Making Ideas Matter.
In today’s Roll Call, the Winston Group’s David Winston takes a look at some of the key takeaways from Super Tuesday and what they might mean for the Democratic primaries going forward.
The exit polls in the Super Tuesday and South Carolina contests paint a clear picture of Joe Biden’s winning strategy: He appealed to voters who saw themselves as somewhat liberal, winning that group in 10 of the 13 contests in which there were exit polls.
Read the full piece here.
By David Winston and Myra Miller
Since Joe Biden’s stunning reversal of fortune coming out of South Carolina and into Super Tuesday, much has been said about Biden “consolidating the moderate lane,” now that Buttigieg, Bloomberg and Klobuchar have dropped out and endorsed him. He may have consolidated the moderate lane of presidential candidates and re-emerged as the frontrunner over Sanders, but this doesn’t mean that the Democratic Party has suddenly become more moderate again in the past week.
As we have raised in Discussion Points before, a majority of Democratic voters are now self-identifying as liberal (51%) over moderate (38%) – a stark contrast to the composition of the party when Democrats won the majority in 2006 in which the party was more moderate (51%) than liberal (38%). Ever since then, the Democratic Party’s steady trajectory toward identifying as liberal over moderate has not changed. What happened in states like South Carolina and many other Super Tuesday states is that Biden won liberals overall, or at least performed well enough among liberal voters, particularly among “somewhat liberal” voters, then won by large margins among moderates to be able to pull off a win.
In South Carolina, exit polls show that Biden won among liberals (+17), including “very liberal” (+13), matching that with a large victory among moderates (+44). In states like Texas, Massachusetts and Minnesota, Sanders still won the overall liberal vote by single digits, but Biden was able to win among the “somewhat liberal” and gain a reasonable percentage of liberal voters, combined with large wins among moderates. In Virginia, Biden managed to win among liberals (+16). Though Sanders still won the “very liberal” by 4, Biden won 2:1 among the somewhat liberal, which was a much larger group (34% of the state’s Democratic primary voters) compared to the very liberal (19% of the state’s Democratic primary voters).
As a long term trend among Democratic voters, the moderate lane is becoming more of a shrinking side road, with the liberal lane becoming the main highway toward the Democratic nomination. Biden may have successfully performed among the two wings of his party, but this challenge has certainly not gone away, with implications for their convention, party platform and positioning for the general election.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about Joe Biden’s recent win in South Carolina and its implications going into Super Tuesday.
South Carolina was the first big inflection point of the primary season. It won’t be the last. Each of the top campaigns went into Super Tuesday with an advantage. For Mike Bloomberg, it was money. For Sanders, it was organization. For Biden, it was momentum.
Read the full piece here.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the divisions within the Democratic party and 2020:
If the primaries have shown us anything to date it is that the ideological divide within the Democratic Party, embodied by Pelosi’s strained relationship with AOC, is far from a temporary fluke. The party’s shift to the left is real and should not be underestimated.
Read the full piece here.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about the economy and the Democratic Presidential Primary:
“By the time this column is published, New Hampshire will be over. But regardless of who wins the Granite State, or the nomination for that matter, every Democratic candidate has already embraced and is now saddled with an economic message that contradicts the general view of a majority of the electorate.”
Read the full piece here.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about how, through impeachment, Democrats risk undermining voters’ faith in American democracy.
Critics who question the validity of an election without proof ought first to consider the harm an unsubstantiated claim might have on our democratic elections and the faith Americans have placed in them for almost 250 years. This is something both Democrats and Republicans have warned about in the past.
Read the full piece here.
In anticipation of our forthcoming 2020 Democratic Primary debate report, here are the Winston Group analyses of the 2016 primary and general election debates. Take a look, and keep an eye out here for our next report where we will analyze the current Democratic primary debates in anticipation of the 2020 general election.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about whether Democrats have succeeded in convincing voters of the necessity of impeachment:
These numbers don’t mean the electorate’s concerns over the impeachment allegations have disappeared. But with the election just over nine months away, Democrats’ argument for it is steadily losing standing with voters at exactly the wrong time for them.
Read the full piece here.
The Winston Group’s David Winston writes in today’s Roll Call about some of the positives of the last month, despite the impeachment process in the background.
In fact, in contrast to the Democrats’ overwrought warnings, the world continued to turn, the sun came up every morning, and more than a few positives have characterized the last 28 days.
Read the full piece here.
Happy New Year! In his first column of 2020, the Winston Group’s David Winston writes about the Democratic Party’s progressive tilt and the need for both Democrats and Republicans to focus on building majority coalitions for the next elections:
Here’s what AOC and her like-minded progressives don’t seem to understand: That kind of rigid thinking doesn’t build winning coalitions. It’s what loses elections. A fact Republicans ought to remember as well.
Read the full piece here.