Independent Voters Will Decide the 2020 Election.

[MineralMan]

It is that simple. Regardless of who the Democratic nominee is, Trump will probably be the Republican nominee. That guarantees him at least 30% of the vote. Maybe 40%. That should make it easy for the Democrat to defeat him, but no. There's a large bloc of voters out there who don't align themselves with either party, and their votes will make the difference, once again.

So, how do we court those independent voters? That should be a big part of our decision-making during the primaries. Who are they? Where do they stand? What are their crucial issues?

Well, some are on the far left. They won't vote for Trump, but they might just stay home if the Democratic nominee doesn't woo them adequately enough. Some are on the far right, or are libertarians. They don't like anyone. But, they do vote, but might well vote for whatever third-party candidate catches their fancy. Someone like Tulsi Gabbard might well draw them, should she opt for a third party run. Others are apathetic, and believe that it doesn't really matter. Some others are waiting to be wooed properly by one side or the other.

Those are the people who will decide who the next President will be. Not us. We'll vote for the Democratic candidate. At least the vast majority of us will, anyhow. Some of us didn't in the last election, to our dismay. But we're not enough to elect a President. We're just not. It's those hard-to-define independents who will end up choosing our next President.

We'd better start thinking about that pretty soon and let that help us make our choices in the primary polling booths.

I'm just saying...

[empedocles]

1. Yep. We also need 'coattails'

[MineralMan]

2. Yes. Yes, we do.

The nominee we select is going to need to be able to not only get those independents to vote for him or her. They're going to need to vote for Democrats on every line of their ballot. We should try to choose a nominee who can get them to do that, I think.