Though we’re still a few months away from the actual voting beginning, the Democratic Primary that once featured enough candidates to warrant a 20-person stage is winnowing down to just a few major contenders. We haven’t checked in on the race in a while (to the point where one of our previous Top 10 contenders, Jay Inslee, has since dropped out), so I figured it was time to get a look at where the rankings stand for the candidate most likely to be the Democratic nominee in 2020.
Since the list has shrunk, I’m going to do the same for the actual list of candidates we’ll feature. While there are certainly enough candidates that you could make a list of ten “most likely” contenders, really only five people remain in the race who have the remotest chance to win the nomination, and so today we’re going to do a Top 5. As a reminder, the #1 candidate is the one I most think will win the nomination based on the current trends of the race, not necessarily who would win today exactly. A late-breaking candidate might still come through, but honestly that’s probably candidate 3 or 4 on this list, rather than someone who isn’t already featured.
Honorable Mentions: Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Beto O’Rourke have run respectable enough races, to the point where they could conceivably try to break through in a different year after gaining a more robust national profile, but they would all three be better off in the Senate during the next administration helping out a Democratic POTUS than they would continuing on in this race, and will likely not make it past Iowa. Jullian Castro is a likely contender for Elizabeth Warren’s running-mate (Warren will almost certainly pick a man of color who is not from one of the coasts…Castro is one of the only prominent figures in American politics right now who would fit such a description), but has no chance at the top of the ticket. Andrew Yang’s run has been mildly intriguing, but he feels more like a flash-in-a-pan than someone who could genuinely upset the race, even if someone like Bernie Sanders unexpectedly dropped out. And every other candidate is too small in this race to even warrant mention.
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| Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) |
5. Kamala Harris
Harris is the candidate that makes sense on paper, but doesn’t seem to have gelled this whole race. She consistently outpolls the likes of Booker, Klobuchar, and Michael Bennet, other senators who also have a national profile, which is why she’s still taken seriously, and feels like the kind of candidate who would be a decent compromise between Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, but that’s not how politics works-this isn’t the 1940’s where party bosses get to pick the best candidate to meet in the middle. Harris likely needs to either severely dent Biden or, more likely, go after Warren in hopes of Biden putting her on the ticket (not to be morbid, but considering he’ll be in his 80’s by the end of his first term, perhaps her best way to actually become the next president). (Previous Ranking: 5)
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| Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) |
4. Bernie Sanders
Sanders recent heart attack is probably going to be too big for his campaign to overcome, but it’s not like he had a lot of momentum at this point to begin with. While he still polls like a strong option, enough so that he certainly warrants being on a list like this, Sanders is universally known by Democrats-if he was going to break out into the lead, wouldn’t he have done it by now? There still seems to be some room for Democrats to go after undecided voters, but what person is sitting around waiting to see what Bernie Sanders, who has basically been running for president for four years now, has to say that’s going to win them over? Sanders always needed this race to be pretty badly splintered from the start to be able to win-at this point, it feels like he’s low enough that he’s more a splinter into a more likely candidate than he is to benefit from a fractured race. (Previous Ranking: 4)
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| Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) |
3. Pete Buttigieg
Buttigieg never really had his big breakout moment where he graduated from intriguing second tier candidate to real threat for the presidency, but of the remaining candidates not named Warren or Biden, he’s the candidate I could still see actually getting there. If you’re someone who isn’t really comfortable with Biden’s age or Warren’s liberalism (and I suspect that’s a larger number than your Twitter feed thinks based on past Democratic presidential candidacies), Buttigieg is a really good alternative. Young but moderate, a soldier and a scholar, a devoted husband…to another husband, he melds liberalism with a more moderate demeanor & seems to be the sort of candidate that would make a good alternative to candidates who don’t love the frontrunners, but that’s only if he makes some sort of major break in the race. One wonders if he could over-perform in Iowa, especially if Biden’s numbers weaken, and surprise. (Previous Ranking: 5)
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| Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) |
2. Joe Biden
Biden is still the most famous candidate in the race, the candidate who polls the best against Trump, and is a fixture of Democratic politics who has been around and known for decades. While your social media may hate him, your parents love him, and even in a Democratic Primary, it’s the parents that will vote. Combined with really strong support amongst African-Americans (something no other candidate on this list save perhaps Harris could make a play toward), a crucial primary voting bloc, Biden is a force to be reckoned with, and you shouldn’t assume just because he’s had some campaign hiccups that he couldn’t easily be the nominee. That said, Biden’s campaign skills have been rusty to be generous, and while I think it’s idiotic to assume anyone but Trump (and his cabinet) is the person who suffers on Ukraine, the more damning news for Biden is not a made up scandal, but his anemic fundraising numbers, which were paltry compared to Sanders & Warren, and indicate that even with establishment support he’s turning in a middling campaign. (Previous Ranking: 1)
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| Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) |
1. Elizabeth Warren
I don’t think Warren would have beaten Hillary four years ago in the primary. However, it’s clear that pretty much every other assumption about Warren has been proven wrong, at least in terms of winning the nomination. She’s had the smartest gimmicks on the campaign trail (the phone calls and selfies are easy publicity that pretty much every other candidate should be kicking themselves over for not coming up with), and her poll & fundraising numbers are very impressive. Warren still has a few hiccups to get past, particularly her lukewarm support among African-Americans and the general sense that she’s too liberal to take on Trump, but she’s arguably the frontrunner at this point in the race, and it’s worth noting the frontrunner at this point in the race historically has become the nominee. (Previous Ranking: 2)
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