We’re at the beginning of 2020. It’s a new year full of possibility, hope and promise. It’s also an election year. The Democrats begin the new year not sure what to do with the impeachment issue they created out of lies, spin, and hate. Perhaps in 2020 they’ll present their trumped-up articles against President Trump. We’ll have to wait and see. The Democrat primaries are still going on, though it is perfectly understandable if you’ve forgotten about them. Here’s where we stand as the curtain opens on January.
Some candidates are already gone. Kamala Harris, once deemed a real threat to President Trump, is out. Steve Bullock, Bill DeBlasio, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Seth Moulton, Beto O’Rourke, Tim Ryan and Eric Swalwell have also exited. That leaves fifteen candidates who will enter 2020. Here’s an overview and crystal ball glance at what may happen in the next few months.
Rolling Stone ranks these fifteen candidates, so we’ll utilize that to launch the discussion.
Ranked in the bottom five are John Delaney, Marianne Williamson, Deval Patrick, Michael Bennet, and Julian Castro. There is likely no one in this group that has much of a chance getting beyond early February. Look for their dreams to fade in the cold cornfields of the Iowa caucus or the hamlets of New Hampshire.
In the middle five, we find Tom Steyer, Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Bloomberg, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar. This is an interesting group. Steyer and Bloomberg are billionaires who can buy their way into the race. However, getting beyond the middle tier is proving to be difficult. They’ll last as long as they want to spend their money. Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar are two senators who began with high hopes and have failed to really gain traction. One of them might, if a top-five candidate falls, but probably not. Tulsi Gabbard hasn’t really taken off in the Democrat primaries but has shown a willingness to buck her party’s dishonest attack on President Trump. Gabbard won’t be the Democrats nominee, but she will likely remain a person of interest throughout the first half of 2020.
That leaves the top five candidates to battle President Trump. Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden.
Yang is likely to be the first one of this group to drop out. His signature policy is a “universal basic income” plan which critics have opined “doesn’t add up.”
The final four, Buttigieg, Warren, Sanders and Biden, will likely go the distance. Sanders and Warren both champion “Medicare for all” and are socialists and/or support socialist policies.
Buttigieg attempts to portray himself as a moderate Democrat. However, he’s championed changing the Supreme Court and getting rid of the Electoral College. Mayor Pete, though, is not resonating with African American voters. He once declared “All lives matter,” but has now backtracked on that comment. It seems Mayor Pete’s principles are negotiable. As for being a moderate, he’s pro-abortion, against the death penalty, and favors restricting gun rights.
Biden is the favorite of the establishment Democrats. He’s said, “I’m the most qualified person in the country to be president.” Of course, Biden says and does a lot of strange things. A photo of Joe Biden with Jill Biden’s finger in his mouth went viral on social media. On his “No Malarkey” Tour, Biden told a story about how children petted the hair on his legs when he was a lifeguard at a swimming pool one summer.
Then there’s the elephant in the room. Biden is corrupt. His dealings with Ukraine and his son Hunter’s position at Burisma are real issues despite what the media asserts. Gregg Jarrett reports, “At a public forum, Biden is seen bragging on camera that he warned the Kiev government in early 2016 that he would withhold $1 billion in American aide[sic] unless a Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was fired.”
What does the 2020 crystal ball say? Will this be the Democrats’ final four? Maybe. It does seem unlikely that the Democrat primary will be over much before July 13th. It’s possible that the progressives and “moderates” (those who hide their liberal bent) will be at an impasse. The Socialist progressives have a lot of support in the Democrat party. It seems possible that the Democrats will be struggling to unify. Neither Biden nor Buttigieg will get progressive support. Sanders and Warren’s socialism will cause many regular people to recoil.
Meanwhile, the GOP will be more than ready to vote. Impeachment will continue to be an issue that fires up Trump’s base and the opportunity to hold the Senate and recapture the House will drive Trump supporters even more. Keeping a great economy and jobs outlook will be bedrock issues for the regular folks. This will lead to President Trump’s re-election. From the starting line, that’s how I see the race in 2020.
