In the first Daily Kos straw poll since the inaugural presidential debate, Elizabeth Warren won for the second week in a row, with Bernie Sanders narrowly behind her. But the biggest shift in numbers came from Kamala Harris—who leapfrogged from fifth to third place, and Joe Biden, who is barely hanging on to relevance.
Warren may have won this poll, Sanders may have gotten second, but Harris is this week’s big winner, riding her strong debate Biden-slaying performance to a huge 12-point gain in support. Biden, in turn, is the big loser. While he was never as strong in our straw poll as he’s been in national scientific polling, support from the online activist class is critical for the success of any candidate. Biden’s was always weak, and now he’s fading into (online) obscurity.
He really is a bad candidate—on the issues, out-of-touch with the times, and in how he interacts with other people. There’s a reason he’s failed at this twice before. And he’s well on his way to failing again.
Now Harris is a reminder that fortunes can change on a dime. However, her slow steady decline from announcement month didn’t stem from substantive missteps, but from invisibility on the campaign trail. She’s running a traditional campaign, likely spends all her time raising money from rich people (as does every other candidate except Warren). It feels like they’ve calculated their efforts to emerge strong post-Labor Day, and I’m sure several other candidates are thinking the same thing. Raise a ton of money now, spend it in the fall.
Can Biden really turn his fortunes around in this way? Doubtful. He’s universally known and people are still getting to know Harris. Opinions about him are hardened. If you weren’t already a supporter, why would you become one now? So he has to hold on to the support he had, and that’s not happening. And he’s just really bad at this stuff, clinging to unfathomable beliefs long past their sell-date, from supporting the Hyde Amendment to digging in his heels on school busing for school desegregation.
Bernie is treading water in the straw poll, defying the slow erosion in support he’s seeing in the national polling post-debate. His performance was fine, but it’s the same thing everyone has heard from Bernie for years. What was once a fresh, daring agenda has now been co-opted by much of the field. Bernie is a victim of his own success—he’s mainstreamed his ideology, and in return, people are gravitating toward better, more inclusive messengers.
So how does Sanders turn around his fortune, and begin to grow his base of support? It would require a retooling of his message and campaign in a way that he seems unwilling or incapable of doing.
Buttigieg missed out on fourth place by 24 votes. But his overall percentage is down. The debate did him no favors. If the mayor of a small town says “I couldn’t get it done” for a tough local matter, how is he going to get it done running the entire country? Post-debate national polling has definitely shown an erosion of his position. And while he can brag about his $25 million monster fundraising quarter, this isn’t a primary in which money will play a big role.
Andrew Yang has the best “online spamming effort vs. actual support” of any candidate. His support was virtually zero the first couple of hours, then the call went out to the Yangosphere netting him nearly 2,000 votes. Impressive! Especially for someone who truly can’t explain the math behind his signature proposal or explain how he thinks he’ll enact a multi-trillion dollar program on the first day of his hypothetical presidency.
Of the other 15 candidates in the poll, only Tulsi Gabbard exceeded 1 percent. If people want to run, good for them. But seriously, it’s hard to see why some of them insist on putting themselves through this humiliation. Consider: there were 63,000+ votes cast. Now look at the individual vote counts of some of these candidates:
John Delaney: 37 votes
Bill de Blasio: 71 votes
Tim Ryan: 65 votes
John Hickenlooper: 85 votes
Eric Swalwell: 67 votes
Kirsten Gillibrand: 91 votes
Michael Bennet: 184 votes
Hilariously pathetic. Who are they kidding? Oh well.
Bottom line, one debate shook things up significantly, so we still have a ways to go. You definitely get the sense that aside from a solid core of Bernie people, most of these candidates’ support is soft and malleable. There are legitimately several great candidates to pick from, so no one feels overly invested in any one candidate. And that’s a good thing! I have about 5-6 candidates that I’d love to see with the nomination. It makes it much easier to enjoy this ride, as opposed to stressing about the ONE candidate that MUST win … or ELSE!
(*) The “other” category fluctuates as different candidates come in and out, so I’ve given up trying to tally it for past straw polls.
(**) As for “Unsure”, I forgot to include the option in the poll, and once the first vote is cast, it’s locked. (That way, people can’t be changing numbers, not even me.) I only noticed after 1,000 votes were cast, and I didn’t want to throw away those votes. It’s also why I couldn’t fix the two Elizabeth Warrens in the poll. Still trying to figure out what made my brain do that.