The State of the Race
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Nate has some good analysis of recent Iowa polling, concluding (accurately I think) that Biden and Sanders are vulnerable frontrunners, but nobody else has been particularly impressive so far either:
A little weaker than I'd have expected for Harris. Also for Klobuchar (3%). Others pretty close to where you'd probably guess. https://t.co/r8Tb43wpZI
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 10, 2019
Harris has the second-highest favorability score after Biden. (Favorability score = an average of responses on a scale from "very favorable" to "very unfavorable", ignoring voters who didn't know the candidate.) Also, her favorables are up, whereas Bernie's, Beto's etc. are down. pic.twitter.com/bASzkt5Vk7
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 10, 2019
Other observations:
—Big decline in favorability for Klobuchar.
—Biden's favorables are meaningfully better than Bernie's, more than you'd guess from the topline numbers.
—Sort of a good poll for Castro?
—Everybody hates Howard Schultz.— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 10, 2019
This is probably the key chart. Name recognition certainly *does* matter. Overall, though, it's probably both the case that (i) Biden and Bernie aren't especially impressive frontrunners and (ii) None of the low-name-recognition candidates are off to an amazing start either. pic.twitter.com/IEJKDfWuGA
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 11, 2019
I remain skeptical — whether because of motivated reasoning or not — but I have to acknowledge that Biden’s favorability scores mean he can’t be entirely written off. Another implication of this is that Bernie’s constant re-litigation of 2016 in his speeches is, from a purely tactical standpoint, really dumb. Running against the “Democratic establishment” in this race, especially if Biden gets in, means running against Barack Obama, who very popular among Democrats. (Given that much of it is in departures from his prepared remarks, his staff seems to understand this.) But at this point, Harris and Warren are doing enough to potentially break through later, the revelations about Klobuchar seem to have ended her already highly limited chances, and while I like her a lot it doesn’t look like Gillibrand is going to get any traction.