While much of the media is focused on the upcoming Iowa Caucuses, voting for the 2020 Presidential race officially started last Friday as Minnesota became the first state in the nation to launch early voting for its March 3, Super Tuesday primary. It’s difficult to say who benefits from the early voting in Minnesota, but we found plenty of evidence on twitter that political enthusiasts have embraced the process. Two Warren supporters posted a photo of them camping out so that they could be the first to vote in the nation. Rep. Ilhan Omar held an early voting rally for Bernie Sanders on Friday and judging by photos on Twitter, many voters turned out. There’s also evidence that Yang and Buttigieg supporters are voting as well. We even found evidence that one voter cast a ballot for Tom Steyer.
Strangely, we did not find a single tweet from anyone in Minnesota that has voted for Joe Biden, the Democratic favorite. That is the odd thing about the current Democratic nominating process. All of the polls tell us that Joe Biden is the clear favorite, but you go online and look at Twitter or Facebook or Instagram and you see no evidence of this support. It’s certainly possible that he has more support from older demographics that may not regularly use Twitter, but we would be concerned by the lack of enthusiasm online if we were running the Biden campaign.
The good news for Biden is the latest polling out of Iowa. FRC released a new poll taken after Warren’s attack on Sanders which showed a significant drop in support for Sanders, relative to other recent polls. Biden took the top spot at 24%, Warren in second at 18%, Buttigieg in third at 16%, Sanders in fourth at 14% and Klobuchar in fifth at 11%. While FRC is not as well known as some other pollsters, the results are certainly encouraging for Biden and disappointing for Sanders who until Warren’s attack had been leading most recent Iowa polls. On Predictit, Sander’s likelihood of winning Iowa fell by about 7% while Biden’s chance jumped 8%. The poll also is good news for Warren and Klobuchar, both of whom seem to be benefiting from liberal female voters desire to support a woman.
Klobuchar and Warren also received an odd endorsement from the New York Times which came out with a dual endorsement, Warren for the radicals and Klobuchar for the realists. It certainly was a strange endorsement and immediately was roundly ridiculed on Twitter. That said, the NY Times has not had that much success with its endorsements (at least in general elections) having endorsed Hillary in both 2008 and 2016, Gore in 2000, and Kerry in 2004. Perhaps of more importance, one of Iowa’s larger newspapers, the Quad City Times, endorsed Klobuchar today, giving her campaign a needed boost. With Buttigieg peaking and Sanders under attack from Team Warren, it would not be inconceivable to see undecideds break for Klobuchar pushing her to a top 3 finish.
Finally, on this MLK day, most of the candidates attended services in South Carolina and then flew to Iowa for the Brown and Black Forum which is the nation’s largest presidential forum to focus on minority issues. Klobuchar and Buttigieg were criticized for skipping South Carolina, while Biden, Sanders, Warren and Gabbard all made the trip to South Carolina and Iowa. Twitter highlighted that back stage Warren and Sanders avoided talking to one another, suggesting that the feud continues. Then Biden responded awkwardly when asked if he had a Netflix account: “I don’t use a Netflix account, and if I have one, I am unaware.” That is not the type of response that appeals to young people! The final speaker at the Brown and Black Forum was Duval Patrick, the last remaining African-American seeking the Presidency, but one candidate who has yet to register at all in the polling.
When you add it all up, this race remains very uncertain. At some point in the past six months, Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg have all led the Iowa polling. For now, it seems that Biden is in front, but the total lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy makes us very hesitant to predict a Biden win in Iowa. We believe that someone else (Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg or Klobuchar) is going to sneak past Biden on Caucus day.
NewEnglandPolitics.com 