Among political happenings that appear to not be reported of late at DailyKos, it seems that there is this:
April 26 (UPI) -- Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign announced Friday that he raised $6.3 million in the first 24 hours after announcing his presidential candidacy, outpacing his Democratic competitors.
The one-day haul ekes out ahead of the next-highest 24-hour total -- former Rep. Beto O'Rourke's $6.1 million.
Biden’s $6.3 million came from 96,000 individual donors of which 97% are reported to be small donors (<$200).
All in all it appears that the guy with no social media cred...is doing ok!
Why is Biden currently among frontrunners, other than mere name recognition? Above all else the one thing Biden has going for him is probably his visceral and palpable hatred for Donald Trump. I think he solidly leads the pack in this regard (see his 2016 convention speech) with Warren and Sanders in the next tier. I’m thinking there’s a significant demographic of democrats who are less wonk-oriented about issues and want someone who shares their gut-level disgust and hatred for Trump. For those democrats, Joe is their candidate.
It might also be worth noting that, contrary to somewhat popular belief, it appears that Biden is one of the preferred candidates among young, involved Democrats. According to the Harvard IOP Youth Poll (March ‘19) Biden trailed only Bernie Sanders (31%-20%) as the preferred candidate among those 18-29 who plan to vote in the primaries.
Interestingly, if not ironically, this poll showed him polling better among young women than men (24% to 16%), running second to Sanders (29%) among young women by 5 points.
In the same poll Biden actually polled higher among blacks than among whites (25% to 20%) and among blacks he polled the highest of all candidates (25% to Sanders 24%). Biden polls nearly as well with young hispanics (19%) as he does with whites (20%) while Sanders leads among hispanics with 38%. (Perhaps trivial but Biden dominates among young mixed-race Democrats with 47%)
The poll is a month old but it’s a good starting point for this demographic. Food for thought.
With Biden in the race our field is pretty much set, we have umpteen great candidates and we’re just getting warmed up. Is Joe my favorite candidate? Don’t know! Don’t care! I mainly defend him because I don’t think he’s nearly as bad as progressive media makes him out to be. Biden hates Trump, and I don’t think he enjoys anything more than telling the world why we should all hate Trump. I feel like there’s a lot to like about that.