The End of the Middle of the Democratic Primary — It Looks Like a Two-Person Race

Brutal for Tier 2: "Sanders supporters are the most set: 71% saying they will definitely vote for him...57% of Biden voters definitely will vote for Biden...29% of Buttigieg and 28% of Warren voters indicated they plan to stick with their candidate."https://t.co/LZD7tvzZGC

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) December 18, 2019

by Thomas Neuburger

As we approach the end of the middle of the current primary season — and the end of the pre-primary year — the Democratic candidates for president seem to have separated themselves once more.

Note the graph in Zaid Jilani's tweet above: Warren has begun a descent into tier 2, leaving Biden and Sanders the front-runners as of this date.

If the trend continues, the race will resolve itself into its two polar opposites, Biden and Sanders, one representing the status quo ante (a full-throated return to the old neoliberal normal), the other representing the greatest possible change in the least possible time.

Not only that, but those two have the most committed supporters — 71% of Sanders supporters will stick with Sanders regardless, while 57% of Biden supporters will stay with Biden. (Note, by the way, the softness of Biden's support relative to Sanders' support.) In contrast, only 28% of Warren supporters will stick with her, and Buttigieg's "committed core" number is similar to Warren's.

This means that if Sanders fades, he'd lose less than 30% of his support, while a Warren fade fade could cost her as much as 70% of hers. The plot thickens — or in this case, thins.

That polling and its implications are the subject of the first part of this recent panel discussion on Rising:

Note Saagar's early point (at 1:30) about future debates. They may not matter much for Biden and Sanders as the Iowa caucus approaches. Biden and Sanders are not going to poach each others voters to any significant degree (at least not until something catastrophic happens to one of them), so they need only wait for the lesser tier candidates to fade, allowing their lost supporters to sort themselves according to neoliberal or anti-neoliberal preferences.

If that's the case, why should either go on the attack? Biden and Sanders can simply make their respective cases, defend their policies as needed and requested and watch the rest of the field scramble to poach each other's fallen-aways.

As to the rest of the field, the stakes are pretty high, so their advisors may argue raising the heat a bit. Can a second-tier Buttigieg survive in a field with a thriving second-tier Warren (if indeed that's where she lands)?

Unlikely, and it's unlikely his advisors, McKinsey-clone strategists and warriors, will not recommend he seize the opportunity to attack her, then gather to himself as many of her fallen-aways as he can. He'll certainly get more votes from her former supporters than he'll get from Biden or Sanders supporters at this point.

In the same way, unless she changes her tactics drastically, Warren is unlikely to go after Sanders (just as he seems unlikely at this point to go hard on her); and though her quarrel with Biden and his policies make him her natural enemy, her team may be swayed by the same logic as Buttigieg's — to reach tier 1, she needs to get supporters from somewhere, and Mayor Pete has the biggest supply of those who may be amenable to Warren's pitch and appeal.

In addition, Buttigieg, regardless of how he fares in the first three contests, will die in South Carolina if he gets that far, making his pool of supporters an even more tempting target, an orchard of low-hanging apples and oranges. (He knows this, I'm sure, just as I'm sure he's actually running for VP at this point.)

If all of the above is true, the next big question is the effect of the 15% threshold rule on the early primary contests. Recall that any candidate who doesn't break 15% can't be awarded delegates, though each state's delegate mix includes precinct-wide or county-wide pools as well as state-at-large pools. (For more on this aspect of the Democratic Party methodology, see "An Early Look at the Byzantine Rules for Delegate Allocation in the Democratic Primary.")

Stay tuned. We may be entering — at last — the final phase of the 2020 primary election, the phase where the candidate pool is small, the differences are clear, and the candidate's policy stances don't spread and merge into each other like variously colored inks in a slowly swirling pool of water.