No, Mayo Pete Is Not A Real Contender-- And Neither Are Wayne Messam, John Delaney Nor Michael Bennet

Fake candidates Mayo Pete and John Delaney

Yesterday's poll from ABC News and the Washington Post by Langer shows once again that the establishment narrative that Mayo Pete is a contender is just false. With Status Quo Joe at the top with 27%, Elizabeth and Bernie follow with 21% and 19% respectively while Mayo-- "running some consultant-driven campaign with some vague ideas that are designed not to offend anyone"-- at 7%. The Fox News poll also shows Mayo at 7% and the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll has Mayo at 6%.

Although the pollsters did their best to erase Bernie from their analysis 4 issues made that difficult for them. Voters responded to these Langer questions in a way that made Bernie-denial more difficult:

• Who best understands your problems?

• Bernie- 30%
• Status Quo Joe- 22%
• Elizabeth- 20%

• Who is the most honest and trustworthy?

• Bernie- 27%
• Status Quo Joe- 26%
• Elizabeth- 16%

• Who will bring needed change to Washington?

• Bernie- 25%
• Status Quo Joe- 24%
• Elizabeth- 24%

• Who is closest to you on issues?

• Bernie- 25%
• Status Quo Joe- 25%
• Elizabeth- 20%

The Fox poll shows another insurmountable problem for Mayo. Most voters think Biden, Bernie and Elizabeth would beat Señor Trumpanzee. They also think Trumpanzee will beat Mayo Pete. Just 30% of voters think Mayo trumps Trump. The Fox poll also shows most voters agree with Biden (72%), Bernie (68%) and Elizabeth (62%) on issues but just 43% agree with Mayo on the issues.

As far as the boomlet the establishment has been working to create for a new candidate... that ain't happening, especially not for Hillary (who is preferred over just one primary candidate: Mayo) or Bloomberg:

In Iowa, notoriously hard to poll and more dependent on organizing than on anything else, polling shows younger voters-- those under 45 years old, have next to no interest in Biden at all. He's in 4th place, with just 2% from voters under 30 years old and 3% with voters under 45 years old. It's pretty much the same story in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada-- voters under 45 see Biden as a fossil with zero vision running entirely to gratify his ego or, as Elizabeth Warren put it in Iowa a few days ago: "running some vague campaign that nibbles around the edges is somehow safe, but if the most we can promise is business as usual after Donald Trump, then Democrats will lose."

If voters over 65 dominate the primaries, Biden will win the nomination. If voters under 45 turn out in big numbers Bernie will win. Nothing will help Kamala Harris and "her empty ideology" though.





John Harris essay at Politico over the weekend, The 7 Big Bets that will decide who wins the White House in 2020 offers premises the campaigns are counting on: "Biden is betting that the support of African-Americans and labor will compensate for the diverse vulnerabilities of his campaign [and] Trump is betting that the economy stays robust for another year and that he emerges from a likely House impeachment, paradoxically, with his supporters energized and his reelection prospects brightened. But many of the most important wagers shaping 2020 strategies are not as visible to the naked eye." Here are their big bets that make some sense:

• Biden needs to hope that the debates, Twitter, endless cable chatter, will amount to very little and that the primary electorate is really looking for a moderate, that the moderates are the ones who are really going to show up, the sort of older-sector of the Democratic Party, they’re the ones that are going to come to the polls and that are going to caucus. That worked for Hillary in the 2016 primaries and played right into Trump's hands in the general. (Mayo Pete is counting on the same premise.)

• Democrats want a disrupter (like Republicans did in 2016) and that's Bernie's bet and Elizabeth's bet. "This is fundamentally a wager on the nature of the times, which are being shaped by a younger and more diverse electorate eager to use politics as a leveling instrument to attack entrenched power in government and corporate America alike... There is an implicit bet that the country has, if not moved to the left, then at least voters will not be repulsed by some of these positions that are further to the left and they’ll be united in their desire to oust Trump from the Oval Office."

• Bernie's most ardent backers regard him as different, not just a politician but the leader of a movement. "Sanders' big bet is that this movement has the capacity to grow, and to appeal to voters who have not previously participated in Democratic contests. If true, this could give him staying power in the race even if he has yet to score big victories by spring. From early on, Sanders has demonstrated strength with younger voters, with Hispanics, and with working-class voters."

• Voters don't give a hoot what pundits, pollsters, media and operatives from the political establishment think. That's the hope that anyone but Biden holds, but especially Marianne Williamson, Kamala Harris, Mayo Pete, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang, Joe Sestak, Steve Bullock, Wayne Messam and Michael Bennet.