Road to 270, Take 2

I first attempted to predict the outcome of the 2020 presidential election fifteen weeks ago. The Democratic candidate was not yet known, so I made my forecast based on a "generic Democrat."  Well now we know the nominee is Joe Biden, and that's about as generic a Democrat as can be.

There are 199 days until the election.  I think that Joe Biden is a modest favorite to win, but he will need to run a good race in order to overcome the Republican's built-in advantage in the Electoral College.

I. The Fundamentals.

Fifteen weeks ago I wrote that this election was unique because we had an unpopular president running for re-election in a solid economy.  That is no longer true.  He's slightly less popular and the economy is cratering.

His campaign will of course be based on the idea that this economic collapse was not his fault. And in a strict, literal sense, it's not entirely his fault.  The COVID-19 virus happened to come along just as the primary season was getting in full swing.  The election will largely be a referendum on his response to it. He should not feel confident of such a contest.

II. The Variables.
A lot can happen in 29 weeks.

1.  The Death Count.   As of this writing, 38,664 Americans have died from COVID-19. There have been some glimmers of positive news but I would guess we have not quite hit the peak of deaths curve yet.  If I had to bet, I think the death tally will be over 75,000 by election day. It could be significantly higher than that. Trump is clearly hoping to run on a "relatively good" body county.  If it's somehow under 60,000, he might be able to claim that with a straight face.

These projections are of course ghoulish. And I claim no expertise in the field. But Trump is a master of spin and he will predicate his campaign on one of several talking points, The main options are as follows, in order of increasing panic:

     a. A lot more would have died if we did nothing. (He can probably use that even if 200K die, but each dead body makes it weaker.
     b. Our response was better than other countries.  Here he will have a lot of places to choose from. At the moment the only clear pattern I see is that Asian/Oceanic countries are having better outcomes than us. Some European countries are doing better than us but Spain and Italy seem to be doing about the same as us. The UK might end up being worse and Germany is not out of the woods yet, either.
      c. The death toll is bad but a complete economic shut down would have been worse.
      d. The death toll is bad but it's the governors' fault.
      e. Blame China!!!!!

2.  The Democratic Ticket.  Joe Biden was a safe choice, but he's not without baggage. If things get back to normalish by September, they will try to attack him for a variety of petty offenses.  If things are still bad, they will claim that Biden is too old to be trusted in this crisis.

3.  October Surprises.  The world is a tumultuous place and a lot can go wrong. Trump will try to argue that it's better to stay the course because of X, Y and Z.

I don't think any of these arguments are compelling, which is why I favor Joe Biden. But I want to emphasize that I think Joe has a roughly 60% chance of winning. The people gave Trump the benefit of the doubt in the early weeks of this campaign and they still might if the mood of the country is returned to relative stability. Trump winning is not far-fetched.

III. The Forecast.

We start, as always with the 2016 electoral map.  Trump won 306 votes, Hillary 232.  I believe that a Biden should win back Pennsylvania (20 votes) and Michigan (16).  That leave him with 268 electoral votes, two shy of enough to win.

Biden needs to win one more state. His best options are: Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia, in roughly that order.  (He also could win Nebraska's 2nd congressional district but a 269 to 269 tie likely results in the House Re-electing Trump. If you want to go wild with political nerd fantasies, you could end up with Trump being re-elected but a Democratic senate choosing Biden's running mate as Vice-President.

I think if the election were held today, Joe Biden would more likely than not win Wisconsin. I also favor him slightly in Arizona.  That gives us this electoral college map:

So the official prediction is Biden winning 289 to 249.

Biden's polling is also pretty good in Florida but I will never feel confident abou that state's elections system.

IV. A Word About Running Mates.

Joe Biden has pledged to choose a woman running mate. That significantly shortens the list of possible running mates.  Here are my thoughts on the main contenders and a quick word about where they might help or hurt the campaign.

1. Catherine Cortez Masto.  She's less well-known but she checks a lot of boxes. She is from a traditional swing state, Nevada, and she is the next-door neighbor of another big prize this year, Arizona.  She is Latina and a former state attorney general. Her husband is a retired secret service agent. Biden has to give her a close look.  Biden supposedly recently told Harry Reid that Cortez-Masto is in his top three choices.  I think she should be his first choice.

2. Amy Klobuchar.  She was my pick all along for president and I think that Biden is comfortable with her. She would be a safe pick but not an inspiring one. Like Tim Kaine in 2016, she takes her home state off the map.  And she has some natural crossover appeal in Wisconsin- a lot of WI gets its local news from the Twin Cities and she knows how to campaign in that part of the country.

3. Kamala Harris. Has a lot of fans among mainstream Democrats on social media but didn't exactly run a great presidential campaign. She should have been able to raise more money. But she has good experience as the California attorney general, although the Left will hold some of that against her. It's hard to say she particularly helps in any specific swing state.

4. Tammy Baldwin.  The party who wins Wisconsin probably wins the White House in 2020. Putting their senior senator on the ticket is an obvious option and one that I think the party would be pleased with. Senator Baldwin is a lesbian. She is not married, and I continue to believe that is a handicap for a prospective Veep. We want to see that picture of the two happy couples at the convention when the confetti falls down. Although the image of Joe Biden waving with three women would be a new wrinkle on that one.

She's a contender because her politics align with Biden'ts and she represents a plumb prize. It would be political malpractice not to consider her.

5. Stacey Abrams.  She is single and she has never won anything bigger than a state representative's race. She did rise to be speaker of that body, which is a significant political achievement and speaks to her skill as a consensus builder. In 2018, she came within a whisker of being elected Governor of Georgia, but that whisker is probably going to cost her a serious shot at the Vice-Presidency too.  I think Biden will give her a long look and maybe he will pull the trigger. But under the current conditions, I think he will want to pick someone who has a more substantive resume.

6. Elizabeth Warren.  I think this one is DOA.  It might play well as a sop to the left, but it would cost a senate seat for at least Biden's first 100 days.  She's also old. And as I said throughout the primary, I believe the controversy about her Native American ancestry is a softball for Donald Trump to pounce on. I do not think it will happen. And just for the record, she doesn't help in any swing states, at all.

7. Val Demmings.  This would be a reach. Representative Demmings is a former chief of police for Orlando, Florida.  That's a big job and would make her an interesting pick but I don't think Biden is going with someone who is in just her second term in the House of Representatives. Being from Florida makes her worth a look, but I think this pick hurts him on the left more than it helps him in the middle.

8. Gretchen Whitmer.  (Edited to add this one after reader feedback.)
Gretchen Whitmer is an appealing choice because she is the governor of one of the most important swing states and has done a reasonably good job of managing the COVID-19 outbreak. But she has only been governor for 15 months and putting her on the ticket means taking her away from her very important day job while the virus is still running rampant.  I don't think that Biden will have confidence in her to be ready from day one.

V.  Other Forecasts.

As I update this forecast, I'll try to compare where I stand relative to other projections.  Nate Silver has yet to release his general election forecast, but there are several other credible models out there so here is the first comparison:

1. Spider Stumbled: Biden 289, Trump 249.

2. JHK Forecasts.  This site uses methodology similar to Nate Silver. At the moment their average result is pretty close to mine-299 to 239. But they break down the probability of every state's result.  If you award every state to the candidate who wins each state at least 50.0001% of the time, then the result is Biden 318, Trump 220.  (This would mean Biden winning Florida, which they give a 50.3% chance of happening, so basically a toss-up.)

They also run simulations, which allows them to express the prediction in terms of how often Biden wins in these simulations.  As weeks and months go by, it will be interesting to compare their percentage to Nate Silver's forecast. For now, JHK has Biden winning 60.4% of the time.

3. Predictit.  If you award the electoral votes in each state the result is: Biden 289, Trump 234, Toss-up 15. (North Carolina is a 50/50 proposition.)

4. 270toWin.com.  I really like this site and have been following them since 2004. They have a broad definition of toss-up, which is probably accurate this far out from the election. Their current tally is Biden 232, Trump 204, Toss-up 102. (The consider PA and MI to be toss-ups now.)

5. Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball. Prof. Sabato also has PA as a toss-up but gives Michigan to Biden and Florida to Trump.  Biden 248, Trump 233, Toss-up 57.

The End of the Beginning (Democratic Horse Race, Take 14)

Does the name James Rassman mean anything to you?  Probably not.

On March 13, 1969 James Rassman was embarked on a swift boat in the Mekong River delta. During a firefight, he went over the side, falling into the Bay Hap River.  John Kerry ordered the boat to turn around, back into enemy fire.  When Rassman was unable to pull himself onto the boat, Kerry went down and reached for him, pulling him to safety.

Rassman lived a mostly quiet life after getting home from the service. But one day in 2004 he got on  a plane to Iowa and showed up at a John Kerry event to tell that story. Kerry was already rising in the polls, but this pushed him over the top. He won Iowa and New Hampshire on his way to a relatively easy nomination that summer.

Most politicians do not have a story like that. There are only so many war heroes to go around. Joe Biden has a hell of personal story.  When Joe Bide was 30 years old and a senator-elect, his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident. Last week during a CNN Town Hall Reverend Anthony Thompson asked Biden a question about his faith. Rev. Thompson's wife was murdered by a white supremacist during the mass shooting of a black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Vice-President Biden responded to the question in direct and personal terms, as seen above.

And yesterday, Biden swamped the South Carolina primary with nearly 50% of the vote. He won 39 of 54 delegates and the race now feels like a two-man contest. If Biden holds his own on Super Tuesday, and winds up winning the nomination in Milwaukee, the moment with Reverend Thompson might be seen as the turning point of what recently looked like a doomed campaign.

So where does this leave us?

I. Early State Analysis.
After four contests, the race stands as follows:

1. Joe Biden, 30% of the vote, 1 win, 54 delegates.
2. Bernie Sanders, 24% of the vote, 2 wins, 2 second places finishes, 60 delegates.
3. Pete Buttigieg, 15% of the vote, 1 win, 1 second, 1 third, and 1 fourth. 26 delegates
4. Elizabeth Warren 10 % of the vote, 8 delegates
5. Amy Klobuchar 10% of the vote, 7 delegates.

II. The Horse Race: No More Tiers.

1. The Front Runner-Bernie Sanders.

Bernie leads in delegates and after Tuesday will probably have the popular vote lead too. He is the front-runner. He has done well with Latino voters and he remains the overwhelming favorite of young voters.  But he has only exceeded expectations once (Nevada) and a winnowing field probably helps Biden going forward.

I like Bernie's chances of winning a plurality of delegates. But to win a majority, he's going to need to course-correct a little. As moderates drop out, he should hire some of their staff because he needs to get better at messaging for the center of the country.

At the last debate he responded to every criticism of him with an angry harrumph. When called out on his support of Fidel Castro, he doubled down. This will not win him any votes going forward. He needs to think about the center more, not just to win the nomination but to be competitive in the general election.

2.  The Alternative- Joe Biden.

Biden just had the best night of his life. But nothing is guaranteed on Super Tuesday.  He needs to win the southern states and to make the delegate threshold in California. He's also an underdog in Texas, but he can probably control the delegate bleeding there.

But one good night does not erase his weaknesses. He is prone to gaffes and his fundraising has been poor. He can probably win a convention floor fight over Bernie, but only if the numbers are close to even.

3. The Persister-Elizabeth Warren.

Third in Iowa.  Fourth in neighboring New Hampshire. Fourth again Nevada, Fifth in South Carolina. She has under-performed and her trend is downward. But she retains a committed core of voters who like her debate style and her thoroughness. They have donated enough money to her campaign that she can keep competing through March.

Last night she was frank in saying that her plan going forward was to win as many delegates as possible. She knows the math does not exist to propel her to a delegate majority. But she also knows that every delegate she earns gives her leverage in Milwaukee. She is from the left wing of the Democratic party but she's also a believer in institutions. At the time of her choosing, she could endorse either Bernie or Biden and sell it with a straight face.

If she wins Massachusetts on Tuesday, she has a justification to stay on beyond that point. She will not be the presidential nominee. But she could be the most powerful broker at the first brokered convention of my lifetime.

4.  The Imperfect Pragmatist-Amy Klobuchar.

I have been with Amy for months. I still think she has the best resume to get elected and the best temperament to govern. But it's not going to happen this year.

She caught a break in Iowa. The confusion about the outcome and the poor showing of Vice-President Biden became the biggest stories coming out of the first caucus. By performing slightly better than polls suggested, she looked like a credible option. And then she had a great debate night in New Hampshire. This led to a respectable third place finish. Six delegates and 20% of the vote gave her momentum and boosted her fund raising.

But at the next debate, she got into a petty exchange with Buttigieg that took some of the glow off her earlier performance. She also completely failed to develop a narrative for why black and brown people should vote for her. So she bombed down to 5th in Nevada and all the way to 6th in South Carolina.

5-3-5-6 is not going to do it. But she is the betting favorite to win Minnesota on Tuesday, and I know that means a lot to her. Like Warren, she knows that every delegate is valuable.

Fun fact-the very first presidential candidate that I ever supported was Senator Paul Simon (D-IL). When I was 14 years old, I went to a Barnes and Noble and special-ordered his book about putting America to work through an infrastructure jobs program. I was too young to vote for him, but I followed him closely, including his surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live with the other Paul Simon. (No relation and no endorsement either.)

Simon won his home state Illinois primary that March.  I want Amy Klobuchar to do the same this week. And then, she needs to drop out.


5.  The Republican- Mike Bloomberg.
He has spent half a billion dollars on this campaign before his name ever appeared on a regular ballot. I don't blame him for staying around long enough to find out just how bad that investment is. There might even be a practical justification for competing on Tuesday. A lot of mail-in ballots were cast before his campaign was revealed to be the cynical joke that it is. So he might just get 15 percent of the vote in California. He certainly will get it in plenty of congressional districts.  That could cost Sanders some delegates, and if that prevents a Bernie nomination, well there are worse ways for a 78 year old man to spend eight tenths of one percent of his wealth.

6. Yeah, she's still running-Tulsi Gabbard.
One percent in South Carolina. One.  But she's still the preferred candidate of Fox News.


And pour a little out for Tom Steyer. He spent $250 million dollars so people could hear his opinions about various things. That's not as ridiculous as spending the percentage of free time that I spend doing the same thing.


Bonus Segment: I was drafting this posting when the news broke that Pete Buttigieg was dropping out of the 2020 race.  I'll leave this here, unedited for posterity's sake.  I am glad he accepted the reality of the math.  He has a bright future.

The Rookie of the Year-Pete Buttigieg.
Someday he might be the answer to the trivia question: Who won the last Iowa caucus?

Winning Iowa is nothing to sneeze at it. He had to overcome a lot of questions about his age and resume. He also had to convince a lot of people that the country was ready to elect a gay president. He followed this up with a very close 2nd place finish in New Hampshire.

But then the race turned to more diverse states, and he faltered. A respectable third in Nevada but a distant 4th  in South Carolina. At one point last night it looked like he might announce that he was dropping out today. But for now, his campaign goes on.

Maybe he has polling that shows him sucking up sizeable delegate numbers in places like Oklahoma and Colorado. But he is the one candidate who I think could enhance his career by dropping out early. You won Iowa, kid. If Biden becomes president, you'll probably have a plumb job this time next year.
Putting up a bunch of six to ten percent performances on Tuesday doesn't get you much.

III. The  Power Rankings, Take 13.

These are just my personal preferences among the remaining candidates:

1. Amy Klobuchar  (For old time's sake.)
2. Joe Biden 
3. Elizabeth Warren (Up from 4)
4. Bernie Sanders (Up from 6.)
5. Michael Bloomberg  (Same position numerically because Pete dropped out, but for the record I have moved him below Bernie Sanders.)
6. Tulsi Gabbard (Up from 8, but DFL is still DFL.)

Embrace the Uncertainty. (Democratic Horse Race Take 13)

Iowa and New Hampshire have Cauc-voted, and all we know for sure is that we don't know much.

I. New Hampshire Analysis.

My predictions were terrible but the polling averages were pretty accurate.  Let's compare:

1.  Bernie Sanders: Result 1st 25.9%.   Polling average 1st 28.7, Prediction 1st 28%.

Bernie did fine. He won and that's the most important thing. But his number was slightly lower than expected and as in Iowa, it does not seem that he brought out waves of young people to vote for him. The electorate is obviously focused on beating Trump and his electability argument is predicated on turning out young people to vote for him in unprecedented numbers. So far, we don't have evidence of that.

The optimistic take is that Bernie is the person most likely to wind up with a plurality of delegates. I am increasing skeptical that he will get through the process with a majority however.  Yesterday Nate Silver's model had him winding up with about 1,650 delegates. After NH the model has him winning 1,531. (1,990 are needed for a majority.)

2.  Pete Buttigieg.  Result: 2nd/24.4%  Polling average: 2nd/21.3%  Prediction:  3rd/16%.

Pete overperformed, slightly. His strategy officially paid off. By working IA and NH meticulously and accepting all free media invitations, he was able to get one gold and one silver. For the moment he has a negligible lead in delegates with 23. (Sanders has 21.)

Now he has to run nationally. He will get a lot of attention but I think voters will be concerned about his lack of experience. 

3. Amy Klobuchar  Result 3rd/19.8%  Polling average: 3rd/11.75  Prediction: 5th/11%.

No one can accuse me of being a homer. Klobuchar had a great night and will now get a lot of media attention. But she has to start running in places that have not paid much attention to her until very recently.   She had a fundraising windfall after the last debate and should have one today too. But she has to scale up in a hurry and I'm not sure what her campaign will focus on next.

She remains a huge long-shot. Nate Silver's model only has her winning 80 delegates. (Up from a project 57 before NH.)  That's two percent. She needs to start beating Pete and she has to worry that Bloomberg might get a lot of voters that otherwise would have voted for her.

I would advise her to keep pointing out the contrasts with Mayor Pete. She has the resume of a president. He does not.  But she also needs someone to go negative on Bernie. I don't think it's the right time to do that directly. But Biden and Warren might have to do that for their own interests.

4.  Elizabeth Warren  Result: 4th/9.3%.  Polling Average: 4th/11%  Prediction: 4th/14%.

It was not her night. Being from a neighboring state, she should have done better than 4th. But she can also claim with a straight face to have done as well as Klobuchar so far. (She in fact has 8 delegates, and Klobuchar 7.)  I think she is a pragmatist. Most years that would mean dropping out now. But this year looks like a fight for every delegate until Milwaukee. She will stay in until Super Tuesday, at least. Watch her fundraising. I think a lot of her donors might be drifting towards Amy Klobuchar today but I know Warren is a worker. She knows that she can still have a big say in who the nominee is and what the platform looks like.


5.  Joe Biden.  Result 5th/8.3%  Polling Average: 4th(tie)/11.0%. Prediction: 2nd/20%.
I thought NH would give Biden a comeback narrative. But his attack on Mayor Pete felt petty and he slid all the way down to 5th place. He skipped town before the voting was done.  But he does have an argument that will resonate with some-so far only white people have been voting. That can give him some hope but he's a wounded candidate and there will be a lot of money spent trying to deny him a win in South Carolina.  If he's going to be the nominee, he needs to have the best 18 days of his campaigning life.

I am starting to think that Trump's Ukraine/Hunter/Burisma fantasy hurt Biden. I don't think any Democrat believes this is a real scandal but there's probably some percentage who doesn't want to go through Hillary's emails again.  The unfortunate thing is that any candidate will have some version of that bullshit thrown at them by Trump and Fox News.  Biden's reputation is probably best suited to withstand it. But he got his ass kicked twice and I'm not sure how he turns that story around.

II.. The Horse Race.

The Top Tier (Front Runners)
1.  Bernie Sanders
2.  Pete Buttigieg (Up from 2)
3.  Michael Bloomberg (Up from 4)

Tier Two (The Alternatives)
4.  Amy Klobuchar (Up from 6)
5.  Elizabeth Warren

Tier Three: (The Wounded)
6. Joe Biden (Down from 2)

Tier Four: (Nothing Better to Do With the Lives)
7. Tom Steyer  He's already spent a fortune in NV and SC so he might as well stick around to see if he can get any return on it. I suspect not.
8.  Tulsi Gabbard  (Up from 9)

III.  The Power Rankings, Take 12
These are just my personal preferences among the remaining candidates.
1. Amy Klobuchar
2. Joe Biden (Up from 4)
3. Pete Buttigieg (Up from 5)
4. Elizabeth Warren (Up from 6)
5. Michael Bloomberg (Up from 7)
6. Bernie Sanders (Up from 8)
7. Tom Steyer (Up from 9)
8. Tulsi Gabbard (Up from 11)

Pour a little out for Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet and Deval Patrick. Bennet and Patrick would have been contenders for compromise candidates at a brokered convention. But I doubt that will happen now.

Andrew Yang will start a podcast and/or Multiple Level Marketing scheme any day now. His endorsement would be worth something, but I'm not sure who he would give it to. Without one, I suspect that the 3 percent of voters he got in NH will split pretty evenly, among Bernie and Pete.

We Didn't Deserve Marriane Williamson, or Democratic Field Take 10

It's been over a month since I updated my feelings on the Democratic candidates. We haven't really had a lot of news, but there have been three drop outs, so I thought I would do a quick update.

Bernie has had a good week of polling and that has translated into movement in the prediction markets. But I still consider Biden the favorite.

I have begun to realize that the early schedule makes this race hard to handicap.  February has the first 4-Iowa, New Hampshire each spaced out by about a week. But then there is only three days between South Carolina and Super Tuesday. On March 3rd, there are 15 contests with 1,344 delegates.  That schedule could favor Mike Bloomberg who is sitting out the first four states but has already been saturating the Super Tuesday states with advertisements. 

That schedule might also cause some candidates to hang around even if they do poorly in the early states. Colorado and  Minnesota both have primaries on that day. Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet might be tempted to hang around and see if they can vacuum up some delegates by hanging on for a few more days.

Here is my very early predictions for the February contests:

Iowa 1. Sanders 2. Biden 3. Buttigieg
New Hampshire:  1. Biden 2. Sanders. 3. Warren
Nevada:  1. Sanders 2. Biden. 3. Warren
South Carolina 1. Biden 2. Sanders 3. Warren

If anything close to this holds, then Biden, Sanders, Warren and Bloomberg can all claim viability going into Super Tuesday.

There are not a lot of big changes in the rankings, but the three drop outs did cause some ripples.

A. The Top Tier (The Front Runners).

1. Joe Biden 

2. Bernie Sanders (Up from 3)

3. Elzabeth Warren (Down from 2)

4. Mike Bloomberg (Up from 6)

B.  Tier Two (The Alternatives).

5. Pete Butigieg (Down from 4)
6.  Amy Klobuchar  (Down from 5)

C. Long Shots

7.  Michael Bennet  (Up from 8)

8. John Delanay.  (Up from 10)

9. Deval Patrick.  (Up from 11)

D. Novelty Candidates.

11. Andrew Yang (Up from 12)

11. Tom Steyer (Up from 13) 

12. Tulsi Gabbard (Up from 14)

III. The Power Rankings, Take Ten.

These are just my personal preferences among the remaining candidates.

1.  Amy Klobuchar
2.   Michael Bennet   
3.   Joe Biden (Up from 4)
4.   Pete Buttigieg (Down from 3)

5.   Elizabeth Warren 
6.  John Delaney (Down from 8)
7. Bernie Sanders (Up from 9)
8. Tom Steyer (Up from 10)
9.  Deval Patrick (Up from 11)

10.  Michael Bloomberg (Up from 12) 

11 Andrew Yang  (Up from 13)

12.   Tulsi Gabbard  (Up from 15)

The World and the Election Turn it Up a Notch (Eighth Look at the 2020 Democratic Field)

I last updated my rankings of the Democratic field on September 1st. A lot has happened since then, both in the race and in the world at large. Before I get to the rankings I want to take a moment to comment on what I think will determine the outcome of the election.

The election is in 54 weeks. I estimate that the Democratic party is a slight favorite to win. If I were to put it in probabilities, I would say the Democrats have about a 55% chance of winning and the Republicans about 45%.  But we're not sure who will be the nominee of well, either party.  I think a moderate Democrat (Biden, Klobuchar, Buttigieg) would have about a 60% chance and a more liberal candidate (Warren, Sanders, O'Rourke) would be in a very close election that would be decided by just one or two states. (If I had to guess, Wisconsin.)

Note: I think Harris is somewhere in between these two blocs idealogically and would be a very modest favorite to win.

I.  The Policies that Will Drive the Election Next  Year.

Before getting more specific on the horse race, I want to write briefly about the substance of the election. I now believe there are five issues that will shape the course of the race over these next 54 weeks, and I want to write about each of them in order of importance.

1. The Kurds, Syria and Iraq.  I thought that Trump's re-election campaign had one really solid policy arrow in its quiver-the claim that he defeated ISIS.  Now this isn't really true. The destruction of the ISIS caliphate was largely a result of carrying out the plans made and initiated during the Obama administration. But Trump did manage to not fuck that up. In fact he accelerated it a bit by arming a lot of Kurds in Syria to fight our common enemy.  Eleven thousand of those Kurds died in that fight.  Two weeks ago, for reasons still known only to him, he gave the government of Turkey the green light to slaughter them. The carnage and loss of life will be terrible.

The beneficiaries of this plan are Russia, the Assad regime in Syria and the Erogan government in Turkey. It is likely that ISIS will make gains too, although it's hard to say what form they will take. Today our soldiers left Syria for western Iraq. They were pelted with fruit on the way out of the country. The consequences of this betrayal will be extremely negative in the long run.

It is my hope that some principled Republicans repudiate President Trump over this betrayal. But only two Republican house members have done that so far. John Shimkus (R-IL) and Francis Rooney (R-FL).  Neither man is running for re-election next year.  For now, Trump is keeping the Republican party despite this pathetic fecklessness. That might hold. But it won't if things go really bad in Syria and Iraq.

2.  Impeachment.  Last week Mick Mulvaney took to the podium in the White House and admitted that the president withheld foreign aid from Ukraine unless they conducted an investigation of the president's mostl likely electoral opponent in 2020.  In normal times, this would cause a president to resign in shame. But Donald Trump is incapable of shame and he is pretending that there was nothing wrong in this decision.  The prediction markets have been pretty firm for over a week-there is about a 70% chance that Donald Trump will be impeached by the House but only about a 20% chance that he will be removed by the senate.

Today Bill Taylor gave his deposition and apparently drew a direct line from Donald Trump to a quid pro quo that conditioned Ukraine receiving aid to defend themselves from Russia on opening an investigation into Joe Biden.  This is rank corruption. If the Republican party were not so heavily in the bag for Trump, his removal from office would be a virtual certainty.

I think the odds of Trump being impeached are more like 80%. The house is gathering a lot of evidence and at least some of the people close to the president have been cooperating. But there are only two Republican senators that have even hinted that they might consider this impeachable conduct. To remove him from office, the Democrats will need at least 20 Republican votes. (Two Democrats, might waver due to political pressure in the states they represent, Alabama and West Virginia.)

If he is impeached but not removed, he will claim complete vindication.  But it's likely that the evidence presented at trial will damage his popularity among independent voters.

If he is removed, then the evidence was so strong that nearly half of the Republican caucus could not ignore the criminality. Under those circumstances, the Republicans probably nominate Mike Pence and lose big next year. If this all comes together soon, then there could be a competitive primary between Pence and Tom Cotton and or Nikki Haley. Ted Cruz will try to run because that's his only purpose in life now. If it happens as late as next spring, the party bosses might get to pick their nominee. They will be tempted to nominate Nikki Haley, although I still believe that the Republican base is incapable of embracing the daughter of Indian immigrants as their presidential candidate.

So the Democrats probably win if Trump is removed from office. If he is merely impeached, then the effect of the process will turn on the strength of the evidence presented to the public.


3.  Health care. I have watched most of the debates while scanning Twitter. During every debate so far, liberals on Twitter have complained loudly that the moderators spend too much time talking about health care. But the reason for this disproportionate time is simple-health care is the one issue that even casual primary voters care about. It affects their bottom line, so people pay attention during those discussion.

Most of the Democratic field have similar views on Donald Trump, immigration, and the need to increase taxes on wealthy Americans. There is even a lot of agreement on most matters of foreign policy, and the field even seems to agree that foreign policy is not worth talking about much. And they all want to move towards great health insurance coverage. But the most identifiable difference is between those who want to move to universal coverage through Medicare and those who support a more incremental proposal. That is the right versus left rift in the field.

Health care is a frustrating issue for a centrist. All of the data from every advance country tells us that our system sucks. And it would be greatly improved if the federal government got more involved in controlling price and making coverage available to more people. But the problem is that a majority of voters have good-enough coverage that they are wary of making big changes to the bloated, irrational system that we have built since World War Two.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders both want to go big here. They want to put all Americans on Medicare, effectively ending the private insurance industry and putting Uncle Sam in charge of it all. They have plenty of data to support the idea that in the long-term this will be more efficient and cheaper than the status quo.  But like any big idea, it creates problems.  These are the main three:

1. It probably can't pass. Even if the Dems take the senate with 50 or 51 seats, there will be moderates who don't want to vote for this in the caucus.
2. The courts as presently constituted will probably strike this down. Obamacare survived by the skin of its teeth. And the courts have move rightward since that decision. Neither Sanders nor Warren will acknowledge this fact, because they are running more on ideals than a pragmatic plan for how to govern the country.
3. If it were passed and somehow upheld by the courts, it would be extremely vulnerable to being gutted. The Republican party has not flinched in its mission to gut Obamacare, even popular elements of it, like expanind Medicaid coverage, have been resisted by the Republican party all across the country.  If a Medicare For All plan became law, it would still need to be funded every year. And the GOP would be dead set on choking it to death in its crib.

If the Democratic nominee runs on Medicare for all, it will be easy for the Republican candidate to scare voters into thinking that the Democrats are coming for their health care. And that's the fucked up thing about this Trojan Horse we call a health care system-people only really care about what will happen to their family. So the best we can realistically hope for are incremental changes.

Medicare for all is a political loser. That is why I think a Warren nomination will make the election too close to call.

4. The Economy.   Donald Trump raided the treasury to pay for a huge tax cut that endeared him to rich people. A lot of squishy Republicans who know he is a jerk might hold their nose and vote for him because they believe in the power of tax cuts as much as any junkie every believed in the drug that was killing them. This sounds pathological (and it is) but it describes a lot of Romney/Gary Johnson voters-the exact demographic that the Democratic nominee needs to win over.

Trump's economic record is mixed. The job market has remained strong. The tax cuts spurred some growth, but that has cooled down to 2.0 percent last quarter. Over the next year, I don't think it will get appreciably better than that. But we probably won't have a recession.

Trump's other economic stratagem has been a foolish trade war with China. The tariffs he placed on Chinese good caused retaliatory tariffs on our exports. Farmers in particular have been hurt by this. I expect Trump to find a way to end his trade war with China, call it a victory and lift all or most of the tariffs he put in place on them. China would be wise to reciprocate, and the farmers in Iowa and Ohio who have been suffering, just might be feeling better about their lot in life a year from now. This is an easy win for Trump, but he is not beyond blowing the opportunity.

5. Trump Fatigue.  Trump might escape being removed from office. The Republican party is in hock to him, and that could keep him in office. If he's still in office, he will waltz to the nomination. He is popular with a large enough swath of the public that he can make a race close, especially if the Democratic nominee runs poorly. But the plain fact is that the country and the world know that Donald Trump is an asshole.  And that counts. A lot.

Donald Trump thinks that life is a zero sum game, which is why he is obsessed with bilateral trade deficits.  This transactional  approach to life has caused him to align the United States with dictators and autocrats.  The world is seeing the price for this realignment, most acutely in Ukraine and Syria.

Ukraine is fighting off an invasion by Russia. Syria is fighting a civil war, where Russia and Turkey have enormous interest in who wins. Most Americans don't care about Ukranians or Kurds but we do care about being the good guys. At least we used to. And we ought to be rooting for the side of democratic freedom, especially where those freedoms meet the autocracies of the poorer world.  That is what Ukraine and Syria have in common. The best Democratic candidate might just be the person who can convince the people of Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona that they should want to be the good guys again. Convincing them that Donald Trump is a bad guy should be an easy first step.

II.  The Horse Race, Take Eight.

The candidates, in order of likelihood to be the nominee. Incredibly, only one candidate has dropped out in the past 53 days. (Bye-bye Bill de Blasio.)

A. The Top Tier (The Front-Runners)

1. Elizabeth Warren  (Up from 2)

She had a great month or so of polling and briefly overtook Joe Biden in the RCP polling average. That wave seems to have crested, perhaps in part due to her performance in the 4th debate. But the betting markets now favor her heavily, so I move her to the top spot.  But she has a lot of vulnerabilities and shouldn't get too comfortable here.


2. Joe Biden (Down from 1)

He's old. And it's showing.That's why he slipped.  He might rebound, especially if foreign affairs come to the fore, but he is not putting this race away. Not by a long shot.

3. Bernie Sanders

He's old. And he had a heart attack. But he looked lively in the debate and he got some good press out of an endorsement by Representative Ocasio-Cortez.  He has a loyal following and will probably vacuum up a lot of delegates. But his health is a concern and his shtick wears thin.

B. Tier Two (The Other Contenders)

4. Pete Buttigieg (Up from 5)

He could benefit if Bernie slips. He's done well on the stump and educated voters like him a lot. I first ranked the candidates on December 30, 2018. I ranked Mayor Pete 23rd, which was dead fucking last.  This is what I wrote at the time:  Mayor of the 4th largest city in Indiana. Like everyone who spends time in South Bend, he has an inflated sense of his own self-worth.

I was wrong. Pete is a serious and skilled politician. He deserves to be given serious consideration, even if his resume is imperfect.

5. Kamala Harris (Down from 4)

She's not just down one spot, she is down a tier. Her polling has been really rough for the past month. I still think she would be a good president but I'm not sure she can close this deal.


C. Tier Three (Those Guys)

6. Cory Booker (Up from 7)

Still not my favorite, but he has a good presence and might hang around long enough to capitalize on any chaos further up the chain.

7. Amy Klobuchar (Up from 9)

She has gotten a lot of chatter as the best moderate alternative to Biden. But this has not shown up in the polls yet and she might miss the next debate. I hope her buzz translates into improved polling numbers soon, because she's going to need a strong performance in Iowa to stay in the race.

8. Beto O'Rourke (Down from 6) and
9. Julian Castro (Down from 8)

The Texan boys have some talent but they don't seem to be of presidential timber. They both might already be thinking about a personal exit strategy but I'm not sure what either of them will do with their time after this race.

D. Tier Four (Long Shots)

10. Michael Bennet.
11. Steven Bullock

They probably would have been good VP candidates. Bullock might still be, but dropping out before Iowa might help him stay viable for that.

12. John Delaney

He should drop out and endorse Klobuchar. But he probably still has consultants willing to take his money and he must not be ready to give it up. I think he'll drop out after Iowa.

E. Tier Five (Novelty Candidates)

13. Andrew Yang

He will get votes. He will get delegates. He will birth a really annoying fringe political movement that gets out sized attention because it is mostly white and prosperous. But he will not be the nominee.

14. Tulsi Gabbard

She managed to generate some publicity this week by hopping on a report in the New York Times that inaccurately suggested that Hillary Clinton thought she was being groomed by the Russians. I can't imagine her dropping out and she might get some crossover fuck-you votes from Republicans. But she's an asshole and needs to go away.

15. Tom Steyer (Up from 17)
16. Tim Ryan (Down from 15)
17. Marianne Williamson (Up from 20)
18. Joe Sestak  (Down from 16)
19. Wayne Messam

The funnest fact of 2020 so far: Wayne Messam raised exactly $5 during the 3rd quarter of this year. That is one-half of a roll of quarters.


III.  The Power Rankings, Take Eight.
Here is how I rank the candidates just by my personal preferences.

1.  Klobuchar
2.  Harris
3.  Buttigieg (Up from nine)
4.  Michael Bennet (Up from 6)
5.  Steve Bullock (Up from 7)
6.  Elizabeth Warren (Down from 3)
7.  Beto O'Rourke (Down from 4)
8.  Julian Castro (Down from 5)
9.  Joe Biden
10. Cory Booker (Up from 11)
11. John Delaney (Down from 10)
12. Joe Sestak (Up from 13)
13. Tim Ryan (Down from 12)
14. Bernie Sanders
15. Wayne Messam
16.  Andrew Yang
17.  Tom Steyer
18.   Marianne Williamson
19.   Tulsi Gabbard

4th Democratic Debate Grades and New Rankings

There were profound events in the world this week. The President of the United States left an ally to be slaughtered by Turkish militias. He did this because his lazy, weak and corrupt.  Tonight's debate should have focused on that, but it did not.

That said, this debate was more substantive than the earlier debates. The biggest headline is that Warren took a lot of flak, as befits her status as the new front-runner. As for how she did, the news is mixed. Overall she did not do great. But there might be a silver lining in this-the folks who did best at attacking her, are pretty far back in the polls. 

As with the previous debates, I'll give a tactical and a strategic grade for each candidate.  And in  day or two I will update my rankings of the candidates.

WINNERS:

1. Amy Klobuchar   Tactical: A  Strategic: A

If you read this blog regularly-and there are at least six of you who do, then you know Klobuchar is my preferred candidate. Tonight she was the only person who mentioned Trump's betrayal of the Kurds  in the first hour of the debate. She also did a good job of pointing out the weaknesses of Warren's policies and campaign.  She needed a big night and she really should get a bounce from it. I don't think it will be enough to get her near the top but I hope it's enough to get her in the next debate.

2. Pete Buttigieg  Tactical:  A-  Strategic A

Solid on all points. An adult and a skilled debater. I am beginning to think he might be ready for this job after all. (And I never thought I would say that.)

3. Bernie Sanders  Tactical:  A- Strategic:  A-

Bernie had one important job tonight-look healthy.  He did that. And he wasn't bad on the substance, given how played out his shtick is.  No harm done to him tonight and he might rebound from a recent dip.

4. Cory Booker   Tactical:  B+   Strategic:  A-

Cory usually plays the voice of reason and he did again tonight. But he never seems to get traction after his strong performances, in part because he usually says something annoying. Tonight he brought up his veganism three times.  That is four times too many.

5  (TIE) Julian Castro and Beto O'Rourke   Tactical: B+  Strategic:  B+

They were fine. But I don't see either of them rocketing up the ranks anytime soon.

7. Andrew Yang  Tactical: B  Strategic: B

He's not a serious candidate, so I don't grade him based on whether he's going to be president. But he made some good points and probably will raise some more money for his future podcast and multi-level marketing empire.

8.  Joe Biden    Tactical: B  Strategic:  C

Joe avoided any huge gaffes, which counts for something but it's impossible to watch him speak for even one minute without thinking about his age.  He gets visibly confused in ways that make me uncomfortable.  I don't know if there is a solution to that.

9. Elizabeth Warren   Tactical:  C+  Strategic:  B-

She looked evasive and even duplicitous in her half-assed explanation/defense of Medicare for All plan. 

10. Kamala Harris  Tactical: B-  Strategic:  C-

She went for some very easy applause line on reproductive choice by saying things that literally everyone on the stage agrees with. But then she really went hard at Elizabeth Warren on the silliest issue possible-banning Donald Trump from Twitter.  That diminishes her already fading candidacy.

11. Tom Steyer:  Tactical:   C  Strategic:  C

The moderators were correct to give him the bare minimum of attention and he did his best to make them not regret that decision.  Some of his answers were delivered competently. He's obviously been rehearsing for this moment. He had a neat thing of starting every answer with a compliment of someone other candidate.  But this is the saddest middle age crisis I've ever been forced to watch on television.  If he wanted to do good with his fortune, he has a ton of options.  This verkhakta campaign ain't one. 

12. Tulsi Gabbard  Tactical:  Incomplete  Strategic: Incomplete

She is loathsome. But I can't grade her fairly because I'm not sure what her objective is. Maybe she wants to be the presidential nominee of the Democratic party. Maybe she wants to build some kind of political movement based on.....God knows what. But she did nothing to dispel rumors/conspiracy thinking that she intends to run as an independent or third party candidate.

I want to state that I was and am firmly opposed to our military invasion of Iraq. But for her to act like Trump's betrayal of the Kurds was a price worth paying for bringing 1,000 soldiers home* is despicable.

*They are not coming home yet. They are going to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, because the Saudi government is renting them from a man who thinks our military is a revenue center and our soldiers are Hessians. 

Third Democratic Debate Grades

The nine most serious candidates for the Democratic nomination were finally on the stage tonight. So was Andrew Yang.  Here are my thoughts on how they all did. I give each candidate separate tactical and strategic grades.  I think it's construct to evaluate how well they performed tonight in the immediate sense but more importantly whether or not that performance will actually improve their chance to be the nominee. 

1.  Elizabeth Warren  Tactical: A+ Strategic: A.

Warren is probably the smartest person in this field. And tonight she was definitely the best prepared. She knew that she would get plenty of screen time, so she didn't fight for more. She seemed to know that most of the flak would be directed at Joe Biden. She also knows that most Democratic primary voters do not like when a candidate goes hard at another Democrat. So Warren answered her questions and she answered them well. But she didn't go for cheap applause lines and she didn't offend anyone. This is exactly how a front-runner should perform.

2. Pete Buttigieg  Tactical: A, Strategic:  A

He is both young and intelligent. He obviously has the temperament for this job and a pretty good feeling for where both the Democratic base and the general election persuadable voters are, politically.  He is still a long shot to be the nominee because his resume is too short and I don't think the left wing will embrace him. But he did great tonight.

3.  Cory Booker:  Tactical A, Strategic: A-

I do not like Senator Booker. I think he is a phony. But he was great tonight. He was charming and witty without seeming too rehearsed. I do no think he will shoot up in the polls, but he helped himself as much as possible tonight. 

4.  Joe Biden  Tactical:  A-, Strategic: A-

Biden was better prepared tonight and he excelled in the first half of the debate. His team obviously told him to avoid using names and to not get bogged down in details. But his presence was pretty good and he conveyed his message well. Of course in the last 45 minutes or so he had a few of his usual slips. (He even talked about 'record players' during a question about education reform.)  But I don't think he said anything that will gain traction in the media so he probably still stays at the front of this field for now.

5.  Amy Klobuchar  Tactical:  A-, Strategic:  B+

Her substance was very good.  Like Buttigieg, she has views that are sensible and popular generally. But she's not charismatic on television and I would be surprised if she gets much of a bump out of tonight's performance. That's too bad because she would make an excellent president and is the perfect antidote to Trumpism.

6.  Kamala Harris  Tactical B+, Strategic: B+

She was comfortable and relaxed. I am inclined to like her, so that played well with me. Her plan was obviously to make the night about bashing Trump and she got a couple good lines off, but I don't think that made her stand out particularly.  She does deserve credit for improving on the subject of criminal justice reform. 

7. Beto O'Rourke  Tactical:  B+, Strategic: B

Beto is handsome and he can articulate a talking point well.  Perhaps the most telling moments tonight was that he was complimented so frequently by other candidates on the stage.  They know he is popular in Texas. They also know he's not much of a threat to become the nominee.  But he did not cost himself any votes tonight.

8.  Bernie Sanders  Tactical:  C+, Strategic: C

I have a friend who saw Flock of Seagulls in Concert about 20 years ago.  They played "I Run"...twice. Because what the hell else do you want to hear Flock of Seagulls play?  Bernie too only has one hit and he plays it as often as the crowd will let him. But his team failed him by not giving him cough drops before the debate. He is mailing it in now.

9.  Julian Castro     Tactical: C, Strategic: D

He sucked. And he took a shot at Biden's age. That probably cost him an ambassadorship. 

10. Andrew Yang  Tactical:  D, Strategic:  Not Applicable.

This clown is not running to be president. He is running to be a celebrity. And he actually started the night by offering a bribe to voters.  That gimmick will probably get him some email addresses and exactly 10 votes.  But he really showed his hand tonight. He is not running to be president. He is not running to win a cabinet spot or to be the ambassador to Aruba. He is running to be some combination of Joe Rogan and Tony Robbins.  Fuck him.

Quick Thoughts on the Democratic Debate Lottery

Tomorrow night CNN will hold a live draw for the next Democratic debate. The first debate draw was done privately and was completely random. That resulted in an imbalanced division of the major candidates, with Warren hogging the first night and the other four debating each other on the second night.  For this second set of debates, the candidates will be divided into three tiers.  Each debate will get:

1. Two each among Biden, Harris, Sanders and Warren.

2. Three each among Buttigieg, Booker, Castro, Kloubuchar, O'Rourke and Yang.  

3. Five each among: Bennet, Bullock, de Blasio, Delaney, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Hickenloper, Inslee, Ryan and Williamson.

Let's ignore the middling candidates and the kiddy table folks. One or two of them will have a good night, but very few people will be tuning in to see them.  The main question is how will the top four candidtes be divide?  There are only three possible permutations of leading candidates.  Here are my thoughts on each, with a brief word about which order would be more ineresting.:

1. Biden and Harris  // Sanders and Warren.

Biden versus Harris would be built up as a rematch of the most memorable exhange from the first debate. Hopefully this time Biden will come prepared. Harris might prefer to be matched with one of the other choices, since she already got her licks in on Biden. Or she might look at it as her chance to  firm up her sanding among the moderate wing, while Elizaberth Warren and Bernie get framed as the left-wing prospects on the other night.

Both of these pairings will bring in a good audience. If I'm Warren, I want to go on the second night because last time Harris carried the news cycle for several days after Warren's strong performance against the tomato cans she drew on opening night. 

2. Biden and Sanders // Harris and Warren. 

A good old-fashioned guys versus dolls scenario.  Bernie probably wants to pummel Biden using his 2016 Hillary playbook. But that will feel very tired and I think Harris and Warren would wind up collectively elevating the discourse in their debate. If this is the draw, then Harris and Warren will want to be second. Let the old white guys get the stage warm for them, and then try to bring the discussion into the 21st century.

If this is the draw, I really hope it's Biden/Sanders on the first night, followed by Warren and Harris on the second. I think Biden and Sanders will make each other look old, especially if Buttigieg and or Beto are on the stage with them. 

3. Biden and Warren // Harris and Sanders.

This is probably the comination that CNN would most want to avoid.  But this is the one I am rootinng for. Biden and Warren have some very substantive beef that goes back to when Biden was reffered to as the senator from MBNA and Warren was a bankruptcy scholar at Harvard Law. Biden was a driving force behind the 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code and Warren made her reputation as a public academic by decrying that very law.  I doubt the CNN panelists know much about this so it might be a wasted story line, but I'm pretty sure Senator Warren will force some part of the conversation on to this terrain. She is chomping at the bit to tell the world that Joe Biden was on the side of credit card companies. She knows better than anyone the high human cost of those "reforms." 

Warren will clean Biden's clock with facts and figures. He might come prepared for Harris this time, but he cannot match Warren's economic sophistication. Biden will probably be hoping that foreign affairs are a prominent part of the debate in this permutation. But my money would be on Warren forching him to talk about middle class economics. And that is her strength.

If Biden draws Warren, he will want it to be on the first night. He can't take another extended news cycle about him getting his ass kicked by a woman. CNN would rather have this on the second night, because the substance of their exchanges will be a lot more compelling than Bernie vs. Kamala.

2020 Democratic Field, Take 4

The big news this week is of course the Mueller Report. My impression is that the report demonstrates multiple instances where the president obstructed justice.  The spinning of this report by Attorney General Barr was exteremely disingenuous. In a just world, Barr would resign in shame.  But that is not the world we live in.

The next big event will be hearings and the testimony of Robert Mueller (and, to a less extent, Donald McGahn) will probably determine whether or not there will be impeachment hearings. If there are hearings, then the president will probably be impeached.  Then it will be up to the senate.  I think it's very unlikely that Trump would be convicted in a senate trial but the process should go forward.

If I had to bet right now, I would say that the President will be impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate. In fact, I think the Senate might simply refuse to hold a trial at all.  That means he will most likely still be President a year from now. He will almost certainly run for re-election and if so, he will be the nominee of the Republican Party.  Now, to the Democrats and their enormous field of mostly mediocre candidates.

I. THE SPIDERSTUMBLED BLOG POWER RANKINGS.

This section is just about me. These are my ranked preferences among the likely candidates.  If their standing has changed since the first rankings, I put their number from the previous iteration of this list in parenthesis.  Bold indicates that the candidate has already announced that they are running.

Tip of the 40 ounce to Terry McCauliffe, Chris Murphy, Andrew Cuomo, Mitch Landrieu, and Andrew Steyer who decided to sit this race out since I last published my rankings.

Four That I Would be Enthused About:
1. Amy Klobuchar. 
2. Elizabeth Warren  (4)
She continues to impress me with her attention to detail and creative energy. If this race was determined purely on substantive issues, I think she would win the nomination and the election. But her poll numbers continue to disappoint and her fundraising numbers were lackluster for the first quarter. I hope she stays viable and gains some traction. She has earned it.
3. Kamala Harris  (2)
She is running a cautious race so far. I think she knows that she has the money and resume to stay viable and she wants to spend 2019 avoiding any incidents that might jeopardize that.
4. Beto O'Rourke  (3)
Also underwhelming so far. He needs to step up his game to the national stage.

Seven That I Would Be Happy With:
5. Julian Castro (14)
This is a big jump in a tremendous field. I like his temperament and presentation so far. He strikes me as someone that will benefit from the debates, in a way similar to how John Kasich moved up the Republican polls in 2016 after just barely qualifying for the main stage of the first debate. 
6. Kristin Gillibrand 
I am close to writing her off. A lot of Democrats hold her principled position on Al Franken against her, which is a shame. But a senator from New York state should be better able to raise funds and attract press. 
7. Steve Bullock (8)  No sign that he's running but I'll leave him in for now.
8. Joe Biden 
He has baggage and is a older than I think is ideal for a president, but I think his political instincts will serve him will. He has been wise to delay the announcement because he has the name recognition to allow him the luxury of sitting out the silly season. 
9. John Hickenlooper (12)
10. Jay Inslee (13)
11. Tim Ryan

Four That Mean Something Went Wrong But Okay, Sure:
12. Pete Buttigieg (18)
Became a media darling by saying yes to everything. His novelty is just about to wear off, I expect, but he'll hang around for the voting, no matter what.
13. John Delaney (Unranked)
14.  Corey Booker (17)
15. Eric Swalwell (Unranked)

Four That Well, I Won't Vote For Trump, So Fingers Crossed.
16. Seth Moulton (Unranked)
17. Andrew Yang (Unranked)
18.  Bernie Sanders (19)
19.  Wayne Messam (Unranked)

Three WHAT THE FUCK?
20. Marianne Wilamson (Unranked)
21. Mike Gravel (Unranked)
22. Tulsi Gabbard

II.  The 2020 Hourse Race.

Here is what the polling shows so far: Bernie and Biden each have about a quarter of the party ready to support them. Everyone else is stuck in single digits. Buttigieg has out performed expectations and is currently in third place in most polls.  Harris, Warren, O'Rourke, Booker and Klobuchar have yet to gain traction but they are the middle of the pack for now.  Gillibrand, Inslee, Hickenlooper and all of the House members are the bottom tier for now. Below them, there are a handful of celebrity and novelty candidates who are just running for attention.

Because the field is so large, it might be helpful to try to think of which candidates could compete for certain voters. There are countless factors that this could be broken down by but I think the #1 issue for Democrats next year will be simple-Remove Donald Trump for office. So I think it's useful to think of these "lanes" in terms of what their appeal will be in the general election. If you like, you can think of these lanes as Left, Moderate and Centrist. But I think it's more interesting to think of them in terms of what voting blocs they would appeal to in the general election if they were the nominee.

In 2016 Donald Trump exceeded Mitt Romney's 2012 vote total but just over 2 million votes. Hillary Clinton's  vote total was just 65,000 less than Barack Obama in 2012 or about 4 million less than Obama's 2008 total.

The dramatic shifts in voting patterns happened among the other candidates in the field.  The Green Party and Libertarian parties nominated, respectively, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in 2012 and 2106. The Greens increased their vote total by just under one million votes. The Libertarians increased theirs by over 3.2 million votes. Additionally, Evan McMullin got over 700,000 votes running as right-wing independent. (The 5th place finisher in 2012 got only 120K votes.)

The 2008 Obama Coaltion was an electoral marvel. It sucked up every electoral college vote that was in play. It damn near won Missouri. It held together enough to win in 2012 but it did not hold for 2016. For the rest of the 2020 cycle my analysis will discuss these three segments of the Obama Diaspora: 1. Trump or Stayed Homes 2. Soft Libertarians 3. Protest Greens.

1. SOFT LIBERTARIANS: (3.9 Million voters)

Voters who went Libertarian (or McMullin) in 2012 but not in 2012.

These are mostly people who are right of center that could not bring themselves to vote for either Trump or Hillary. I expect that Trump has won over a fair amount of them. The Democrats would win a lot of them if they nominate a centrist like Biden, but I don't think they will turn out for Bernie or anyone they perceive as either corrupt or inexperienced.

2. TRUMP OR STAYED HOME (3.7 million voters)

Obama 2008 voters who didn't vote for Hillary in 2016.

There are two sub-demographics in this group.

A. People who were upset with George W. Bush in 2008 and gave Obama a chance. He didn't keep many of them in the fold in 2012 or 2016. Some of them will probably come back in 2020 because they don't like Donald Trump personally, although that assumes that the Dems will nominate someone that they do like. 

B. People who didn't turn out for Hillary in 2016. As discussed above Hillary nearly matched Obama's national vote total from 2012, but that was because of higher turnout in non-competitive states. For example, her combined vote totals in CA and TX exceeded Obama's 2012 haul by 1.468 million. But her combined totals in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was 698,000 less than Obama in 2012.  Some of those people switched over to Trump but more of them simply stayed home.  Whoever the Democratic nominees is, they will know that they must turn out marginal voters in those three states.

3. PROTEST GREENS (1 million voters)

Voters who voted Green in 2016 but not in 2012.

Jill Stein tripled her vote count between 2012 and 2016, from half a million votes to 1.5 million votes. Those million votes are most likely to come home to the Democratic party but it has to be acknowledged that a centrist like Biden will pick up fewer of them than Sanders or Warren will.

These are imprecise groups. There is some double counting, especially between the first two groups. But I think it's a useful matrix for categorizing the "lanes" of the 2020 Democratic Primary.  I give you our first attempt to rank the chance of each serious candidate to be the nominee, relative to others and divided by who they would most appeal to in the general election.

Tier	Protest Greens	Trump/Stayed Home	Soft Libertarian
First	Sanders	Buttiegieg	Biden
Second	Warren	Harris	Booker
Third		O'Rourke	Klobuchar
Fourth	Ryan	Castro	Gillibrand
Fifth		Inslee
Sixth		Hickenloper

Note: The Red Box is intentionally blank, because I think Ryan is less likely to be the nominee than O'Rourke or Klobuchar. For that matter, I think he's less likely than Castro or Gillibrand also. 

Here is the whole field, even the weirdos nobodies and proxy by grandchildren candidates, ranked from 1 to 22.

The Top Tier Candidates.

1. Bernie Sanders  

2. Joe Biden  

3. Pete Butigieg 

The Pack. (Someone from this group will break out of IA and NH to be a contender.)

4. Kamala Harris 

5. Corey Booker 

6. Elizabeth Warren 

7. Beto O'Rourke  

8. Amy Klobuchar 

9. Juan Castro 

Third Tier: Plausible But Flawed And/or Floundering.

10. Kristin Gillibrand 

11. Tim Ryan 

12. John Hickenlooper 

13.  Jay Inslee 

14. John Delaney.

15. Eric Swalwell 

16. Tulsi Gabbard

17. Seth Moulton

Fourth Tier: Long Shots.

18. Andrew Yang

19. Steve Bullock

20. Wayne Masson

21. Marianne Wiliamson

22. Mike Gravel

I debated leavin him off, because he's not really running. But he's indulging his grandchildren in letting them run a social media campaign in his name. What a country.