When the 10 highest polling Democrat candidates take the stage tonight in Houston for the third debate, voters will get a chance to see former Vice President Joe Biden (D-Del.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) at the same time. While Biden remains the front-runner at 28%, Warren has been moving up, now tied of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 18%. Biden’s lead surprises some since his past two debate performances have been mediocre-at-best, making a series of gaffes on the campaign trail. So far, Biden has managed to avoid making an embarrassing gaffe on the debate stage, leaving him comfortably in the lead. Prevailing wisdom in the Democrat Party has Biden running most competitively with 73-year-old President Donald Trump. Biden sells himself as the only moderate left in the field or roughly 20 candidates, most of whom hold liberal, if not socialist, views.
When you handicap the race to the nomination, only Biden, Warren or Sanders have a chance of winning the nomination. Such high profile names as former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Tx.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), former Housing Secretary Julian Castro (D-Tx.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and South Bend, Indiana Major Pete Buttigieg have fallen so far off in the polls they have no realistic path to the nomination. Kamala hoped that going after Biden in the second debate at Fox Theatre in Detroit, Michigan would propel her to the top, only to watch herself plummet to only 4%. Harris has not recovered since attacking Biden as a “racist” for opposing busing in the early ‘60s. Harris’s attacks on Biden, while logical, didn’t sit well with Democrat voters seeing Biden as the best hope of beating Trump in 2020. Both O’Rourke and Buttigieg also watched their polls shrink since Detroit.
Buttigieg, the only openly gay candidate running for president, won a lot of praise early on but has faded in terms of his appeal to voters. When you consider his even-keeled demeanor, the only thing accounting for Mayor Pete’s collapse is the fact that voters aren’t ready to back a gay candidate. No one in the progressive, gay-friendly Democrat Party would admit that unwritten prejudice with Democrat voters has sunk his candidacy. Pete “needs a moment, he needs to engage in a way that people like and that shows that he’s the kind of person who, for example, could take on Trump,” said Bob Shrum, USC political science professor and former Democrat strategist. Shrum isn’t kidding himself about Buttigieg’s shortcomings. not admitting that the Democrat Party still struggles with prejudice toward gays, especially when it comes to running for president even in 2020
When Sanders and Warren take the stage tonight, both candidates know they’re looking to score points against the front-runner Biden, while, at the same time, drawing better contrast with their socialist-leaning positions on health care, public education, entitlements like Medicare and Social Security, immigration reform, civil rights and foreign policy. Both Sanders and Warren have made the case that Trump is not fit for office, suffering from some mental defect requiring removal from office. Both support impeachment, something House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) began today, setting rules for impeachment. Sanders and Warren wholeheartedly back impeachment, over the objections of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Whether Sanders or Warren go after each other is anyone’s guess. What’s known for sure is they must tread softly on Biden or face voters’ backlash.
Biden’s big challenge is sounding like he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to issues important to voters. Biden’s views on health care contrast sharply from Warren and Sanders, who both endorsed some version Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care. Biden still believes in Obamacare, something so vilified by Democrats and Republicans that it’s a tough position to take. Biden wants to fix Obamacare, not send it to the ash-heap of history. Neither Warren nor Bernie have broken into Biden’s lead, in part because independent voters and moderate Democrats can’t sign on to Warren and Sanders’ socialist policies. Biden’s staked out the centrist Democrat role, something so foreign in Democrat circles it almost makes no sense. “Biden will likely continue to take a page from Donald Trump in 2016. If you’ll remember, Trump, essentially, just treaded water in the debates,” said Democrat strategist Joel Payne.
Left with a three-horse race, Biden, Warren and Sanders will exercise caution tonight when taking swipes at each other, fearing the same voter backlash that sent Sen. Kamala Harris into a nosedive. Voters aren’t too interested at this point in hearing from the minor candidates, like Harris, Buttigieg, Booker and Sen. Amy Klouchar (D-Minn.), all expressing liberal views on all Democrat issues. With voters still believing that Biden has the best shot of beating Trump, it’s going to be difficult for minor-and-major candidates to take shots at Biden. Unlike the other candidates, Biden has the name recognition from serving eight years as Obama’s VP and 45 years in the U.S. Senate. If Biden has a senior moment on national TV, it will start making the case that he’s not up to the rigors of taking on Trump. Letting Biden trip on his own shoelaces gives Warren and Sanders the best shot of moving up.
