The 2020 Presidential Race: It Ain’t Over Till it’s Over

 We might as well stop the presidential election now and declare Joe Biden the winner.  At least that is the consensus of the presidential prediction machines that political pundits and the media are

pouring out.    Much like in 2016 where nearly all the predictions had Hillary Clinton a certain winner over Donald Trump, the same mistakes are possibly being made again this year. But to invoke two Yogi Berra lines, “it ain’t over till it’s over,” and it appears to be “Deja vu all over again.”

            The Princeton Election Consortium gives Biden a 93% chance of winning. The Economist says it is a 87% probability, and Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, the darling of presidential prediction pundits, as of August 17, 2020 gives Biden a 72% chance of victory.    Others such as 270toWin given Biden ample electoral votes to  become the next president.  Let’s declare the election over, save ourselves a lot of time and money, and make Joe Biden number 46.

            But’s let look at this again.  In 2016 the Princeton Election Consortium’s final prediction was a 93% probability of a Clinton victory. The 270toWin site reported that Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, AP (Associated Press), the Cook Political Report, NBC, NPR, and others all gave final predictions of a Clinton victory. And FiveThirtyEight on November 8, 2016 (election day), gave Clinton a 71.4% probability of winning.  Obviously reports of Trump’s demise in 2016 were greatly exaggerated. The question is why so many predictors  made so many mistakes and potentially why they have not learned from their 2016 mistakes when forecasting for 2020.  As I pointed out in this publication in 2016, there are basic mistakes of analysis that pundits make and now prediction models are amplifying.

            Begin first with polling,  National polls do not matter because we do not elect the president by national popular vote.  Instead,  it is the electoral college that matters. US presidential elections are really 51 (50 states plus District of Columbia ) elections governed by different rules when it comes to voter eligibility and rules.  All that really matters is the race to get to 270 electoral votes.  Large popular vote leads in national polls may make one feel good but they do not necessarily translate into  electoral college victories. 

While most of the prediction models understand the electoral college issue, they nonetheless still  fail to appreciate that polling needs to be done at the state if not even at the county level to understand the micro trends impacting presidential elections.  As I have repeatedly pointed out, and do so again this year, it is a few swing voters in a few swing counties in a few swing states that will decide the presidential election.  More specifically, ten percent of the voters in 11 counties found in seven states will decide who gets to 270 electoral votes—10/11/7/270 is what the election is about.  Simply put, most if not all of the presidential prediction models work from polling at the wrong level of analysis.

A variation of this problematic analysis in 2020 is an argument being floated that  at some point the national public opinion  polls are showing such a large led for Biden over Trump (compared to Clinton versus Trump in 2016) that it necessarily means or translates into an electoral college victory for the former.  Nice theory but  not necessarily the case.  This argument is a form of the ecological fallacy where one tries to infer  the behavior of individuals based on group behavior.  Assuming that a really large national lead for Biden  will translate a victory for him statistically is wrong.

Second, as any good pollster will tell you, polls are snapshots in time and not tools of prediction or iron laws of certainity.   Polls tell us what will happen if an election were held today, not what is going to happen in 30, 60, or more days.  Lots of things can happen and change the political landscape.  In our heavily polarized era, it is probably not too many voters changing their views—there are really very few swing voters in the old-fashioned sense of changing partisan affiliations back and forth—but instead whether specific voters show up to vote or not.    Turnout mobilization is more of an issue than most models can predict.  They fail to capture how enthusiastic or motivated voters are, or assess properly what the remaining undecided voters in a few swing states will do when they decide to vote.  It was those who  did not vote or the undecideds who broke overwhelmingly in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that decided the election by less than 85,000 votes.  Going into 2020, the models are making these mistakes again.

Three, all of these prediction models similarly err in thinking that campaigns and candidate strategies do not matter.  Consider Clinton in  2016. Bernie Sander beats her in caucuses and primaries in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  It then gets to the general election and what does she do?  Largely ignore campaigning in these three states and she winds up losing the latter two and almost Minnesota too.  In the closing days of the general election she runs off to Texas to campaign.  During the general election, as I calculated, Trump and Pence made far more campaign stops and appearances than Clinton-Kane, and in the critical Midwest, including Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, Trump showed up and campaigned.  If campaigns matter, Trump proved that in 2016.   Presidential prediction models and pundits simply failed to predict bad campaign choices.

The same could happen in 2020.  So far Biden has run a lackluster campaign, assuming much like 2016 that being against Trump is enough.  Already Trump has appeared in Minnesota  on the first day of the Democratic National Convention while Biden announced a virtual campaign for  that state.

I remember back to May 2016.  I was invited to a national conference on combating corruption, hosted by Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.  In attendance were the luminaries of DC insider politics, and me, the odd person out.  At one point the talk turned to  the inevitability of Clinton’s victory  and how her transition team was already formed and legislation being prepared.  I pointed out that from the vantage point of the Midwest her victory was not inevitable or even probable.  The scoffs were intense and  I was lectured on the certainty of the prediction models which foretold her victory.

The flaw in these models is to think predictions are iron laws of destiny.  They are not. Some pundits in the past chattered out “demographics are destiny” in arguing that it was inevitable that Democrats would enjoy majorities for decades as the US population diversified.  The quality of campaigns, choices by candidates, and other political variables can intervene to impact elections.  Going into the 2020 presidential general election which has only started,  a lot can happen.    It ain’t over till it’s over as Yogi Berra once said, and right now all the predictions are setting up for  them to miss the mark and be Déjà vu all over again.

Kamala Harris and the 2020 Presidential Election

 

Question:  

The US Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden has selected California Senator Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential candidate.  Were you surprised?

Schultz: Actually no, this was not a surprise.  If in January 2020 you had asked me what the Democratic Party ticket was going to be I would have told you it was going to be Biden and Harris.  Despite some early poor debate performances and his bad showing in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, Biden always represented the compromise candidate whom most Democrats could support.  This is a race where Democrats are motivated to vote against Donald Trump and they needed a consensus candidate who could bring together support from various constituencies that hold together the party.

Senator Harris is a similar vice-presidential pick. She is not the liberal such as Stacey Abrams or Elizabeth Warren that the progressive swing of the party wanted.  But she is a candidate that most can live with, or, when faced with the prospect of Trump winning again in 2020, they will support.  At least that is the hope for the Democrats.

What does Harris bring to the ticket?

Schultz: Senator Harris is a good and obvious choice for many reasons.  On a personal level, Joe Biden said that his deceased son and Harris had worked together and therefore there was a personal connection.  That is important, at least to Biden who craves the interpersonal aspect of politics and trying to get along with others.

But more pragmatically, Harris may represent the future of the Democratic Party.  One, she is only in 50s, compared to Biden who would be 78 years old when he takes office if he wins this November.  Harris’s relative youth sets her up to perhaps run for president in 2024 or beyond.  Two, she is only the third female to be a vice-presidential candidate for a major party in America, and she is also the first mixed race (African-American and Indian).  Women and people of color are core constituencies with the Democratic Party and therefore she is a good choice for Biden to reach out to these groups.  Also, the future of the US is one that will be more multi-racial and therefore she is the face of the next America.

Are there good political reasons for selecting Kamala Harris?

Schultz: Yes.  One, is already has a proven track record as a successful politician, having served as a country prosecutor, California Attorney General, and now a US Senator.  She has demonstrated her ability to campaign and receive votes.  Two, she comes from a safe state. By that, California is a solidly Democratic Party state.  Should she become vice-president and have to resign her senate seat, there should be no difficulty in the Democrats holding it.  With other possible vice–presidential candidates such as Elizabeth Warren, it would have been less certain for the Democrats to hold the seat.  With the partisan or political control of the US an issue in 2020, this is an issue.

Three, Harris is a good debater, a known quantity to mainstream Democrats, and should prove to be a good campaigner for Biden.   Finally, as already noted, being female and a person of color she will help excite many voters to supporting Biden.

Develop this last point.  How will she excite voters or be an asset?

Schultz:  The Democratic Party in the US is really composed of three or four groups.  There are the urban liberals, young voters less than 30, educated women, and suburban voters.   Democrats need to mobilize all four of these groups to win.  Obama did that well in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton failed to do that in 2016.  She lost not because there was a surge of Republican voters for Trump, but more because females, people of color, and young people did not vote.  

More specifically, for years I have argued that the single most important voters in the US are educated suburban women–or what used to be called soccer moms.  A quarter of a century ago they voted for Republicans but moved away from that party for a variety of reasons including reproductive rights, guns, education, and health care.  These voters are more likely to vote for Democrats but not always.  In 2016 many of these suburban women stayed home and Trump won.  In 2018 these women voted and put Democrats back in control of the US House.

Harris is an appealing candidate to educated suburban female voters.  She is professional, educated, successful, and while she is progressive, comes across as more centrist and moderate.  Many women see themselves in Harris.

But do Vice-presidential candidates actually matter?

Schultz: There is conventional wisdom that vice-presidential candidates matter and can move states.  Journalists and politicians swear by this belief.  However, my research and those by other political scientists larger dispute this.  Statistically it is hard to find support for this.  At best, maybe a vice-presidential candidate might affect 1-2% of the vote.

Think about it–most people cannot name who the vice-president is.  People vote for president, not the vice-president.  Although there is some evidence that Sarah Palin in 2008 hurt John McCain with the general election or voter even though she was helpful to him in getting the Republican Party support for his candidacy.

Harris could be the exception to the rule.  She might excite enough voters to make a difference.  But perhaps a better a way to ask is whether Harris will make a difference in the race to win the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.  Remember, as we saw in 2016, winning the popular vote is not enough, one must win the electoral vote and get 270 of these votes to become the president.

The presidential race is really as I have argued about holding your base and then winning the crucial swing states that will decide the election.  Thus the question is will Harris make a difference in the swing states?

Question: What are the states to look at?

Schultz: The presidential race is down to about seven states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  These states have a total of 111 electoral votes and they will decide who becomes president.  The question is whether Harris makes a difference in these states.

Harris might possibly make states such as North Carolina and Georgia more competitive, but really the seven states noted above really are the core to the 2020 election.

The Case Against Klobuchar: Why She Should not be Biden’s Vice-Presidential Pick

            If Joe Biden and the Democratic Party wants to beat Donald Trump this fall selecting Amy

Klobuchar as the vice-presidential running mate is not going to do it.  If in fact vice-presidential candidates do matter the Minnesota Senator may be one of the least helpful picks Biden can make.

            Amy Klobuchar is being vetted by Joe Biden as a possible vice-presidential pick. Commentators such as Kathleen Parker,  David Byler,  Norman Sherman,  and probably every member of the DFL Party in Minnesota think she is the logical and obvious choice.  Of  course, they say, she is the perfect moderate to complement  Biden’s candidacy.  She has won in Trump territory; she will deliver Minnesota and appeal to Midwesterners.

            Let’s start with basics—vice-presidential picks really do not matter much. There is this conventional  folk wisdom, call it  an“old politicians’ tale," or cherry tree history (the reference to allegedly George Washington cutting down a cherry tree and admitting he did it by saying “I cannot tell a lie”)  that vice-presidential candidates  matter and they can be game changers for a candidate.  Some point to John Kennedy selecting  Lyndon Johnson in 1960 and winning Texas as proof.  However, Texas was still a Democratic Party state then.  Moreover, as the single best book on vice-presidential selection has shown, vice-presidential candidates have little impact on voter choices for president.  It is not that Veeps  do not matter at all, but their influence is very slight and the media and politico hype over them is really overblown.  Similarly,  there is little if no evidence that vice-presidential picks can help a presidential candidate win the former’s  home state.

            Let’s assume vice-presidential picks matter;  Is Klobuchar a good choice?  Not really for several reasons.  For one, she is a moderate just like Biden.  The liberal base of the Democratic Party needs to show up and vote in 2020 unlike in 2016 where it stayed home.  Biden does not excite the liberals, and neither does Klobuchar.  Klobuchar is similar to Hillary Clinton’s choice of Tim Kaine in 2016—unobjectionable but not excitable, especially to the liberals.

            Second,  there is  this belief that Klobuchar will help deliver  the Midwest or Trump voters  This is naïve for a couple of reasons.  One, Minnesota  is not like the rest of the Midwest; its politics is very different from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa.  What plays here does not necessarily play elsewhere.  A Minnesotan on a ticket does not get you Wisconsin.  Proof of that is the second point—Klobuchar staked her presidential campaign on a good showing in Iowa—she came in a distant fifth.  Similarly, years ago Minnesotans Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty thought the Minnesota proximity to Iowa will lead to victory in the Hawkeye State—it did not.  There is simply limited appeal from one state to another.  As far as winning Trump voters, the day Klobuchar cast a guilty vote in the Senate to impeach Trump is the day she lost those voters.

            There is also the issue of maybe placing Klobuchar on the Biden ticket will help the latter hold Minnesota.  Recent polls show Biden in a competitive race with Trump for Minnesota.  Assuming Klobuchar can deliver Minnesota, the  problem is that if Minnesota is really in play and Biden needs her to hold the state then the Democrats are in real danger of losing the presidency.  Minnesota is a must-win state for Biden.

            Finally,  the police choking of George Floyd has all but ended Klobuchar as a viable vice-presidential candidate.  This racial incident, in the county where Klobuchar was a prosecutor, will only highlight the vulnerabilities the senator has with Black voters.  Biden is going to be under even more pressure to pick a person of color as vice-president and he needs  the Black vote to win.

            Amy Klobuchar may be a fine senator and perhaps would have made a good president or maybe even a vice-president.  Yet the issue is whether she can help Biden and Democrats is a  different question and  here it is not clear she can add to the ticket.

What if They Gave A Revolution But Nobody Came?

Bernie Sanders wanted a revolution but it appears that no one read the memo announcing it.
The hallmark of the Sanders’ presidential campaign was to defy conventional wisdom held by mainstream political science and political operatives.  This wisdom depicts American public opinion and voters as plotted along a bell curve from political left to right, with the median voter at the center.  The theory says that most voters are in the political center and that the battle for victory in presidential elections is to move to the center and capture the five or so percent of the electorate who are swings, especially in the critical presidential swing states that will determine the electoral college victory.  This model recognizes that perhaps only about 55% of the electorate votes and that it would be extremely difficult to bring new voters into the voting booth.
Sanders’ campaign challenged that.  The allegation is that the electorate is less of a bell curve and one that has become bimodal with a decreasing percentage of the voters located at the center.  The median voter still exists but largely is immaterial given the polarization and shift in American public opinion.  It is also a model that says that effectively swing centrist voters have  disappeared and racing to the center to find them is futile.  Better to try to mobilize many of the 45% who do not vote.  These are young people, people of color, urban liberals.  They chose not to vote because they do not like the political choices or policy options they are offered. 
These non-voters, the theory goes, face an empirical reality different from voters.  Capitalism has not been kind to Millennials and Gen Z.  They face a wealth gap, high college costs, high housing costs, and an expensive medical and health care delivery system their Silent, Baby Boomer, and Gen Xers do not confront.  They are America’s future.  Speak to their concerns and issues and you move American politics to the left and build a movement and party for the future.
There is a lot of truth and empirical evidence to support Sanders’ theory.  The electorate has become bimodal.  There is evidence of a decreasing number of swing voters and the reality of the median voter.  The political attitudes of Millennials and Gen Z are very different from that of Silents and Boomers.    The problem seems to be the last leg of the theory–mobilize the young and non-voter.  This is not happening for Sanders this year.
We know now according to Pew Research that the Millennials this election are now the largest generational voting bloc, surpassing the Baby Boomers.  Millennials and Gen Z together are now 37% of the electorate–the 2020 election is the beginning of the end of the political era for Baby Boomers, and perhaps the last hurrah for the Silents.  Yet so far, younger voters have failed to turn out in the caucuses and primaries, with voting rates less than what they were in 2016. On average, turnout among younger voters is about 25% less than it was in 2016.  Why is Sanders’ revolution not happening?
There are many reasons.  First, he is an independent running as a Democrat and his politics is not within the mainstream of the party and so far the Millennials and Gen Zs are not in control of the party.  In fact, they do not like the Democratic Party as presently constituted, seeing it still as controlled by the Boomers.  That alone could be hurting him.  Two, he has done a bad job expanding his political coalition, including a failure to bring on African-Americans.
Moreover, Sanders might have done so well four years for three reasons not present now.  By that, many voters did not like Hillary Clinton and a vote for him was a protest vote.  Two, Sanders did well in caucus states (because the smaller numbers in those states favored a fervent few) and there are fewer of them this year.  Three, the depth of Democratic Party anger to beat Trump is greater this year than four years ago.  Pragmaticism might be prevailing.
There are other possibilities.  Perhaps it is too soon for the revolution.  Godot has not arrived and we need to wait for more Boomers to die.  Some claim voter suppression, but there is not a lot of evidence that accounts for the dramatic voter downturn.  The rejection of electoral politics may be a factor, but rallies go only so far in an electoral political system.
Conventional political science and politicos may be wrong about the bell curve, median voter, and swing voter, but they still seem correct in regards to the difficulty of motivating the non-voter on the left.  Sanders is not crazy to look to bringing them into the political system to build a movement, yet his failure is that of not being able to figure out how to do that.  Where he and progressives need to go is to identify the real barriers to their disengagement and then determine the ways to bring them in politically.  Should the Democrats or a third party not do that longer term, America’s electorate will shrink dramatically over the next few years, perpetuating a base of voters who are not representative of the majority.

Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar: It’s my party (and I’ll do what I want to)

Lesley Gore’s famous lyrics It’s my party (and I’ll cry if I want to) are the words to define  the
Democratic Party on Super Tuesday, especially for its moderate wing.  They seem prepared to  take back control of the party in a way that prevents the voters from making the same mistake the Republicans did four years ago which unfortunately resulted in them winning the presidency with Donald Trump.
In my election law seminar I ask from a constitutional perspective who is the party?  Is it the candidates, party leadership and officials, convention attendees, primary voters, or general election voters.  The legal implications of who is the party are significant as they determine whose rights are recognized or prioritized.  Yet politically determining who is the party is equally an interesting question as it raises questions about orthodoxy and what it stands for and whose interests it represents.
For mainstream Democratic and leaders, Bernie Sanders represents an existential threat.  He is an outsider raising the spectre of democratic socialism and supporting the interests of younger people and marginalized voters who have felt they have no voice.  These individuals, including Millennials and Gen Zs, have not seen capitalism work. Their parents or they lost homes in 2008, wages have not gone up, home prices are out of sight, student loan debt is beyond manageability, and compared to other generations at a similar age, they have less wealth.    They like Sanders because he speaks to their reality.  He represents their Democratic Party, the one they want to join.  They are now the largest generational voting bloc in the US and want to assume the mantle of power.
The party they do not want to join is the one of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Peter Buttigieg. That is the party of the Baby Boomers, the affluent who have already made it.  It is of a Democratic Party who has Wall Street members such as former Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein and self-described Democrat who said “It would be harder to vote for Bernie than for Trump.”
Establishment Democratic Party leaders, mainstream media, and the political science field are apoplectic over Sanders.  He challenges orthodoxy in so many ways.   He challenges the neo-liberalism of the Party over the last 40 years that pushed the white working class over to Trump.  He also questions the wisdom of the idea of moving to the center to win, contending that with the disappearance of the bell curve shape of the American electorate and the demise of swing voters, it may not make sense to move to the center any more and instead appeal to a new rising generation of voters.  Despite what Democratic Party moderates and mainstream political science contends, there is more evidence than they think that a Sanders’ strategy might work.  After all, it was these same people who thought Trump was impossible.
The point is that there is now a panic within the moderate wing of the Democratic Party.  Fearful of a Sanders’ takeover similar to a Trump takeover of the Republican Party, they are fighting back.  Now many of my political science colleagues scoff, contending that parties are weak and think super delegates would never pull a coup.  However, 70 years the political science profession advocated for stronger party government.    Ask any third party about how strong the two parties are for an answer.
What we are seeing on the eve of Super Tuesday with the withdrawal of Buttigieg and Klobuchar from the race is first recognition of the reality they were going nowhere.  Second, it was fear that their  party was going to Sanders and to those whom they perceived as outsiders.    If Sanders is Robespierre then what is happening now is the Thermidorian Reaction. 
The mainstream  is crying over where their party is going.

The So-Called Nevada Democratic Presidential Debate

It was not a debate.  It was a debacle.  It might have been one of the worst examples of pettiness,
sloppiness, and simply meaninglessness that one could experience.  The Democratic presidential candidates did themselves no favors, and the American public learned little of value from it.
First, it was not a debate.  Debates, even loosely defined, are about something that matter.  They are about protagonists taking positions, using facts, evidence, and logic to advance positions and, in turn, doing the same to respond to antagonists.  Go back and watch William Buckley’s early  Firing Line as an example.

What we saw in Nevada was simply another media event–Jerry Springer with shoes on.  Reporters asked trite questions to encourage candidates to fight, and the candidates obliged. It would have been great to learn about how the candidates plan to address a record budget deficit, deal with future corona virus epidemics, address racial disparities in criminal justice, or lower drug costs.  Instead, the debate was over whether Sanders would release all his medical records or encourage his supporters not to be so mean.   It would also about each candidate carving one another up, pointing to the fact that Bloomberg oversaw a horrible stop and frisk policy or his sexist behavior in the past.  Or about Klobuchar noting knowing who the president of Mexico was and then reading off a fact sheet to try to show us how smart she was.

Warren is declared a winner but destroying Bloomberg.  Sanders wins by not being attacked as much as Bloomberg.  Bloomberg loses by revealing that he is like a typical CEO in a room with yes men who never question him and therefore he thinks he is a genius.

For the most part, we should not care.   At the end of the day does it really matter if one releases one’s full medical or tax records, or one’s supporters may be jerks?  These are all side shows and largely irrelevant. 

It is true, as Bloomberg said, none of the candidates are perfect and that all have done things wrong.  The issue is not whether someone has done something wrong in the past so much as it is acknowledging and learning from it.  It appears none of the candidates have done that.  Being rich, powerful, or running for president must mean you do not have to say you are sorry.

Yes, Bloomberg and Klobuchar have weak records on race.  All of them on stage do.  But what was telling was none were willing to say I am sorry, I was wrong, AND here are the policies going forward to remedy or address the problem.  Especially troubling, the candidates should have reasonably foreseen the questions coming and have been prepared with good answers.  They were not.  They failed to learn from past performances what their weaknesses were to address them going forward.

Bernie Sanders and the Revenge of the Superdelegates

Today's blog originally appeared in Counterpunch.

Unless Bernie Sanders wins enough delegates to capture the Democratic Party nomination on the first ballot, he is not going to be the nominee.  The reason will be that the superdelegates–those same people who were his wrath in 2016–will come back to deny him the nomination.

The Democratic Party’s superdelegates were a reaction to the 1970 McGovern-Fraser reforms that sought to open the party to the people.  Criticism after the 1968 Democratic Convention that party elites had too much control over the presidential nomination process–the proverbial smoke-filled backroom–led to a recommendation to create more political primaries. The goal was to let rank and file have more say on the party nominee.  Yet by 1980 party elites felt there was too much democracy within the Democratic Party; they, not the base, still knew best who the nominee should be and what the party should stand for.

In 1980 the Democratic Party’s Hunt Commission recommended that 30% of all the Democratic National Convention delegates be reserved for members of Congress and state party chairs and vice chairs.  These are the superdelegates.  That 30% figure was originally implemented at 14% but by 2008 the percentage rose to nearly 20%.  Their purpose was ostensibly to provide leadership, but in practice it was to maintain orthodoxy, serving as a check on primary voters who might make the wrong choice.

It was in 2008 that most Americans first heard of Democratic Party superdelegates.  When Hillary Clinton first ran for president in 2008 she was presumptively the presidential heir apparent, only to come in third in the Iowa caucuses and then fall behind Barack Obama in the delegate count.  Going into the Democratic National Convention she pulled one last move, convince the superdelegates to vote and throw the nomination to her.  She failed in that attempt.

Eight years later the ballot for the presidential nomination pitted again the presumptive presidential heir apparent Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders. As it was true in 2008, she was heavily favored to win the nomination, with initial polls giving her a 50%+ lead over Sanders.  She again floundered, with Sanders racking but victories and delegates.  While superdelegates were in theory supposed to be uncommitted until the convention, Clinton secured the support of many, included them in her delegate count, and encouraged the media to report them in her totals.  The purpose was to create the illusion that she had a bigger lead over Sanders than she did as part of her effort along with the Democratic leadership, as revealed in leaked emails, to make sure Sanders did not win.

Criticism from the left wing of the Democratic Party forced one change post 2016.  Superdelegates could no longer vote in the first round at the national convention unless a candidate had a majority of the delegates secured to win the nomination.  After the first round the superdelegates can vote.

In 2020 there will be 3,979 delegates to the Democratic National Convention who will be selected as a result of primaries and caucuses.    To win the nomination one needs 1,991 delegates.

If Bernie Sanders does not get to this number by the first round, the 771 Superdelegates will get to vote, and he will need 2,376 votes to win.  Fat chance!

Much in the same way that the Democratic Party and its leadership including Deborah Wasserman Schultz were stacked against Sanders in 2016, Tom Perez and much of the party leadership are opposed to him again.  Perhaps proof of this opposition is the disappointment in this year’s presumptive presidential heir apparent Joe Biden and the search for his moderate replacement in Peter Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Michael Bloomberg.

Despite coming behind Sanders twice in the popular vote in Iowa and New Hampshire, Buttigieg is seen in the media and party as the alternative to Sanders.  Despite fifth and third place finishes in these states, Klobuchar is seen as a winner and rising moderate alternative.  And without a delegate to his name but $400 million already spent, Bloomberg is the billionaire anthesis to Sanders who has pledged to take on the billionaires.  The moderate choice to Sanders is thus to vote for a billionaire or candidates who take money from billionaires.  In either case the message is clear, the Democratic Party establishment–one that has been pro-business, corporate, and complicit in shoving neo-liberalism down the throats of the American public and pushing white working class over to Trump and the Republicans—does not want Sanders.

By all accounts Sanders should be considered the populist frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.  Yet the plethora of candidates who are running and eating up delegates will make that hard.  Bloomberg on Super Tuesday when 34% of the pledged delegates are in play, stands a great chance of winning enough to reduce the mathematical probability that any candidates can get to 1,991 by the first round.  Should they happen, the superdelegates enter and they will no doubt cast the die against Sanders.

Rush to Judgement: What we Should or Should not Infer from Iowa and New Hampshire

There are 3,979 delegates to the Democratic National Convention.  To win the nomination one needs

1,990 delegate votes.  After Iowa and New Hampshire only 65 or 1.6% of all the delegates have been awarded.  The primary season has barely started.  Yet many pundits, political experts, and the media want to reach broad conclusions about what is happening.  On one level any inferences from Iowa and New Hampshire should be premature yet already we have declared winners and losers, with some candidates having already dropped out and others seen as frontrunners or not.

Bernie Sanders
On many counts Bernie Sanders is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.  While he is only one delegate vote behind Peter Buttigieg (22 to 21 out of the 1,990 needed to win the nomination), he has won the popular vote in Iowa and New Hampshire and he is ahead in the fundraising battle. 
Moreover, with the other liberal Elizabeth Warren coming in third and fourth  in the first two states, her campaign seems to be floundering, seeming to suggest Sanders is on the cusp of consolidating the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.  At the same time, the moderate wing, represented by Joe Biden, Mayor Peter Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is more divided.
Moderates, worried at the prospects of a Sanders nomination, are touting Buttigieg and even Klobuchar post New Hampshire as winners, with the latter, despite a fifth a third place finish in Iowa and New Hampshire, now the latest alternative to a fallen Joe Biden.

Joe Biden
Based on two states, it looks like former Vice-president Joe Biden’s chances for the nomination are not good.  He has had two dismal showings (fourth and fifth in Iowa and New Hampshire respectively), and he appears to be behind two other candidates, Peter Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar for the moderate vote, and behind the frontrunner liberal Bernie Sanders and even Elizabeth Warren.
Why has Biden done so badly?  Several reasons,   One, the center of the Democratic party has moved left from where President Barack Obama and Biden were when they left office.  Two, Biden has run a lackluster campaign and his debate performances have been weak.  Three, like Hillary Clinton in 2008 and 2016, he is running like he deserves the nomination.  Yet to rule Biden out would be a mistake for several reasons.
Yes the results in Iowa and New Hampshire will create momentum, media attention, and money for its winners, Yet Iowa and New Hampshire are very different from the next two states, and even the rest of the country.  The US overall is 60% White Caucasian, with Iowa and New Hampshire respectively 86% and 90%.  They are racially not representative of the country, let alone of the Democratic Party where according to 2016 presidential exit polls 71% of the electorate was White, but 74% of the votes for Clinton were from people of color.
The next two states, Nevada and South Carolina, are 49% and 64% white, with high percentages of the Democratic voters people of color.  These next two states are very different from Iowa and New Hampshire.  Joe Biden enjoys significant support among people of color, especially African-Americans, whereas none of the other candidates do well with minorities.  This may change the race for the nomination in many ways because candidates such as Buttigieg and Klobuchar will be challenged to reach out to a different racial demographic.  So far their appeal has been to run as Midwesterners with Midwest values, failing to realize that such designations are code words for “White” among people of color.  White may work in Iowa and New Hampshire, but it is less clear it will work in Nevada and South Carolina.  And even if they get the nomination for president, there is a calculus here.  How many White Trump votes can they move (when the evidence suggests Trump has 90%+ support of his base) versus how many people of color do they turn off?  The argument for the moderate Democratic candidate relies upon a net positive sum for this tradeoff, especially in critical swing states.

Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg now will be an increasing factor as he will appear in debates and in the primaries.  He has already spent more than $400 million in advertising, giving him a fourth if not better place in some national polls.  He appears to poll as well as any candidate in a head-to-head with President  Donald Trump.  Bloomberg’s money will be a factor for all of the candidates going forward, not just for the moderates but also for Sanders who will have to basically run against him.  This divide will be a major problem for the Democrats going forward.

Conclusion
More than 98% of the Democratic delegates have yet to be awarded.  The size of Super Tuesday and especially the frontloading of the California primary change the value of Iowa and New Hampshire.   It is not clear that one can really extrapolate from less than 2% of the delegate count to inferring much of anything.

Lessons from the So-Called New Hampshire Presidential Debate

What did we learn from the so-called New Hampshire Democratic presidential debate?  The simple answer is that if they keep it up the Democratic Party will debate itself into losing the 2020 presidential race.
The New Hampshire debate, like all of the previous ones over the last few months, was  not a debate.  They have been simply media events, Jerry Springer shows full of one-liners, petty attacks, and vacuous positioning on issues that hardly count as debates and  where CNN or the moderators egg on the participants.  Real debates are when individuals take positions on issues, argue to points, and provide reasoned arguments and evidence to support their claims.  This was not what happened in New Hampshire or in any of the previous debates. There was no substance here.  To recall a famous line Walter Mondale once used against Gary Hart: “Where’s the beef?”
What we saw in New Hampshire was predictably boring.  The front runners Buttigieg and Sanders were attacked by Klobuchar and Biden who has to recover from Iowa.  Warren, Steyer, and Yang did their best to be relevant, and all of them tried to argue that the reason to vote for them was that they hated Trump the most or they were the most electable.  None of them, bar Sanders, really spent much time articulating their narrative for why they should be president, what they hoped to do, or what they sought to accomplish in a meaningful way.  It was a boring Jerry Springer show. 
What one took away was a choice: Vote for an inexperienced frontrunner who takes money from billionaires or vote for a billionaire directly who was a mayor of a city 86X more populous, or vote for me because I tell  folksy Midwestern jokes, because I will do well in South Carolina, or because even though I did bad in Iowa and probably will do so in New Hampshire, I am still the most electable.
Moreover, the debate seemed to show that there is a collective action or tragedy of the commons problem with the Democratic Party.  By that, Ronald Reagan famously declared the Eleventh Commandment that: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”  For Democrats their Eleventh Commandment seems to be: “Thou shalt only speak ill of any fellow Democrat.”  It is in the collective interest of the Democratic presidential candidates and party not to attack one another, but it is in the interest of each on individually to do so.  The presidential candidates view the presidential race as a zero sum game, I win only if you lose.  The path to the nomination is dirty and attack everyone else, rendering you the last one standing,  fully damaged by the process.
The two biggest winners of the so-called  New Hampshire presidential debate were Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg.  All agreed Trump needed to go but failed to say much beyond that in terms of a clear vision of where to go next.  All of them also could hear Bloomberg’s absence as deafening, feeling the need to attack him because as one watches his ads you get the sense that “Mike will get it done” gut the others are clueless regarding what its is or how to get it done.
The biggest losers were the Democratic Party and the American public.   This media event simply torn one another down and did little to repair the debacle of Iowa.  The American public, still registering high disapproval for Trump and yearning for an alternative, did not find it here, at least with the format offered.

Iowa and the Real Start of the 2020 US Presidential Election

Monday, February 2, is the official start of the 2020 presidential elections.  It is when the Iowa
caucuses take place.  Here are some thoughts.

What should we expect from this primary season?

The Democratic Primary season starts with the Iowa caucuses.  Traditionally the value of Iowa is that it serves as a testing ground and an way to winnow down the number of potential or viable candidates moving forward.

Based on the most recent polls, There is a cluster of four to six candidates who are still viable: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Bloomberg.  Bloomberg is not contesting Iowa.  For the first five, to remain viable going forward one probably needs to finish in the top three.  Specifically, for example, Klobuchar, who has made Iowa the centerpiece of her presidential campaign, must come in the top three to remain viable.  Moreover, if she beats Buttigieg, or vice versa, the loser is probably also going to have a hard time going forward.  Similarly, Warren and Sanders are fighting for the progressive wing of the party and the one who comes out on top will be the leader for that side.

Right now, polls suggest it is Biden and Sanders who are in the lead in Iowa.  Sanders is also leading in New Hampshire.  After that, Biden leads in Nevada and South Carolina.  The point is that very rapidly I can see the race turning into a Sanders-Biden contest, with Bloomberg’s money making him a wild car going into Super Tuesday.  All this suggests that the Democratic Party is still torn between progressive and moderate wings, much like in 2016, and the challenge is finding a way to unite the party.  Which candidate can do that and how is an interesting question.

- What's on stake for the Democratic party?
Obviously beating Donald Trump is the big issue, but so is uniting the party, bringing in the next generation of Democratic voters, and taking back the Senate and making gains in the state legislative elections as one prepares for redistricting in 2021.  All of these events define important political events and challenges for the Democratic party.

- What's the biggest challenge they face right now?
Finding a viable message or narrative to defeat Trump along with devising a campaign strategy to beat him in the critical few swing states that will decide the election.
- Which candidate do you think is best equipped to win the nomination?
Right now it looks like Biden is better equipped to win if one follows a convention strategy.  But he may not inspire younger votes.


- Is there any chance to defeat President Trump?
It will be a close election.
The 2020 presidential race is effectively over in 44 states plus the District of Columbia.  Who will be the next president is down to a handful of voters in six swing states.

Based on recent elections, voting patterns, and polling, a Democratic Party candidate for president is nearly certain to win California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, (overall state) Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,   Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.  This is a total of 19 states plus the District of Columbia.  In the case of Maine, Democrats probably will overall win the state and three of its four electoral votes.  The other electoral vote, which is for the Second Congressional district, goes to the Republican.  Democrats start with 222 electoral votes.

A Republican Party candidate will win 30 states plus part of Maine.  These states are  Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, (Second Congressional District), Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.  Republicans start with 216 electoral votes. 

Yet there are six remaining states–Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania,  and Wisconsin–totaling 100 electoral  votes, which are too close to call and they are the swing states that will decide the presidency.  The task for the Democrats is finding a candidate who can not only hold their base states but win enough electoral votes in these swing states to win the election.  Remember:  The popular vote does not matter and national opinion polls do not matter.

The road to the White House starts with Iowa and ends with these six states.

It's not just Trump: The Case for a Weaker American Presidency

                    The American presidency is too powerful.  That is what the Senate impeachment trial and the 2020 presidential election should be about.  Instead, masking this deeper constitutional problem is Donald Trump and his personal abuses of power.

            Yet these abuses of power are not simply the product of one errant person, but part of a longer and deeper pattern of congressional delegation and acquiescence of power to the president that needs to be reversed, especially by the next president of the United States.

            The American Revolution was a product a fear of abuse of executive or royal power. Americans are familiar with the first lines of the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence which begin with “When in the course of human events” and “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”  But the second half of the Declaration is a bill of particulars against the excesses and abuses of power British King George III inflicted upon the colonies.  They included his refusal to “Assent to Laws,” and “obstructed the Administration of Justice.” Our independence and revolt against the king were a continuation of a centuries long battle between parliamentary supremacy and monarchical authority that begin in 1215 with the Magna Charta. 

            So great was the fear of executive authority that in America’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, presidential power was vastly limited by a Congress that chose him.  In adopting our present constitution in 1787, while some such as Alexander Hamilton urged for a very powerful presidency, most of the framers sought to limit this office through narrowly defined powers, impeachment, and the concepts of checks and balances and separation of powers. Constitutional framer Charles Pinkey feared giving the president too much military power would “render the Executive a monarchy.” Edmund Randolph feared similar monarchical tendencies in the president if the executive branch were treated as unitary under one person.  James Madison said it had to be clear that the president did not have either legislative or judicial powers.

            As originally designed, the presidency was not, as some wrongly contend today, to be a co-equal branch with Congress and the judiciary.  Constitutional Convention delegate Roger Sherman said that the president ought to be “nothing more than an institution for carrying the will of the Legislature into effect.”  James Madison declared in Federalist Paper 51: “In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.” The consensus of the Framers and by constitutional design, was that the presidency was envisioned to be a far weaker institution compared to Congress than it has become.  Yet even with the checks imposed on it, some, such as Patrick Henry, feared the new presidency which was given “Extreme Powers; the powers of a king.”

            Multiple factors changed the balance of power between Congress and the presidency. One, emergencies, such as wars, pushed the presidency in a more powerful direction, such as with Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.  Two, the constitutional framers never envisioned the rise of a large administrative bureaucracy under the control of a president which would augment executive authority.  Three, Congress over time delegated or acquiesced significant rule making authority and discretion to the president and the executive branch to make rules or issue executive orders that carried the force of law.   All this produced by 1973 as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. aptly described, an imperial presidency that needed to be constrained.

            As an immediate result of Richard Nixon’s abuses of power Congress enacted, often over presidential vetoes, several pieces of legislation.  The 1973 War Powers Act aimed to limit presidential authority to deploy military force without congressional ascent.  The 1974 Budget and Impoundment Act sought to limit the ability of the president to withhold and divert congressionally authorized funds.  The 1976 National Emergencies Act repealed all existing presidential declarations of emergencies and purportedly circumscribed future orders.  The 1978 Ethics in Government Act required disclosure of financial interests of many executive branch employees.  It also included a provision for the creation of a special prosecutor to investigate the executive branch, addressing concerns stemming from Richard Nixon firing his self-appointed prosecutor Archibald Cox in the famous 1973 Saturday Night Massacre. Other laws, several hundred by estimate, while delegating power to the executive branch, sought to constrain his discretion by giving Congress a one or two-house veto of decisions made.

            At the time these laws looked like limits on presidential authority, but they failed for many reasons.  One, as with the Ethics in Government Act, they exempted the president from many requirements.  Two, Supreme Court decisions favored executive branch power.  In Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S.919 (1983) the Supreme Court declared the legislative veto unconstitutional.  In N.R.D.C. v. Chevron, 467 U.S. 837 (1984), the Court said that disputes over the meaning of congressional statutes would be resolved in favor of executive branch interpretations. Three, Congress, in the case of the special prosecutor, let the law expire.

            Four, all of these laws still assumed the president would voluntarily comply with invoking the law, such as with the War Powers Resolution, or continued to grant him broad discretion to act.  For example, the National Emergencies Act never defined what a national emergency was.  Finally, collectively all of these laws assumed there would be unwritten norms or conventions that would simply constrain presidential power and that the White House would voluntarily comply with the law.

            Nearly a half-century later, these post-Watergate limits have faded with memory.  The events of 9/11, the financial crisis of 2008, and partisan polarization have all eviscerated the institutional balance of checks and balances of the Constitution.  President’s unable to get their way with Congress, govern by executive order, relying in large part on authority granted to them by Congress. No longer is easy to contend, as Madison argued, that the legislature predominates, we may have the new imperial presidency.

            What is scary is how the impeachment process and Democratic presidential candidates simultaneously attack Trump’s abuse of power but at the same time pledge that if elected would issue a host of executive orders within their first hundred days in office.  For example, Elizabeth Warren has proposed executive orders that cover 21 policy areas.  Amy Klobuchar pledged a list of 100 executive orders she would issue. What would be better to see is a promise among Democratic presidential candidates that if elected that would work to limit presidential power.

            What might some of those new limits be?

            Reauthorize the special prosecutor law to investigate the executive branch.

            Amend the National Emergencies Act to define what constitutes a national emergency and make it clear here and in a new budget act that no national emergency authorizes a president to divert money unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

            Adopt a new War Powers Act that limits presidential authority to initiate first use of nuclear weapons and which requires presidential authority to deploy troops short of congressional declarations of war.

            Amend the Ethics in Government Act to require presidential disclosure of financial interests and taxes, and impose tighter requirements on conflicts of interests, including mandatory blind trusts and absolute bans on personal use of private investments or holdings that conflict with government duties.

            Adoption of a law facilitating and simplifying Congress’s ability to prosecute executive branch officials for failure to comply with document production or appearing to testify.

            As president, direct the Office of Legal Counsel and Justice Department, to reconsider past opinions claiming sitting presidents cannot be indicted for a crime, and urge the Supreme Court to modify its Chevron decision so that disputes in legislative interpretation give priority to congressional intent and meaning.

            Overnight it will not be possible to reassert the balance between Congress and the president.  The impeachment trial in the Senate, as well as the 2020 elections, are a good opportunity to do this.  Yet to do this one needs to realize that the problem is not simply Donald Trump but a larger gravitation of authority from Congress and to the president that needs to stop.

The Democratic Party’s Missing Electoral College Game Plan

Rule number one of politics:  The first step in exercising political power is to get elected.  Somewhere along the line the Democratic Party has forgotten this.  Why this is important is that right now it looks that Democrats are on the road to another 2020 presidential popular vote victory and a loss in the electoral college.  Simply put, the Democrats have no electoral college victory plan.

            The reality is that  the only number that matters in US presidential politics is 270.  That is the number of electoral votes you need to  win.  US presidential elections are not really national popular votes; they are 50 separate state elections plus the  District of Columbia where in 49 instances the winner of the state’s popular vote nets the candidate the entire trove of its electoral votes.  The combination of  the electoral college and this winner-take-all structure means that effectively in 40 states the 2020 presidential election is over.  How New York, California, Massachusetts, Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma will vote is not in doubt.  The presidential candidates know this too.  The race for the White House comes down to a handful of swing states, prominent among them are Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  As Trump demonstrated in his 2016 Midwest strategy, winning them was key to his victory and had less than 90,000 votes flipped in them, Hillary Clinton would have won the electoral college victory and not simply the popular vote.

            Political coalitions, like fences, are only as strong as the weakest link.  Democrats need a strategy to hold all the states they won in 2016 and then how to pick up Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.  Yes, they could try to flip Arizona, Georgia, or Texas as some pipedreams hope for, but the reality is winning them is distant and difficult.  They key is flipping critical swing states.

            What is interesting about these swing states is that their electorates are generally to the left of recent Republican Party presidential candidates and to the right of Democratic Party candidates.  In many ways they are states more centrist than the non-swing states, and certainly more in the middle compared to the overall Democratic Party base.

            There are two way to flip these  swing states.  One option is to move swing voters back to the Democrats.  But here what we know is that who is a swing voter is less and less likely to be someone who moves back and forth between voting Democratic or Republican and more so whether they swing into or out of voting.  Democrats did badly in 2016 because swing voters, especially suburban  females, stayed home or did not vote for them.  In 2018, those suburban females came out for Democrats.  Winning in 2020 is getting these women to vote.  What we know about these voters is that they are socially moderate to liberal but are not left of center.  This is a more centrist strategy.

            Option two is moving voters who do not normally vote to show up.  Presumably these voters are more liberal as they constitute younger people, perhaps people of color.  These are the people who perhaps resonate with issues such mandatory Medicare for all.  These individuals are hard to motivate to vote and they may be a smaller percentage of the potential electorate in swing as opposed to non-swing states.

            The point here is that a viable strategy for the Democrats to win the 2020 election relies upon them winning critical swing states, whether it is running more to the center or to the left.

Unfortunately, the debates so far, the 2020 primary and caucus schedule, and the candidate messages are setting the Democrats  up to fail.  Consider first recent polling data.  In critical states such as Michigan ,  Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin  mandatory Medicare for all is unpopular (or is divisive at best) despite the fact that nationally a majority of Democrats support it.  Nationally, only 41% support eliminating private insurance for a mandatory Medicare plan for all.   A pledge by Warren or Sanders to push for this as an issue may not play well in the swing states.

Two, the current so-called debate structure does not favor or emphasize winnability of Democrats in critical swing states.  Instead, its combination of popularity in national opinion polls and national fundraising keeps potential popular vote candidates alive but does little to winnow candidates to those who are viable in swing states.

Three, consider the primary and caucus schedule.  While arguably Iowa (February 3, caucus) and New Hampshire (February 11, primary) are swing states, the critical states of Michigan (March 10, )  Wisconsin (April 7), and Pennsylvania (April 28) come after the March 3, Super Tuesday which features 14 states and includes California and Texas.  Super Tuesday could well filter out candidates who could run well in swing states because of either the costs or ideological orientation of these 14.  Of these 14 states, arguably only Minnesota and Virginia are swing.  Running and winning the gauntlet of Super Tuesday does not mean one is prepared to win in the swing states that will decide the road to 270.

Perhaps the electoral college is unfair and needs to be eliminated or reformed.  But it is a reality at least for next year.  Democrats need a process that vets candidates and strategy to win the electoral college in 2020.  They do not have it.