ELECTION WATCH: The State of the Race l Shlomo Rudman

Voters will begin going to the polls to cast their votes for the candidate they support in just a few months, and the the race for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 has taken some interesting turns in recent days. Several candidates, including Beto O’Rourke who was seen as an early frontrunner, dropped out.

And new polls show presumed frontrunner Joe Biden trailing his rivals in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote for their preferred choice for the Democratic nomination. A New York Times/Siena College poll shows Biden coming in a dismal fourth place in Iowa, trailing Elizabeth Warren (22%), Bernie Sanders (19%), and Pete Buttigieg (18%) with support of 17%. In New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders is leading the pack with 21% support, followed by Warren with 18% and then Biden with just 15%. The former vice president is also trailing his main rivals in fundraising numbers and his campaign is experiencing a severe cash crunch, which forced Biden to reverse his position on accepting donations from SuperPACs, which he was long opposed to. The numbers show that Biden’s campaign is fading, while Warren is now possibly the person to beat in the quest for the nomination.

But Warren’s lead might not last long either. On Friday, Warren released her plan to pay for her much-touted Medicare For All proposal, which would abolish private health insurance in favor of a single-payer health care system. Her plan calls for the raising of $20.5 trillion in funds from businesses and billionaires to fund her idea to restructure America’s health care system. Warren was immediately attacked for her plan, with Biden accusing her of “mathematical gymnastics” to achieve her goal. Numerous pundits and economists also called her plan ridiculous, saying it was impractical and would never happen. Moreover, some economists believe that restructuring the entire system would require spending at least $34 trillion. Bernie Sanders, the father of the Medicare For All plan, has admitted that paying for the plan would require taxes on middle-class families to be raised, a notion most Americans are not in support of.

Bernie Sanders is also under increased scrutiny for not releasing any details regarding his Medicare For All plan. Sanders said that now is not the time to get into the nitty-gritty of the details, a comment that has rivals and critics saying that he is not serious and is playing games with American voters.

Meanwhile, South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg told reporters that he sees the race as being between just him and Warren, a claim many say is presumptuous. Buttigieg also has a serious lack of support from blacks, an issue which can derail his candidacy or potentially cost him in the general election, if he made it that far.

The Democratic nomination is far from locked up. It still remains to be seen who will be able to break away from the pack to secure enough primary and caucus win to secure the nomination. As of now, it looks like the nominee will be either Biden, Warren, Sanders, or Buttigieg. But it is, of course, possible that a different candidate, possibly NJ Senator Cory Booker, will be able to lift themselves in the polls and take the lead. But if things remain as they are, we will probably need to wait until the Super Tuesday primaries to see who the true frontrunner is.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Bernie doesn’t want to get into details now because he admitted he will raise taxes on the middle class, but doesn’t want to tell us by how much or we will never vote for him or his plan.

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