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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Largest Presidential Field Ever?

In looking at the list of actual and potential Democratic candidates for president in 2020, I’ve become a bit concerned, and shared some thoughts on the situation at New York:

It’s been obvious for a while that the Democratic presidential field for 2020 is going to be pretty large, and could produce an unexpected nominee, much like the comparably vast Republican field of 2016 that gave us our very strange 45th president. But as Nate Silver explains, this could be the largest presidential field in any one party since the advent of near-universal state primaries and caucuses made announced candidacies all but essential for anyone wanting to become a major-party nominee.

Silver counts nine announced candidates with at least potentially viable profiles (plus one, Richard Ojeda, who announced and then dropped out), and then another 12 that he figures are more likely than not to run in the end. So even without such remote possibilities as New Yorkers Michael Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, and Andrew Cuomo, or retreads John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, or House backbenchers Tim Ryan and Seth Moulton, we are likely looking at the largest presidential field ever.

The largest Democratic fields up until now were in 1972 (15 candidates) and 1976 (16 candidates). Those two cycles, interestingly enough, produced the least likely Democratic nominees in recent memory, the ideologically marginal (by contemporary standards) George McGovern and then the very obscure one-term Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. McGovern, as you probably know, lost 49 states; Carter narrowly won what was supposed to be a Democratic slam dunk by putting together an unusual coalition rooted in the Deep South, a region where Democrats had not done well at all since 1960. So neither nominating contest went the way most party elites would have preferred, for sure.

So it’s reasonably safe to say that very large presidential fields have more often than not led to defeat and/or eccentric nominees. They’ve also often produced nominees who didn’t get anything close to a majority of the popular vote in the primaries, which was less problematic back when Democrats didn’t have the kind of strict proportionality in delegate awards that they do now. As Silver observes:

“The three past elections when the field was as large as its shaping up to be in 2020 all resulted in party elites failing to get their way. They also resulted in a nominee who failed to get 50 percent of the popular vote in the primaries, which could yield a contested convention since Democratic delegate allocation rules are highly proportional to the popular vote. In a field of 20 candidates, for instance, you’d project … that the eventual nominee would have either 32 percent or 40 percent of the popular vote, depending on whether you use a linear or logarithmic trendline.”

Yikes.

Now it’s also entirely possible that a giant field could get “winnowed” early on, as it was among Republicans in 2000 (when George W. Bush basically had a one-on-one fight with John McCain after New Hampshire) and among Democrats in 2008 (when Obama and Clinton largely stood alone after New Hampshire). If, say, Biden and Sanders both run and rout the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, a lot of candidates might quickly drop out. But as Silver notes, the size of the field itself represents a pretty big bet by a lot of people that nobody’s going to run away with this thing.

 

 

One comment on “Largest Presidential Field Ever?

  1. Candace on

    this looks like a good start for shrinking that list.

    “The DNC just said how it will pick candidates to be in presidential debates”

    https://www.vox.com/2019/2/14/18225341/dnc-tom-perez-debates-2020-president

    Additionally there needs to be some attention given to views on Foreign Policy because that tends to decide elections. (so sooner than later to avoid any surprises) Because the majority of Americans are not indifferent to going to war or how we treat the rest of the world even if it looks like we only think about it every four years. How likely is this person to get us into another war or get us out of what we’re currently in?
    I’d like to hear something about our military bases and the weapons industry too. Is there any financial/business incentives to convert or shrink it into something else?

    Candidates could make the best of our ridiculously long election season and send out the long posts so we can get to know them. Respond to some comments. (hopefully moderators will be present)
    And then we can make decisions on what we think about they say on our own.

    Reply

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