DEMocracy 2020: January 2019 Update (First Impressions)

Presidential elections are one of my favorite things about politics, so I'm excited to see that the 2020 race has already begun! I'm still considering an overall title for this strand of articles. Right now, I'm going with "DEMocracy 2020" because of the emphasis the Democrats will have on this cycle, but I am open to changes for sure.

Anyway, the last time I wrote anything for this blog, Corey Stewart had just won the Virginia Republican Primary for Tim Kaine's Senate seat (Spoiler Alert: Tim Kaine won in a landslide). Since then, Democrats took the House and Republicans surprisingly gained seats in the Senate, ushering in a new era of divided government, which began WITHOUT a functioning government as the 35-day partial government shutdown became the longest in US History. It's extremely apparent that things in Washington have become more polarized than ever before. But, as Oprah Winfrey said back in 2017, "a new day is on the horizon." What is that day, you ask? November 3rd, 2020.

Beginning this month, I will be keeping a close eye on the 2020 Presidential race, which has already begun. Election Day 2020 is only 642 days away (as of 1/31/2019), and we have had many candidates declare either a presidential bid or an exploratory committee. My current plan is that on the final day of each month, I will give a brief synopsis of each newly-declared candidate and my first impressions of them. Once the debates begin and the field is set, I also plan to give "power rankings" of those candidates and how I think they will perform against each other. I will also discuss any headlines that are important to that particular month, such as town halls, debates, gaffes (do those exist anymore?), and such. The Democratic Primary is expected to be even more crowded than the 17 Republicans that ran for their party's nomination in 2016 (I believe the number of Democrats expected to run is closer to 30, but I honestly believe the number will only hover around the 20 mark, which is still a very large field of candidates).

As for MY current scenario: I am open to anything, but the only thing I am certain about is that I have decided AGAINST supporting President Donald Trump in 2020. In fact, I will never vote for him or any other Trump-like Republican ever again. I can explain this in more detail in another post, but the summarized version is that Donald Trump's immaturity, racism, and divisiveness is enough for me to not vote for him. To this day, I still regret voting for him in 2016 because I had absolutely no idea how horrible of a President he would be. Anyway, my current plan is to support a Republican challenger in the slim chance that one emerges (please run, John Kasich!). If a Republican challenger does not emerge, I will most likely support the Democratic nominee. I have always considered myself a libertarian-leaning Republican, but due to the takeover of the alt-right, I can no longer in good faith consider myself a Republican until the Republican Party returns to the roots of less government and economic freedom that were apparent before Trump took over. The current Republican Party is NOT the one I used to associate myself with, and if things keep going in this direction, there won't be a Republican Party for much longer.

I'll start with my first impressions of each of the candidates:

2020 Presidential Candidates: Republican

1) President Donald J. Trump



Currently, the only Republican to declare their candidacy is President Donald J. Trump, which should surprise nobody. It is extremely unlikely that this will change at all unless Trump faces impeachment (which is looking more likely as the days progress). We know that Trump is the clear frontrunner of the Republican nomination AND the General Election; incumbent presidents have a built-in advantage when running for re-election, and I believe that unless something HUGE happens between now and November 3rd, the race will be closer than we think. For some odd reason, Trump's popularity among Republicans is very high at 80 percent while among all voters, his approval rating is 39 percent according to the Washington Examiner.

2) Vice President Mike Pence



I kid...unless Trump is impeached. Then expect him to run.

2020 Declared Presidential Candidates: Democratic

1) Former Rep. John Delaney



Do you know who this is? If not, I don't blame you. This guy has been running for President since 2017 and has little to no name recognition. I fully expect him to drop out before the Iowa caucuses begin next February. There's even a chance he'll only be in one or two debates.

2) Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro



You've probably heard of this guy at least once or twice. He served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama and has often been seen on Democratic VP lists (he was a top contender for the VP position during Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, but as we all know, she eventually chose Sen. Tim Kaine). From his campaign announcement alone, I expect Castro to run as an unapologetic supporter of immigrants coming to the United States. This will be notable if he wins the nomination; he could gather votes by bashing against Trump's border wall and his other abhorrent policies on immigration, such as separating children from their families and locking them up in cages. During his campaign announcement, he framed himself as an "Obama" candidate who supports Medicaid for All, the Green New Deal, and a pathway to citizenship. Even though he is a longshot candidate, I expect Castro to do a lot better than the mainstream media is predicting. Because he is the only Latino candidate expected to run, I think he will gain a fair amount of support and he'll be able to separate himself from much of the pack.

3) Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)



Honestly, Gabbard is one of my favorite candidates to run so far on the Democratic side. The biggest thing I appreciate is her non-intervention foreign policy plan, which means she doesn't want to go to war with every country like many in the Trump Administration do. I think it will be difficult for her to gain any traction, however, because in a Democratic primary, Gabbard is going to have a lot of difficulty addressing her past LGBTQ comments and her meeting with Syrian Leader Bashar al-Assad. She has apologized for her past views to the LGBTQ community and she has defended her meeting with Assad by saying she went through with the meeting because if she can find a solution to end the violent conflict in the country, she will do whatever it takes to bring peace. That's something I can support, and she's my current choice so far until Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders enter the race (if a Republican challenger does not run, I will more than likely support either Biden or Bernie, but it's too early to tell which of the two has my support at the moment).

4) Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA)



I believe that Sen. Kamala Harris is the clear frontrunner so far, in my opinion. She was asked by CNN to be the first candidate to participate in a town hall, which I believe helped her gain national attention since it was CNN's most-viewed town hall ever (Trump holds the record for a Fox News town hall because of obvious reasons). She's also a very young candidate who is running off of her record as California's Attorney General and her early Senate years. Oh, and she's also an African-American AND a woman. Based on identity politics ALONE, she has been able to separate herself from the pack even though she's only been in the race for a little more than a week. Announcing on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was also a smart move for her because it was one of the biggest news stories of the day and it paid tribute to Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American candidate for a major party's nomination and the first woman to run for the Democratic nomination. Expect Kamala Harris to dominate the news cycle until Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders eventually jump into the race.

2020 Exploratory Committees

Some candidates have not announced their candidacies but have instead announced that they have filed exploratory committees. This means that potential candidates file these committees so that they can continue to coordinate with their PACs, which cannot be done once you file your candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. Basically, these potential candidates wish to raise a ton of money through their PACs before they begin an official run, giving them a bigger war chest to spread their message and attack other candidates once they sever ties with their PACs. We only have three candidates so far with this status.

1) Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)



Sen. Elizabeth Warren is by far one of the biggest names in the race. Expect Warren and Bernie Sanders to fight for support once they both declare their candidacies since they are both farther-left candidates. I honestly hope that Warren drops out before the Iowa caucuses and endorses Bernie Sanders because I have a feeling that Bernie has the best chance of defeating Donald Trump in the general election. But anyhow, Warren had an odd rollout once she chose to host a livestream on Instagram soon after her announcement; this was odd because she was drinking beer and hanging out with her husband in her kitchen, which looked like a really bad attempt to appeal to the younger Democrats. It took me back to Hillary Clinton's "Pokemon Go To The Polls" gaffe, which was very cringeworthy and showed that she did not know how to appeal to the younger generation that well. It's very ironic how Bernie Sanders does a much better job than both Warren and Clinton at appealing to younger voters considering he's pretty much an old man; he appeals to them well because he strictly talks policy and doesn't try to act "cool," which is all that the younger generation wants to hear. Anyway, she recently proposed a new "wealth tax" that taxes the top 1% of American families, which actually isn't a bad idea because it will raise trillions of dollars and it could help alleviate stress in areas such as student loans. It also only affects 75,000 households and the odds are if you are reading this post, you will not have to pay this tax at all. Even though I hope Warren drops out to support Bernie, I expect Warren to stick around for a while and be one of the top contenders throughout the Democratic nomination fight.

2) Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)



Like Warren, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand had an interesting committee rollout. She announced that she was filing an exploratory committee with the full intention of running for President on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which is an odd place to announce that you wish to be the most powerful person in the world (for the record, I think Colbert is one of the funniest and smartest people on television, so anytime Colbert is in the picture, I tend to enjoy whatever is going on). Soon after her announcement on Colbert, the reaction was mostly negative because people were still angry at Gillibrand for being the first person to pressure Sen. Al Franken to resign when he had his time under the #MeToo spotlight. Franken was widely expected to be a frontrunner in the 2020 Presidential Election until this scandal, which basically ended not only his presidential hopes but his political career altogether. It was a slightly hypocritical move for Gillibrand to pressure him to resign because in America, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and Franken had to resign in shame even though he was never proven guilty (in Gillibrand's defense, there were pictures of Franken groping another woman, but the move nevertheless creates a horrible precedent for the #MeToo movement). I expect Gillibrand to talk about the #MeToo movement a lot during her campaign, and I expect it to blow up in her face. I do not think Gillibrand will be able to separate herself from the pack all that well because she is seen by many as another Hillary Clinton, which is exactly what the Democratic Party does NOT want right now.

3) Mayor Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, IA)



I'm going to be completely honest about Pete Buttigieg. I like him a lot. I don't know much about him at all, but he seems like a genuinely good guy who wants to make America a better place. I plan to write a separate post about each candidate's records once I am able to research them, but from what I have heard, Buttigieg has done a good job running a city of about 100,000 people. It is also important to note that he would be the first openly gay president in the slim chance that he was to win the election. He would also be the youngest president ever and once he announces, he will be the youngest in the field at 37 years old. Buttigieg's committee announcement was barely covered by the mainstream media, so I hope they do a better job at covering his official candidacy announcement whenever that may be. I look forward to learning more about him and I hope he sticks around for a long while. Considering he is the first ever openly gay Democratic presidential candidate, I have a feeling that he will be a dark horse in the race.

Headlines



These are just a few quick headlines regarding the election that caught my eye in the month of January.

1. Richard Ojeda becomes the first presidential candidate to drop out of the race. He was only in the race for about two months, but he decided to end his campaign because he was not getting any coverage and he did not want people donating to a campaign that would not get off the ground. I'm sad that he dropped out because he promised to be a different voice within the party; he tended to care about teachers more than most of the other candidates, making it one of the central topics of his campaign. I hope he endorses Bernie Sanders once he announces. 
2. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announces that he is considering an independent run for President. I seriously hope that he reconsiders, as this move splits the Democratic vote and  hands the election over to Trump. His best move would be to either run as a Democrat or not at all. I hope he chooses the latter because he has received nothing but hate from most people since the 60 Minutes interview. 
3. Former Sen. Jeff Flake announced that he would not be challenging Trump in the 2020 Republican Primary, but he hoped that someone will. I hope that someone does, too, because the President and the Republican Party both need wake-up calls that say that the party's current route is a bad one and that they are killing off any hopes of gaining younger voters with their bigoted and racist policies. I hope John Kasich runs because he has the highest name recognition of all of the prospective challengers. Also, we only need ONE candidate to challenge Trump because we will repeat 2016's mistake if there are more than one, meaning that multiple challengers will split the vote amongst each other and Trump will win the nomination easily. 
4. Hillary Clinton was rumored to be mulling another run, but as of January 30th, her old campaign manager John Podesta put those rumors to rest by announcing that she will not be running again. Good. We don't need her anymore; the Democratic Party needs something different, and it will be up to the Democratic voters to determine what that will be. 

I hope you have enjoyed my take on the 2020 Presidential Election thus far! I can't wait to see how this cycle unfolds. It will be one of the most consequential ones for sure. Feel free to let me know what you think; I'm always happy to hear other's opinions!

In Liberty,

Jacob Stech