A Winning Ticket?

What are Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s chances of becoming the Dem. Nominee for President in 2020? Not very good, but possible. Consider this, in the 9 states for which there are polls, he’s running 5th.  Now wait before you say that doesn’t sound right.  It is right.  Don’t forget that some of those polls are from early April.  A lot has changed since then.  In the most recent Economist/YouGov national poll as reported by Real Clear Politics  he’s in 4th. Rounding out the top five is Harris at 9%, Buttigieg at 10%, Warren 12%, Sanders 15%, and Biden 27%. Given that Mayor Pete is still not well-known, these numbers are pretty good for him. After the upcoming debates, I imagine there will start to be some separation between these candidates.

What’s interesting is the question of momentum.  And there are only 2 candidates who seem to have any and they are Warren and Buttigieg, both of whom have increased their standings in the national polls versus the states polls, some of which as I mentioned are from early April.  In the state polls, Mayor Pete would have received a total of 8% of all of the delegates in IA, TX, NH, CA, NC, FL, PA, SC and MA, whereas in the latest national poll, he’s at 10%.  Warren’s numbers are 10% and 12%.  By contrast, Biden and Sanders have lost momentum.  Biden’s numbers are 32% and 27% and Bernie’s 17% and 15%.  Harris’ state number is 10% and 9% in national polling.

So what accounts for this momentum?  The obvious answer is campaigning.  When people hear Mayor Pete for the first time, they are impressed.  And when they hear him again and again, they are struck by his consistency.  He is passing each test, each appearance with the highest marks.  Similarly, Warren has been impressive with her focus on her plans – she’s like that saying, “there’s an app for that” only replace app with policy – “I have a policy for that.”  Unlike Buttigieg, she has name recognition, but her name has been somewhat tarnished by the DNA debacle.  She has worked hard to earn back respect as someone who could legitimately beat Trump.  The theory of the case previously had been that Trump would never let her off the hook for claiming Native American heritage and would taunt her with chants of Pocahontas (by the way, Scott Brown was the first to do this when he ran against her for the MA Senate seat) in an attempt to throw her off her game. And she might take the bait and hit back, but that would play into Trump’s small hands.  But she is one hell of a fighter and would give Trump the fight of his life.  She could talk about his bone spur deferments, his inflated claims of wealth and success and of course hit him hard on all of his criminal behavior while in office.  She could intimidate him with the I words – Impeach and Imprison but I don’t think that is what would get her elected.  I think if she stays focused on policy details and continue to discuss them with the raw passion that Hillary failed to express, she has a good shot of taking him down.

Now imagine this:  Warren/Buttigieg.  That would be an intriguing ticket and perhaps a winner.  Time will tell.