Who benefits from Kamala’s departure?

Following a series of challenging media reports of internal campaign dissent and dire financial reports, Senator Kamala Harris made it official and announced that she was dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination. The once promising campaign unraveled after briefly surging after the first Democratic debate when she challenged Vice President Biden and looked poised to become one of the Democratic front runners. We believe the turning point for Harris occurred in the second debate when Tulsi Gabbard highlighted that Harris had prosecuted many black Americans for drug usage but laughed about her own use of marijuana. Harris did not have a cogent response and suddenly did not appeal to either the progressive or more moderate voters.

So who benefits from Harris’ demise? We think that many of the voters who once backed Harris have already shifted their support to either Buttigieg, Warren or Biden. We doubt that many Harris supporters will move to Sanders or Bloomberg. It’s possible that Amy Klobuchar or Corey Booker, both of whom who had been polling lower than Harris, could pick up a few votes, but we think the race is consolidating on the top 4 candidates: Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg. Harris had tried to appeal to both the progressive and more centrist wings of the party, so her departure could be viewed as positive for all of the remaining top tier candidates. That said, we think that most remaining Harris supporters (3-5% of the vote) want to back a female nominee and are, thus, more likely to back Warren. It’s also notable that a party that is focused on identity politics now has no black candidates among the top five candidates. That could help Biden who remains the top pick among black Democrats.

Tonight, Predictit’s real-time market shows Biden leading with a 28% chance, Buttigieg in second at 20%, Warren at 19%, Sanders at 17% and Bloomberg at 12%. We continue to see the most likely winner in descending order of likelihood as Warren, Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg and Bloomberg (well behind in 5th place).