The RS Politics 2020 Democratic Primary Leaderboard
Elizabeth Warren officially took the plunge into 2020 waters. Julián Castro jumped in after. The Democrats’ campaign for president is officially underway. This second installment of our Rolling Stone primary leaderboard finds Warren the big mover, surging six places to number two — on the strength of a seamless rollout and a wide lead in a new straw poll of Democratic activists. Dropping in our rankings this round: Joe Biden who declared he has “no empathy” for the struggle of the kids these days, and Bernie Sanders who responded unsteadily to revelations of pay discrimination and sexual harassment on his 2016 presidential campaign. We wanted to dock Beto O’Rourke more for growing a goatee and livestreaming his trip to the dentist, but the Texas Democrat’s decision to leave behind the dysfunction of Washington — just as it’s become gridlocked by an endless shutdown — is looking like a minor stroke of genius. The field has also begun to winnow: Billionaire Tom Steyer has removed himself from the 2020 crowd, and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is actively exploring a Senate bid, so we’ve moved her from number 5 into our “wild cards.”
1) Kamala Harris
Harris is set to announce her 2020 candidacy, reportedly over the Martin Luther King Day weekend in Oakland, California. The 54-year-old senator, who battled big banks and for-profit colleges as California’s attorney general, stands astride the tectonic plates of the Democratic Party. She’s an establishment politician who has adopted a platform responsive to the passion of the grassroots, advocating for Medicare-for-All, free college and criminal justice reform. Black women are the heart of the Democratic Party, and seeing themselves reflected in the Howard University-educated Harris (born to Jamaican and Tamil Indian parents) could give her an advantage in a field chock full of white men. A straw poll asked women of color active in politics to rank their top three presidential contenders — Harris appeared on 71 percent of ballots. Harris also ranked third in a new, 35,000-vote straw poll of the Daily Kos community, a rough proxy for the Democratic activist base. Harris has a prodigious West Coast donor network and has reportedly been hitting up would-be backers on Wall Street. (Her connections to big money, as well as her past as a prosecutor, could cause headaches.) With California moving its primary up to Super Tuesday, on March 3rd, she could bank a delegate lead that proves difficult to overcome.
Previous Ranking: 1
2) Elizabeth Warren
Warren was the first top-tier candidate out of the gates, launching a presidential exploratory committee on the last day of 2018, and she surges in our rankings. Her campaign forays in Iowa and New Hampshire have been eagerly attended, and she’s debuted a passable talking point on her DNA debacle: “I am not a person of color. I am not a citizen of a tribe,” she said. “Tribal citizenship is very different from ancestry.” The Massachusetts senator, 69, brings trademark policy chops to the race, with an ambitious progressive agenda on everything from foreign policy and pharmaceuticals to student debt and political corruption. Unlike democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, who idolizes Eugene Debs, Warren is a capitalist at heart — but has made a career of trying to make it less cruel for working people. Warren ranked first in the DailyKos straw poll at 22 percent, with a seven point margin over Beto O’Rourke.
Previous Ranking: 8
3) Sherrod Brown
The senior senator from Ohio announced he’ll be traveling to the early-voting states on a “Dignity of Work Tour,” and he’s vowed to make a decision on a 2020 run “within a couple months.” A proven Democratic winner in reddening Ohio, Brown is skilled at debunking the lies Trump tells to “Trump Country” and able to connect with working class voters who are white and of color. In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Brown touted a proposal to boost the incomes of 47 million lower-wage Americans with a $1.4 trillion expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, a wage subsidy. Like Sanders, he’s a champion of labor and a prescient critic of the dangers of unfettered free trade. The 66-year-old’s voice may be raspy and his wardrobe rumpled, but Brown is a persuasive campaigner — his messaging aided by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and wife Connie Schultz.
Previous Ranking: 6
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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/2020-democrat-candidates-771735/
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