Ready The Clown Car: The First Batch of Democrats Are Ready To Announce Their 2020 Bids

Iowa (USA Today): Biden 24, Harris 16, Warren 13, Sanders 9, Buttigieg 6 | More

If Kamala Harris finishes second in Iowa, everybody better buckle up.

 

Kamala Harris grabs the third rail of American politics by promising to take executive action on gun control if Congress fails to pass something to her liking within 100 days of her taking office.



Talk about a bomb thrower. No doubt this will impress many among the anti-gun and anti-US Constitution far left. And we could see another round of "metooism" by many of the other candidates running for the nomination as they all rush to basically embrace their idea as their own.

But this is not going to help them beat Trump in a general election. In fact it is likely to hurt her and the Democrats.

 

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Biden over Harris by 2 points. That is a statistical dead heat, fellas.

Quinnipiac: Biden 22, Harris 20, Warren 14, Sanders 13, Buttiegieg 4

And it is also interesting to see support start to consolidate around four candidates. Of course it is still early, but this is very interesting.

 

Also, Bernie is redundant if all the other candidates are going to basically adopt his far left positions on most things. If the Bernie Bros can be brought to accept that, then that could reduce this list to two: Harris and Warren. {Spoiler: Harris has the goods on Warren, and Warren knows it}

Also, from the guts of the Quinnipiac poll, black support is as follows:

31% - Biden
27% - Harris
16% - Sanders
05% - Booker
04% - Warren

This is still a level of black support for Biden that appears to indicate people are not fully engaged yet. Unless Harris drops the ball, she will almost certainly add support from this group while Biden's support continues to fall.

 

Maybe I am wrong, but it seems like there has to be a moderate candidate that either rises up or drops in that has the gravitas to hoover up what is in actuality a ton of moderate Democrat support. And none of these other top candidates are anything close to moderate. Even Biden has been throwing his moderate credentials over the side with a remarkable lack of resistance. There is a vacuum forming here that is waiting to be filled.

 

From what we have seen over the last few weeks, Joe is starting to look like he could actually be a weaker and less effective candidate than Hillary Clinton was. Maybe you are right, that Joe somehow stumbles in to the nomination. But are there really a critical mass of Democrats who want to see that happen here? I guess we will see, but I suspect not.

 

More polls:

ABC/WP: Biden 30, Sanders 19, Harris 13, Warren 12, Buttigieg 4
YouGov: Biden 23, Warren 19, Harris 15, Sanders 9, Buttigieg 8

Now that all of the polls are post-first debate, here is the revised RCP Poll average

RCP Avg.: Biden 27.2, Sanders 14.8, Harris 14.7, Warren 13.5, Buttigieg 5.3, O'Rourke 2.3, Booker 2.3, Castro 1.3

That is eight candidates. Nobody else is over 1%.

So Sanders and Harris are effectively even and Warren is within about a point of these two, which makes this effectively a statistical three way tie.

Biden is still up by 12.4 points, which is nearly double what the second tier candidates have. Who here believes that is going to hold up? Also, please note how much variance there is in Biden's poll numbers in the average. They range from 22-33% In the two polls above, it varies between 30% to 23%. These numbers are obviously in flux.

I am surprised to see that Castro did not get more of a bump coming out of the first debates. He is going to need to look for a way to break out in the weeks to come.

 

Corey Booker, turning it on. Rosario Dawson has announced that she will now join Corey Booker on the campaign trail. Surely this will be what he needs to get things really moving in his campaign.

Rosario Dawson to join Booker on campaign trail

Actress Rosario Dawson will join Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on the campaign trail Thursday in Nevada.

Last month, Booker hinted at an engagement with Dawson in an appearance on RuPaul's talk show, when the host suggested Booker could be the "first unmarried president in a long, long time."

"Well first of all, the swearing in isn't until the 21st of January 2021. You never know what might happen between now and then," Booker said.

The couple have been dating since October, after meeting at a party for former Maryland gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous (D), Booker said on RuPaul's show.​

So they might be getting married, he implied. You never know! LOL.

 

Who will be the biggest flip flopper in the Democrat nominating contest this year? It is hard to say because there are several big-time flip floppers to choose from. Without performing a particular analysis, before today I would have immediately mentioned Joe BIden and Kirsten Gillibrand as the probable leaders for this infamous crown. But I was just reminded of another contender, not to be overlooked.

Kamala Harris, at it again, with yet another flip flop, this time on school busing. Earlier this week, she was clearly supporting federally mandated school busing. Not anymore. As of today, she recommends that school districts "consider" mandatory busing.

From The Hill:

Harris: Busing 'should be considered' by school districts

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday that busing should be one method school districts consider to integrate de facto segregated schools, but suggested it may not need to be federally mandated, comments that come not long after her attack on former Vice President Joe Biden over the issue.

Harris during last week's Democratic debate in Miami launched an attack on Biden for voting against federally mandated busing. Biden said he supported busing as a decision left to local districts, but Harris suggested it's the federal government's job to make sure schools aren't segregated.

"That’s where the federal government must step in,” she said at the debate, in what turned out to be a breakout moment for the candidate.​

I knew she would flip flop on this and I told you guys she was not committed to this issue, but to be honest, it never occurred to me that she would flip so fast. This is becoming a pattern with her, which makes her trustworthiness regarding statements made out on the campaign trail a real concern.

Her revised position is in fact remarkably similar to what Joe Biden's position is. So, this line of attack by her was just a method of stirring up racial resentment and divisiveness within the party, just like I told you guys.

She needs to be careful, because her tactics are maximum nasty and she is already well on the way to developing a reputation as someone who is unprincipled, angry and extraordinarily nasty. A lot of people are not going to want to support someone like that. Just saying.

 

Now that Kamala Harris has walked back her position on school busing, Joe Biden is in a much better spot. The way that he is handling this here is going to make him look good and her look really bad.

Biden laughs at Kamala Harris shift on busing: 'Our positions aren't any different'

He continued, "For example, this whole thing about race and busing. Well, I think if you take a look, our positions aren't any different as we're finding out."

"With Sen. Harris who says she sees it as a tool, not a must or all circumstance," Cuomo said.

"Yeah, well..." Biden responded before offering a chuckle and a grin, "look at my record."

The Democratic primary front-runner later said he knew he was going to be targeted on the debate stage, but that he "wasn't prepared" for the way Harris went after him.​

Joe Biden is still ahead of second place Kamala Harris by 10.8 points in the RCP poll average. He may not be that strong, but it is still not clear who in this race is actually stronger.