Presidential Race 2020: Let’s Check In

Well, well–here we are again. The vicious election cycle seems to move quickly, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it seem like the 2016 election happened yesterday; that it is a not too distant memory? I’m sure many of us can remember that night quite vividly. I was drowning my sorrows in beer and sitting in a hot tub to relieve stress on that chilly November night.

Anyway, I digress.

While the 2020 election is still off in the future, it’s really not that far away. Less than a year. Just think about that for a second.

As we’re all aware there is a large pool of Democratic candidates vying for the spot of Presidential candidate. In fact, it’s believed to be the largest field for any American political party since 1972; it exceeds the field of 17 major candidates that sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 (yeah, remember them?).

After the 2016 election many believed the Democrats needed to be more unified; to bring leadership to a fractured party. Is that happening now? Opinions on that appear to be split, but it doesn’t help that there are so many candidates. Can’t they make up their minds?

As a refresher here are the candidates as it stands now: Michael Bennet (senator from Colorado), Joe Biden (former Vice President, former senator from Delaware), Cory Booker (senator from New Jersey), Steve Bullock (Governor of Montana), Pete Buttigieg (Mayor of South Bend, Indiana), Julián Castro (former Mayor of San Antonio, Texas), John Delaney (Congressman from Maryland), Tulsi Gabbard (Congresswoman from Hawaii), Kamala Harris (Senator from California), Amy Klobuchar (Senator from Minnesota), Wayne Messam (Mayor of Miramar, Florida), Deval Patrick (former governor of Massachusetts), Bernie Sanders (Senator from Vermont), Joe Sestak (Congressman from Pennsylvania), Tom Steyer (hedge fund manager), Elizabeth Warren (Senator from Massachusetts), Marianne Williamson (author), and Andrew Yang (entrepreneur).

Phew, let’s take a deep breath.

The top polling candidates appear to be Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang, Amy Klobuchar, and Cory Booker (in that order). Other favorites Beto O’Rourke and Kirsten Gillibrand have already dropped out of the race. And Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, has publicly expressed interest in entering the race.

Ok, now we’re all caught up. You can watch the debate tomorrow night, November 20, at 9 p.m. I’m thinking of doing more posts on where the candidates stand on individual issues. My first one will be college/education. What issues do you want to see?

The Sad Clown

It started out as a joke but now nobody is laughing. I’m referring to Donald J. Trump of course. The Republican presidential candidate has surprised (maybe that’s too soft of a word) us all as he continues to lead in the polls. After his Super Tuesday wins, it seems likely, or rather, scary, that he will win the nomination.

What is Super Tuesday? The presidential primaries held March 1 occurred in 11 states. Here are the full results. In the Democrat primaries, Hilary Clinton took the lead, winning seven states, and Bernie Sanders won four (not surprisingly his home state Vermont, and what journalists are calling surprising: Oklahoma).

Trump won seven states, Ted Cruz three (including home state Texas), and Marco Rubio one (Minnesota).

Prior to Super Tuesday, there have been three primaries, held in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Trump won New Hampshire and South Carolina. Historically speaking, the candidate that won those states went on to win the party nomination. Are you still laughing?

On the Democrat side, Clinton won Iowa and Sanders won New Hampshire. It seemed as if Sanders was catching up to the Clinton campaign, but that was shot down now after Super Tuesday. It seems likely Clinton will take the nomination.

Will there be any more surprises? There are many primaries to come, and only time will tell.

2016 Election: Too Soon to Tell

November 3 marked Election Day this year, which means there is still a little less than a year left until the 2016 Presidential Election. There has already been three Republican debates and two Democratic debates. The poll numbers are coming in, and there are candidates at the top. But is all of that indicative of how the real numbers will play out? Can we predict who will be the chosen candidate for each party now? It seems the answer is, probably not.

According to this (excellent) article, the poll numbers right now don’t show the opinions of the vast majority of Republicans. So even though Donald Trump is leading the polls, it’s actually not showing what many Republicans are thinking. Good news!

There are still a lot of candidates (14) vying for the Republican nomination, and the Democrats are still down to only two choices, Hilary Clinton or Bernie Sanders (although Martin O’Malley still has a seat at the table, and many people are speculating he will run as Vice President). Let’s see who has dropped out. On the Republican side Bobby Jindal recently suspended his campaign on November 17, and Scott Walker also dropped. Good riddance! On the Democrat side, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee left, most likely due to their poor performance at the first Democratic debate.

The series of presidential primary elections and caucuses are scheduled to take place between February and June of 2016. Until then, it’s too soon to tell.

2016 Presidential Election: Who’s In, Who’s Out?

The run for president wages on and there have been some changes, minor though they are. For the original list of candidates, scroll down a bit. So, who’s in and who’s out? The biggest news is that Republican candidate Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, has dropped out of the race. Why did he drop? Those glasses aren’t fooling anyone Perry! After he received poor performance ratings in the polls after the first GOP debate on Fox News, he suspended his campaign and then ultimately dropped out on September 11. He is the first to exit.

Well, hmm, I guess that’s pretty much it. But! What’s interesting is those Democrats who have showed interest in running. They are: Joe Biden, Andrew Cuomo, and Al Gore. And, maybe, Michael Bloomberg. Biden and Gore are/were Vice Presidents. And Cuomo and Bloomberg have ties to New York. Verrrry interesting. For more on this: look here.

Hey, what’s a primary?

The race for president is like Shoots and Ladders: they climb, they slide, and then they are out. How do we arrive with two candidates, one Republican and one Democrat? The process is lengthy and complicated. The ultimate decision is made at the party’s National Convention. To help the party decide on their candidate, they look at the results of the primary elections or the caucus from each state. Am I getting this right? Who knows!

Primary elections and caucuses happen at different times, and take place from February to June. To find out when to vote Democrat in your state, click here (and scroll down). Now, to add more confusion, each state has open or closed primaries which means you can or cannot vote according to your registered party. This is listed on the right-hand column.This means if you want to vote for a different party, you only have a certain amount of time to change your registration (or to register!) To make it easier, if you plan on voting for Bernie Sanders, find out here.

OK Fine, Let’s Talk about Donald Trump

Everyone knows who Donald Trump is and everyone knows he is running for president. Alright, great, moving on. Ok fine, let’s talk about Donald Trump. More specifically, the Donald Trump that has been in the news lately. After announcing his run for candidacy, he’s already made stupid comments. First there was his racist remark about Mexico, saying, “[Mexico] are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and their rapists.” This caused an uproar especially, understandably, among the Hispanic population. According to a poll, 61% of Latinos have a “very negative” view of Mr. Trump. Oops! Now, he will take to the battle field (er, I mean Fox News) to debate with 9 other Republican candidates. The big news (and also surprise) is that currently Trump is polling at the lead.

The First Republican Debate

Thursday night will be the first GOP debate of the election season. Ten Republicans in the running will debate each other on Fox News at 9PM. The candidates are: Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie and John Kasich. CNN reports, “In an unusual move backed by the Republican National Committee, Fox decided to rely on national polling data to split the group of contenders in what might have otherwise turned into an unwieldy event.”  This left out popular options like Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore.

Donald Trump will likely be the center of the debate Thursday night, and all eyes and ears will be on him. What will he say? Will he say something stupid again? What are his policy issues? According to the New York Times, his game plan is to basically not take a stand on issues; his campaign website doesn’t even have an issues section. Is he going to wing it? Probably.

What I keep hearing people (and by people I mean my Fox-News watching Conservative co-workers) say is “If Donald Trump wins, I can’t wait until he gets to Washington and tells everyone ‘You’re fired.'” Umm, ok. There are a lot of things wrong with this statement. But mostly, do you really think Trump is going to “fire” these billion dollar corporations that have helped him succeed? No! He’s going to only make them stronger as he “fires” the little guys that actually help the American people, not billionaires.

All I can say is, I’m really shocked that Trump is leading the polls right now. I can only hope this is just a big joke.

Let’s check in on the 2016 Presidential Election

Well, well, what’s going on here? I follow the news but am admittedly not an avid news reader, so it’s time for a check in. What I’ve been hearing so far is there are a butt-load of Republican candidates, Donald Trump is running (again?), and the major Democratic candidates are Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. I said earlier that Hilary seems to be the favored politician, with people talking as if she has already won the Democratic line, however Bernie is pulling ahead and gaining traction and followers, thanks in large part, I think, to social media. This grandpa (or his millennial interns) knows how to create a good Facebook post!

Checking in:

A few more Democrats have joined the race. They are: Lincoln Chafee (former governor of Rhode Island), Martin O’Malley (former governor of Maryland), and Jim Webb (former senator of Virginia). Lots of formers! Not much diversity! It appears that Hilary and Bernie are still the forerunners here. Let’s take a look at their biggest political issues they are running on.

Hilary

Champion for human rights, internet freedom, and rights and opportunities for women and girls, LGBT people and young people all around the globe. So basically she’s like the Oprah of rights; you get a right! you get a right! Everybody gets rights!

Bernie

The big thing for Bernie is the economy. From creating jobs, to exposing income inequality, to getting big money out of politics, he’s all about that $$.

Summary

Okay, so not much has been changing. Indeed, it is still early in the race.

2016 Presidential Election: Let’s Start From the Very Beginning

It’s a very good place to start.

The Basics

So, why will there be an election for the next president of the United States in 2016? President Barack Obama is at the end of his eight-year term limit, after being re-elected (thank god) in 2012. This means that both a Republican and Democratic candidate will run for president in 2016, since there is no incumbent. Even though the election in November is far away, presidential hopefuls have already been announcing their run. Let’s see who we have so far:

Republicans

Ted Cruz, Senator of Texas

Lindsey Graham, Senator of South Carolina

Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas

George Patake, former governor of New York

Rand Paul, Senator of Kentucky

Rick Perry, former governor of Texas

Marco Rubio, Senator of Florida

Rick Santorum, former senator of Pennsylvania

To sum it up: Lots of Southerners! Lots of rich white guys!

Democrats

Hilary Rodham Clinton, former Secretary of State

Bernie Sanders, Senator of Vermont

To sum it up: Diversity! Credential!

Not really sure why there are so many Republican campaigns and only two Democrats? Maybe there’s a reason that I’m not aware of, or maybe there will be more coming in. It seems that Clinton may be the forerunner, and in fact, many people are already talking as if she will be the Democratic Presidential candidate. However, that still needs to be decided at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia from July 25-28.

As it stands now, I would be happy to see both Clinton or Sanders as the candidate. I might be more favorable toward Sanders, though. I’m definitely curious to see who else decides to run (come on, Elizabeth Warren!)

I’m baaack

Decided to try my hand at writing about the 2016 Presidential Election and thought this would be a good place to post. Stay tuned!

-Isabel Braverman