Is Joe Biden the Most Progressive Candidate?

Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE), right, greeting Arizona
Senate candidate Mark Kelly

In 2016, something unusual happened politically.  I'm not talking about Donald Trump, though he was part of it.  It was in the Senate.  For the first time since the passage of the 17th Amendment, every state went the exact same way as the presidential election.  While the margins were different in both directions (Jason Kander outran Hillary Clinton by 8-points in Missouri, while Mike Lee bested Donald Trump by 23-points in Utah), there was not a single state that Hillary Clinton won that the Republicans took in the Senate, and the Democrats weren't able to poach any state that Donald Trump won on the left.

As I stated above, this has never happened before.  Compare it to, say 2012, where six states went in different directions at the presidential level or 2008, where it was also six states (weirdly it tends to be Republicans getting the electoral college votes while they translate to blue in the Senate in both cycles, despite the Democrats winning both presidential elections).  This is likely a sign of how polarized we have become as a nation.  While in the following years there have been Democrats who won in Trump seats for the Senate, it is probable that in a deeply contentious, nasty campaign, as 2020 is likely to be, straight-ticket voting will become more prominent, and a Democratic candidate's victory statewide could be an influence on several Senate campaigns, perhaps even making a difference when it comes to winning the US Senate itself.

Which brings us to the provocative title of this piece.  I do not, for the record, argue that on paper Joe Biden is the most liberal major candidate running for the Democratic nomination for president; that title probably belongs to Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.  But what I'm getting after here is that Biden may be the actual progressive candidate when it comes to actionable progressive politics, because Biden has consistently shown that he is the most preferred candidate in electoral match-ups, and specifically the one who wins by the most in swing states.

I'm not here to argue whether or not Warren or Sanders or Pete Buttigieg can win-that's a conversation for a different day.  But the polling has been pretty clear that Biden is the best candidate in terms of sheer polling numbers, and if polling was an indicator of what will happen next November, he would win by the most (even if other candidates could still win).  That doesn't matter when it comes to the electoral college (because ultimately it's just about who gets to 270), but it does matter to the Senate, where the Democrats need a net gain of three seats, and where Biden outperforming in swing states could get the Democrats 1-2 more seats.

Let's take a look at the polling not in swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but instead in the eight states that are swing states and are hosting Senate elections in 2020: Colorado, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Maine, and North Carolina.  These are where nine (Georgia has two elections) of the 11 most competitive Senate races will be held (the other two are in Alabama and Kansas, and are more dependent on Republicans nominating bad candidates in their primaries than anything to do with the statewide presidential campaign).  Biden's polling numbers in these states is far-and-away better than Sanders, Warren, or Buttigieg.

Taking the RealClearPolitics average in each of these states, it's a pretty stark difference between Biden and the other three candidates.  The average of the eight states shows Biden up +3.7, leading in all but two of the states against Trump (Texas and Iowa), while the next closest competitor is Sanders at +1.3 (and the Vermont senator is losing in four states against the president).  Buttigieg has a +0.4 edge (losing in five) and Warren is in the rear with a -.06 margin (and she's also losing in five).

Could Joe Biden make the difference for someone like
Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson (D-GA)?

There's almost no metrics where Biden doesn't best them in these states.  He is ahead of every other competitor in every other state save for two-Colorado, where he ties with Sanders & Buttigieg, and Iowa, where Buttigieg has a slight edge over him (though no Democrat is leading in Iowa).  Biden is the only candidate above water in Arizona or Georgia, and outruns the other three by at least 3-points in Georgia and Texas.  While it's probable that these numbers will change as we get closer to the actual election, Biden's lead has been consistent, and he appears to be the best candidate to win most of these states.  With that, if 2016 is any indicator, he'd be the best candidate to help deliver the bulk of these seats to the Democrats, giving them a majority, and a healthier majority at that.

Because as much as we want to talk about Medicare4All and DACA and the Green New Deal, it ain't going to pass the Senate if Mitch McConnell is in charge, and you can't make these legislative decisions unilaterally.  As a result, winning as many Senate seats as possible is critical.  Let's assume that Alabama is a loss and the Republicans don't screw up Kansas (both big if's, but let's just go there)-the Democrats would need to win 4 seats and not drop Michigan.  Looking at these poll numbers, and assuming that every state the Democrat is currently winning in goes the same way for the Senate (big if's, but just go with me), all of the candidates lose the Senate except for Biden.

Sanders does the best of the bunch, as he manages to take North Carolina along with Michigan, Maine, and Colorado (the three states that all four candidates lead in currently), but assuming that he is not succeeded by a Republican in the Senate (not a guarantee, but a pretty good bet, as we discussed here), that's only a net gain of two with Doug Jones losing in Alabama, a miss for the Senate.  Buttigieg does the next best, getting to 48 senators, but he drops North Carolina.  Warren does the worst, having a net gain of zero because while she carries the same states that Buttigieg does, she has to give up her Senate seat and Massachusetts has a Republican governor.

Biden, though, gets to 52 Senate seats thanks to his numbers in Arizona & Georgia (and it's worth noting he is very close to making it 53 under these parameters considering how well he polls in Texas).  This means that he not only gets the Senate, but could be able to get to 50+VP without Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, the two most moderate members of the Democratic caucus if Jones leaves, and the two senators most likely to stop some of the more progressive legislation from passing.  If you consider not their platforms, but what would pragmatically get done if they were to be elected, there's really no comparison-a President Biden/Senate Majority Leader Schumer is going to get you a more left-leaning four years than a President Sanders/Senate Majority Leader McConnell any day of the week.  As the battle for the Senate should be just as important to Democrats as the one for the White House, this is something to consider when picking your standard-bearer.