Some people (perhaps most Democrats) think Joe Biden is the most electable candidate running in the primary. I understand that. However, when he runs on his own name, he has not performed well. The head to head polls against Trump that he boasts demonstrate he is the most electable candidate when compared to other candidate’s head to head polls are not convincing to me. I like numbers. I like objective metrics. I have a master’s degree in mathematics and won an academic award from my Department of Mathematics as a doctoral student. However, these comparisons are not reliable. If you have read for me recently, you have read these reasons before. Nevertheless, I have to include them in this diary. They are essential. The other candidates are likely to be underperforming the numbers that they would have if they were to become the nominee. Perform the thought experiment. What would have to happen for candidate A who is not very well known to become the nominee ? Win elections. Get good press. Build strong organizations in states. Build name recognition. And voters usually return home to their party when November rolls around. The candidates with 100 percent name recognition like Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are less likely to make huge improvements in their numbers, but the others are likely to move up.
1. The lesser known candidates will get good press after winning primary elections which will improve their head to head numbers. 2. The lesser known candidates will build their name recognition over time and this will improve their head to head poll numbers. 3. If a voter in Party C prefers candidate A within Party C over candidate B in Party C, they may be reluctant to tell pollsters who are polling head to head general election contests against President Trump that they would vote for candidate B if candidate B were to be the nominee because the voter could be afraid that this could strengthen candidate B’s electability argument for the nomination. 4. As we approach November of 2020, the voters of both parties are likely to return home. This means lesser known candidates are likely to have better poll numbers as we approach November of 2020 than they have now, a full 11 months prior to the election and 2 months before the very first election of the primary.
So, even though I am a numbers person, I recognize that the comparisons of head to head poll numbers against Trump are not reliable now. So, what are better ways of determining electability ? In my view, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Michigan (and we can add New Hampshire) are the states that will be part of the easiest path for us to get to 270. This is due to the fact that Clinton or Trump won these states by the smallest margin and they have the least republican lean according to 538. Now, 2018 was encouraging: we won and did well in 2018 in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. 538 estimates that incumbency gives a candidate a 6 point advantage. We shall return to that point later. The ability to appeal to these states in my view is key. A strong connection to this part of the country could be a large advantage. I would also consider ideology. Medicare for All has a popularity of 37 % once voters learn that it means to eliminate all private insurance companies. Senator Sherrod Brown said that it would be a “terrible mistake” for the Democratic nominee to campaign on Medicare for All . He represents Ohio and he knows what voters support there. Finally, I would consider the ability of a candidate to perform well as a speaker and avoid gaffes. Finally, what do their past election performances tell us ?
Joe Biden is strong with voters who are important in winning these states. I will avoid speculating as to why. He has a strong tie to Pennsylvania since he grew up there. On the other hand, he tends to make many gaffes and is not a strong campaigner in my view. However, he currently has the support of African Americans who generally determine who is the nominee in our party.
Nevertheless, I am now convinced Senator Amy Klobuchar is absolutely the most electable candidate we have. After Senator Harris left the field, I wavered between Senator Warren and Senator Klobuchar. I chose Senator Warren for ideological reasons. However, I am truly worried about her ability to win the states that we must win in order to win the electoral college, especially with Medicare for All which is not a good policy to campaign on even though I like it personally. I have stated several times that if I get worried enough about the electability of my current choice, Senator Warren, I would choose Senator Klobuchar. Senator Warren’s electoral history is considerably different than Senator Klobuchar’s. These states are not nearly as progressive as Senator Warren is. Senator Warren is not the best fit ideologically for these states. Senator Warren’s name recognition is pretty high and, unfortunately, she has a negative approval rating among registered voters (since all registered voters vote in the general election and not just Democrats, this is a more important metric).
Why am I convinced? Minnesota is in the top five in its similarity score according to 538 ( based upon demographic, geographic, and political characteristic scores) with Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. So, if you perform well in Minnesota, it is very likely that you will perform well in the trio of states that sent Donald Trump to the White House. Let’s look at Senator Klobuchar’s electoral history. She won an open house seat by 20 points in 2006, double the advantage that House Democrats won by there in 2006. She won Minnesota in 2012 by 35 points, four times as much as President Obama won Minnesota by. Clinton won Minnesota by 1.5% in 2016. Senator Klobuchar won Minnesota in 2018 by a jaw-dropping 24 points. House Democratic candidates only won on an average by 11 points in Minnesota in 2018. She clearly won an awfully large number of Donald Trump voters. There is no way to avoid this conclusion. She won 42 counties that Donald Trump won. That looms large for me. Donald Trump dominated among rural voters. He absolutely crushed us there, but he left himself vulnerable with farmers due to his unnecessary trade war which allows an opening for the right candidate with rural voters. Minnesota has a lot of farmers and agriculture business. This is why the Democratic Party is called the Democratic Farmer Labor Party in Minnesota. She wins these voters. She has a record to run on as somebody who serves on the Agriculture committee. Nobody else among the five has served on it. She has.
Where Klobuchar has a history of being an above average candidate (Minnesota), happens to have a lot in common with these three states. According to FiveThirtyEight, Minnesota's similarity score (based on "demographic, geographic and political characteristics") scores in the top five with Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If you're performing well in Minnesota, there's a pretty good chance you'll perform well in these other three states as well.
Klobuchar won an open Senate seat in 2006 by 20 points. House Democrats in the state won cumulatively that year by 10 points.Six years later in 2012, Klobuchar won re-election by 35 points. House Democrats in Minnesota won the cumulative House vote by 12 points, which equates to an over 20-point over-performance by Klobuchar. That same year Democratic President Barack Obama won Minnesota by 8 points, so using that measure Klobuchar did even better relative to what you might expect from the average Democrat.
Again, compare Senator Klobuchar to Senator Warren:
Klobuchar's electability can be seen as recently her otherworldly 2018 re-election performance. She won by 24 points, which, for comparison sake, is the same margin Sen. Elizabeth Warren won by in Massachusetts. Minnesota is much less Democratic leaning than Warren's home state. Hillary Clinton won Minnesota by less than 2 points in 2016, but took Massachusetts by 27 points.
Senator Warren underperformed. An average Democrat would have won in Massachusetts by 27 points, but Senator Warren only won it by 24 points even with the six point incumbency advantage. Senator Klobuchar has a strong tie to the states most likely to determine who wins the electoral college. She is from the same geographical area. Senator Warren does not have a strong tie to these states. Senator Warren is running on Medicare for All which sports a 37 percent approval rating when voters learn that this means eliminating private health insurance companies. Even progressive Senator Sherrod Brown who represents a nearby state, Ohio, cautions against running on this and he knows the area. Senator Klobuchar outperformed the standard Democrat in every election in her state by a mile, surpassing House Democrats and our presidential nominees in her victories. Senator Warren did not do this. Senator Klobuchar has ties to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania due to her performance in Minnesota and Minnesota’s similarity score to these three states. Finally, Senator Klobuchar has the receipts to show that she not only can but has won Trump voters . Trump only lost Minnesota by 1.5% but Senator Klobuchar won Minnesota by 24 percent. Clearly, she won a great many Trump voters. Clearly, she is far more popular in Minnesota than Donald Trump and based upon the similarity score, it is likely that she would be much more popular than him in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
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.She has also been very effective in the US Senate !
.Klobuchar hasn’t just been marking time. One study determined that she was the most effective Senator of the 115th Congress. She also ranked first in bills signed into law in the 114th Congress. During her tenure, she has been the primary sponsor of thirty-three bills signed into law, covering a diverse group of issue areas including infrastructure, addiction recovery, and promoting women in entrepreneurship. By contrast, during his much longer career, Bernie Sanders has only been the lead on seven successful bills.
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Did I mention that she is the most electable candidate ?
She has consistently outperformed other Democrats in red states or districts. In 2018, she won her election in Minnesota by twenty-four points, the same margin Warren won by in Massachusetts. And she has won a majority of counties in every election, including winning counties that Trump won by over twenty points. Her Midwestern appeal means she has the strongest chance of winning the key states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Whereas most Democrats would have to sink time and money into Minnesota, Klobuchar could rely on her home state advantage and devote more resources to other states.
Klobuchar has been careful not to tack too far to the left in the Democratic primary, which could pay dividends in the general election. She has legitimate progressive credentials—she has voted with Bernie Sanders 88 percent of the time—but she hasn’t adopted some of her colleagues’ more extreme positions. She does not advocate for getting rid of private health insurance, which is in step with what most Americans want.
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If defeating Donald Trump is the number one factor in how a Democratic primary voter determines who they will vote for, in my view Senator Amy Klobuchar is clearly the best of the five major candidates to choose. I am more aligned with Senator Warren ideologically, but my vote is going to the candidate who has the greatest chance of defeating President Trump (of the five major candidates) because I believe that this election is too important to risk losing. It does not matter how great a candidate’s ideas are if they cannot win. Senator Klobuchar is a good Democrat. She is not nearly as progressive as Senator Warren, but she is not Senator Joe Manchin either. No blows have been landed upon her. She is not locked into a policy position that will hurt her where she needs to win. She will need an unquestioned progressive with bona fides to spare as her running mate. I think Senator Harris would be a great choice or Secretary Castro (look at his policy positions) or possibly Stacy Abrams. On the other hand, she could choose Senator Booker or Beto as alternatives.
Let’s review electability:
1. Senator Klobuchar won 42 counties in 2018 that Donald Trump won in 2016.
2. Senator Klobuchar won counties in 2018 that Donald Trump won by 20 percentage points
3. Senator Klobuchar won an open seat in 2006 by 20 percentage points, outpacing the advantage of House Democrats
4. Senator Klobuchar won by 35 percentage points in 2012 while President Obama only won Minnesota by 8 points.
5. Senator Klobuchar won Minnesota by 24 percentage points in 2018 whereas Hillary Clinton only won Minnesota by 1.5 percentage points.
6. Senator Klobuchar serves on the Agriculture committee and in every election is at the top of the Democrat Farmer Labor ticket because Minnesota has so much farming and rural area that this is what the party is called there !
7. Minnesota scores in the top five in similarity score [in regard to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania] which judges how similar one state is to another by comparing geography, demographics, and political culture.
8. Senator Klobuchar is not locked into eliminating private health insurance companies which has only 37% approval and is not well liked in these states.
9. Four of the five states which were won by the smallest margin by either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and the first state, Minnesota, which Senator Klobuchar represents, has a top five similarity score with the other three. These states are part of the easiest path to winning the electoral college for any Democratic candidate and it will be far easier for Senator Klobuchar to do it than any other candidate.
10. Senator Warren won Massachusetts in 2018, a wave year, by only 24 points despite having a six point incumbency advantage as a sitting senator in a state that Hillary Clinton won by 24 points. Massachusetts is a very blue state unlike Minnesota (unless you are Senator Amy Klobuchar) and Senator Warren is locked into Medicare for All which would be okay if it did not eliminate private health insurance companies and that policy did not have an approval rating of only 37% (less unpopular than Donald Trump is at 42% according to 538).
If past is prologue and the best way to predict future performance is one’s past performance, the most electable candidate is Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Consider everything that is at stake :
President Trump, although he clearly should be impeached and removed is likely to be covered by Senate Republicans, will not face justice until he is out of office. He will continue to break laws to his own advantage and the advantage of Republicans. President Trump and the Republicans will replace the notorious RBG and pick at least one new Supreme Court Justice, probably more than one. Republicans will continue to gerrymander districts. Roe will be more and more peeled back or reversed altogether and women will lose their fundamental right to bodily autonomy. Bigotry will continue to be more prominent and acceptable within society in full view of the public. Family separation and children in cages will continue to be the norm. Climate change will not be fought and global warming will continue without impediments. Our allies will not view Trump as a one time occurrence, but instead as normal leader of the United States. We will be viewed as unreliable by our allies. Policies will be conducted by tweet and without planning. More regulations will be undone and more tax cuts for the wealthy will be passed. Putin will grow in power. Other despots will not be challenged. Trump will continue to lie. We will lose talent working in the State Department. Gun control will not make any progress. The Department of Justice will remain partisan instead of independent as intended. Health care coverage will continue to worsen as the ACA continues to be dismantled. There will be more and more disunity in the country. Inequality will continue to worsen.
There is a reason why the 37% number is what it is and is not likely to change in a single election cycle. First, American voters like choices. There are not now and there will not be after 2020 50 votes for Medicare for All. Manchin. Brown. We are done. Voters are smart enough to know that the likelihood of getting a bill through Congress that puts everybody in Medicare and makes it so that there is no copay, no deductible, no premium, it covers everybody within our borders, covers vision, dental, hearing, and prescription drugs is zero. They know what they currently have. They do not know what they will get. They are not naive enough to believe that it will be this promise of no deductible, no premium, no copay, covers all within our borders, covers vision, covers dental, covers hearing, covers prescription drugs.They know that this will not pass Congress. And Republicans are not for it.
There are people on Daily Kos who are in the states of each of the candidates and who think poorly of them. They say if you really knew her like I do, then you would know she is a poor candidate. But I still vote for her because I have to. But nobody really likes her. Sure is strange that if she is so unpopular that she has not been primaried and that she wins by such huge margins. And in the age of the internet and 24 hour cable and national news, these types of claims are dubious. And they are anecdotes.