by cmsellers » Mon Apr 15, 2019 9:16 pm
Gis, from the polls I've seen, Booker doesn't really look like a frontrunner, and Warren barely does, based on most polls I've seen, though DP's poll has her neck-and-neck with Harris. Polls have been showing Biden, Bernie, and Beto as ahead of the rest of the pack, and now Buttigieg is getting up their too, though apparently at Beto's expense. Given that this seems to be the year of the B's, I'm surprising Booker isn't doing better, actually.
As for electability, I've pointed out that Warren is uniquely poorly suited, as the only Democratic Senate candidate who did worse in her home state in 2018 than Clinton did in 2018. Warren's problem is that she's really popular with Democrats, but pretty much nobody else likes her.
Sanders is problematic as well, because the socialist label combined with his promises are likely to turn people off. Another thing I've been on record about repeatedly is that I only supported him in 2016 because there was no chance of a Democratic House before 2020 with a Democratic president. A lot of people have been skeptical that he can get his agenda done with a Democratic House and Senate, but I think he could probably get single-payer (which I don't mind, as long as it doesn't ban private insurance like he proposed, but I don't think anything that passes will) and or substantial aid for college tuition (which I strongly object to).
Meanwhile, my mother, who has always said voting third party is beyond the pale of acceptability, said she would have voted third-party if Sanders had been the nominee. Sanders is likely to turn off a lot of the socially liberal, fiscally conservative, white-collar, suburban voters who have been defecting to the Democrats since Trump came to office. He also has potential to win back some of the socially conservative, fiscally liberal voters in the Midwest who carried Trump to victory, but he'd need electoral votes beyond the former "blue wall," and he potentially endangers New Hampshire, Virginia, Nevada, and Colorado if he runs.
Booker and Harris, meanwhile, are simply unproven, fairly generic Democrats. I have concerns about Harris, who has been running hard to the left and who comes from San Francisco, and I still worry about the nepodultery thing. However her "tough cop" image, which I hate, could prove successful in the Midwest. She could go either way; it feels like there's more upside and more downside to her relative to Booker. Booker, I'm concerned would be unfairly seen as "boring" in the general, and he's too centrist for many Democratic primary voters, but I don't see major upside or downside to him in the general election.