The NPR Politics Podcast - Despite Establishment Worries, Voters Are Excited About Democratic Primary Field

Episode Date: October 24, 2019

Democratic donors and activists worry that the party is going to nominate someone who can't win next year, and they're musing about who else could be out there. Newsflash: This is probably it. This episode: political correspondent Scott Detrow, political correspondent Asma Khalid, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Nancy from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where I just took my son to his first apple orchard and we're both enjoying the beautiful fall weather. Thankfully, he's still at an age that he doesn't mind me listening to the politics podcast while we're driving around. This podcast was recorded at... That sounds like a great afternoon. It's 115 Eastern on Thursday, October 24th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this.

Thanks and enjoy the show. Fall is awesome. That's one of the big reasons I love the fall. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the campaign. I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today we're going to check in on the 2020 Democratic primary and we begin the show with some breaking news. Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan has ended his presidential campaign. Domenico, Ryan had tried to carve out that Midwest working class niche in the field, but never really got past the edge of the debate stage. Yeah. And he's somebody who, I remember, challenged Nancy Pelosi for the speakership,

and he's really fought against the sort of lurch to liberalism that the party has taken over the last decade. Despite being an avid yoga-er. That is true, that he does have a little bit of that Marianne Williamson kind of stuff in him. But he, you know, also does believe that you have to talk about those sort of issues in the middle of the country. And I think it's indicative of the fact that, you know, there wasn't a lot of space for that in this primary. And it's also hard when you're not on the debate stage. And Tim Ryan is somebody who

didn't make the debate stages the last couple of times. It's just hard to get your message out, hard to fundraise. Tim Ryan, bye-bye-bye. And actually, there's been a lot of conversation among Democratic elites this week, at least, about concern that that exact type of voter, the working class Midwest voter, is not really within the reach of the Democratic Party right now. Domenico, this is kind of the annual, every election, Democratic hand-wringing season, isn't it? This is always what happens. Something about the fall is not just about apple picking and pumpkin patches. It's also the time for Democratic hand-wringing. They are asking

questions. They're wondering about this field. They're very concerned about people like Joe Biden because he's had spotty debate performances. His fundraising has been lackluster, only has $9 million cash on hand. They're concerned about Elizabeth Warren, who's the other sort of co-frontrunner with Biden because she's taken this position on Medicare for all that a lot of party establishment leaders feel like is not palatable to a general election audience. And they're nervous. They're wringing their hands over it. So Domingo, I want to pause you for a sec, because when you keep saying they're nervous, or the Democrats are nervous, to be clear, you're talking about sort

of elite party chair people or donors, right? Because this is not at all what I hear when I go out and talk to rank and file voters. They seem pretty excited. Yeah. And that's what I'm talking about. Party leaders, you know, the kinds of people who've been Democratic National Committee members, the people who are invested in the structure, the House of the Democratic Party doing well next November. But Asma, I think that's a good point you made, though, and we've talked about this a lot. You and I are out there covering the primary. We both covered a Democratic primary where, frankly, Democratic enthusiasm was not at a historic high. And I would say that this feels so much different. It does. And, you know, we can just look at rally after rally that Elizabeth Warren has, where people will wait in hours to take a picture with her on their cell phone. You can look at Bernie Sanders the other day bringing out more than 20,000 people in New York City.

Fair enough. But still, that's, you know, huge crowds to be having at this point. And to me, one of the clearest signs was I was at the New Hampshire State Democratic Party Convention. And the chairperson there told me that they had never had as many people attend their state party convention as they had this year. Dominica, what do you make of this disparity? Well, first of all, I mean, there's always going to be some disparity between what party leaders feel and what rank and file Democrats feel. But I do think that Asma's point is a great one. The fact that there is such a difference, even when you talk anecdotally out on the campaign trail, but also in the data. Pew had a poll earlier this summer, showed that 65%

of Democratic voters rate the field, the current field is either excellent or good. That's 14 points higher than it was in 2016. And it's about on pace with what it was in 2007, 2008, when you had the blockbuster primary of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And Asma, it's also so interesting to me that so many elite Democrats, Democratic leaders, whatever you want to call it, are so dissatisfied in a field that has been pared down to 18. It was two dozen at one point. You have someone who could be the oldest president ever elected, the youngest president ever elected, men, women, all sorts of diversity, all sorts of a wide range of candidates running. I mean, I guess I get, though, what, Dominica, you're saying to some degree.

And it seems to be that party leadership, maybe donors, they're looking for a unicorn. And you can look at 2008 and Barack Obama, what kind of was a unicorn, right? He was able to attract voters from the middle of the country as well as African-American voters. He could pull that coalition together. And when you look at the field now, I think there is some truth to the argument that no single candidate maybe can do that. Yeah, but and yet let's go back in the time machine.

You know, 2007, 2008, you had party leaders saying they didn't think that a young black Democrat who is inexperienced could beat a war hero. So, you know, they do this almost every cycle. I actually have a personal theory I've been thinking a lot about and been more and more convinced of this year, that if you look at like the 70s and 80s and how that was a really bad era for Democrats, except for right after Watergate, I'm starting to wonder if it's because so many party leaders and so many people analyzing races were like, well, this person's no JFK, that person's no JFK. And you just have this once in a generation iconic figure that everyone was compared to. And I wonder if Democrats are just having a hard time not being Barack Obama, despite the own strengths that they bring to this primary.

We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about how Democrats are responding to this this urgency and uncertainty from from leaders and arguing about the best way that they can win next fall. This message comes from NPR sponsor ZipRecruiter. Hiring can be a slow process. Cafe Altura COO Dylan Miskiewicz needed to hire a director of coffee. So he went to ZipRecruiter, posted his job, and found the right person in just a few days. Find out why four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter

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Listen and subscribe to Life Kit, All Guides. Okay, and we are back. Asma, let's talk about a speech that Cory Booker gave in Washington, D.C. this week responding to all of this. So those Democrats who are looking for an alternative now, I want to make the case today very directly that look no further. And Asma, he went on to talk about something that we've reported a lot about, and that's concern from a lot of campaigns that this focus on winning back elusive, you know, white working class voters in the Midwest in those three states that gave Trump the presidency misses a really big point. We also win back the Midwest by turning out black voters in Milwaukee, in Detroit, and Philadelphia who didn't vote at all. There was a serious diminution of African American

turnout between 2016 to 2012. If blacks had voted at the same rate in 2016 as they had voted in 2012, we would have a President Hillary Clinton right now. What do we make of this particular electability argument? I mean, his last point is incredibly, incredibly valid. If you look at just a state like Wisconsin that President Trump won, I believe black turnout when we saw some of the post-election analysis looked like it dropped by 20 percentage points in Wisconsin. Worth pointing out, there was an enthusiasm gap.

There was also a new voter ID law that may have contributed to that. Yes, that is true. And so we saw such a precipitous decline that what Booker is saying is valid. And I would argue that, yeah, you know, when you look at sort of popular conversations about winning back the Midwest, I do think there's sometimes a narrative maybe that the way to do that is you've got to win back these white working class voters who supported maybe President Obama in 2008 and then went for President Trump in 2016. My issue with what he is suggesting, though,

is that somehow he may be the best candidate to do that when by and large we see, in fact, Joe Biden seems to have the largest base of support amongst black voters. Very broad, very consistent. You know, and what a former Republican House Speaker, John Boehner used to say, he used to say, if if some butts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a wonderful Christmas, right? I mean, that was something he would say all the time about, you know, what if this could have happened if that could have happened? The fact here is that it's not a choice between

one or the other. The Obama coalition, so to speak, which I don't necessarily think any of these candidates is going to be able to win by trying to put that coalition back together again. None of them is going to be the first black candidate. None of them is going to be from Illinois to be able to win over those Midwestern voters. They have to find a different way to do it. And Booker is right that there was a decline for black voters who came out in Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia. That's very important. There was also a number of white working class voters who went from Obama voters to Trump voters. All of those things are true, and Democrats are going to have to try to find ways to get at at least parts of both of those those buckets. And I think the most important factor that is often forgotten is that Trump won

by the narrowest of narrow margins in those three states. Less than 80,000 votes in three states. I think a lot of this angst bubble, if you will, has to do with the fact that that Joe Biden's campaign has shown some serious vulnerabilities in the last few months, even as we talk about his steady lead in the polls. I mean, that real dip in fundraising, among many other factors. So one of the things that Mara Eliason likes to say is that there's like the Biden understudy primary forming, right, of candidates positioning themselves to be in that more moderate centrist lane. One of them is Pete Buttigieg. I spent some time with him out in Iowa right after the debates.

And I think he has a real surprising strength in Iowa right now. He's got a ton of volunteers. He's got a ton of organizational structure and excitement to get people out knocking on doors for him. But most importantly, he has more than $20 million in the bank to spend on ads in Iowa.

And he's been doing that, airing ads on TV there. Dominica, who else do you think is in this conversation as we think about that? But just to pause on that, I mean, that's a huge bank of money. It's really important. Running those ads has correlated with his rise in the polls. So people talk about money in politics, and you're going to need that money, especially going up against the juggernaut that the Trump campaign is. I mean, to your question, Scott, of who else would be a Biden understudy, it is essentially Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. And and look, I would make the argument that in some ways maybe they have a more compelling case to actually peel away some of where Joe Biden's support is.

And I say this because overwhelmingly, Joe Biden gets a lot of support from black voters. I actually think that Pete Buttigieg is trying to kind of form this interesting cross section of of a middle between Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. And you routinely will meet people at Warren rallies who tell you that they also like Pete Buttigieg. There is a lot of overlap amongst the sort of white liberal college educated voter. And my argument, I would say, is look, Pete Buttigieg used to espouse more publicly liberal positions on the campaign trail about changing the courts. I don't know that he is as openly or as loudly talking about some of those more progressive positions. So we're a bit more than three months to go before Iowa.

That is in many ways a very long period of time, but in many ways not a long period of time at all. I mean, all the campaigns, especially the campaigns who aren't leading, talk about Iowa breaks late. You can surge at the last minute and win. Domenico, when do you think that movement has to begin if you are going to make a serious run at winning Iowa? This past summer. I think, you know, you got to build the offices. You've got to make the

contacts as a candidate. You've got to have the staffing and organization because the difference between the Iowa caucuses and other places is that you literally physically have to win over people in a room and get them to come to your corner. To be able to do that, you need lots of precinct captains, lots of people in all of those places. That's going to take money. That's going to take organization. That's going to take heart. And we know the candidates that have the kind of heart and the willingness behind them. We know the candidates that have the money and we know the candidates who can run TV ads. One thing I would say to people is that polling is one thing, and it's great,

but look at the organization, look at how many touches they have in those states, in Iowa in particular. Usually the person who's been campaigning the most in Iowa outperforms their polls. All right, that is it for today. Two big things happen tomorrow. First of all, the World Series returns to Washington, D.C. for the first time since 1933. And secondly, more having to do with us here, is that we will have our weekly roundup rounding up the week's news

and also what we can't let go of this week. Until then, you can check us out at npr.org and on your local public radio station. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the campaign. I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.