-something Black man in the White House in his first go-round. And, the DNC’s support was rather astonishing, given that Obama had only faced ONE serious campaign challenge during his elected career (that was when he ran for the IL-01 Congressional race in 2000 and lost the primary by a 2-1 margin); even the election that put him in the US Senate was a farce as the GOP’s original nominee had to drop out due to (valid) personal reasons and the Party finally ended up recruiting conservative nut case Alan Keyes (who was living in Maryland, at the time the Party “nominated” him; he ended up renting a house in Illinois during the general campaign so he wouldn’t violate the Constitution’s residency requirement).
I look for Biden AND Bernie to both slip in their standings. Biden because he’s a machine politician, Bernie because he has no ability to build beyond his hardcore. And anyone who thinks this, this and this is unelectable, remember that Trump will continue to be his eventual opponent’s best surrogate.
Debates don’t mean a hill of burning trash. How much more evidence do we need? Unless someone crashes and burns, we’re all gonna think our nominee crushed, and the goobers are gonna think the opposite, and not a single vote will move. These events still make me nervous but I sure don’t know why anymore. They’re right up there will “great conventions,” “early voting numbers” and “huge crowds” in the lack-of-importance race.
it is a good point. The thing that I focus upon is that this election will be won or lost depending upon about 5% of the electorate (unless we are really lucky), because Trump’s ceiling is about 45-46%. To get that 5% needed, little things do matter, such as “perception” and not ours, but that middle group.
If you recall, Trump won the Midwest (in scary perfection with no room for error) thus, someone who can communicate to the Midwest is essential. It might well be Biden, and I’ll be excited. But even with all the misogyny, and the “socialist” tag Bernie gets, that 5% will be sizing up our candidate versus standing next to Trump who will be as vicious as can be.
That 5% can be persuaded, along with commercials, GOTV and all that. If it comes down to margins like 2016, every single point matters, and thus the debates matter.
Plus, enthusiasm matters, ask Obama. It is much easier to back a rising star that the one with the straight line across -ask Hillary.
We’ll see. None of us “knows” right now. Perhaps we’ll get 62% of the vote and we’ll all chuckle that we were so worried. One can dream.
Agreed…so here’s what DOES matter: how bad things are (or at least perceived to be) and what the current powers-that-be are doing about the former. By this metric, Trump will likely lose…badly. More talented pols than him have floundered on these rocks.
Like Jason said, and as Liz said, talking about being a teacher, She said she learned Early in her teaching career that you don’t let bullies(especially with little hands! Of course she didn’t add that part!) Ever get ahead of you! Plus of course debating in college! So I think(for what it’s worth) Elizabeth will tear him up and spit out the pieces!
” Our “elected” candidates share a common link, they were a controversial and dangerous choice, until they weren’t.”
So, Warren it is then.
Elizabeth Warren can eat Trump for breakfast. She is a great explainer (a professor) and she is full of energy and ideas. Bernie just seems mad all the time; bless him but his anger is starting to get to me. Joe is looking his age and acting it too. I’m really getting more and more behind Elizabeth and I think the county will too.
“True, the only candidate to have gone up against Trump was Hillary, who had to run against two decades of Republican branding, and two years of Russian branding.”
And all that “branding” did as much to hurt her with DEMOCRATS as it did with the general public.
Go back and look at 2008. EVERY SINGLE NEGATIVE about Hillary–spouted by DEMOCRATS–originated with a GOP-branded talking point. Even during the primaries, SHE was called on by the DNC to drop out for “party unity” (in a year when the Dems’ key operating point was that “any Democrat can win”) even though Obama NEVER had such a commanding lead that HE couldn’t have faced calls to drop out. Even though women had been more oppressed in American society than Blacks (in colonial America, women essentially had the same rights as men in many areas, even being able to vote in elections; following independence, women were stripped of the right to vote in every state; Free Black men, by contrast, even in the South, only faced that a generation after the Civil War when “grandfather clauses” were enacted as part of Jim Crow laws*), for SOME reason (*cough*media-normalized-right-wing-anti-Hillary-attacks*cough*), Hillary wasn’t seen as “good enough” to beat whichever GOPer would secure the nomination.
*The “grandfather clauses” literally were that. If a Black person (mainly men, as only men had the right to vote in most states by 1900) had a grandfather who could vote, then he or she could also vote without having to deal with the other host of laws and tests that the racist power structure came up with (and, from which, most “poor white trash” were exempt). That right, however, was not an inheritable right. For instance, if a 30 year-old Black man in 1910 with a 12 year-old son could prove his grandfather had the right to vote in, say, 1850, then he too could vote; however, a decade later when his son would be old enough to go to the polls, he would be turned away unless he could pass any of the myriad number of literacy or civics tests put in front of him (and even then, a minor technical error–such as literally failing to dot an “i” or using cursive instead of printing–could doom him).
It is an excellent point. Thank you for taking the time. Yes, it does absolutely need to be said and kept in mind.
The News media have reported that older Americans are strongly for Biden and younger Americans are strongly progressive (Sanders, Warren). When you add the progressive choices together it exceeds Biden’s percentage.
Knowing that division one could easily swing a poll left or right (Biden) and we know the corporations who pay pollsters for other reasons do NOT want a progressive President and will do anything, including re-electing Trump to keep that from happening. There is money involved for them and they don’t want to “share”. It’s always the money with the rich and only the money.