The 2020 Democratic Primary: Key Developments, Dynamics, and Lessons for 2024 (Palgrave Studies in US Elections) 3030755711, 9783030755713

Table of contents :
Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
The Nomination Process
How the 2016 Presidential Election Influenced 2020
Key Questions and Topics
Works Cited
2 Are the Iowa Caucuses Dead?
What Happened in the 2020 Iowa Caucuses
Criticisms of Iowa’s First-in-the-Nation Status
Will Iowa Retain Its First-in-the-Nation Status?
Works Cited
3 Rethinking Joe Biden’s “Resurgence”
The 2020 Primary Results Were Already Evident in 2018
How Much Does the Party Decide?
Lessons for the Future
Works Cited
4 Why Black Voters Chose Biden
Explaining the Black Vote for Biden
Biden on Black Issues
Conclusion
5 Sexism and the 2020 presidential primary
Context of the 2020 Democratic Primary
The Continuity of Sexism in Presidential Politics
The 2020 Primary: A Gendered Process
Primary Rules and Party Factionalism
Gender and the Invisible Primary
The Paradoxes of Gender in the 2020 Primary
Implications for the 2024 Campaign
References
6 Gender and the 2020 Democratic Primary: An Analysis of the Warren/Sanders Battle for the Leftwing of the Democratic Party
Literature Review
Research Design
Endorsements and Media Coverage of Endorsements
Conclusion
Works Cited
7 The Advent of Virtual Party Conventions
Differing Attitudes and Approaches
Old and New
Implications
Works Cited
8 Conclusion
Rethinking the 2020 Primary Process
Experiences with Democratic Factionalism
Looking Toward 2024
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN US ELECTIONS SERIES EDITOR: LUKE PERRY

The 2020 Democratic Primary Key Developments, Dynamics, and Lessons for 2024 Edited by Luke Perry

Palgrave Studies in US Elections

Series Editor Luke Perry, Utica College, Utica, NY, USA

This Pivot series, established in collaboration with the Utica College Center of Public Affairs and Election Research, brings together cuttingedge work in US Politics focused on trends and issues surrounding local, state, and federal elections. Books in this series may cover but are not limited to topics such as voting behavior, campaign management, policy considerations, electoral social movements, and analysis of significant races. While welcoming all projects on US elections within and across all three levels of government, this series proceeds from the truism that all politics is fundamentally local. As such, we are especially interested in research on state and local elections such as mayoral races, gubernatorial races, and congressional elections, with particular focus on how state/local electoral trends influence national electoral politics, and vice versa. This series is open to any relevant scholar and all methodological approaches.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/16164

Luke Perry Editor

The 2020 Democratic Primary Key Developments, Dynamics, and Lessons for 2024

Editor Luke Perry Political Science Utica College Utica, NY, USA

Palgrave Studies in US Elections ISBN 978-3-030-75571-3 ISBN 978-3-030-75572-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Bitboxx.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to everyone harmed in the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack on U.S. Capitol.

Preface

This Palgrave Series in U.S. Elections, established in collaboration with the Utica College Center of Public Affairs and Election Research, brings together cutting-edge work in U.S. Politics focused on trends and issues surrounding local, state, and federal elections. Books in this series cover topics such as voting behavior, campaign management, policy considerations, electoral social movements, and analysis of significant races. Previous titles include: Donald Trump and New Hampshire Politics Christopher J. Galdieri (2020) From the Iowa Caucuses to the White House Andrew D. Green (2020) The Politics of Spectacle and Emotion in the 2016 Presidential Campaign Heather E. Yates (2019) Donald Trump and the 2018 Midterm Battle for Central New York Luke Perry (2019) Utica, USA

Luke Perry

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the political editors from Palgrave MacMillan, including Michelle Chen and Rebecca Roberts, for the pleasant and productive relationship we have developed over years of partnership with the Utica College Center of Public Affairs and Election Research (ucpubl icaffairs.com). This book would not be possible without the work of my friends and colleagues who persevered through a pandemic to produce an extraordinary body of work. I am humbled or grateful to share in this collaboration. Luke Perry

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Contents

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1

Introduction Luke Perry

2

Are the Iowa Caucuses Dead? Andrew D. Green and Kurt Sernett

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3

Rethinking Joe Biden’s “Resurgence” Peter K. Enns and Jonathon P. Schuldt

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Why Black Voters Chose Biden Nina M. Moore

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Sexism and the 2020 presidential primary Heather E. Yates

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Gender and the 2020 Democratic Primary: An Analysis of the Warren/Sanders Battle for the Leftwing of the Democratic Party Brian M. Conley and Rachael V. Cobb

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The Advent of Virtual Party Conventions Luke Perry

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Conclusion Luke Perry

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Index

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Notes on Contributors

Rachael V. Cobb is Associate Professor of Political Science at Suffolk University. Brian M. Conley is Professor of Political Science at Suffolk University and author of The Rise of the Republican Right from Goldwater to Reagan (Routledge, 2019). Peter K. Enns is Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University, Executive Director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, and author of Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Andrew D. Green is Professor of Government at Central College and author of From the Iowa Caucus to the White House (Palgrave, 2020). Nina M. Moore is Professor of Government at Colgate University and author of Governing Race: Policy, Process and the Politics of Race (Praeger, 2000) and The Political Roots of Racial Tracking in the American Criminal Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Luke Perry is Professor of Political Science at Utica College and Director of the Utica College Center of Public Affairs and Election Research. Perry is the author of Mormons in American Politics; From Persecution to Power (Praeger, 2012), Mitt Romney, Mormonism and the 2012 Election (Palgrave, 2014), Religious Responses to Marriage Equality xiii

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

(Routledge, 2018), and Donald Trump and the 2018 Midterm Battle for Central New York (Palgrave, 2019). Jonathon P. Schuldt is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University. Kurt Sernett is a political science student at Central College. Heather E. Yates is Associate Professor of Political Science at The University of Central Arkansas University author of Politics of Emotions, Candidates and Choices (Palgrave, 2016) and The Politics of Spectacle and Emotion in the 2016 President Campaign (Palgrave, 2019).

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2

Fig. 3.3

Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4

Percent of Democrats (likely voters) naming each individual as who they would “most like to see run for president on the Democratic ticket,” August 27–September 6, 2018 Percent of Republicans naming each individual when asked, “Which political leader in the United States today do you admire most?” November 20–23, 2014 (Pew Research Center, accessed from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research) Percent of Republicans naming each individual when asked, “Which business leader in the United States today do you admire most?” November 20–23, 2014 (Pew Research Center, accessed from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research) President Trump weaponizes identity to campaign against the democratic party Trump encourages intra-party discord by attacking Elizabeth Warren The President denigrates Senator Gillibrand’s presidential candidacy The President undermines candidate Harris’ record and identity

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42 84 93 94 95

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List of Tables

Table Table Table Table Table Table

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 5.1

Table 5.2

Policy Priorities Policy Positions Perspectives on Economic Issues Assessments of Criminal Justice System Police Reform Proposals Attitudes toward the 2020 democratic women presidential candidates (Compared with Male frontrunners) in the invisible primary Shifts in attitudes toward electing a woman president

62 63 69 69 70

91 98

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction Luke Perry

Abstract This chapter provides an introduction to presidential nominations, the 2020 presidential primary and the framework of this book. Keywords 2020 election · 2020 primary · Presidential primaries · 2016 election · Donald Trump · Democratic Party · Joe Biden

The 2020 Democratic presidential primary was one of the most interesting and impactful in recent history. Democrats entered the race with hope and dread. Donald Trump was the most unpopular president to run for reelection since Gerald Ford. Trump also provided four years of daily reminders why his campaign skills should not be underestimated (Rakich 2020). “The road to the White House is long, circuitous, and bumpy,” containing numerous hazards and potential dead-ends for candidates and both parties (Wayne 2016, 2). Joe Biden emerged from an unorthodox path to secure the nomination and make Trump the first

L. Perry (B) Political Science, Utica College, Clinton, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Perry (ed.), The 2020 Democratic Primary, Palgrave Studies in US Elections, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0_1

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one-term president in 28 years. Many lessons and implications from 2020 will undoubtedly influence the 2024 primaries. Understanding presidential nominations is an inherently challenging undertaking. “Generalizations are based on small numbers- only two major party choices every four years- a mere twenty nominations in four decades of ‘contemporary’ politics” (Epstein 1978, 177). Ironically, these challenges have not hindered endless multimedia analysis and partisan advocacy during three-year presidential campaign cycles. The work of presidential election scholars, seeking to provide objective, evidence-based conclusions, has grown in importance during this era of hyper-partisanship and strategically deployed misinformation. This chapter provides context for understanding the 2020 Democratic primary and the framework of this book.

The Nomination Process Beneath the public gaze on presidential campaigns, heavily focused on what candidates are saying and doing, is an “amazingly complicated set of rules” that can change in important and subtle ways every four years (Aldrich et al. 2019, 24). This complexity results from several factors, such as federalism, the influence of national party committees, and constantly shifting campaign finance laws and campaign strategies. Party activists are central actors in the process, exerting “substantial, and at times deciding, influence over the nomination of party candidates” (Carsey et. al. 2006, 147). Activists “help to shape the rules, values and culture of political parties” and influence the strength of party organizations, policy agenda, and ideological orientation. Presidential selection was one of the most challenging issues undertaken at the Constitutional Convention. Delegates sought to ensure some independence for the presidency, opting against having the president selected by the national legislature, common in parliamentary systems. They also wanted a republican form of government, not a democracy, so that educated elites could filter and refine popular preferences. The electoral system aspired to “choose the most qualified person, but not necessarily the most popular” (Wayne 2016, 3). As result, delegates rejected hereditary lineage and direct popular vote. Indirect election following a nonbinding popular vote emerged as a compromise, building on past committee work and divisions over mode of selection. States received a number of electors equal to their members of Congress and

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were responsible for deciding how to select them. A successful candidate was required to secure a majority vote in the Electoral College to become president. The Constitution did not address how to nominate candidates. Running for president was much different in early America than today. Campaigning for one’s self was uncommon and unpopular. Political parties were not developed, nor thought of positively. Delegates “assumed that electors, whose interests were not tied to the national government, would make an independent judgment, and it was hoped they would choose the person they felt was best suited for the job” (Wayne 2016, 6). This worked in two unanimous votes for George Washington, but dynamics changed quickly surrounding the selection of his Vice-President and successor. Party development prompted partisan influence over the presidential selection process. Beginning in 1796, party leaders met separately to recommend presidential candidates. Party divisions and development helped produce national nominating conventions, beginning in 1831. Convention delegates have been responsible for selecting nominees since 1832 for Democrats and 1856 for Republicans (Aldrich et. al. 2019, 19). Early conventions were less formal and rowdier compared to today, but set important precedents, including determining operating procedures, apportioning delegates, developing policy statements, and selecting nominees. State party leaders controlled delegate selection. Bartering occurred out of public view. There was little preconvention activity, typically resulting in numerous ballots before a candidate secured the nomination. “The winner owed his selection to the heads of the powerful state organizations,” though this came with high expectations of patronage and other political payoffs. At the same time, nineteenth-century conventions “provided a forum for party leaders” that negotiated disagreements, mobilized support, and unifying “disparate elements within a party,” thus “converting an organization of state parties into a national coalition for the purpose of conducting a presidential campaign” (Wayne 2016, 9). Progressive reforms of the early twentieth century sought to reduce the influence of state party bosses, resulting in the election of convention delegates through primaries. The use of primaries fluctuated over much of the twentieth century, due to cost, avoidance by candidates, limited participation, and the factionalism they could produce. In turn, primaries were not considered “an essential road to the nomination” and “running in too many of them was interpreted as a sign of weakness” because this “indicated a lack of national recognition, a failure to obtain the support

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of party leaders, or both” (Wayne 2016, 10). This changed with two contentious national party conventions, 1968 and 1972, which experienced “many challenges to the rights of delegates to be present” (Polsby 1983, 695). At the time, some states held primaries, others caucuses, but most “vested delegate selection power in the hands of state-party leaders” (Tichenor & Fuerstman 2008, 65) prompting criticisms from insurgent forces, such as Vietnam protesters, (Polsby 1983). and increased demands for “a larger voice for rank-and-file partisans” (Wayne 2016, 10). In 1968, Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy challenged Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, largely due to his handling of the Vietnam War. Johnson withdrew from the race after the first primary. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, who did not campaign publicly, “won the nomination without entering a single primary, splitting an already deeply divided party” (Aldrich et. al. 2019, 26). Kennedy’s assassination after defeating McCarthy in California, and violent clashes between Chicago police and protesters during the convention, made matters worse. Humphrey proposed the development of the Democratic Party’s Commission on Delegate Selection and Party Structure, commonly referred to as the McGovern-Fraser Commission. The goal was to enable a more diverse slate of candidates and for public participation to become “more open and more effective in determining the outcome” (Aldrich et al. 2019, 19). The commission addressed “illogical and labyrinthine rules” for the Democratic Party’s selection process (Tichenor & Fuerstman 2008, 65). The result was “participatory, candidate centered nominations, campaign finance reform, and later developments of frontloaded delegate selection calendars” that helped produce “a radically different” nominating system (Paulson 2009, 312). Many states switched to primaries to prevent challenges to their delegations. Both parties subsequently “used public campaigns for popular support as a way of selecting and/or instructing most convention delegates on how they should vote” (Aldrich et al. 2019, 19). Few electoral systems “have the leaders of the major political parties cede so much control over candidate selection to the general public.” Political parties occasionally run primary elections in other countries, but “this is rare, typically isolated to one or a few parties, and are often used only once or twice before being discarded” (Aldrich et al. 2019, 19). The subsequent post-reform era has changed the role of parties in the nomination process, but not obfuscated or eliminated it. As explained in

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The Party Decides, “parties remain major players in presidential nominations” by scrutinizing and winnowing “the field before voters get involved, attempting to build coalitions behind a single preferred candidate, and sway voters to ratify their choice” (Cohen et al. 2008, 3). Thus, parties are central to an “invisible primary” in contemporary presidential nominations. “Parties are a systematic force in presidential nominations and a major reason all nominees since the 1970s have been credible and at least reasonably electable representatives of their partisan traditions.” The people who control nominations include politicians, such as governors, big-city mayors, members of party committees, and legislators, as well rank-and-file-voters, such as organizers, fundraisers, pollsters, media specialists, and group interests (unions, religious organizations, civil rights groups). Support from party insiders “helps determine which of many potential candidates become actual candidates and which of the actual candidates can mount strong campaigns” (Cohen et al. 2008, 4–5). The “awkward” and “adolescent” stages of the presidential primaries can be understood “as a series of ongoing phantom battles, in which no votes are cast, but the ups and downs of the larger war be quantified by a variety of other metrics,” including money, staff, strong polling, and vibrant online presence (Sabato & Wasserman 2007). Candidate attrition is a central element of the post-reform era as “candidates withdraw from the contest as their resources dwindle or as they fall significantly behind the frontrunner in voter support” (Norrander 2000, 999). Parties “must work together in order succeed.” “If the coalition splits into competing factions, “each pledged to a different candidate, voters become the real power by choosing between the insider backed candidates” (Cohen et al. 2008, 5). Greater ideological polarization between parties has helped by furthering “ideological homogenization within the parties.” This internal alignment, along with decreased factionalism, has made it easier to settle nominations, which “start sooner and end faster” in the Post-Reform Era (Paulson 2009, 312–321).

How the 2016 Presidential Election Influenced 2020 The 2016 presidential election process and outcome cast a long shadow on 2020. A relatively large number of candidates often run when there is not an incumbent president. This was particularly the case for Republicans

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in 2016. Twenty candidates vied for both party nominations in 2016, 15 of whom remained viable into the primaries. Donald Trump ultimately emerged from a dozen GOP candidates, while Hillary Clinton was one of three. These numbers were higher than average for Republicans, smaller for Democrats, “but not substantially out of the ordinary in either case.” Most primary races over the past forty years included at least six candidates, though this number has varied, as have previous open-seat elections in 2008 (16), 2000 (8), and 1988 (14). Donald Trump was one of three candidates with no previous political experience, a rarity. Over two-thirds of presidential candidates in recent decades previously served as president, vice-president, senator or governor. 1 in 8 were House members (Aldrich et al. 2019, 19–22). Trump’s general election victory was surprising on multiple fronts. Trump consistently trailed in the polls, while four years earlier, “the primary election battle and Mitt Romney’s subsequent performance suggested serious concerns about the Republican Party’s long-term potential to reach citizens in the new American electorate.” There were signs that Trump might be different. He was “seriously considered” as “a legitimate candidate” in 2012, briefly polling as the Republican favorite, “spearheaded by his obsession with Barack Obama’s birth certificate” (Miller 2013, 11–15). Obama’s landslide victory in 2008 “shook the political order” with “a populist message and charismatic delivery that beckoned comparisons to past revered Democratic leaders Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy. Seven months later; however, Obama’s approval fell from 65 percent upon taking office to below 50 percent as “voters became dissatisfied when their situations did not improve significantly” within a gradual and uneven recovery from the Great Recession (Miller 2013, 2). Meanwhile, the Tea Party, a new faction within the Republican Party beginning in 2009, became a major force in electoral politics, particularly in the 2010 midterm. Business conservatives, Tea Party members, and evangelical Christians “each had a chosen candidate” in the 2012 primary, which “led to speculation on whether the GOP would come together in November or not.” They did, but “Republicans were not enthusiastic about Romney’s candidacy” (Miller 2013, 12–17). Four years later, Trump ended a “string of presidential contests featuring mainstream candidates from both parties.” Trump’s “rise to the top in the face of nearly unanimous opposition from Republican leaders, donors, and pundits, not only exposed deep

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fissures within the party, but also threatened to disrupt and perhaps reshape the current national party alliance.” Trump emerged in a political climate with increased polarization between both parties, among leaders and voters, who “sorted themselves into increasingly distinct and discordant political camps” that disagreed on a wide array of issues and viewed political opposition with increased distrust and disdain ((Jacobson 2016, 226–228). In 2016, “fundamental predictors of election outcomes did not clearly favor either side” (Sides et al. 2016, 50). At the time, racial diversification of the electorate was viewed as “favorable to Democrats,” but increased entanglement of racial and political identities during the Obama presidency helped develop Trump’s conservative base, who narrowly propelled him to an upset victory. Trump’s 57 percent Electoral College vote share was historically narrow (46th out of 58 elections), while his popular vote total margin (−2.1 percent) was the third lowest (Patel & Andrews 2016). Trump’s unexpected success created extraordinary internal tension for Democrats. The 2020 Democratic primary was largely defined by “the party’s conversations and fights about the previous election” as Democrats “struggled to come up with a reason why Hillary Clinton had lost to Donald Trump” (Masket 2020, 3). Their inability to agree on a narrative made it more difficult than usual to select their nominee in 2020. Making matters worse, 2016 was so close that several explanations of defeat could be correct. Interviews with Democratic Party activists conducted by Seth Masket between 2017 and 2020 produced eight different narratives for understanding Trump’s victory. Four narratives focused on the candidacy of Hillary Clinton: (1) campaign activity, (2) campaign messaging, (3) candidate traits, and (4) identity politics. Clinton was a poor candidate with inadequate campaign tactics and insufficient messaging that spoke to women and racial minorities, while failing to resonate with low-income white people. The other four narratives involved external factors: (1) racism/sexism, (2) Bernie Sanders/Jill Stein, (3) exogenous events, and (4) mood of the electorate. Clinton was hindered by sexism, other Democratic candidates drawing support, Russian interference, actions by FBI Director James Comey prior to the election, and an electorate open to change after eight years of a Democratic presidency.

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Democratic activists often cited multiple explanations. Narratives focused on Clinton’s campaign and candidacy clearly outnumbered narratives focused on external factors, but activists were divided by candidate preference and gender. Clinton’s supporters more frequently cited external factors, while Sanders’ supporters blamed Clinton. Men were much more likely to criticize Clinton’s campaign than women, who were far more likely to blame outside events and sexism. Masket noted how infrequently the topics of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Vice-Presidential candidates, and the Electoral College arose, plus much of what presidential election forecasts in Political Science typically focus on. “In a period of good-but-not-amazing economic growth, relative peace abroad, and the incumbent party seeking a third term in office, you’re going to see a competitive race,” Masket explained. “The idea that Hillary Clinton should have won this election and somehow blew it isn’t really supported by the available evidence” (Masket, 86–87). The range of explanations for 2016 grew over time, prompting more disagreement, while levels of support for various narratives shifted. Critiques of Clinton’s campaign tactics and candidacy became less frequent, while attributing blame to exogenous events, Bernie Sanders, and sexism/racism became more prevalent. As the 2020 primary unfolded, preferred explanations of 2016 correlated with support for different candidates. Joe Biden was the top choice of activists who believed messaging, candidate traits, and identity politics were the main problems for Democrats in 2016. Elizabeth Warren was the top choice for activists who pointed to exogenous factors and the mood of voters. Bernie Sanders was the top choice for activists who blamed Clinton’s campaign. As a result, no consensus emerged over 2016 and what that meant for selecting a nominee in 2020. Instead, Democrats grew more divided over this question. Another challenge Democrats faced in 2020 was a primary system that “does not automatically produce nominees who are capable of doing well in the November election” (Geer 1986, 1007). “Factional candidates may skillfully parlay narrow but intense support into a party nomination, or party regulars, who lack appeal to independents, may sweep to victory.” The nomination system works best “when voters and party professionals work in partnership.” When this fails to happen, “both major political parties are at risk of producing nominees who aren’t competent to govern and/or don’t represent a majority of the party’s voters” (LaRaja and Rauch 2020).

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Donald Trump and Joe Biden both experienced an unusual path to the nomination. In 2016, journalists initially did not know whether to file reporting on Trump’s campaign under entertainment or political coverage. Trump’s popular rallies and effective campaign message helped propel him to the nomination despite steadily delivering controversial statements and extraordinary personal attacks. Trump’s ability to win delegates was apparent early in the voting process, winning seven of the first nine states. Trump performed well in the Bible Belt, sweeping the South minus Texas, home to rival Ted Cruz, and neighboring Oklahoma. Trump won 1,437 delegates beyond the 1,237 needed, nearly three times that of Cruz, who finished second. Early favorite Jeb Bush, who set fundraising records during the campaign, dropped out in February, following a fourth-place finish in South Carolina. Joe Biden won a smaller amount of the primary popular vote (42 percent) than any previous Democratic nominee since Walter Mondale in 1984. Hillary Clinton won 56 percent in 2016, while Barack Obama won 47 percent in 2008. Biden not only faced a large field, but one in which five candidates polled in double digits heading into the Iowa Caucuses (Collins 2020). Biden finished fourth in Iowa (15 percent) and fifth in New Hampshire (8 percent), often the death knell of presidential campaigns. Biden improved to second in Nevada (20 percent), netting 9 delegates, and secured his first victory in South Carolina (48 percent). Remarkably, Biden then won nearly every other race, amassing 2,687 delegates beyond the 1,991 needed.

Key Questions and Topics These extraordinary presidential nomination experiences raise several prominent questions considered in this book. First, why has conventional wisdom of primary campaign strategy proven ineffective for two consecutive cycles? Understandings of what happened in 2020 contribute to a larger conversation about whether conventional strategies were flawed in 2016 and 2020, or if predominant understandings of primaries should be reconsidered. Second, how did the 2020 primary process make possible a Joe Biden victory rather than nominating a candidate too weak to defeat a vulnerable Republican president? Biden’s path to the nomination was far from certain, though his general election campaign produced a steady and unsurprising victory. Parsing out advantages and drawbacks of the 2020

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Democratic primary rules provides valuable insights on what should be retained and changed moving forward. Third, were the many factions of the Democratic Party a source of strength or weakness? The large Democratic field was divided ideologically and demographically. Gender and race were two particularly prominent elements of these divisions that influenced the primary on multiple levels. They are primed to become a growing area of focus in light of the Me Too and Black Lives Matter social movements, and ascendance of historically marginalized groups to poweful positions in the Democratic Party and U.S. government over the last 12 years. Finally, what are the lessons and implications from 2020 for 2024? This question underpins the previous three questions and the book as a whole. Predictions are difficult under any circumstances, but particularly presidential nominations, as explained at the outset of this chapter. This book seeks to modestly identify insights and questions from 2020 that can be applied to understanding and navigating what happens in 2024. The fallout of Trump’s defeat, and what that means for the Republican Party, provided fertile political terrain for various factions to stake claims for the future of the party and the 2024 nominee who will represent it. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is the oldest person to become president at 78 years old. During the campaign, Biden described himself as a “transition candidate” (Diaz 2021). When this transition will occur is unclear. Andrew Green and Kurt Sernett begin the next chapter by examining the fate of the Iowa Caucuses. The nation’s first contest faced unprecedented scrutiny following tabulation problems and a long delay in the reporting of its results. This occurred on top of lingering questions about the demographic disjuncture between Iowa and New Hampshire compared to the rest of the country. Following the 2020 election, more ethnically diverse states, such as Nevada, began making their argument to move atop the primary calendar. This chapter examines the likelihood Iowa loses its first-in-the-nation status. In Chapter 3, Peter Enns and Jonathon Schuldt build on this theme of primary sequencing in examining Joe Biden’s path to victory. The authors challenge the notion that Biden launched a primary comeback to secure the nomination after performing poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire. Their polling research indicates that Biden’s “resurgence” was more a product of his preexisting nation-wide support and the order of state caucuses and primaries. This order benefitted some popular candidates, such as Biden, while harming other popular candidates, such as Kamala

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Harris and Cory Booker, who dropped out prior to the first contest. These developments challenge candidate centered understandings of presidential campaigns and the efficacy of the Democrat’s 2020 primary rules. Interestingly, Joe Biden was the candidate most supported by black voters in the 2020 primary. Biden’s support among this constituency was central to his crucial victory in South Carolina and overall ability to secure the nomination. In Chapter 4, Nina Moore explains why black primary goers voted for Biden. Biden’s policy vision came closest to the policy interests of black voters, illustrating how black voters utilize their voting power in ways that are more based on substance, than skin color, elite cues, retrospective assessments, or liberal ideology. The next two chapters examine the issue of gender in the Democratic primary. The 2020 Democratic primary experienced a historic number of women candidates. Hillary Clinton’s historic primary victory in 2016 helped forge greater opportunities for subsequent female candidates. At the same, Clinton’s general election loss, particularly to Donald Trump, prompted increased attention to the issue of electability, which tends to produce unfavorable impressions for women candidates. In Chapter 5, Heather Yates explains how the Democratic Party embraced the myth that the six women seeking the nomination were less electable than men, even though none had lost an election before and Clinton won three million more votes in 2016 than Trump. This, coupled with historical, institutional, and cultural gender barriers, negatively impacted women candidates in 2020. In Chapter 6, Brian Conley and Rachael Cobb examine gender dynamics among the two top candidates vying to represent the progressive faction within the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Warren made little headway in the crowded field despite her role as a leading progressive critic throughout the Trump administration and evident proficiency at providing detailed policy solutions to numerous national challenges. Sanders benefitted from the endorsements he received and how national news media covered these endorsements. Though the 2024 primary campaign will likely unfold under a different public health climate, several elements of the 2020 national party conventions may endure. In Chapter 7, Luke Perry examines how each party adapted to COVID-19, how this compared to years past, and the lessons and implications for future party conventions. The 2020 conventions were more inclusive, more multimedia, and more multiplatform than ever

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before, enabling greater efficiency in producing engaging television that positively portrayed nominees. Not everything was a success worthy of emulation, but the long days of one person on stage at a time giving speeches may be numbered.

Works Cited Aldrich, John, Jamie Carson, Brad Gomez, and David Rhode. 2019. Change and Continuity in the 2016 and 2018 Elections. New York: CQ Press. Campbell, James. 2020. “Forecasting the 2016 American National Elections”. PS- Political Science & Politics 40. Special Issue no. 4: 649–654. Carsey, Thomas, John Green, Richard Herrera, and Geoffrey Layman. 2006. State Party Context and Norms Among Delegates to the 2000 National Party Conventions. State Politics & Politics Quarterly 6, no. 3: 247–271. Collins, Sean. 2020. “Who’s Going to Win the Iowa Caucus, According to Polls.” Vox, February 3, 2017. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/ 2020/2/3/21115983/2020-iowa-caucuses-winner-polls. Diaz, Johnny. 2021. “Biden Is the Oldest President to Take the Oath.” The New York Times, January 18, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/us/ politics/joe-biden-age-oldest-presidents.html. Epstein, Leon. 1978. Political Science and Presidential Nominations. Political Science Quarterly 93, no. 3: 177–195. Geer, John. 1986. Rules Governing Presidential Primaries. Journal of Politics 48, no. 4: 1006–1025. Jacobson, Gary. 2016. Polarization, Gridlock, and Presidential Campaign Politics in 2016. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 667: 226–246. LaRaja, Raymond and Jonathan Rauch. 2020. “Voters Need Help: How Party Insiders Can Make Presidential Primaries Safer, Fairer, and more Democratic.” Brookings, January 21, 2020. https://www.brookings.edu/research/ voters-need-help-how-party-insiders-can-make-presidential-primaries-safer-fai rer-and-more-democratic/. Marty, Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller. 2008. The Party Decides. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Masket, Seth. 2020. Learning from Loss: The Democrats (2016–2020). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miller, William. 2013. “The 2012 Republican Nomination Season: A Clown Car of Feuding Conservatives?” in The 2012 Nomination and the Future of the Republican Party, edited by William Miller. Lantham, MD: Lexington Books. Norrander, Barbara. 2000. The End Game in Post-Reform Presidential Nominations. Journal of Politics 62, no. 4: 999–1013.

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Patel, Jugal, and William Andrews. 2016. “Trump’s Electoral College Victory Ranks 46th in 58 Elections.” The New York Times. December 18, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/18/us/elections/donaldtrump-electoral-college-popular-vote.html. Paulson, Arthur. 2009. Party Change and the Shifting Dynamics in Presidential Nominations: The Lessons of 2008. Polity 41, no. 3: 312–330. Polsby, Nelson. 1983. “The Reform of Presidential Selection and Democratic Theory.” P.S. 16, no. 4: 695–698. Rakich, Michael. 2020. “Trump Is the most Unpopular President to Run for Relection since Gerald Ford.” FiveThirtyEight, January 7, 2020. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-the-most-unpopular-pre sident-since-ford-to-run-for-reelection/. Sabato, Larry and Dave Wasserman. 2007. “Invisible Primaries.” Sabato’s Crystal Ball, May 11, 2007. https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/dnw 2007051101/. Sides, John, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck. 2016. The Electoral Landscape of 2016. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 667: 50–71. Tichenor, Daniel, and Daniel Fuerstman. 2008. Insurgency Campaigns and the Question for Popular Democracy: Theodore Roosevelt, Eugene McCarthy, and Party Monopolies. Polity 40, no. 1: 49–69. Wayne, Stephen. 2016. The Road to the White House. 10th ed. New York: Cengage.

CHAPTER 2

Are the Iowa Caucuses Dead? Andrew D. Green and Kurt Sernett

Abstract The nation’s long standing first contest faced unprecedented scrutiny following tabulation problems and a long delay in the reporting of its results. This occurred on top of existing questions about the demographic disjuncture between Iowa and New Hampshire compared to the rest of the country. Following the 2020 election, more ethnically diverse states, such as Nevada, began making their argument to move atop the primary calendar. This chapter examines the likelihood Iowa loses its first-in-the-nation status. Keywords Presidential primary · Iowa Caucus · Iowa politics · Iowa elections · New Hampshire primary

A. D. Green (B) · K. Sernett Central College, Pella, IA, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. Sernett e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Perry (ed.), The 2020 Democratic Primary, Palgrave Studies in US Elections, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0_2

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On February 3, 2020, Iowans from all corners of the Hawkeye State participated in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. While turnout was lower on the Republican side as a result of President Donald Trump running for reelection, tens of thousands of Iowa Democrats gathered in churches, schools, and community centers across the state to support their favorite candidate(s) in the Democratic presidential field. Ultimately, Pete Buttigieg, the former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was declared as the winner of the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) coming in a close second. While many caucus-goers walked away from their caucusing sites extremely happy about how the process had been run and excited to see the statewide results coming later in the evening, technological reporting failures prevented the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) from releasing the results in an efficient and accurate manner. In fact, the final results were not formally announced until February 27, 2020, 24 days later than the IDP had planned (Coltrain 2020). Before the caucus chaos of 2020, there were already calls for the national Democratic Party to reshuffle the first few states in its nominating process; and therefore, the technological failures of this year’s caucus cycle only served to legitimize these reform efforts further. Since 1972, the Iowa Caucuses have been the first stop in the nominating process for presidential hopefuls of both parties. Candidates spend months, if not years, crisscrossing the state. They meet with voters and attempt to secure “elite” support across all of Iowa’s 99 counties, which is an important element of the “invisible primary” in demonstrating that the candidate is “viable” during the primary phase and “electable” during the general election (Redlawsk et al. 2011; Masket 2019). Spending time in the state during the caucus campaign season also helps candidates to cultivate votes in the state (Hull 2008). While Iowa has never been viewed as a “kingmaker,” the results of the Iowa Caucuses have served to narrow the field of candidates in the handful of primaries to come (Squire 2008). Research indicates that a good performance in the Iowa Caucuses can help to build momentum for future primary contests. The American news media often rewards strong performers in the Iowa Caucuses with further campaign coverage that can shape the preferences of voters in subsequent primary contests (Winebrenner and Goldford 2010; Redlawsk et al. 2011; Donovan et al. 2014). In examining the 2020 Iowa Caucuses, we first begin with a description of what happened on caucus night and in the weeks that followed, including a discussion of the caucus reforms implemented by the IDP in

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the leadup to the 2020 Iowa Caucuses and the technological challenges and miscommunication that arose as a result. Next, we highlight the criticisms of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status, which threaten to undermine Iowa’s current position as the first stop on the road to the White House for presidential hopefuls. We conclude the chapter with a discussion focused on the implications of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses on campaigning for the 2024 presidential election and beyond. We believe that the key to whether or not Iowa retains its first-in-the-nation status is based upon the decision of one individual: President Joe Biden.

What Happened in the 2020 Iowa Caucuses In the aftermath of the contentious battle for the 2016 Democratic nomination between Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY), leaders of the IDP and their national-level counterparts within the Democratic National Committee (DNC) met to discuss how to improve their caucusing process in preparation for 2020 (Noble 2017; Stanley-Becker 2020). The IDP found itself in a fragile position following the 2016 Iowa Caucuses. There was open contempt of Clinton supporters, “whose razor-thin victory over Sanders led to accusations of bias, even of cheating” (Stanley-Becker 2020). Meanwhile, people associated with Clinton viewed Sanders supporters as extremist progressives. This fractious behavior further weakened the IDP after Trump’s victory in the general election. Party leaders began to look toward 2020 for a fresh new beginning. Troy Price, a rising star in the IDP, reluctantly agreed to seek chairmanship after the prior party leader stepped down for medical reasons. He immediately started working to unite the sparring factions of the IDP. This goal was easier said than done. To complicate matters further, accommodating the DNC, and its own new reforms, soon proved to be a challenge (Epstein et al. 2020). Price noted, “we were trying to take rules that were clearly different than our system allows…for the most part, I think we were successful in doing that” (Stanley-Becker 2020). Nevertheless, the IDP and the DNC came up with a road map for caucus reforms they hoped would promote unity and transparency in the future. In February 2019, IDP Chairman Price announced several notable changes to the Iowa caucusing process that would take effect in 2020. Specifically, Democratic leaders aspired to make the experience of the

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Iowa Caucuses more inclusive, streamlined, and transparent by facilitating an absentee voting process in the form of virtual caucusing and by releasing raw vote totals from each round of alignment for the first time (Noble 2017; IDP Staff 2019; Norrander 2020). Until 2020, the IDP had opted not to release vote totals from the first alignment and the final vote of precinct caucuses, instead releasing only the results of the state delegate equivalents (SDEs) earned by each candidate preference group at the end of caucus night. In another bid to make the Iowa Caucuses more transparent, the IDP announced that the allocation of national delegates would be decided on caucus night, rather than later through the typical convention process (IDP Staff 2019). Furthermore, the IDP would be relying on a new smartphone app for reporting these results from the 1,678 caucus precincts across the state (Green 2020; Norrander 2020). In lieu of a Microsoft-engineered app (Microsoft refused to make a caucus app for Iowa), IDP leaders turned to tech newbie Shadow Inc. for a data reporting app (Stanley-Becker 2020). DNC Chairman Tom Perez described the new caucus reforms as “game-changing,” while state and national Democratic leaders congratulated themselves for a job well done—or so they thought (Noble 2017). On paper, the reforms of the aging caucus process represented a historic and welcome change by promoting accessibility and transparency for Democratic voters in Iowa. In reality, however, these reforms would result in widespread chaos and confusion, leaving a bitter taste in Democratic leaders’ mouths. They had implemented the reforms with good intentions; but, ultimately, “the technology they turned to, and its mismanagement and miscommunication, were their undoing” (Barrett and Popken 2020). Rather than having virtual caucuses as originally suggested (due to online security concerns), the DNC recommended holding “satellite caucuses,” of which 60 occurred in Iowa, 24 in other states, and 3 in foreign countries (Gilman 2020; Stanley-Becker 2020). This last-minute change was a bad omen for many challenges to come. On Caucus Night 2020, the first indication of trouble was seen early: The smartphone app for reporting precinct-level alignment results failed (Epstein et al. 2020; Stanley-Becker 2020). Almost immediately, utter chaos ensued. IDP officials told precinct leaders that it was time to implement their backup plan by manually calling in the raw vote totals to the caucus headquarters in Des Moines, where dedicated volunteers were waiting to enter the results into a secure data program. As results started

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to pour into the boiler room at the Iowa Events Center via phone, Democratic Party volunteers quickly discovered that they were locked out of their computers and needed a verification code from their smartphones to log in. This setback led to another crisis, as volunteers realized they had been told by IDP officials to leave their phones outside the tabulation center. Precinct results continued to pour in like clockwork, and the phone lines to the boiler room soon became jammed (Norrander 2020). Images of the hotline number had begun to circulate on social media as the night dragged on, and Trump supporters were soon dialing the number en masse, totally dashing any hopes of communication between precinct officials and the tabulation center (Stanley-Becker 2020). One by one, like a falling row of dominoes, these consecutive technological and communication failures led to the complete meltdown of Caucus Night 2020. Americans across the country woke up on Tuesday morning to a slew of scathing headlines about the 2020 Iowa Caucuses conundrum, with major news outlets challenging Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status and offering bitter critiques of IDP leadership, especially Chairman Price (Barrett and Popken 2020; Epstein et al. 2020; Green 2020). As the ashes settled on Tuesday morning, it was revealed that “volunteers resorted to passing around a spare iPad to log into the system” to report raw vote totals (Epstein et al. 2020). Melissa Watson, Chief Financial Officer of the IDP, had been in charge of the boiler room, yet she could not figure out how to use Google spreadsheet software to input caucus data. To the dismay of IDP officials, 700 unread emails were discovered on Tuesday morning apparently sent in a last-ditch effort by precinct leaders to get the raw vote totals to headquarters. These emails contained crude photographs of tallying worksheets, many of which were sent sideways. Perhaps most unsettling of all, IDP Chairman Price had held a conference call with the campaigns while the chaos was dragging on the night before, and he angrily hung up on a Sanders staffer after they alleged that Iowa had been incorrectly reporting caucus results for years (Epstein et al. 2020; Stanley-Becker 2020). With three raw vote totals being counted, campaigns wasted no time in declaring victory by ignoring the ongoing count of SDEs and instead highlighting the alignment results that favored themselves (Forgey 2020; Gilman 2020). No official results had been released on caucus night, so IDP officials were feverishly scrambling to collect results across the state while Price begrudgingly faced the news media as the figurehead of a smoldering caucus system.

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In the weeks and months following the chaos of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses, Democrats have continued to trade blame and lob attacks at the inept leadership of the IDP and the DNC. For several weeks after caucus night, publicly reported results were still being reviewed and revised to account for inconsistencies discovered within the data (Epstein et al. 2020). Both the Sanders and Buttigieg campaigns requested a recount in mid-February, after being separated by less than 0.1 percent in SDEs. The IDP completed a recount of 23 precincts; and even though Buttigieg’s victory was confirmed (albeit narrowly), the Associated Press (AP) refused to call a winner of the Iowa contest (Coltrain 2020). Meanwhile, Troy Price resigned as chair of the IDP nine days after the caucus meltdown (Stanley-Becker 2020). Shadow Inc. announced that a coding issue was to blame for the app’s malfunction on caucus night (Epstein et al. 2020; Green 2020). This issue had nothing to do with the app’s performance itself; rather, it involved the transfer of the data from the app to a data warehouse (Barrett and Popken 2020). Still, the damage was done. DNC Chairman Perez chalked up the 2020 Iowa Caucuses to a “major league failure” and posited that the fault should be shared by state and national party leadership (Barrett and Popken 2020). In spite of these statements of unified fault, back-and-forth bickering between the IDP and the DNC dominated subsequent headlines. In December 2020, an internal IDP audit found the DNC to be primarily responsible for the technological and communication failures of Caucus Night 2020 (Epstein 2020; Klinefeldt et al. 2020; Pager 2020). Of the ten key findings in a summary sheet given to IDP members, six directly blamed the DNC for caucus night errors. Most notably, the IDP argued that the DNC was inept at vetting Shadow Inc. as a vendor and that they did not give adequate time for IDP officials to test and experiment with the app before its use on caucus night (Axelrod 2020a). It is clear from this post-mortem assessment of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses that tensions still exist between the IDP and the DNC, and these tensions are likely to continue as calls intensify for Iowa to lose its status as the first nominating contest.

Criticisms of Iowa’s First-in-the-Nation Status The chaos of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses left IDP officials worried that their state “might have been first for the last time” (Egan 2020). From cable news channels to blaring newspaper headlines, a renewed chorus

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of voices denounced Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status. Historically, Iowa was not always the first state to hold a political nominating contest. For the Democratic Party, the state of Iowa was chosen to lessen the power of party leaders and promote political activism at the grassroots level (Ulmer 2020). Iowa was viewed as the best state to represent this transition toward the political will of the commonfolk. In the early 1970s, Iowa’s caucus process was loathed for its inefficiency and slowness, so it was moved to the front of the pack to accommodate for these shortcomings. Today, however, “[The] Iowa caucuses are first-in-the-nation mainly because the state insists on remaining first” (Miller and Pfannenstiel 2020). In 2017, the Iowa delegation signaled their support for the nomination of Tom Perez as chairman of the DNC only after he had promised to protect the state’s status (Ember and Epstein 2020). National Democratic Party officials and onlookers have argued against the preservation of Iowa’s status by pointing out three characteristics of the state: population size and demographics, lack of representativeness of the national Democratic Party, and ongoing challenges of the caucus process. Iowa has a population of approximately three million people. Of those three million Iowans, roughly 91.3 percent were white according to data from the 2010 Census, putting Iowa in the top ten most white states in America (Smith 2020). Iowa is also in the top ten states for voter registration and participation, with over 90 percent of eligible voters registered as of November 2020 (Akin 2020). The Republican Party has enjoyed a political advantage in Iowa for more than a decade as Republican voter registrations have consistently outpaced those of the Democratic Party. In the era of former President Trump, this disparity widened drastically. Additionally, Republicans have benefited from Iowa’s largely rural landscape, in which most voters tend to lean conservative on the ideological continuum. Therefore, the relatively small population of the state translates into a minimal electoral importance for the Democratic Party (just six electoral college votes), and the challenging electoral landscape in Iowa for Democrats makes it hard to justify kicking off their presidential nominating contest in the Hawkeye State. In recent years, the Democratic Party has doubled down on initiatives of inclusivity and representativeness, acting as the political standard bearer for racial minorities and members of the LGBTQ community across the country. To emerge victorious in a presidential election, the Democratic Party must win the support of African Americans, who only comprised a mere 2.9 percent of the Iowa population in 2010 (Smith 2020). These

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national initiatives have proven to be a difficult sell to the state’s predominantly white and rural voters (Axelrod 2020b). As the rural–urban divide deepened under former President Trump, the Democratic Party found its niche in cities and metropolitan areas, leaving many rural Democratic voters lying outside the spectrum of their party’s messaging. The consequences of this neglect were clear in 2016. Rural Iowa counties that had previously leaned left for former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 saw high amounts of vote switching in favor of former President Trump, with 31 counties pivoting to the Republican Party (Green 2019). No other state had a higher prevalence of this political phenomenon than Iowa. The spotlight remained on Iowa’s lack of minority representation and the overwhelming shift toward former President Trump as the IDP and DNC discussed caucus reform options—none of which included revoking Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status. After the 2020 caucus debacle in Iowa four years later, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro proclaimed, We can’t as a Democratic Party continually and justifiably complain about Republicans who suppress the votes of people of color and then turn around and start our nominating contest in two states that, even though they take their role seriously, hardly have any people of color. (Ember and Epstein 2020)

Democratic Party chairs of other states echoed the critiques of their national-level counterparts, with Texas’s party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa admitting, “It puts a lot of candidates, particularly candidates of color, at a disadvantage…” (Trip and Epstein 2020). Meanwhile, Iowa Democrats and even the state’s Republican leaders continued to defend Iowa’s place at the beginning of the nomination process, arguing the caucus system was meant to facilitate the kind of open, in-person political discussion the country was founded upon (Egan 2020). While the caucus system is more personal and interactive than the primary system, it is also more cumbersome. In the New Hampshire Primary, for instance, voters go into a polling location and mark a ballot for the party candidate they believe should be nominated for president (Egan 2020). The candidate with the highest percentage of votes is declared the winner. This process is similar to the general election system

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of voting. In the Iowa Caucuses, voters must go into a polling location and partake in discussion and several rounds of voting (i.e., initial alignment and realignment) before the final vote total and corresponding SDEs can be tallied and reported (Green 2020). In other words, the process for the Iowa Caucuses is much more complex, and it is also harder to manage. This fact was especially true in 2020, since the IDP planned to collect and release raw vote totals from every alignment. Iowa Democratic voters were given “presidential preference cards” to ensure that voting rounds were reported accurately (Norrander 2020). However, some caucus participants may have left precincts without handing in these cards, which unarguably skewed the results as they were reported. Furthermore, these problems with ensuring the integrity of the caucus vote count were not new in 2020. Controversies surrounding the Iowa Caucuses have been well-documented for both the IDP and the Republican Party of Iowa (RPI) over the last two decades (Murphy 2019). Therefore, it is not so far-fetched that Sanders, the only Democratic candidate who supported the IDP’s new reporting plan, said, “This was not a good night for democracy” on the heels of yet another year of caucus frustration in Iowa (Egan 2020).

Will Iowa Retain Its First-in-the-Nation Status? While this is not the first time that Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status has been challenged nationally, the inability of the IDP to report caucus results in a timely and accurate manner certainly creates the greatest threat to Iowa’s place in the nominating process thus far. In the leadup to the 2020 Iowa Caucuses, political scientists, news media pundits, and even Democratic presidential candidates were calling for reform and change (Murphy 2019). The reporting failures of Caucus Night 2020 and the subsequent chaos that ensued have only exacerbated calls from Democrats all over the country for further caucus reforms or simply stripping Iowa of its first-in-the-nation status altogether going forward (Egan 2020; Epstein 2020). Will 2020 be the last presidential campaign cycle in which Iowa was positioned first? The answer to this question is complicated. While the IDP and the RPI both agree that Iowa should remain first, ultimately it is up to the two national party organizations to decide (Norvell et al. 2020; Zhou 2020). We believe the Iowa Caucuses will hold onto their first-in-the-nation status if President Biden decides to run for reelection in 2024.

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Not only is there is little evidence that suggests the Republican Party is interested in modifying the electoral calendar for 2024, but it also makes a lot of sense for the Republican nominating process to begin in Iowa. Over the last three election cycles, Iowa has proven to be a reliable state for Republican candidates—particularly in the years of the Trump administration. While traditionally viewed as a “swing state” in presidential contests (Hoffman and Larimer 2015), Iowa has looked more and more like a “red state” over the last three election cycles. Former President Trump won the state by more than 9 percent in 2016 and more than 8 percent in 2020. Governor Kim Reynolds won her first full term in 2018, becoming the first female governor in Iowa’s history. Furthermore, after the 2020 election, Republicans regained control of the state’s Congressional delegation and increased their majorities in the Iowa statehouse. Additionally, Iowa’s demographics make it look like a safe Republican-leaning state due to its rural nature and the sizable share of its population that has not earned a college degree (Mejia and Skelley 2020). Overall, Iowa would be a natural starting point for the 2024 Republican nomination cycle regardless of whether or not former President Trump runs for president again. Not surprisingly, Iowa’s Republican elites signaled throughout 2020 that they will fight for Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status. Beginning on February 4, 2020, statewide elected officials, including Governor Reynolds and Senators Charles Grassley and Joni Ernst, went on the record as allies of their IDP counterparts by issuing a joint statement in support of Iowa’s place in the electoral calendar (Peterson 2020; Reynolds et al. 2020). RPI Chairman Jeff Kaufmann has also been willing to fight to preserve Iowa’s status. In the days after the 2020 general election, Kaufmann signaled that “he plans to start putting pressure on national party leaders and the president by enlisting Iowa senators in the fight” (Fodor 2020); and based on a tweet from former President Trump, he is also likely inclined to use his influence to advocate for Iowa’s status in the nominating process (Ward 2020). Thus, assuming that Trump will continue to be the de facto head of the national Republican Party after leaving the White House, it is safe to bet that Republicans will continue to support Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status. In truth, the future of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status lies in the hands of the Democratic Party. While it is certainly true that Democrats from all over the country have called for changes to the electoral calendar, including post-election efforts by the Nevada State Legislature to frontload a state primary in late January of future presidential election years

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(Medina 2021), if President Biden decides to run for reelection and runs unopposed, there will be little incentive for the DNC to alter the lineup of states in the presidential nominating process. Generally speaking, incumbent presidents who run for reelection are able to clear the field during the nomination phase. In fact, no incumbent president in the modern era has been unseated during the primaries, and no incumbent president has faced a significant primary challenge since 1992, when Pat Buchanan ran in the Republican primary against President George H. W. Bush (Waxman 2019). Assuming that Biden chooses to run for the nomination in 2024 and is unopposed, the DNC may choose to avoid absorbing the transaction costs of changing the nominating contest lineup and instead move forward into 2024 with the same electoral calendar. In other words, without a contested primary, there would be little incentive for national Democratic leadership to change the rules when doing so would be “controversial” and would undoubtedly lead to a “ferocious response from Iowa Democrats” (Zhou 2020). Meanwhile, if Biden decides to step down after one term or is deemed unfit for office, all bets are off. Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) would have to be considered as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination if she chose to run. Unlike incumbent presidents, vice presidents tend to face competition in primaries when they run for president (Azari 2020). Under this scenario (i.e., Harris runs with opposition), the DNC would be faced with a much tougher choice: move forward with an unaltered electoral calendar amidst growing national opposition or absorb the costs of reforming the calendar. If the DNC chooses the latter, they would be forced to work with the Republican National Committee (RNC) to discuss interest in modifying the calendar, which does not appear to be a priority. While the Iowa Caucuses took a direct hit in 2020, the outcry was not enough to send Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status to the grave just yet. The spectacle of the Iowa Caucuses remains very much alive thanks to national partisan politics.

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Works Cited Akin, Katie. 2020. “Record Number of Iowans Registered to Vote Ahead of 2020 Election Day.” Des Moines Register, November 2, 2020. https://www. desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/02/election-2020-rec ord-high-number-registered-active-voters-iowa/6124903002/. Axelrod, Tal. 2020a. “Iowa Caucus Mishap Fueled by DNC Interference, State Missteps: Autopsy Report.” The Hill, December 12, 2020. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/529962-iowa-caucusmishap-fueled-by-dnc-interference-state-missteps-autopsy. Axelrod, Tal. 2020b. “Iowa Losses Underscore Democrats’ Struggle with Attracting Rural Voters.” The Hill, December 2, 2020. https://thehill.com/ homenews/campaign/528273-iowa-losses-underscore-democrats-struggleswith-attracting-rural-voters. Azari, Julia. 2020. “Biden Had to Fight for the Presidential Nomination. But Most VPs Have To.” FiveThirtyEight, August 20, 2020. https://fivethirt yeight.com/features/biden-had-to-fight-for-the-presidential-nomination-butmost-vps-have-to/. Barrett, Maura, and Ben Popken. 2020. “How the Iowa Caucuses Fell Apart and Tarnished the Vote.” NBC News, February 21, 2020. https://www.nbc news.com/politics/2020-election/how-iowa-caucuses-fell-apart-tarnishedvote-n1140346. Coltrain, Nick. 2020. “After Recount (and Recanvass), Pete Buttigieg Holds onto Narrow Iowa Caucus Lead; Now, Results Must Be Certified.” Des Moines Register, February 27, 2020. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/ story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/02/27/iowa-caucus-dem ocrats-expected-release-final-recount-results-thursday-bernie-sanders-pete-but tigieg/4856850002/. Donovan, Todd, David Redlawsk, and Caroline Tolbert. 2014. “The 2012 Iowa Republican Caucus and Its Effects on the Presidential Nomination Contest.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 44, no. 3 (September): 447–466. https://doi. org/10.1111/psq.12132. Egan, Lauren. 2020. “Caucus Chaos Sparks Fresh Calls for an End to Iowa’s Leadoff Status.” NBC News, February 4, 2020. https://www.nbcnews. com/politics/2020-election/caucus-chaos-sparks-fresh-calls-end-iowa-s-lea doff-status-n1129926. Ember, Sydney, and Reid J. Epstein. 2020. “Why Almost Nobody Will Defend the Iowa Caucuses.” New York Times, February 3, 2020. https://www.nyt imes.com/2019/11/13/us/politics/2020-iowa-caucus.html. Epstein, Reid J. 2020. “10 Months Later, Iowa Democrats Blame National Party for Caucus Meltdown.” New York Times, December 12, 2020. ProQuest.

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Epstein, Reid J., Sydney Ember, Gabriel Trip, and Mike Baker. 2020. “How the Iowa Caucuses Became an Epic Fiasco for Democrats.” New York Times, February 9, 2020. ProQuest. Fodor, Cynthia. 2020. “With 2020 Election Over, Iowans Turn Focus to Face of Caucuses.” KCCI News, November 9, 2020. https://www.kcci.com/article/ with-2020-election-over-iowans-turn-focus-to-fate-of-caucuses/34623115. Forgey, Quint. 2020. “Bernie and Buttigieg Elbow Each Other with Claims of Leads in Iowa.” Politico, February 4, 2020. https://www.politico.com/ news/2020/02/03/klobuchar-iowa-new-hampshire-caucus-110639. Gilman, Hollie Russon. 2020. “The Democratic Party in Iowa Changed the Caucus Rules. There Could Be Controversy.” Washington Post, January 31, 2020. ProQuest. Green, Andrew D. 2019. From the Iowa Caucuses to the White House: Understanding Donald Trump’s 2016 Electoral Victory in Iowa. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Green, Andrew D. 2020. “What Went Wrong in the Iowa Caucus, and What May Happen Next.” LSE US Centre: United States Politics and Policy (blog), February 6, 2020. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2020/02/06/pri mary-primers-what-went-wrong-in-the-iowa-caucus-and-what-may-happennext/. Hoffman, Donna R., and Christopher W. Larimer. 2015. “Battleground Iowa: Swing State Extraordinaire” in Presidential Swing States: Why Only Ten Matter, edited by Stacey Hunter Hecht and David Schultz, 265–289. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Hull, Christopher C. 2008. Grassroots Rules: How the Iowa Caucus Helps Elect American Presidents. Stanford: Stanford University Press. IDP Staff. 2019. “Iowa Democratic Party Proposes Historic Changes to 2020 Iowa Caucuses. Iowa Democratic Party.” February 11, 2019. https://iowademocrats.org/iowa-democratic-party-proposes-historicchanges-2020-iowa-caucuses/. Klinefeldt, Nick, David Yoshimura, and Bonnie Campbell. 2020. “Internal Review Report for the Iowa Democratic Party: 2020 Iowa Caucuses.” Campbell Law Firm (report), November 10, 2020. https://assets.docume ntcloud.org/documents/20423516/2020-11-10-internal-review-report-forthe-iowa-democratic-party-2020-iowa-caucuses.pdf. Masket, Seth. 2019. “The 2020 Invisible Primary in Light of 2016.” Mischiefs of Faction (blog), Vox, January 7, 2019. https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-offaction/2019/1/7/18170894/2020-invisible-primary-2016-democrats. Medina, Jennifer. 2021. “Nevada Is Moving to Vote Before Iowa in 2024. Harry Reid Makes the Case.” New York Times, February 22, 2021. https://www. nytimes.com/2021/02/22/us/politics/harry-reid-nevada.html.

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Mejia, Elena, and Geoffrey Skelley. 2020. “Is the Electoral Map Changing?” FiveThirtyEight, August 26, 2020. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/ swing-states-2020-election/. Miller, Ryan W., and Brianne Pfannenstiel. 2020. “Is the Iowa Caucus Dead? Chaos and Partial Results Put Hawkeye State’s Status in Question.” USA Today, February 4, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/ 2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-results-delayed-no-winner-should-first-vote/465 3321002/. Murphy, Erin. 2019. “Debate as Old as Caucus Time: Should Iowa Go First?” Gazette, Cedar Rapids, IA, November 17, 2019. https://www.thegazette. com/subject/news/julian-castro-launches-debate-over-iowa-caucus-first-inthe-nation-status-20191117. Noble, Jason. 2017. “In Major Reform, 2020 Iowa Caucuses Would Include Absentee Voting, Public Vote Totals.” Des Moines Register, December 9, 2020. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/12/09/ major-reform-2020-iowa-caucuses-include-absentee-voting-public-vote-tot als/934913001/. Norrander, Barbara. 2020. “Primary Primers: The Meltdown of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses Shows Just How Difficult Election Administration Can Be.” LSE US Centre: United States Politics and Policy (blog), February 11, 2020. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2020/02/11/primary-primers-the-mel tdown-of-the-2020-iowa-caucuses-shows-just-how-difficult-election-administr ation-can-be/. Norvell, Kim, Barbara Rodriguez, and Stephen Gruber-Miller. 2020. “Iowa Republicans Unite to Defend … The (Democratic) Iowa Caucus.” Des Moines Register, February 4, 2020. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/ news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-delay-republ icans-kim-reynolds-chuck-grassley-joni-ernst-defend-democratic-process/465 3591002/. Pager, Tyler. 2020. “Iowa Autopsy Report: DNC Meddling Led to Caucus Debacle.” Politico, December 12, 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/ 2020/12/12/iowa-caucus-dnc-report-444649. Peterson, Mike. 2020. “Grassley Supports Iowa Caucuses’ Retention.” KMA News, February 14, 2020. https://www.kmaland.com/news/grassley-sup ports-iowa-caucuses-retention/article_1f8dac2c-4f49-11ea-9a2d-e734d52a5 9df.html. Redlawsk, David P., Caroline J. Tolbert, and Todd Donovan. 2011. Why Iowa? How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reynolds, Kim, Charles Grassley, and Joni Ernst. 2020. “Reynolds, Grassley, Ernst Statement on Iowa Caucuses.” Office of the Governor of Iowa, February

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4, 2020. https://governor.iowa.gov/press-release/reynolds-grassley-ernststatement-on-iowa-caucuses. Smith, Laura. 2020. “Primary Primers: After Contests in the Mostly White States of Iowa and New Hampshire, Democratic Candidates Now Face Real Tests in Nevada and South Carolina.” LSE US Centre: United States Politics and Policy (blog), February 19, 2020. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/ 2020/02/19/primary-primers-after-contests-in-the-mostly-white-states-ofiowa-and-new-hampshire-democratic-candidates-now-face-real-tests-in-nev ada-and-south-carolina/. Squire, Peverill. 2008. “The Iowa Caucuses, 1972–2008: A Eulogy.” The Forum 5, no. 4 (January): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.2202/1540-8884.1212. Stanley-Becker, Isaac. 2020. “How the Iowa Caucuses Came ‘Crashing Down,’ Under the Watchful Eye of the DNC.” Washington Post, February 16, 2020. ProQuest. Trip, Gabriel, and Reid J. Epstein. 2020. “Is 2020 the Last Year That Iowa Will Go First?” New York Times, February 4, 2020. ProQuest. Ulmer, Clare. 2020. “Amid Fallout from Iowa Caucus Chaos, Here’s a Look at Why State Votes First and How That Came to Be.” USA Today, February 4, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/ 02/04/why-iowa-votes-first/4653841002/. Ward, Myah. 2020. “Iowa GOP Leaders Defend Caucuses in Bid to Protect First-in-Nation Status.” Politico, February 4, 2020. https://www.politico. com/news/2020/02/04/republican-senators-defend-iowa-caucus-110665. Waxman, Olivia B. 2019. “Could Trump Lose the Republican Nomination? Here’s the History of Primary Challenges to Incumbent Presidents.” Time, October 10, 2019. https://time.com/5682760/incumbent-presidents-pri mary-challenges/. Winebrenner, Hugh, and Dennis J. Goldford. 2010. The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event, 3rd ed. Iowa City: The University of Iowa Press. Zhou, Li. 2020. “How Caucus Critics Could Dethrone Iowa.” Politico, February 4, 2020. https://www.vox.com/2020/2/4/21121923/iowa-cau cuses-rules-first.

CHAPTER 3

Rethinking Joe Biden’s “Resurgence” Peter K. Enns and Jonathon P. Schuldt

Abstract Conventional understandings of Joe Biden’s 2020 primary victory suggest Biden experienced a comeback after performing poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire. Polling research by authors Peter K. Enns and Jonathon P. Schuldt indicated that Biden’s “resurgence” was more a product of his preexisting nation-wide support and the order of state caucuses and primaries. This order benefitted some popular candidates, such as Biden, while harming other popular candidates, such as Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, who dropped out prior to the first contest. These developments challenge candidate-centered understandings of presidential campaigns and the efficacy of the Democrat’s 2020 primary rules. Keywords 2020 election · 2020 primary · Joe Biden · Democrats · Kamala Harris · Cory Booker · Race

P. K. Enns (B) · J. P. Schuldt Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. P. Schuldt e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Perry (ed.), The 2020 Democratic Primary, Palgrave Studies in US Elections, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0_3

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The 2020 Democratic primary saw more candidates than any other since 1972, when the current system of caucuses and primaries began.1 Representative John Delaney from Maryland was the first to enter the race, announcing his candidacy on July 28, 2017, just 188 days after Donald Trump’s inauguration (Delaney 2017). Tech entrepreneur, Andrew Yang, followed shortly after on November 6, 2017—just under three years before the 2020 presidential election. Two years later, in November 2019, former New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and former Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick, were the last to enter the race. In total, 29 major candidates vied for the Democratic nomination. As more and more Democrats joined the race, some analysts were quick to draw comparisons with the 2016 Republican primary, wondering if a crowded field would again disadvantage mainstream politicians and perhaps benefit anti-establishment candidates like Donald Trump (Azari 2018; Silver 2019). The Iowa Caucuses, held on February 3, 2020, seemed to validate these expectations. The caucuses themselves were mired by coding errors that delayed results for days, but when the dust settled, Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, received one more delegate than Senator Bernie Sanders.2 The near tie between Buttigieg and Sanders meant that the newcomer to the national political stage and the most left-leaning candidate in the race were out in front after Iowa. Joe Biden, the former Vice President and longtime Senator—and the most mainstream Democratic candidate—finished fourth, behind Senator Elizabeth Warren and ahead of Senator Amy Klobuchar.3 A week later in the New Hampshire primary, the same two finished on top, but this time Sanders edged out Buttigieg. Klobuchar and Warren received the third and fourth most votes, respectively. It seemed like the crowded field was indeed disadvantaging Biden and providing opportunity for the relatively unknown Buttigieg. Writing for The New York Times, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns described Biden’s fifth place finish as “a stinging blow to his candidacy” (Martin and Burns 2020). As Cohen et al. (2008, 291) explain, “Candidates, pundits, and scholars all agree that the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire shape the primaries that follow,” and those early contests had been particularly brutal for Biden.4 Eleven days later on February 22, Sanders won the Nevada Caucuses with 46.8 percent of the votes, leading many major media outlets to confer “frontrunner” status upon Sanders in their headlines.5 Biden, Buttigieg, and Warren followed. Given the importance of the early

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primaries and caucuses, it looked like Sanders was on his way to winning the Democratic nomination. According to FiveThirtyEight, his chances of winning the nomination hovered near 50% for much of February— more than three times the chances of the next closest candidate. Biden’s chances had dropped to about 10–15 percent, at one point equaling those of former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, the second-to-last candidate to enter the race (Rakich 2020). A Morning Consult poll of 2,631 Democratic primary voters also had Biden polling behind both Sanders and Bloomberg (Yokley 2020). Warren had a near-zero chance of winning the nomination according to FiveThirtyEight (Rakich 2020). Amber Phillips declared Warren one of the “losers” of the Nevada Caucuses and concluded, “At this point, it’s not clear where Warren’s path is” (Phillips 2020). A week later, however, the tide appeared to shift on February 29 when Biden won South Carolina. Although Sanders finished second, headlines announced, “Strong South Carolina victory breathes new life into Biden’s campaign” (Karson et al. 2020) and “Joe Biden gets his ‘comeback kid’ moment” (Yang 2020). Nevertheless, Biden was still viewed as trailing. A Morning Consult poll of 13,428 Democratic primary voters had Biden 13 percentage points behind Sanders and the poll predicted that neither would gain an edge from Buttigieg’s decision to drop out of the race. Yet, Biden’s success continued on Super Tuesday (March 3) when he won 10 of 14 states. While Sanders was still viewed as the frontrunner, talk of a Biden “resurgence” dominated news media. The Wall Street Journal announced “The Biden Resurgence: A very Super Tuesday makes the former Vice President the best Democratic hope to beat Bernie Sanders.” Other prominent headlines included “Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday Revival,” “Scenes from Joe Biden’s Super Comeback,” and “Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday Surge Reshapes the Democratic Race.”6 Benjamin Wallace-Welles (2020) described the outcome as follows, “During the past seventy-two hours, a period in which Joe Biden’s political fortunes were rapidly improving, the former Vice-President often looked humbled, a little bewildered, as if he could scarcely believe what was happening to him.” At first glance, the combination of Buttigieg and Sanders’ early success and Biden’s eventual nomination may seem to validate the narrative of a Biden resurgence. But we argue that Biden’s eventual victory should not have been a surprise. The strength of Biden’s support was evident well in advance of the early primary contests. In late August and early

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September 2018—almost a year-and-a-half before the Iowa Caucuses— we asked a national sample of likely voters about who they would most like to see run for president in 2020. Their responses not only foreshadowed Biden’s eventual Democratic nomination, but they anticipated Sanders’ and Warren’s second and third place finishes. The data also provide insight into Biden’s selection of Senator Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate and Trump’s influence on the Republican party. Below, we describe our survey and findings in detail, and why the 2020 primaries ended up exactly as we would have expected. We also highlight the implications of these findings for 2024.

The 2020 Primary Results Were Already Evident in 2018 More than two months before the 2018 Midterm Election, we conducted a national survey of more than 1,000 likely voters (Enns and Schuldt 2018).7 Most of our questions related to the upcoming Midterm Election and political and social issues at the time. But we were also interested in the candidates that likely voters wanted to see in the 2020 presidential race. So we asked, “Now thinking ahead to the 2020 presidential election, which one person would you most like to see run for president on the Democratic ticket?” The next question asked, “How about the Republican presidential ticket?”8 Often surveys provide a list of potential names and ask respondents to choose from among them. Our respondents, however, could name anyone. This provided an unfiltered indication of their most-preferred candidate more than two years before the presidential election.9 Understandably, some respondents did not have an answer about their preferred presidential candidate in an election that was still more than two years away. Nevertheless, only 16 percent of our Democratic respondents wrote they didn’t know or didn’t care who they would most like to see run for president on the Democratic ticket.10 A handful of respondents offered the names of celebrities—both real and fake. On the Democratic side, Tom Hanks and Will Smith each got two mentions. Mickey Mouse got four! On the Republican side, Kid Rock and Kanye West each got a mention, as did Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. But overall, the responses showed an informed electorate, and the resulting patterns yield substantial insights into the 2020 primary. In describing the results, we first discuss

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what Republican responses suggest about Trump’s role in the Republican Party. We then discuss what our results teach us about the Democratic primary overall, and why the notion of a Biden “resurgence” may be more fiction than fact. Among Republicans, Trump was the overwhelming favorite—56.5% of Republicans responded that Trump was the one person they would most like to see run for president on the Republican ticket.11 No other name came close to the mentions that Trump received, illustrating that among Republicans, no one else appeared to have a serious shot at the nomination. Indeed, although a handful of individuals formally entered the Republican primary, Trump’s re-nomination was never in question. Former Representative Joe Walsh dropped out in February 2020 and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld dropped out in March 2020, having earned just one delegate vote. The lack of contestation—both in our survey and in the Republican primary—may also explain the Republican Party’s unorthodox display of unconditional support for Trump during the nomination process. Historically, each party adopts a party platform that identifies the official policy positions of the party. Instead of adopting a party platform, the official party position simply resolved, “That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.”12 In other words, Trump’s agenda had become the party’s official platform. Yet, despite the absence of consensus around alternative candidates in our survey and the unprecedented alignment of the Republican Party and Donald Trump, it is equally important that only a slight majority of Republicans indicated Trump—the incumbent president from their own party—as their most-preferred candidate. Support within Trump’s base was extremely strong, but the fact that less than sixty percent of Republicans named Trump is consistent with prior research showing that Trump’s core base is just a portion of the Republican party and smaller than is often assumed (Enns et al. 2018). Democrats’ responses in our survey were equally as informative. Among Democrats, Joe Biden was the clear favorite (20.7%). Bernie Sanders, the next most-named candidate, earned just half of Biden’s mentions (10.6%). From this perspective, Biden should have been viewed as the favorite from the outset. If so, his poor early performances in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada may have had more to do with the peculiarities of these states. Iowa and New Hampshire, for example, are among

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the least racially diverse states in the country—45th and 47th, respectively (McCann 2020). Buttigieg may have benefited from his home state of Indiana’s proximity to Iowa and Sanders may have benefited from his home state of Vermont’s proximity to New Hampshire. The caucus systems of Iowa and Nevada may have also produced unique effects. Similarly, Biden’s “surge” in South Carolina and on Super Tuesday may have simply reflected the representativeness of these states. Recall that our results were based on a national sample of likely voters. Thus, we would expect that as states more closely represent the national population, they would most closely align with our results. To evaluate this hypothesis, we conducted an additional analysis dividing our respondents by state. When we analyze who respondents in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada most wanted to see on the Democratic ticket, Sanders was named more often than Biden. However, when we analyze respondents from South Carolina plus the 14 Super Tuesday states, Biden was named more often.13 In other words, our survey results align with the actual outcomes in those contests. It is important to note that particularly for Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, these analyses are based on relatively small sample sizes. But the patterns do not support the Biden resurgence narrative. More than a year before the Iowa Caucuses, Biden’s support was much higher in South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states than in the states with the first three contests. Biden’s apparent “resurgence” may be more accurately seen as reflecting the order of the state caucuses and primaries combined with his pre-existing nation-wide high levels of support. Although Biden’s support appears to have been evident already in 2018, we need to consider another potential confounding factor. A salient event occurred during our survey that might have influenced the support for Biden that we observed. On August 25, 2018, Senator John McCain passed away and Joe Biden gave an emotional eulogy at McCain’s funeral on August 30.14 August 30 was the fourth day of our survey interviews. Since Biden gave the eulogy during our field period, we wanted to assess whether the high proportion of Democrats indicating Biden as their preferred candidate reflected news coverage of Biden’s eulogy for McCain, as opposed to a true preference for Biden as a presidential candidate. To evaluate this possibility, we analyzed responses to our survey from August 27 and 29, before McCain’s funeral, and from August 30 through September 6, the day of McCain’s funeral until the last day of our survey interviews. If Biden’s eulogy was driving the above results, we

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would expect an increase in the proportion of Democrats naming Biden during the second time period beginning on August 30. This was not the case. Prior to McCain’s funeral and Biden’s eulogy, 22 percent of Democrats named Biden as the person they most wanted on the 2020 Democratic ticket. From August 30 onward, a similar portion, 19 percent, named Biden. His tribute to John McCain was important and moving, but Biden’s early support does not appear to be driven by his widely covered eulogy. In addition to foreshadowing Biden’s eventual nomination, our survey also provides important information about other aspects of the Democratic primary. Figure 3.1 shows the relative order of the top 10 Democratic names.15 As noted above, Bernie Sanders was the second most mentioned Democrat after Biden—and indeed, Sanders finished second in the delegate count at the end of the primaries. Hillary Clinton came next (8%) followed closely by Elizabeth Warren (7.6%). Excluding Clinton,

Fig. 3.1 Percent of Democrats (likely voters) naming each individual as who they would “most like to see run for president on the Democratic ticket,” August 27–September 6, 2018

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who did not enter the primary race, the top three delegate winners (Biden, Sanders, and Warren) were the most favored names 18 months before Biden’s nomination—in that order (Jin 2020). The presence of names like Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Barack Obama among the top 10 suggests that some of our respondents were simply naming the most prominent Democrats that came to mind. But that is precisely the point: by using an open-ended question that allowed respondents to name anyone they wanted, we were able to measure the names that came to likely voters’ minds—and these names mapped tightly onto the actual primary results. After 29 candidates, 10 debates,16 over 1,000 campaign events (Cadelago 2020), and more than $1 billion in ad spending (Fischer 2020), the top three finishers match the top three names provided by likely voters more than 18 months before Sanders dropped out of the race, ensuring Biden’s nomination. But this does not mean the primaries had no effect. First, notice that Senator Cory Booker and Senator Kamala Harris were the 7th and 8th most-mentioned names (and the 4th and 5th most popular out of those who entered the primary race). Yet, Booker and Harris were also among the first to drop out of the primary. The mismatch between their early popularity and early exits from the race is consistent with claims that Democratic National Committee fundraising rules and the lack of racial diversity in early primary states disproportionately hurt minority candidates (Flynn 2019; Pitner 2020). In addition, in light of Biden’s pledge to choose a woman as his Vice-Presidential-running mate (Schwartz 2020), Harris’ early popularity validates Biden’s choice of Harris for that role. Of course, Harris brings an outstanding skill set and resume to the position of Vice President. But among the many potential contenders with excellent skills and experience, Harris’ inclusion in the top 10 most-mentioned candidates in our dataset suggests she also brought name recognition and an electoral benefit that other running mates may not have provided. Our data also highlight the role that money played in the Democratic Primary. Not a single Democrat in our survey mentioned Michael Bloomberg’s name. When we analyze all likely voters, just 3 respondents (0.3% of the sample) mentioned Bloomberg, whose campaign spent nearly $1 billion during the primary. Despite almost no support before the 2018 Midterm Election, Bloomberg ended up with the 4th highest delegate count (Jin 2020), suggesting that this lavish spending was able to buy fourth place (Rogers 2020). If either Booker or Harris were able

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to spend nearly $1 billion like Bloomberg, it’s not hard to imagine a more successful outcome for either of them. Although Oprah Winfrey was the ninth most popular name provided, her positioning between Kamala Harris and Andrew Cuomo suggests that claims such as “If she runs, Oprah could dominate the Democratic field in 2020” (Gaudiano 2020) were over confident. Based on these results, it is hard to imagine a scenario where Winfrey surpasses Harris, Booker, Warren, Sanders, and Biden. Perhaps this helps explain why she did not enter the race. If she had run, and spent a billion dollars of her fortune, she would have likely done better than Bloomberg, but these numbers do not suggest a path to the Democratic nomination. Finally, it is notable that neither Andrew Yang nor Pete Buttigieg were named by any of our respondents. On one hand, this is not surprising. Neither was a national figure when we conducted our survey. But the fact that they were able to launch national campaigns highlights that latecomers can still influence the primaries. While our survey was highly predictive, it does not tell the entire story.

How Much Does the Party Decide? In their influential book, The Party Decides, Cohen et al. (2008) describe a primary system in which prominent party members (officeholders, interest groups, activists, and donors) engage in a long-running national conversation during the “invisible” primary to identify who can best unite the party coalition and win the general election. These party leaders then exert substantial influence on the final outcome via their endorsements. Donald Trump’s nomination in 2016, which faced strong opposition from many prominent Republican leaders, seemed to call the influence of political parties on candidate selection into question (Kurtzleben 2016).17 But some have argued that Biden’s success after South Carolina resulted because the Democratic Party decided to support him. For example, in writing about the aftermath of Biden’s South Carolina victory, Grier (2020) argues that “one foundational aspect of Mr. Biden’s sudden strength was almost certainly that much of the institutional Democratic Party stood up and rallied around him… party actors from elected officials to local activists decided within a few days to coalesce around an imperfect but broadly acceptable alternative to Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom many feared would drag them to defeat in down-ballot races this fall.”

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Were Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar’s decisions to drop out of the race and endorse Biden prior to Super Tuesday evidence of the Party deciding? Or were Buttigieg’s status as a newcomer to the national political stage (who was not mentioned by anyone in our survey) and the fact that Klobuchar was only the 13th most popular Democrat in our data indicators that they lacked a realistic path to the nomination? If Biden’s path was clear, their decisions to drop out prior to Super Tuesday may not have changed the outcome. Instead, the timing of their decisions may have reflected other considerations. For instance, by dropping out at that point, they avoided potential defeat and had the opportunity to endorse the eventual winner in advance of Super Tuesday—or possibly earn goodwill from the winner, as Biden’s nomination of Buttigieg for transportation secretary may attest. Given Biden’s popularity in our survey, it may have been inevitable that they would end up endorsing him. Although we cannot know for sure, our survey results align with the latter. Ideally, we would be able to look at open-ended responses to a question like ours in prior elections to see if the patterns we observed in 2020 replicate in other primaries. This would help us determine if candidates preferred early on typically predict the winner. Unfortunately, this is not possible, as we have been unable to find another open-ended question like ours. Instead, surveys typically offer respondents a set of candidates to select from, which can be particularly problematic for assessing early preferences. For example, in September 2014, a McClatchy-Marist Poll that asked respondents who they would vote for in the 2016 primary included Paul Ryan who did not end up running. Further, the survey did not include Ben Carson, John Kasich, Mike Huckabee, or Carly Fiorina— all of whom not only ran but ended up with at least one delegate vote.18 With these types of closed-ended questions we cannot get an unfiltered look at support. A more useful comparison comes from a Pew Research Center survey conducted in November of 2014. This national survey of more than 1,000 respondents asked the open-ended question, “Which political leader in the United States today do you admire most?” Although Pew’s question wording differs significantly from our open-ended question, most notably by focusing on “political leader” as compared to “candidate for president” and by not asking about Democratic and Republican leaders separately, a few patterns nevertheless stand out. First, as we see in Fig. 3.2, Ted Cruz—who finished second in the delegate count in

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Fig. 3.2 Percent of Republicans naming each individual when asked, “Which political leader in the United States today do you admire most?” November 20–23, 2014 (Pew Research Center, accessed from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research)

the 2016 GOP primary—was the candidate mentioned most often (Mitt Romney and George W. Bush, who received more mentions, did not run in 2016). Paul Ryan, whose name was included on the McClatchy-Marist poll but who did not run, was not mentioned in the Pew survey. In contrast Ben Carson, who was not included on the McClatchy-Marist poll, was the seventh most mentioned among Republican respondents in the Pew survey.19 Also notable is the relative lack of separation among the most-mentioned candidates, which contrasts sharply with our survey in which Biden earned nearly double the mentions of Sanders. The lack of separation across Republican names in 2014 appears to foreshadow the confusion within the Republican field in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. Finally, the mentions of Barack Obama and even Hillary Clinton among Republicans is quite stunning.20 Prior to the vitriol that Trump introduced into the 2016 campaign, perhaps most embodied by

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“lock her up” chants at Trump’s rallies, Republicans were willing to express admiration for Clinton and Obama. One notable absence in Fig. 3.2 is Donald Trump: he did not make the list of most-admired politicians back in November of 2014. But the very next question in the Pew survey asked, “Which business leader in the United States today do you admire the most?” Fig. 3.3 presents the results of this question for Republicans. Here, Donald Trump tops the list. Although he was not yet connected with politics, Trump was already a household name and regarded highly by Republicans. It is notable that Democrats did not hold Trump’s business leadership in the same regard. He was the 4th most-named individual among Democrats—behind Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Barack Obama—receiving just under four percent of Democratic responses.

Fig. 3.3 Percent of Republicans naming each individual when asked, “Which business leader in the United States today do you admire most?” November 20–23, 2014 (Pew Research Center, accessed from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research)

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Differences in question wording make direct comparison impossible. But again, two years before the election, and before any Republicans had announced their candidacy,21 among Republican respondents Trump was a more-admired business leader than industry legends including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Being top-of-mind among Republicans as a business leader may have fed into Trump’s campaign strategy of positioning of himself as a hugely successful businessman and political outsider during the 2016 campaign, as exemplified by his “drain the swamp” rhetoric.22

Lessons for the Future Political scientists have long argued that U.S. presidential elections are largely predictable based on a few “fundamental” considerations, such as economic conditions and presidential approval (Enns and Lagodny 2021b; Enns and Richman 2013; Gelman and King 1993; Erikson and Wlezien 2012).23 The 2020 election was no different (Enns and Lagodny 2021a). The data in this chapter suggest that it is also possible to forecast the outcome of primaries with a high degree of accuracy. This finding offers an important update to conventional wisdom, which holds that the early primary contests, particularly in Iowa and New Hampshire, send important signals about electability, which then influence subsequent primary voters’ decisions (Abramowitz 1989). Electability also relates to Norrander’s (19961996) discussion of momentum. She writes, “Momentum characterizes a candidacy on the rise, with increasing media attention, voter support, and campaign contributions… Momentum can stall, reverse, recover, or end completely” (895). In contrast to the view that the early state contests signal electability and momentum, our results suggest that the final outcome begins to solidify much sooner than previously thought. Further, what looks like momentum may actually reflect the votes aligning with what we would have expected if we had surveyed likely voters in advance. The main question is whether 2020 reflects a departure from the norm, or did our analysis uncover a longstanding process that has not been observed before because no one has asked likely voters who they would most like to see run? We believe the body of evidence we have uncovered supports the latter, but further research is necessary to know for sure. Our findings also offer several lessons for 2024. First, while the order of primaries and caucuses had no observable effect on Biden’s ultimate nomination, the order appears to have influenced when Booker and Harris

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dropped out. Starting with Iowa and New Hampshire disadvantages minority candidates, even when they have high name recognition.24 The political parties need to recognize that the current primary process benefits white candidates because the early states are not representative of the country’s overall demographic composition. Second, money also matters, as Mike Bloomberg’s fourth place finish in the final delegate count attests. If the funding system changed, the primary and the outcome would look different. At the same time, our results indicate that money is not everything. Massive spending (nearly $1 billion in Bloomberg’s case) does not necessarily offset the benefit of being top-of-mind as a preferred candidate among voters early in the process. On the Republican side, our results suggest that as GOP leaders announce their intention to run for the presidency in the lead up to 2024, those with early, broad-scale name recognition among Republican voters will have the best odds of winning the nomination. In this sense, Donald Trump may be a unique figure, as a former president who is widely admired among Republicans—in a 2020 Gallup poll, he was the “most admired man” (living anywhere in the world), named by 18% overall, and by 48% of Republicans.25 Admiration of the Trump family name is further indicated by Melania Trump’s third place finish overall as the “most admired woman” (behind Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris) and the most admired woman among Republicans (Ivanka Trump was also mentioned, but she did not crack the top 10). Of course, these high admiration ratings may say more about the time period in which the survey was conducted, which was late 2020. It is unclear whether this support will persist if Trump’s legacy becomes attached to the more than 345,000 Americans who died from the Coronavirus during his presidency and if he and his family become mired in controversy and litigation when out of office (Paul and Ramey 2020).26 But throughout his presidency, Donald Trump and his family have been able to maintain the admiration of many Republicans despite a cascade of controversies (e.g., Self 2020; Willis 2019). Thus, looking ahead to 2024, Donald’s, Melania’s, and even Ivanka’s appearances on the “most admired” list suggest that other Republicans face an uphill battle if a Trump is on the ballot. We recommend that survey researchers ask the public to name the one person they would most like to see on the Republican ticket to see if this continues to be the case.

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Notes 1. We consider 1972 as the onset of the modern primary era (Skelley 2016), though some changes in the process have occurred since then, particularly between 1972 and 1980 (Norrander 1996). 2. This count refers to “state delegate equivalents” (SDE) which determine the number of pledged delegates each candidate receives based on caucus vote tallies. Despite receiving one less SDE, Sanders actually received more total votes than Buttigieg (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/ 02/04/us/elections/results-iowa-caucus.html). 3. Des Moines Register: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/elections/res ults/primaries/democratic/iowa. 4. Consistent with Cohen et al.’s observations, the winner of the Iowa Caucuses had become the Democratic nominee in seven of the past nine contested Democratic primaries (O’Kane 2020). 5. See, for example, Business Insider (https://www.businessinsider.com/ber nie-sanders-nevada-win-cements-his-frontrunner-status-2020-2), National Public Radio (https://www.npr.org/2020/02/22/808503311/san ders-projected-to-win-nevada-caucuses-solidifing-status-as-front-runner), The BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51601813), and Vox (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/24/211 50580/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-poll-democratic-primary-2020). 6. Headlines from The New Yorker (Wallace-Welles 2020), Politico, and Time (Ball 2020). 7. We thank the Cornell Center for the Study of Inequality for generously supporting this research. 8. We randomized this question order, so half of the respondents were randomly selected to be asked about the Democratic ticket first and half were randomly selected to be asked about the Republican ticket first. 9. This section includes an expanded discussion of what we reported in The Washington Post in March 2020 (Enns and Schuldt 2020). 10. An additional seven percent skipped the question. 11. We report weighted percentages for all analyses. 12. The full resolution can be read here: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ documents/resolution-regarding-the-republican-party-platform. 13. These results reflect weighted percentages based on all respondents. We analyze all respondents because the state-level responses necessarily include fewer individuals. However, the same patterns are even more pronounced, with Sanders being named most often among those in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada and Biden being named most often in South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states, when we restrict the analysis to just Democratic respondents. 14. The full eulogy can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=nfjYggdO8q4.

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15. The 23 percent of respondents who indicated don’t know or who skipped the question are not shown on the figure. 16. https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_presidential_primary_debates_2020. 17. Although most of his Republican critics eventually changed their tune, becoming strong Trump supporters and, in many cases, joining his administration, during the primary Republican leaders were some of Trump’s biggest critics (Karni 2019). 18. The specific question asked registered Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, “If the 2016 Republican presidential primary or caucus in your state were held today, whom would you support if the candidates are Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum and Scott Walker?” (McClatchy Poll 2014). 19. Weighted percentages reported. Those indicating “none” not shown. The Pew Research Center combined names with fewer than 5 mentions into the category “Other miscellaneous” (not shown). 20. When we also include those who lean toward the Republican Party in the analysis, admiration for Hillary Clinton is even more pronounced; 2.7% named Clinton, putting her ahead of Chris Christie and John McCain. 21. Ted Cruz was the first to announce his candidacy on March 23, 2015 (Corasaniti and Healy 2015). 22. Of course, Trump’s actual business record does not match this positioning. Business Insider described his business career as, “a series of flashy and ambitious investments that go bust, sometimes ending in bankruptcy, with Trump moving on from the wreckage each time” (Lichtenberg 2020). He also did not fulfill his promise to “drain the swamp”; the executive director of the Revolving Door Project gave Trump an “F” on this dimension (Reklaitis 2020). 23. 2016 may feel like an exception, but it is important to remember that Clinton won the popular vote as forecasted (Erikson and Wlezien 2016; Lewis-Beck and Tien 2016) and Trump’s position in the polls was evident well in advance of Election Day (Enns et al. 2017). 24. In 2008, Barack Obama won Iowa, but he may have benefited from his geographic proximity, being from Illinois. Also, John Edwards had one of his best performances in Iowa, leading to almost a three-way tie, which is consistent with the view that Iowa disproportionately benefits white candidates (Obama got 16 delegates, Hillary Clinton received 15, and Edwards received 14). 25. Although Trump’s 18 percent was the highest, the survey had a margin of sampling of error of ± 4 percentage points, so his support was not statistically different from Barrack Obama’s 15 percent (https://news.gal lup.com/file/poll/328199/201229MostAdmired.pdf).

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26. The more than 345,000 U.S. deaths from the coronavirus was as of January 1, 2020 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/nat ional/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?itid=hp_pandemic-guide-box-1208).

Works Cited Abramowitz, Alan I. 1989. “Viability, Electability, and Candidate Choice in a Presidential Primary Election: A Test of Competing Models.” Journal of Politics 51, no. 4: 977–992. Azari, Julia. 2018. “The 2016 Primaries Were Weird. Will Things Get Even Weirder in 2020?” FiveThirtyEight, November 27, 2018. https://fivethirt yeight.com/features/the-2016-primaries-were-weird-will-things-get-even-wei rder-in-2020/. Ball, Molly. 2020. “Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday Surge Reshapes the Democratic Race.” Time, March 4, 2020. https://time.com/5795288/joe-biden-berniesanders-super-tuesday/. Cadelago, Christopher. 2020. “We Analyzed the Schedules of Every Top 2020 Democrat. Here Are the Big Takeways.” Politico, August 29, 2020. https:// www.politico.com/story/2019/08/29/2020-democrat-schedules-1477641. Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller. 2008. The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Corasaniti, Nick and Patrick Healy. 2015. “Ted Cruz Becomes First Major Candidate to Announce Presidential Bid for 2016.” New York Times, March 23, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/us/politics/tedcruz-2016-presidential-race.html. Delaney, John. 2017. “John Delaney: Why I’m Running for President.” Washington Post, July 28, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ john-delaney-why-im-running-for-president/2017/07/28/02460ae4-73b711e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html. Enns, Peter K., and Julius Lagodny. 2021a. “Forecasting the 2020 Electoral College Winner: The State Presidential Approval/State Economy Model.” PS: Political Science & Politics. 54(1): 81-85. Enns, Peter K., and Julius Lagodny. 2021b. “Using Election Forecasts to Understand the Potential Influence of Campaigns, Media, and the Law in U.S. Presidential Elections.” University of Miami Law Review. 75(2): 509-546. Enns, Peter K., Julius Lagodny, and Jonathon P. Schuldt. 2017. “Understanding the 2016 US Presidential Polls: The Importance of Hidden Trump Supporters.” Statistics, Politics and Policy. 8 (1): 41–63. Enns, Peter K., and Brian Richman. 2013. “Presidential Campaigns and the Fundamentals Reconsidered.” Journal of Politics 75 (3): 803–820.

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Enns, Peter K., and Jonathon P. Schuldt. 2018. “2018 Midterm Elections Survey—Wave 2”: Roper #31116761, Version 2. NORC at the University of Chicago [producer]. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research [distributor]. doi:https://doi.org/10.25940/ROPER-311 16761 Enns, Peter K., and Jonathon P. Schuldt. 2020. “Democrats Named Biden, Sanders and Warren as Their Top Picks 18 Months Ago. What Did the Primaries Change?” Washington Post, March 16, 2020. https://www.washin gtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/16/democrats-named-biden-sanders-war ren-their-top-picks-18-months-ago-what-did-primaries-change/. Enns, Peter K., Jonathon P. Schuldt, and Adrienne Scott. 2018. “Trump’s Political Base Is Weaker than It Seems, Our New Study Finds.” Washington Post, August 7, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkeycage/wp/2018/08/07/trumps-base-is-weaker-than-it-seems-our-new-studyfinds/. Erikson, Robert S., and Christopher Wlezien. 2012. The Timeline of Presidential Campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Erikson, Robert S. and Christopher Wlezien. 2016. “Forecasting the Presidential Vote with Leading Economic Indicators and the Polls.” PS: Political Science & Politics 49, no. 4: 669–672. Fischer, Sara. 2020. “Ad Spending on 2020 Primary Tops $1 Billion.” Axios, February 28, 2020. https://www.axios.com/presidential-primary-adspending-record-e5b6a234-a24c-4ac8-801f-55881dba6712.html. Flynn, Meagan. 2019. “‘It’s a Shame’: Castro, Booker Blast Potential All-white Democratic Debate Lineup after Harris Drops Out.” Washington Post, December 4, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/12/ 04/castro-booker-blast-all-white-democratic-debate-stage-after-harris-dro pout/. Gallup Organization. Gallup Poll, 2019: Roper #31116970, Version 2. Gallup Organization [producer]. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research [distributor]. Gaudiano, Nicole. 2020. “If She Runs, Oprah Could Dominate the Democratic Field in 2020.” USA Today, January 8, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/ story/news/politics/2018/01/08/if-she-runs-oprah-could-dominate-dem ocratic-field-2020/1014266001/. Gelman, Andrew, and Gary King. 1993. “Why Are American Presidential Election Polls so Variable When Votes Are so Predictable?” British Journal of Political Science 23 (4): 409–451. Grier, Peter. 2020. “The Party Strikes Back: How Biden’s Prospects Soared so Quickly” Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 2020. https://www.csmoni tor.com/USA/Politics/2020/0311/The-party-strikes-back-How-Biden-sprospects-soared-so-quickly.

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Jin, Beatrice. 2020. “Who’s Winning the Delegate Race?” Politico, August 13, 2020. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/delegate-count-tracker-dem ocratic-primary/. Karni, Annie. 2019. “No One Attacked Trump More in 2016 Than Republicans. It Didn’t Work.” New York Times, August 13, 2019. https://www.nytimes. com/2019/08/13/us/politics/trump-attacks-republicans-democrats.html. Karson, Kendall, Meg Cunningham, and Quinn Scanlan. 2020. “Strong South Carolina Victory Breathes New Life into Biden’s Campaign.” ABC News, March 1, 2020. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-projected-winnerin-south-carolina-live-updates/story?id=69255911. Kurtzleben, Danielle. 2016. “Celebrities, Lies And Outsiders: How This Election Surprised One Political Scientist.” NPR, June 21, 2016. https://www. npr.org/2016/06/21/482357936/celebrities-lies-and-outsiders-how-thiselection-surprised-one-political-scienti. Lewis-Beck, Michael S., and Charles Tien. 2016. “The Political Economy Model: 2016 US Election Forecasts.” PS: Political Science & Politics 49, no. 4: 661– 663. Lichtenberg, Nick. 2020 “The Story of Trump’s Business Career: Giant Windfalls That He Blows on Bad Investments.” Business Insider, September 29, 2020. https://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-trumps-business-careerhis-taxes-and-his-debt-2020-9. Martin, Jonathan, and Alexander Burns. 2020. “Bernie Sanders Scores Narrow Victory in New Hampshire Primary.” New York Times, February 11, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/us/politics/bernie-sandersnew-hampshire-primary.html. McCann, Adam. 2020. “Most & Least Diverse States in America.” WalletHub, September 9, 2020. https://wallethub.com/edu/most-least-diverse-states-inamerica/38262. McClatchy Poll: September 2014, Question 29, USMARIST.100614M.R01, Marist College Institute for Public Opinion (Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, 2014). https://ropercenter.cor nell.edu/ipoll/study/31113531/questions#9ed5f437-8c3b-4bd1-90a4-80d 040dc0783. Norrander, Barbara. 1996. “Presidential Nomination Politics in the Post-Reform Era.” Political Research Quarterly 49 (4): 875–915. O’Kane, Caitlin. 2020. “Will Iowa Caucuses Predict the Democratic Nominee? In 7 of the Past 9 Contested Democratic Races, It Did.” CBS News, February 3, 2020: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iowa-caucus-will-caucuses-pre dict-2020-democratic-presidential-nominee-7-of-past-9-elections-it-did/. Paul, Deanna, and Corinne Ramey. 2020. “Trump Faces Legal Cases After White House Departure” Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2020. https://

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www.wsj.com/articles/trump-faces-legal-cases-after-white-house-departure11605189609. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Pew Research Center: November 2014 Omnibus Week 3—News stories/Female leadership, 2014 . Roper #31096283, Version 2. Princeton Survey Research Associates International [producer]. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research [distributor]. doi:https://doi.org/10.25940/ROPER-310 96283. Phillips, Amber. 2020. “Winners and Losers from the Nevada Democratic Caucuses.” Washington Post, February 24, 2020. https://www.washingto npost.com/politics/2020/02/24/takaways-nevada-democratic-caucuses/. Pitner, Barrett Holmes. 2020. “How Different Would Things Be If South Carolina Had Voted First?” Daily Beast, March 4, 2020. https://www.thedai lybeast.com/how-different-would-things-be-if-south-carolina-had-voted-firstlike-um-black-and-white. Politico Magazine. 2020. “Scenes from Joe Biden’s Comeback.” Politico, March 4, 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/04/ biden-super-tuesday-photos-119912. Rakich, Nathaniel. 2020. “Election Update: Klobuchar’s Exit Boosts The Odds No One Will Win A Delegate Majority.” FiveThirtyEight, March 2, 2020. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-klobuchars-exitboosts-the-odds-no-one-will-win-a-delegate-majority/. Reklaitis, Victor. 2020. “Did Trump Drain the Swamp? Watchdog Gives Him an F, While Biden Starts with a C.” MarketWatch, November 23, 2020. https:// www.marketwatch.com/story/did-trump-drain-the-swamp-watchdog-giveshim-an-f-while-biden-starts-with-a-c-11605819726. Rogers, Taylor Nicole. 2020 “Mike Bloomberg’s Failed Presidential Campaign Cost Him over $1 Billion.” Business Insider, April 27, 2020. https://www. businessinsider.com/things-mike-bloomberg-bought-in-failed-500-millionpresidential-campaign-2020-3. Schwartz, Brian. 2020. “Joe Biden Pledges to Pick a Woman to Be His Running Mate.” CNBC, March 15, 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/15/dem ocratic-debate-joe-biden-pledges-to-pick-a-woman-as-his-running-mate.html. Self, John. 2020. “Mary Trump and the Most Shocking Family Secrets.” BBC, August 5, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200805mary-trump-and-the-most-shocking-family-secrets. Silver, Nate. 2019. “Everyone’s Running—And That Could Be Dangerous for the Democrats.” FiveThirtyEight, February 13, 2019. https://fivethirtyeight. com/features/everyones-running-and-that-could-be-dangerous-for-the-dem ocrats/. Skelley, Geoffrey. 2016. “The Modern History of the Democratic Presidential Primary, 1972–2008.” Sabato’s Crystal Ball, February 4, 2016. https://cen

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terforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/the-modern-history-of-the-democraticpresidential-primary-1972-2008/. The Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board. 2020. “The Biden Resurgence.” Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-res urgence-11583298561. Wallace-Welles, Benjamin. 2020. “Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday Revival.” The New Yorker, March 4, 2020. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/ joe-bidens-super-tuesday-revival. Willis, Jay. 2019. “How Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump Have Profited Off Their Dad’s Presidency.” GQ , October 14, 2019. https://www.gq.com/ story/trump-kids-profit-presidency. Yang, Jeff. 2020. “Joe Biden Gets His ‘Comeback Kid’ Moment.” CNN , March 1, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/opinions/joe-biden-south-car olina-comeback-kid-yang/index.html. Yokley, Eli. 2020. “Sanders Rises as Primary Voters Grow More Confident About His Chances Against Trump.” Morning Consult, February 24, 2020. https://morningconsult.com/2020/02/24/bernie-sanders-risingpost-nevada-polling/.

CHAPTER 4

Why Black Voters Chose Biden Nina M. Moore

Abstract Black voters are primarily responsible for having propelled former Vice President Joseph R. Biden to become the Democratic Party presidential nominee in 2020. They voted for him in large numbers, starting with the South Carolina election onward. Given the historic nature of the national political context in which Biden emerged as frontrunner, plus controversy surrounding some of his past involvements with momentous racial issues, a question of interest is: why did blacks vote for him? A look at the data on black primary voter policy priorities and positions versus the plans and promises of candidates during the 2020 election season suggests that Biden’s vision came closest to black voter policy interests. The takeaway lesson from this chapter’s look at the degree of substantive synchronicity between the black Democratic electorate and the candidate Biden platform is that issue voting best explains the otherwise odd choice of Biden over the rest of the diverse field. More broadly, black voters utilize their voting power in ways that are based more on

N. M. Moore (B) Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Perry (ed.), The 2020 Democratic Primary, Palgrave Studies in US Elections, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0_4

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substance, than on skin color, political elite cues, retrospective assessment, or liberal ideology. Keywords 2020 presidential primary · Democratic Party · Race · Black voters · African-Americans · Joe Biden

The black electorate showed up for candidate Joseph R. Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election in a huge way and in every sense of the term. Thanks to their outsized vote in the South Carolina Democratic primary election, the tide turned to favor a candidacy that was circling the drain. Former Senator Biden suffered a huge loss earlier in the Iowa caucus, bested by a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg. Things got worse in the next contest, as Biden fell from fifth place in Iowa to sixth in the New Hampshire primary. South Carolina would deliver him his first win and second wind. Critically, the state’s primary was for black voters to give or not to give. Their considerable share of the state’s Democratic primary electorate had grown to over 60 percent over the years.1 This supplied the confidence with which Congressman Jim Clyburn encouraged voters and the news media to not eulogize Biden’s campaign until the South Carolina primary.2 Biden followed suit.3 Within the overall nomination process, South Carolina’s February 29, 2020 primary was the first in which black voters would figure largely, and much more so than in the overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire contests of February 3 and February 11, 2020 respectively. Black turnout in South Carolina was up, and fully 61 percent of those who went to the polls pulled the lever for Biden. The result is Biden walked away with the win, claiming 49 percent of the state’s Democratic primary vote, surpassing his biggest competitor Senator Bernie Sanders’ 20 percent share. Following South Carolina, Biden would defeat Sanders in 19 of the next 26 states before becoming the de facto nominee. Not just in South Carolina, but the black Democratic primary voter backed Biden across the board nationally. The intrigue of Biden’s appeal to black voters is more fully appreciated if we situate his win within the broader political context in which it developed. Biden was forced to compete for the Democratic Party presidential nomination far longer than most—right up until April 8, 2020, when Sanders finally suspended his campaign and dropped out

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of the race. The need to compete for black votes; however, was not as prolonged. Polling data indicate that the preponderant share of blacks were already committed to Biden months before the rest of the Democratic electorate, in fact as early as January 2020. A Pew survey4 indicates that, as compared to most voters in the United States, blacks were less excited about the rest of the field of candidates. Fifty-five percent of all U.S. voters reported feeling enthusiastic about several candidates, whereas 47% of blacks reported that their first choice was the “only candidate” they felt enthusiastic about. At first glance the level of black support that Biden garnered in 2020 is not particularly impressive when held up against earlier primary election outcomes. Across 1980 to 20205 Biden’s 2020 numbers rank among the lowest of the primary candidates who ultimately proved to be the choice of black voters. Only John Kerry (56%) and Ted Kennedy (45%) earned a smaller percent of the black Democratic presidential primary vote. Unlike previous contenders, however, Biden competed in a very crowded field of more than 27 candidates vying for the Democratic nomination at some point during the process, many of them viable candidates.6 Thus, considering that blacks had a multitude of good options from which to choose, the choice of Biden is arguably more intriguing than the black vote for past candidates. What makes Joe Biden’s win all the more eyebrow-raising is that the 2020 Democratic contest featured an unusually colorful field of players and one in which former Senator Joe Biden was the whitest candidate, in a manner of speaking. Besides a striking lineup that included Latino, Asian, and American Samoan contenders, there were also four black candidates among black primary voters’ options, namely Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, Deval Patrick, and Wayne Messam. Two of the four were major players who had already earned a spot on the national stage. Former Newark, New Jersey mayor, Cory Booker, served in the U.S. Senate since 2013. A Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, Senator Booker spent eight years living in the housing projects of Newark, then spent much of his early political career advocating for the poor and disenfranchised.7 Booker’s presidential campaign proclaimed that he was “running a campaign focused on love unity and identity.”8 By all accounts, he was a worthy candidate. Senator Kamala Harris likewise earned her stripes—as the first African American and first woman elected district attorney of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011 and

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attorney general of California from 2011 to 2016. Harris received a bachelors at the historically black Howard University before going on to earn a law degree at the University of California. That Senator Harris would go on to become the first black and first Asian and first woman elected Vice President of the United States lends further credence to the idea that she brought considerable heft to the table. Yet, she dropped out of the race before the first contest in Iowa, citing a lack of financial resources.9 Traceable at least partly to widely criticized actions that were taken by Biden during the Bill Clinton presidential administration, racial unrest in the country grew to a fever pitch in 2020. National headlines deemed the period between late 2019 through the summer of 2020 a “racial reckoning.”10 It was a reckoning that began simmering back in 2014 when video footage captured an unarmed black man, Eric Garner, suffocated by white police officers in full view of rolling cameras, as he uttered “I can’t breathe.” The same year the spotlight shined on the fate of other unarmed blacks Michael Brown and 12-year old Tamir Rice, both shot and killed by white police officers. In seemingly rapid succession these wrenching incidents were followed a year later by video footage of yet another black man, Walter Scott, being shot multiple times in the back by a white police officer as Scott ran way, then Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in 2016 under questionable circumstances. By the time Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by police, with much of the public believing that she lay sleeping in her bed in March of 2020, outrage over racist policing had spilled into the streets. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was well-organized and garnered sustained national and international attention, not to mention an enormous amount of public empathy. In short, the race problem in American policing headlined much of the 2020 primary season. And, blacks were front-and-center. Significant for our purposes is that, in the midst of this, Joe Biden publicly admitted and in a full-throated confession that it was a mistake to support the 1994 federal crime bill that effectively bolstered the overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and systemic racism in the criminal justice system that, in turn, helped to account for over-policing and the persistent pattern of police killings of unarmed blacks.11 Then-Democratic primary contender Harris attacked Biden on the primary stage for having spoken favorably about the fact that he once reached across the aisle to work with segregationists and also his past efforts to block racial busing.12 Yet, despite all of this, blacks still voted for Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary.

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The varied ideological composition of the 2020 options, most especially the prominence of progressive candidates, squeezed Joe Biden to the right of the liberal-conservative spectrum. Biden was the least liberal of the top three contenders. Two-time presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders was a self-proclaimed socialist. The next closest competitor, Elizabeth Warren, proudly wore the label of “progressive.” Together, Sanders and Warren, carried much of the mantra of Democratic progressives on any number of issues. Running across both of their campaigns and the Democratic progressive agenda overall was the idea that American capitalism had failed the working class and favored the rich, scuttled the environment for monetary gain, and turned its back on immigrants on the basis of xenophobic zeal propagated by President Donald Trump.

Explaining the Black Vote for Biden The question of interest in this chapter is why did black voters turn to former Vice President Joe Biden in 2020? Why did they put their eggs in his basket from the very start of the election cycle, when the options were plentiful and included perfectly good black and progressive candidates, whereas Biden was the oldest, whitest, and purportedly on the wrong side of the history behind the ongoing racial reckoning? Marisa A. Abrajano et al succinctly characterize much of the research on political behavior as centered on four major theories of voter decisionmaking: sociodemographic characteristics of voters, partisanship, issues and ideology, and economic conditions, with recent literature focusing on issues and economic factors.13 Quite obviously, the 2020 Democratic primary gives pause to racial theories of voting that conclude that, in elections where white and black candidates square off, black candidates will win the black vote, and white candidates the white vote.14 Looking back at past Democratic primaries, the exception was more so the rule. The only black Democratic primary candidate to win a majority of black votes was Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. in 1984 and 1988. This, while black candidates have appeared on the primary ticket since 1972, almost all unsuccessful in garnering substantial black support. Moreover, were we to borrow from the evidence on candidate appeal, we would understand Biden’s win to be the fruits of his past political accomplishments and feats. Mayer’s look at retrospective voting in

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presidential primaries documents that, especially when an incumbent president is running for reelection and when an incumbent vice president is seeking to become his party’s next presidential candidate, such voting will dominate. This, Mayer says, is why the vice presidency has become such a good launching pad for presidential candidacies.15 Above all else, Biden’s vice presidency in the Obama administration from 2008 to 2016 stood to work in his favor. Except that, his own past was marred with problematical stances on racial busing, harmful criminal justice policies, and the culture wars generally, as reported above. While the weight of the evidence in voter studies leans toward party influences, studies of partisanship and voting behavior are not particularly helpful in sorting out primary election outcomes. Party leadership, however, would seem instructive. Donna Brazille reports in her insider account that Hilary Clinton essentially manipulated the purse strings of the Democratic National Committee to control the 2016 primary process.16 In the case of the 2020 election the outsized voice of South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn and also the late Congressman John Lewis used their prominence to bolster Biden.17 The energy behind the campaign changed almost immediately after. At the same time, however, former President Barack Obama is said to have asked Biden to not run in 2016 against Hilary Clinton. As well, Obama delayed his endorsement of Biden in 2020, until after Biden had already emerged as the frontrunner. The literature on issue voters and issue voting urges that we pay close attention to Biden’s issue stances to fully understand his victory in 2020. This is not the least of which because the most fundamental expectation for almost any democratic election is that voters will assess politicians on the basis of their positions on issues. Classic theories of voting tell us as much.18 Yet, contemporary theories caution that the vast majority of American voters do not have coherent issue preferences, and that many policy issues are too complicated for them to digest.19 But, Carmines and Stimson note that, while there are some issues that are easier or harder than others for voters to understand, sophisticated policy calculation in the electorate is not necessary for issues to matter.20 Ansolabehere et al endeavor to “set the record straight” by pointing out measurement errors in how such studies approach issues. These errors “show that averaging a large number of survey items on the same broadly defined issue areas—for example, government involvement in the economy, or moral issues—eliminates a large amount of measurement

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error and reveals issue preferences that are well structured and stable.”21 Bartels adds as further evidence the fact that voter uncertainty about candidates’ issue positions is also a determining factor in their electoral choices.22 Even in regard to foreign policy issues, Aldrich et al report that “the public has perceived clear differences between the candidates on these issues” and, more, “these issues have affected the public’s vote choices.”23 The evidence from a side-by-side comparison of candidate Biden’s policy positioning, on the one hand, and that of black primary voters on the other strongly suggests that their choice of him over the others was the result of substantive policy considerations. The vision and agenda put forth by Biden more closely matched black policy priorities and preferences than did those advanced by his top two competitors, Senators Sanders and Warren. Hence, the 2020 Democratic primary is a powerful case study of how content matters more to blacks than description. Biden’s skin color took a backseat in the voting booth, as did the other afore-mentioned determinants frequently theorized to explain black voting patterns. In summary, this 2020 primary phenomenon is not wholly explained by the winning candidate’s skin color (or the lack thereof), personal popularity, past record, or elite cues, and the like. Ultimately, Biden secured the black primary vote because he spoke more persuasively to the specific policy concerns of blacks, and in ways that best captured their level of intensity toward and prioritization of these issues. There is such a thing as “black issues” in American elections. Black issues are distinguishable from not only white issues, but also Hispanic and Asian issues, and the issues that concern the country as a whole. This is not to say that blacks agree on all issues or that there is a group that think dynamic afoot. Nor does it mean that blacks are summed up only by their racial experience, and not classifiable also in terms of class, gender, sexual orientation, religious, immigrant status, veteran status, and a host of other identity dynamics. In fact, Cohen and Dawson report that African Americans living in the most impoverished neighborhoods have different political attitudes and exhibit different political behavior. Yet, they also acknowledge that “most black people, regardless of poverty status, agreed on the evaluation of the president, the need for a strong state, redistributive economic policies, and choices for elected offices.”24 Accordingly, the point here is simply that we can empirically denote as “black issues” those that meet two criteria. First, they register higher on

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the list of priorities for a substantial percent of black voters, more than they do for the average U.S. voter or other racial-ethnic groups. A second criterion for what constitutes “black issues” is that the specific posture of the greater number of blacks on select policy subjects noticeably diverges from that of other racial-ethnic voting blocs and from that of the average American citizen. Certain problems are more concerning to the majority of blacks than they are to the majority of whites, Hispanics, and Asians or the country as a whole. In sum and substance, in denoting what are “black issues” and probing them, the analytical focus in the discussion to follow centers on the extent to which aggregated black political expressions are noticeably separate and apart from the aggregated concerns of other racial-ethnic minority groups, both in terms of prioritization and also preference. To examine the extent to which issues help to explain the allocation of black votes in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary we can compare the policy stances taken by blacks to the formal policy messages put forth by the candidates, then gauge the degree of alignment between the two. In the 2020 primary, the candidates of note were Biden—who won, Sanders—who came in second, with 1,073 delegates to Biden’s 2,687, and Warren who maintained third place in the polls throughout much of the cycle. Political and social science research establishes that the information provided by campaigns matters.25 Such information increases the visibility of a candidate. Messaging can also increase voter attention to specific issues. Voters use the information to decide how to vote.26 Most of all, campaign messages matter because they help to reveal where candidates stand on an issue. As Jacobson puts it: “In circumstances where voters begin with little or no knowledge of one or both of the contestants, or where the cue of a party label is unavailable, the potential for information provided by campaigns to influence citizens’ choice is obviously enhanced.”27 Significantly, Vavreck’s analysis of presidential elections across sixty years reveals that campaign messages not only make a difference, but can at times outweigh the usual predictors of election outcomes, most notably the state of the economy. Popkins’ The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns clarifies that, while the fundamentals of economic condition remain determinative, the information that is disseminated by campaigns helps voters make connections between the problems that they face and the officials that they elect.28

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Not all campaign messaging mediums are equally significant. The evidence on the impact of presidential debates, for instance, is mixed.29 Press releases, speeches on the campaign trails, news media interviews, and social media are equally less reliable indicators. More so than these communication modes, the platform developed by a campaign is the most comprehensive summation of candidate policy stances and priorities— unprompted and unfiltered. This is owed in no small part to the fact that campaign websites30 are carefully structured and worded based on extensive deliberation between the candidate, campaign staff, consultants, and pollsters. The best way to gauge what blacks were thinking during the 2020 election cycle is to ask them. The representations made by civil rights organizations, leaders, and spokespersons are unquestionably key windows into the political dynamics of black communities. For a systematic look at black mass voter preferences, however, public opinion surveys are best. A dataset made available through the Pew Research Center is particularly useful in this regard. As part of its American Trends Panel (ATP) project, the Pew Research Center partnered with Ipsos Public Affairs to conduct a nationally representative survey drawing from a sample of 12,638 U.S. 18+ year old residents from January 6–20,2020 and 4,708 residents from June 16–22, 2020.31 The samples were weighted to ensure reliable inferences based on race and other demographic characteristics. The questionnaires were developed by Pew in consultation with Ipsos. Together, they probe the topics that dominated much of the primary season. The January 2020 survey was the 59th wave of the ATP panel (W59); it asked about respondents’ policy priorities, economic conditions, government role, and policing. The June 2020 survey was the 69th wave of the ATP panel (W69) and, along with other questions, it measured support for presidential candidates, Medicare for All, public health insurance option, free public college, the death penalty, and billionaires in the United States The Pew data allow us to breakdown where blacks stood on these issues versus other racial-ethnic groups and the average U.S. resident.

Biden on Black Issues Among the dozen or so policy issues that dominated the 2020 Democratic presidential primary election cycle either on the debate stage or

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media platforms, four registered much more forcefully with blacks than did the remaining issues. Criminal Justice Reform. The single most important “black issue” in the 2020 Democratic primary was systemic racism in criminal justice. It topped the list of policy priorities for blacks, based on the belief that policing and criminal law enforcement worked against them in ways that were enormously disadvantaging. Evidence of the saliency of criminal law enforcement for the black primary electorate consists of two parts. First is the fact that the overwhelming majority deemed it “a very big problem” in the country. As shown in Table 4.1, nearly 9 out of 10 did so when asked “How much of a problem do you think each of the following are in the country today?” The survey questionnaire offered more tempered response options, including the option to denote it “a moderately big problem,” “a small problem,” or “not a problem at all.” The second data point that is a tell-tale sign of racial justice’s distinct importance to blacks is the gap between their response to this item and that of other voters. It was easily a larger gap than that found on any of the other ten hot button Table 4.1 Policy Priorities How much of a problem do you think each of the following is in the country today? Percent stating: “A Very Big Problem”

High Policy Priorities The way racial and ethnic minorities are treated by the criminal justice system Violent crime The coronavirus outbreak Unemployment The affordability of healthcare Low Black Priorities Federal budget deficit Terrorism Climate change Ethics in government Illegal Immigration

Diff. U.S.

Black White

Hispanic Asian Other

+36

52

88

45

58

61

60

+24 +19 +19 +11

39 61 51 59

63 80 70 70

35 56 46 57

44 70 60 58

37 73 54 67

40 58 54 62

+8 +6 +5 +4 −3

48 24 43 65 27

56 30 48 69 24

47 21 40 66 28

47 32 50 61 29

42 16 59 55 16

53 25 47 70 27

Source Computed from data collected in the American Trends Panel Wave 69, June 16–June 22, 2020, Pew Research Center. From: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?post_type=dataset. Accessed 02/23/2021

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issues listed in Table 4.1. Racialized law enforcement preoccupied black voters at a rate 36 percent higher than the national average, and double that of whites. An additional important takeaway from the data on policy priorities is that race and crime is a policy area where black, brown, and yellow communities of color were not exactly on one accord. A majority of Hispanic (58%) and Asian (61%) voters were troubled by the problem, but not nearly as troubled as blacks. Black primary voters were the ones that cared most about criminal justice reform. Besides deeming it a top priority, the black primary electorate was unified also around substance, such as assessments of and views regarding various aspects of the criminal justice problem. From Table 4 we see that they were remarkably unified in their unfavorable assessment of police. Supermajorities expressed that “police around the country” are doing a poor job of treating racial-ethnic groups equally, a poor job of using the right amount of force, and a poor job of holding officers accountable when misconduct occurs. On the flip side, fully 34 percent of blacks believed that police officers were doing a poor job of protecting people from crime, and another 38 percent rated police protection as “only fair.” The dissatisfaction with police officers was part and parcel of a general mistrust in the overall way in which the justice system operated. At least one indicator that encompasses multiple junctures in the criminal process is the death penalty, which is in many ways the culmination of that process. Nearly 90 percent of blacks believed that the death penalty is applied in ways that are racially biased. Of all of the policy positions depicted in Tables 4.2, 4.4, and 4.5, blacks’ discontent with this symbol of American law enforcement was more congealed than any other. Moreover, an important feature of blacks’ orientation toward criminal justice in the United States was that it was vastly distinct from the Table 4.2 Policy Positions % “Strongly Favor”

Diff.

U.S.

Black

White

Hispanic

Other

Free public college tuition Make it easier to vote Medicare for All Public Health Insurance Option

+25 +12 +2 0

34 61 25 34

59 73 27 34

23 60 21 31

52 59 35 43

39 64 30 34

Source Computed from data collected in the American Trends Panel Wave 59, January 6–January 20, 2020. From: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/?post_type=dataset. Accessed 02/21/2021

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rest of America’s. Secondly, black concerns for criminal law enforcement starkly contrasted with how others were oriented. As shown by the data items in Table 4.4, negative assessments of law enforcement consistently commanded huge black majorities, whereas national averages on the same items hovered around the 50 percent mark. There was a huge divide too between them and other racial-ethnic groups, and across the board. An interesting exception is the Asian electorate. According to Table 4.4, on policing matters Asians were actually in greater agreement with blacks than either white or brown communities. Nonetheless, even though a majority of Asian voters saw policing as problematic, it was only barely a majority. As such, blacks effectively stood alone in their worries about policing at the same time that they stood united. It is important to note that blacks did not consider decreased funding for police as a viable solution to the race-related problems with policing. When asked whether spending on policing should be increased a lot or a little, stay about the same, or decreased a little or a lot, only 40 percent felt that police funding should be decreased either a little, as shown in Table 4.5. And, even among those who supported a decrease, there was a split, with 21 percent preferring that police funding be decreased only “a little” and the remaining 19 percent preferred “a lot.” In essence, blacks opted for reforms that were more measured than defunding police, such as better police training, more transparency, more oversight, and a ban on the use of chokeholds, according to the data in Table 4.5. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s plan32 for criminal justice reform reflected a greater awareness of and sensitivity to the hot button issues that not only tie directly to the Pew data on policy preferences. But, his plan also touched on key reform efforts that had been pursued over the years. Otherwise, his and Sanders’33 proposals overlapped on a number of items that were distinctly important to blacks, including stronger civil oversight boards, elimination of the death penalty, revival of the U.S. Justice Department pattern-or-practice investigations, and consent decrees. Both also called for the elimination of mandatory minimum sentencing. Bernie Sanders went further to call for a U.S. Attorney General investigation for whenever someone is killed in police custody, mandated criminal liability for civil rights violations by police, and national standards that emphasize de-escalation. Where Sanders arguably went awry was in his expression of sympathy for police officers, which was juxtaposed to the messaging of the Black Lives Matter movement that sought to raise public awareness of the

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victims of unarmed black men. The Sanders campaign asserted: “We ask these overstressed police officers to fill roles they are not trained or equipped for … Last year, more police officers died of suicide than in the line of duty.” He lamented the fact that “African-Americans are twice as likely to be arrested, and almost four times as likely to experience physical force in an encounter with the police,” but without proffering a plan to address the disparity in the use of force, something that registered high on the list of black priorities. In contrast, Biden recommended a $300 million investment in a federal program that would promote community-oriented policing, but conditioned on the requirement that “hiring of police officers must mirror the racial diversity of the community they serve.” He also picked up three policy recommendations that had been floated by members of the Congressional Black Caucus since the 1980s.34 These included eliminating mandatory minimums, the federal crack-cocaine sentencing differential, and encouraging states to collect more data to “address biases in our criminal justice system.” Violent crime. The second issue that carried special relevancy for black primary voters during 2020 was a violent crime. Violent, drug, and property crime rates had steadily declined in the more than 40 years prior to 2020 election cycle primary. In 2020, however, and also during the 2016 cycle, the murder rate in predominantly minority cities rose and quickly became a point of focus for conservative and liberal news outlets. That President Donald Trump tried to leverage the increased murder rate to stoke racial tension did not shy black voters away from worries about the devastating effects of higher violent crime rates in their communities. The criminal victimization rate for blacks is anywhere from two to seven times higher than that of non-blacks.35 It stands to reason, then, and as shown in Table 4.1, a sizeable majority of blacks (63%) named violent crime as the second most serious problem in the country in June 2020. By comparison, neither the average U.S. voter (39%) nor white (45%), Hispanic (44%), and Asian (37%) voters placed quite the amount of stock in violent crime as did black voters. Biden’s plan to fight violent crime reflected greater cognizance of its racially disproportional effects, as compared to the crime-fighting plans put forward by Sanders and Warren.36 Biden promised to pursue evidence-based measures to root out persistent violent crime and explicitly acknowledged that a key piece of that evidence was the fact that “gun violence disproportionately impact communities of color.” Insofar as the Biden approach to violent crime entailed a commitment of funds

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to evidence-based interventions so that areas with more homicide would receive more funding, it was a plan that stood to sync neatly with this top policy concern of black primary voters. By also arguing that violent crime was ultimately traceable to the “original sin of slavery, and the centuries-long campaign of violence, fear, and trauma wrought upon African American people in this country,” Biden also locked arms with blacks by acknowledging the racial dimensions of violent crime. Biden was on message, where his closest competitors were not. The racial justice package proposed by Senators Sanders missed the mark for black primary voters. His plan for “Racial Justice” lacked the kind of specificity proffered by Biden, firstly, in its failure to note the distinctive impacts of violent crime on blacks. Sanders lumped blacks in together with what he described as the “violence waged against black, grown and indigenous Americans.” Also, Sanders’ conception of “violence” was all-encompassing and entailed five central types: physical, political legal, economic, and environmental.” This catchall seemingly diminished the devastation of the skyrocketing murder rate in black neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Senator Elizabeth Warren’s inattention to violent crime as a critical policy issue is evidenced at least partly by the fact that, of the 27 plans that she put forward, none was actually dedicated to violent crime. Rather, the crime-related plan that her campaign fleshed out most was a “Fighting Back Against White Nationalist Violence” plan. Likewise, Warren’s limited attention to the disproportional effects of violent crime on black neighborhoods was evidenced by the fact that she constructed a virtually identical plan for blacks in her “Working Agenda for Black America” as that offered for Latino neighborhoods in her “Restoring America’s Promise to Latinos” agenda. Warren’s campaign envisioned black and brown communities as similarly situated, notwithstanding the fact that decades of statistical data show that blacks are far more affected by violent crime.37 Included in her largely duplicated “plan for gun violence prevention” for both black and brown voters were: executive action to confront gun industry; eliminating the filibuster to diminish the National Rifle Association’s influence on members of Congress, and to send comprehensive gun violence legislation. It was scarcely framed to address isolated black concerns. COVID-19. Rounding out the top five main concerns of black voters in 2020 were kitchen table matters, the type that literally hit home for blacks in starkly disadvantaging ways. From Table 4.1 we see that large majorities placed the Coronavirus outbreak, unemployment, and

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the affordability of healthcare among the most concerning policy issues to African Americans. Eighty percent deemed the coronavirus outbreak “a very big problem,” compared to a smaller 61 percent national average and an even smaller 46 percent of whites. That Hispanics (70%) and Asians (73%) were in greater accord with blacks on this issue is owed to the fact that the COVID crisis hit black and brown communities much harder than white communities. Besides its direct impact among communities of color, the racial effects of COVID-19 were well documented by health agencies and widely publicized by the media throughout the primary season, thus raising broader public awareness about race and COVID19.38 Where the Sanders COVID-19 plan articulated the priorities that he intended to focus on if elected, it emphasized the need to protect specific demographic segments such as “seniors, people with disabilities and families with children.” He pledged also to “protect farmers.” There was no mention of black America at all in Sanders’ dedicated COVID19 plan, or any other communities of color. The likely place where his Coronavirus plan would specifically affect them was in connection with his call to guarantee funding parity for the territories, tribes, and DC for “all health and economic coronavirus relief programs.” Likewise, the Warren plan for tackling COVID-19 entailed zero callout to the fact that black Americans and communities of color generally were hardest hit. Her campaign expressed concern for funneling testing, vaccinations, and other resources to “the millions of Americans who are uninsured,” concern that “every person in this country get recommended evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment for coronavirus for free,” as well as a concern for parents of school age kids and elderly relatives in need of medical attention. There was, however, no acknowledgment of the statistics on COVID’s racial effects, let alone a plan or expressed intent to ensure that relief would target communities of color where the pandemic hit hardest. Where Warren’s codified COVID strategy came closest to outlining a plan to confront infectious disease in a way that explicitly targeted dark-skinned communities was in her intentions to fully fund the Global Health Security Agenda. But, this was in order to build capacity in countries abroad with the goal of tackling the Ebola outbreak in six countries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the spread of SARS in China. It is the case that Biden’s dedicated COVID platform also offered little redress for black Americans, but there was extensive acknowledgment elsewhere concerning racial disparities. Also, his campaign published

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on its website an April 9, 2021 statement in which he called attention to the higher COVID-19 death rates of black, Latino, and Native Americans.39 As to his basic COVID plan, however, like Sanders and Warren’s, it too was centered on demographic groups other than blacks, namely older Americans and people with disabilities.40 It was in connection with special promises made directly to African Americans that the candidate shined a bright light on COVID’s reach into their community. In fact, for Biden his overall mission to root out “systemic racism from our laws, our policies, our institutions, and our hearts,” as the platform described, was made more compelling by the fact that COVID-19 exacerbated longstanding disparities. Biden’s campaign went on to unpack the various types of disparities that were widened by COVID-19. Economic Conditions and Unemployment. As economic growth slowed during the pandemic, black and brown communities bore the brunt of financial decline, with blacks citing unemployment as one of their top policy concerns. The 20 percent higher rate of blacks who were apprehensive about one’s ability to secure and maintain a job, versus non-blacks, necessarily meant the subject was more salient for them. (See Table 4.1.) As one might expect, their angst over unemployment was grounded in a bleaker outlook on the economy. As compared to other racial-ethnic voting blocs, blacks were far less upbeat about current and projected economic conditions. A majority of whites (55%), Hispanics (51%), and Asians (51%) believed that by 2021 economic conditions in the country would get “better.” This view sharply juxtaposed with that of blacks, only 34 percent of whom were as confident about the trajectory of the economy. The divide between blacks and others on economic conditions, as shown in Table 4.3, was nearly 20 points. Much like their economic outlook, assessments of economic conditions in the country as they existed in June 2020 also set blacks apart from the rest. A black voter was two times less likely than the average U.S. voter to regard them as “excellent” or “good.” Thoughts on whose job it was to help those most impacted fell partly along racial lines. An overwhelming majority of blacks supported a larger government role, when asked whether “government should do more to help needy Americans, even if it means going deeper into debt.” Proof that black support of greater government intervention was in some ways unique to black America is in Table 4.3. It shows that they were more favorably oriented toward it than the average U.S. voter and more than any other racial-ethnic group. Over 80 percent of blacks supported

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Table 4.3 Perspectives on Economic Issues Diff. U.S. A year from now economic −18 conditions in the country will be "Better" Economic conditions in the −13 country today are "Excellent" or "Good" Government should do more +19 Billionaires bad for country +5

Black

White

Hispanic Asian Other

52

34

55

51

51

44

25

12

29

20

16

18

60 21

81 16

55 22

66 18

63 na

61 27

Source Computed from data collected in the American Trends Panel Waves 59 and 69, Pew Research Center

Table 4.4 Assessments of Criminal Justice System Police Ratings (% Responding “Poor”)

Diff. U.S.

Using right amount of force 38 Treating racial-ethnic groups 38 equally Accountability for police 32 misconduct Protecting people from crime 22 Views on Death Penalty Diff. Death penalty is racially biased (% +29 Closest to view) Death penalty for murderers +14 (%Strongly Favor)

Black White

Hispanic Asian Other

35 40

73 78

26 32

41 44

46 52

45 48

42

70

36

44

54

51

12 34 8 15 20 19 U.S. Black White Hispanic Asian Other 59 88 56 56 na 65 27

13

28

31

na

24

Source Computed from data collected in the American Trends Panel Waves 59 and 69, Pew Research Center

government intervention, compared to 60 percent, on average. As well, fewer whites, Hispanics, and Asians envisioned government as a plus. Blacks occupied a slightly different policy space on this subject. A curious revelation in Table 4.3 is found on the subject of what blacks believed should be done and, more specifically, whether the answer was somehow tied to the concentration of wealth in the country. What we learn from the data is that, simply put, blacks were not inclined to disavow the right of billionaires to live peaceably in the United States as billionaires. They didn’t seem to care much one way or the other, in responding

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Table 4.5 Police Reform Proposals % “Strongly Favor”

Diff.

U.S.

Black

White

Hispanic

Asian

Other

Ban use of chokeholds or strangleholds Increase power of civilian oversight boards Impose residency requirement for police Decrease police funding a little or a lot Database on police accused of misconduct Require training in nonviolent alternatives

26

51

77

47

51

50

48

17

44

61

38

52

56

47

16

36

52

32

40

33

40

15

25

40

22

26

42

31

14

65

79

61

71

63

70

7

74

81

73

76

71

76

Source Computed from data collected in the American Trends Panel Waves 59 and 69, Pew Research Center

to the Pew survey question: “Do you think the fact that there are some people in this country who have personal fortunes of a billion dollars or more is “a good thing for the country,” “a bad thing for the country,” or “neither a good thing or a bad thing.” In a manner of speaking, black respondents were decidedly indifferent and, actually, the most indifferent of all groups. Table 4.3 documents that 69 percent of blacks replied that billionaires were “neither a good thing or a bad thing,” compared to 58 percent of most Americans. The Biden traditionalist approach to economic policy was more closely aligned with black policy preferences and, as compared to Sanders and Warren’s, it was also more explicit in its intent to improve the economic plight of blacks. In fact, the “Build Back American Plan” touted by Biden heavily emphasized rebuilding the manufacturing industry as a way to reduce unemployment. The mere fact that Biden aimed to create millions of new manufacturing jobs promised to offset the negative impact that the 1960s shift in the labor market had most acutely in black inner-city communities. Blacks were enormously displaced by the relocation and decline in low-skilled, well-paying goods-producing jobs that gave rise to the black middle class.41 It follows that policies that aimed to support manufacturing and sourcing in America would serve to bolster the financial picture in black communities. Biden seized the opportunity to shine a light on the linkage. He pledged to ensure that “major research, public

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investment, and training and education for manufacturing jobs goes to all parts of America, both urban and rural communities, with historic investments in communities of color.” A noteworthy feature of the policy platform put forth by Biden is that it included racial equity as a standalone pillar of the grand “Build Back Better Plan” that was the signature piece of his campaign. A unique proposal from the Biden camp involved use of the U.S. Federal Reserve to help close racial economic gaps. It bears mentioning that this portion of his policies was explicitly linked to the concerns expressed by blacks. The platform noted: “The Federal Reserve (the Fed) plays a highly influential role in determining the overall unemployment rate, as well as that of Black and Brown people. It continued calling on the Fed to aggressively surveil and target persistent racial gaps in jobs, wages, and wealth. Biden pledged to work with Congress to amend the Federal Reserve Act to require the Fed to regularly report on current data and trends in racial economic gaps — and what actions the Fed is taking through its monetary and regulatory policies to close these gaps.” In sum and substance, the promises that Biden made regarding economic policies addressed head-on blacks’ distinctive concerns about unemployment. Sanders offered a hefty economic package that was light on specific policies that targeted black or brown interests. He recognized there was “racial economic disparity within the broader economic disparity in America.” The problem for Sanders, as far as wooing black voters was concerned, is that the way in which he concretized these problems into policy proposals was decidedly race-neutral. The call for a federal jobs guarantee, a $15 minimum wage, federal investment in “distressed communities that have high levels of poverty,” and other parts of his economic package made no specific legislative or resource allocation promises regarding black and brown communities in particular. The only exception was the proposal to allocate $10 billion to a Minority Business Development Agency. Meanwhile, the Ultra-Millionaire tax proposed by Elizabeth Warren was misaligned with blacks’ decided indifference to the concentration of wealth in the country, as shown by the public opinion analysis above. More importantly, Warren walked a fine line between proposing more funding specifically for black communities and proposing more funding for the less wealthy generally. An interesting example of this is found in her “Leveling the Playing Field for Communities of Color” plan. The

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plan lays out many of the ways that entrepreneurs of color are disadvantaged and underrepresented. It promises a new Department of Economic Development that will include a new Small Business Equity Fund that will “close the startup capital gap for entrepreneurs of color.” Critically, it stops short of pledging any amount of money or a spending strategy specifically for minority businesses enterprises, as did both Biden and Sanders. Central Elements of Progressive Agenda. During the 2020 Democratic primary, progressives poured a great deal of their time and energy on a half dozen policy areas. Some of these, namely healthcare reform, college access, and voter reforms overlapped with distinctively “black” concerns in 2020. Some did not, such as climate change, illegal immigration, and government ethics. The affordability of healthcare ranked fifth among the top ten problems that blacks deemed very important. On that basis, healthcare reform had the potential to bolster black support for progressive candidates. Turns out, the way that progressives concretized that concern into policy proposals did not resonate with blacks. Both Sanders and Warren promised a Medicare for All, single-payer program, while Biden, instead, advocated a public health insurance option like Medicare. Notably, all three candidates pointed to striking racial health disparities and pledged to reduce them by way of their proposal. Of course, blacks’ higher rate of morbidity and mortality should have mobilized them around candidates that advocated government-guaranteed healthcare coverage. In the end, this was not the case. Blacks were no more interested in the Medicare for All plan than were other voters. An underwhelming 27 percent embraced the promise of health insurance for every citizen, with only whites (21%) exhibiting negligibly less enthusiasm. The exception was Hispanics, at least 35 percent of whom supported Medicare for All. The public health option urged by Biden likewise scored zero special points in the black community, as shown in Table 4.2. Black support for it exactly matched the national average. The progressive Democratic agenda that was most closely synced to uniquely “black” concerns was the push for college affordability. Blacks were much more likely than whites to embrace the pitch for free public college tuition. In fact, Table 4.2 shows that, across various segments in the country, the only clear majority that emerged on this particular initiative was a majority within black and brown communities. Only 23 percent of whites got behind the idea of a free public college education

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for all. Black support for free college was 25 percent higher than the average, and fully 36 percent higher than that of whites. A review of the platforms crafted by all three candidates reveals that Sanders and Warren went above and beyond in terms of both tailoring their college access strategies specifically to blacks and in promising resources and support specifically to blacks and predominantly black institutions. Sanders was by far the most aggressive: calling for cancelation of all student loan debt, pledging to cancel the $1.6 billion existing Historically Black College and Universities (HBCU) loan debt from the Capital Financing Program, and calling for passage of the “College for All Act” to provide $48 billion to “eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal college, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs.” Warren followed suit, pledging to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt for 95% of Americans who carry it, eliminate tuition and fees for all to attend a two-year or four-year college, and establish a $50 billion fund for HBCUs and MSIs. The challenge for Warren and Sanders was Biden’s counterstrategy. Even though progressives’ intentions toward blacks were bolder and more explicit, Biden’s much more moderate approach nonetheless took the wind out of theirs, so to speak. He tailored his free public college plan only to those with incomes under $125,000. Significantly, his campaign was careful to stress that this more limited tack would still “help roughly 91 percent of Black households and 88 percent of Latino households, and 91 percent of Native American households.” A similar dynamic unfolded on another push by progressives that struck a chord with blacks to a greater extent than other groups, namely electoral reform. In fact, across the four progressive policy issues depicted in Table 4.2, electoral reform stands out most. With a nod from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Shelby v. Holder (2013)42 that struck down the pre-clearance requirements in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and amendments, a number of Republican-controlled states enacted legislation or implemented other changes that many believe were designed to disenfranchise or depress black voter participation. To appreciate that these emerging trends regarding voting rights was uniquely concerning to blacks, consider that the level of support among blacks for electoral reform was greater than the U.S. average, as well as any other group. The June 2020 Pew survey queried respondents as to whether they believed that “if election rules were changed to make it easier to register and vote,” would that also make elections less secure. In response, nearly three out of

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four blacks expressed that simplifying voting did not jeopardize the electoral process. A majority of other groups leaned in the same direction, but not to the same degree as blacks. Senator Sanders straightforwardly framed his voting rights reforms as directed at restoring the Voting Rights Act, re-enfranchising “the right to vote to the 1 in 13 African-Americans who have had their vote taken away by felony conviction, paid their debt to society, and deserve to have their rights restored” and also ending voter suppression and voter ID laws— both of which have been criticized as racially motivated. Down-the-line, Biden called for the same. Warren went even further to propose a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to vote, eliminate the electoral college, and bonus payments to states that achieve “high percentage voter turnout, including across racial, gender, and age groups.” Low Priorities for Black Electorate. The two policy subjects that dominated Democratic primary debates, candidate statements, and platforms were climate change and immigration, both of which were near the bottom of blacks’ most important problems list. The “Biden Plan for Securing our Values as a Nation of Immigrants” pledged to overturn all of former President Donald J. Trump’s racially-charged executive actions on immigration—from the border wall to the Muslim ban. Sanders made a point of explaining why immigration was personal to him. Both Sanders and Warren pledged to undo all of Trump’s actions on Day One and much, much more—such as a moratorium on deportation, an end to permanent deportation and mandatory detention, and a presumption of release eligibility. It bears mentioning that only Warren honed in on the treatment of black immigrants, but did so without advocating policies for their particular standards. This, while fleshing out a detailed plan for Latinx immigrants from Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. For blacks, illegal immigration ranked 10th on the list of 10 very important problems in the country. Just barely higher on the scale for blacks was climate change, the topic that actually garnered more enthusiasm and commitment from progressive candidates than any other issue. Upon reviewing the lengthy climate change plans put forth by Biden, Sanders, and Warren, it is clear that each, in effect, leveraged racism and black interests as a means to advance environmental reforms, instead of pitching such reforms as a way to improve the lives of black and brown communities. Sanders to poverty, Warren to communities of color, and Biden hitched it to slavery. Regarding the latter, the platform explained the need to grapple with the “original sin

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of slavery” and asserted: “Biden will on day one of his Administration to address the systemic racism that persists across institutions today. That’s why he developed education, climate change, and health care policies, among others.”

Conclusion In conclusion, Biden proved most effective in tailoring his policy proposals and messaging to “black issues,” with only a few major policy areas where his agenda was out of step with “black issues.” His goals were tethered to what mattered to blacks, more than the objectives of his two top competitors. His strategy was particularized in ways that synced to black preferences. Even the basic structure and organization of the platforms put forth by each symbolized more or less regard for uniquely “black issues.” Biden’s platform encompassed a pillar dedicated specifically to blacks and also addressed black issues within each of the Build Back pillars. A full pillar within Biden and Senator Warren’s plan were devoted also to the Latino, Indian American, and Arab American communities. Senator Sanders, in contrast, encompassed a catch-all “Racial Justice” plan. Ultimately, beside the symbolism of this basic structure of their respective plans for the White House, it is the substantive content of their plans, the regard for uniquely black concerns manifest in the plans, and the plans’ degree of specificity that help us to more fully understand why blacks bypassed Warren and Sanders to entrust their vote instead to Biden.

Notes 1. Kornacki, S. July 29, 2019. Journey to Power: The History of Black Voters, 1976–2020. From https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020election/journey-power-history-black-voters-1976-2020-n1029581. Accessed 02/21/2021. 2. Pramuk, J., and Higgins, T. February 20, 2020. South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn Endorses Joe Biden Days Before Pivotal Primary. From https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/james-clyburn-endorsesjoe-biden-before-south-carolina-primary.html. Accessed 03/04/2021. Also: Oprysko, C., and Caputo, M. February 26, 2020. Biden Wins Crucial Jim Clyburn Endorsement Ahead of South Carolina Primary. From https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/26/jim-clyburn-end orses-joe-biden-117667. Accessed 03/04/2021.

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3. Zhou, L. February 20, 2020. The Slow Implosion of Joe Biden’s Big Bet on South Carolina, Explained. From https://www.vox.com/2020/2/ 20/21132076/joe-biden-south-carolina-primary-firewall-bernie-sanderstom-steyer. Accessed 03/04/2021. 4. Computed from data collected in the American Trends Panel Wave 59, January 6–January 20, 2020. From https://www.pewresearch.org/pol itics/?post_type=dataset. Accessed 02/21/2021. 5. Kornacki (2019). 6. With the exception of Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Beto O’Rourke, and Deval Patrick, this number includes all with Federal Election Commission filings, plus: Michael Bennet; Michael Bloomberg; Corey Booker; Steve Bullock; Julian Castro; Bill De Blasio; John Delaney; Kirsten Gillibrand; Kamala Harris; John Hickenlooper; Jay Inslee; Amy Klobuchar; Wayne Messam; Seth Moulton; Richard Ojeda; Tim Ryan; Bernie Sanders; Joseph Sestak; Tom Steyer; Eric Swalwell; Elizabeth Warren; Marianne Williamson; and Andrew Yang. 7. CNN Editorial Research. January 5, 2021 (last updated). Corey Booker Fast Facts. From https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/us/cory-bookerfast-facts/index.html. 8. CNN Editorial Research. Cory Booker: Senator from New Jersey. From https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/primaries-caucuses/candid ate/booker. 9. Merica, D., and Sullivan K. December 3, 2019. Kamala Harris Ends 2020 Presidential Campaign. From https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/03/pol itics/kamala-harris-ends-presidential-bid/index.html. 10. Thomas, K. D., Davis, J. F., Wilson, J. A. J., and Sobanda, F. 2020. Repetition or Reckoning: Confronting Racism and Racial Dynamics in 2020. Journal of Market Management 36: 13–14, 1153–1168; Horowitz, J. M., Parker, K., Brown, A., and Cox, K. October 6, 2020. Amid National Reckoning, Americans Divided on Whether Increased Focus on Race Will Lead to Major Policy Change. Pew Research Center. From https:// www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/10/06/amid-national-reckon ing-americans-divided-on-whether-increased-focus-on-race-will-lead-tomajor-policy-change/. Accessed 03/04/2021; Thompson, A. June 9, 2020. White America Is Reckoning with Racism. It Could Reshape 2020. From https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/white-vot ers-2020-biden-304804. Accessed 03/04/2021. 11. Greenwood, M. October 25, 2020. Biden Says Crime Bill Was a ‘Mistake’ During ABC Town Hall. From https://thehill.com/homenews/ campaign/521326-biden-says-1994-crime-bill-was-a-mistake-during-abctown-hall. Accessed 03/04/2021. 12. Silva, D. June 28, 2019. Kamala Harris on Joe Biden’s Segregationist Comments: ‘You Have to Draw the Line.’ From https://www.nbcnews.

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com/politics/2020-election/kamala-harris-joe-biden-s-segregationistcomments-you-have-draw-n1024456. Accessed 03/04/2021. See also: Rizzo, S. July 29, 2019. The School Busing Debate Between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. From https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ 2019/07/29/school-busing-debate-between-joe-biden-kamala-harris/. Accessed 03/04/2021. Abrajano M. A., Nagler J., and Alvarez, R. M. 2005. A Natural Experiment of Race-Based and Issue Voting: the 2001 City of Los Angeles Elections. Political Research Quarterly 58: 203–218. Kaufmann, K. M. 2004. The Urban Voter. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press; Bullock, C. 1984. Racial Crossover Voting and the Election of Black Officials. Journal of Politics 46: 238–251; Grofman, B., and Handley, L. 1994. Estimating the Impact of Voting-Rights-Related Districting on Democratic Strength in the U.S. House of Representatives. In B. Grofman (ed.), Race and Redistricting in the 1990s. New York: Agathon. Mayer, W. G. 2010. Retrospective Voting in Presidential Primaries. Presidential Studies Quarterly 40: 660–685. Brazile, d. 2017. Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House. New York: Hachette Book Group. Strauss, D. March 4, 2020. ‘A Chain Reaction’: How One Endorsement Set Joe Biden’s Surge in Motion. From https://www.theguardian.com/ us-news/2020/mar/04/joe-biden-jim-clyburn-endorsement-super-tue sday. Accessed 03/04/2021. Canes-Wrone, B., Brady, D. W., and Cogan, J. F. 2002. Out of Step, out of Office: Electoral Accountability and House Members’ Voting. American Political Science Review 96: 127–140; Erikson, R. S., and Wright, G. C. 1993. Voters, Candidates, and Issues in Congressional Elections. In Dodd, L. C., and Oppenheimer, B. I. (eds.), Congress Reconsidered, 5th ed. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press; Key, V. O. 1966. The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting, 1936–1960. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; Downs, A. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row. Polsby, N. W., and Wildavsky, A. 2000. Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics. New York: Chatham House; Fiorina, M., and Peterson, P. 1998. The New American Democracy. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon; Kinder, D. R. 1998. Opinion and Action in the Realm of Politics. In Handbook of Social Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Converse, P. E. 1964. The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics. In Apter, D. E. (ed.), Ideology and Discontent. New York: Free Press.

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20. Carmines, E. G., and Stimson, J. 1980. The Two Faces of Issue Voting. American Political Science Review 74: 78–91. 21. Ansolabehere, S., Rodden, J., and Snyder, J. M. 2008. The Strength of Issues: Using Multiple Measures to Gauge Preference Stability, Ideological Constraint, and Issue Voting. American Political Science Review 102: 215–232. 22. Bartels, L. M. 1986. Issue Voting and Uncertainty: An Empirical Test. American Journal of Political Science 30: 709–728. 23. Aldrich, J. H., Sullivan, J. L., and Borgida, E. 1989. Foreign Affairs and Issue Voting: Do Presidential Candidates “Walts Before a Blind Audience?” American Political Science Review 83: 123–141. 24. Cohen, C. J., and Dawson, M. C. 1993. Neighborhood Poverty and African American politics. American Political Science Review 87: 286–302. 25. Popkin, S. L. 2012. The Candidate: What It Takes to Win—And Hold— The White House. New York: Oxford University Press; Kenski, K., Hardy, B. W., and Jamieson, K. H. 2010. The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election. New York: Oxford University Press; Vavreck L. 2009. The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Gelman, A. S., and King, G. 1993. Why Are American Presidential Polls so Variable When Election Outcomes Are so Predictable? British Journal of Political Science 23: 409–451. 26. Fridkin, K. L., and Kenney, P.J. 2011. The Role of Candidate Traits in Campaigns. Journal of Politics 73: 61–73; Vavreck, L. 2009. The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Johnston, R., Jamieson, K. H., and Hagen, M. G. 2004. The Presidential Campaign of 2000 and the Foundation of Party Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press; Alvarez, R. M. 1997. Information and Elections. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Popkin, S. L. 1994. The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Bartels, L. M. 1993. Message Received: The Political Impact of Media Exposure. American Political Science Review 87: 267–285. 27. Jacobson, G. C. 2015. How Do Campaigns Matter? Annual Review of Political Science 18: 31–47. 28. Popkin, S. L. 1994. The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 29. Sides, J., and Vavreck, L. 2013. The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Erikson, R. S., and Wlezien, C. 2012. The Timeline of Presidential Elections: How Campaigns Do (and Do Not) Matter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Shaw, D. R. 1999. A Study of the Presidential Campaign Event Effects from 1952–1992. Journal of Politics 61: 387–422.

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30. Druckman, J. N., Kifer, M. J., and Parkin, M. 2010. Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going Negative on Congressional Campaign Web Sites, 2002–2006. Political Communication 27: 88–103. https://doi. org/10.1080/10584600903502607. 31. For additional details, see The American Trends Panel Survey Methodology. From https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/u-s-surveyresearch/american-trends-panel/. Accessed 02/21–23/2021. 32. All Information on Candidate Joe Biden’s Campaign Platform Was Obtained. From https://joebiden.com/joes-vision/. Accessed 02/26/2021. 33. All Information on Senator Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Platform Was Obtained. From https://berniesanders.com/issues. Accessed 03/01/2021. 34. Moore, N. 2015. The Political Roots of Racial Tracking in American Criminal Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 35. Moore, N. 2015. 36. All Information on Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign Platform Was Obtained. From https://elizabethwarren.com/PLANS. Accessed 2/18/2021. 37. Moore, N. 2015. 38. Note: The Coronavirus pandemic was official recognized in March 2020 though it became an issue in the weeks prior, which means that candidates were able to address it at least to some extent before March and certainly before the June 2020 pew survey. 39. See Statement by Vice President Joe Biden on the Racial Inequities of COVID-19. From https://medium.com/@JoeBiden/statement-by-vicepresident-joe-biden-on-the-racial-inequities-of-covid-19-5e4f17f8fa0c. Accessed 03/01/2021. 40. See The Biden Plan for Older Americans. From https://joebiden.com/ older-americans/ and also Supporting People with Disabilities During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic. From https://joebiden.com/ covid19-disabilities/. Both Accessed 03/01/2021. 41. Schmit, J., and Zipperer, B. 2007. The Decline in African-American Representation in Unions and Manufacturing, 1979–2006. Center for Economic and Policy Research Issue Brief. From https://ideas.repec.org/ p/epo/papers/2007-06.html. Accessed 03/04/2021. 42. Shelby v. Holder, 570 US 529 (2013).

CHAPTER 5

Sexism and the 2020 presidential primary Heather E. Yates

Abstract This chapter examines the enduring social and attitudinal barriers presented to women presidential candidates and their influence on voters’ perceptions of female executive leadership. There were six women candidates in the 2020 Democratic Primary, a record number, including four Senators, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand. None of these women won a single primary contest. Women have been running and winning elected office in record numbers. While voters grow more receptive to female political leadership, they still collectively believe America may not be ready for a woman president. Keywords 2020 presidential primary · Gender · Women and politics · Elizabeth Warren · Amy Klobuchar · Kamala Harris · Kirsten Gillibrand · Hillary Clinton · Donald Trump

H. E. Yates (B) University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Perry (ed.), The 2020 Democratic Primary, Palgrave Studies in US Elections, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0_5

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The 2020 Democratic primary reflected an unprecedented number of six women seeking the party’s nomination. Yet, the political landscape of the 2020 Democratic primary illustrated that many attitudinal, even cultural, barriers remain to women seeking the presidency. The context of the 2020 Democratic primary was burdened by ideological intra-party factionalism that resurrected deep-rooted gendered narratives, reviving the electability myth about women presidential candidates. The primary also revealed compelling paradoxes in public opinion, exposing voters’ attitude gaps in perceptions of the electability of women presidential candidates. The Democratic Party’s intra-party conflict transpired between the pragmatic and ideological factions of the party (Noel 2016). The rift concerning the centrists and leftward progressives set in opposition goals of expanding the party’s representational coalition against the ability to be electorally competitive against Donald Trump. As a result, the factionalism activated what Julia Azari (2019) calls institutional conservativism (understood to be its preservationist proclivities), which motivated a version of organizational “protectionism” that advantaged Joe Biden’s prospects of winning the nomination. This chapter contemplates how sexism framed the 2020 Democratic presidential primary using the rhetorical vehicle of “electability.” The analysis approaches gender bias and sexism as a product of socially constructed norms and expectations associated with the Presidency. This chapter’s analysis relies on public opinion data covering the months preceding and during the 2020 primary elections to ascertain how the public appraises women presidential candidates. The data comes from relevant online sources of credible public opinion surveys that asked about perceptions of women in presidential politics, and specifically, about the women candidates in the 2020 Democratic Primary. Public opinion polls offer a good indication of how voters respond to the women presidential candidates of 2020. The data reveals perplexing paradoxes of voters’ expressed receptiveness of a woman president, but regularly voting against women presidential candidates. Democratic voters expressed readiness to elect the first woman president, yet doubted the electability of a woman nominee in the general election against Donald Trump. To better understand these inconsistencies, this examination turns to theories of social perception to explain the seemingly inconsistent opinions expressed about the receptiveness to electing a woman to the presidency. Specifically, examinations of the false consensus effect and pluralistic ignorance are useful frameworks to explain why a majority of

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voters may privately reject the greater assumption that women are not electable, but acquiesce to it because they believe themselves to be in the minority opinion (Ross et al. 1977; Mullen et al. 1985; Miller and McFarland 1991).

Context of the 2020 Democratic Primary Although women candidates have steadfastly demonstrated their electability across levels of public office, the American presidency remains elusive. The 2018 midterms elected a celebrated number of women to Congress for the fifth consequent cycle. The midterms also produced a historic number of women who filed and campaigned for political office (Lerer and Chira 2020). Party progressives hoped that these developments meant the tenacious structural and social obstacles preventing a woman president had quelled. However, the robust momentum reflected in women’s electoral gains and activism did not translate to the Democratic primary. With gender on the ballot again in 2020, the electability myth was resuscitated by flawed interpretations of what Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat to Donald Trump meant. Voters, and party leaders alike, committed a logical fallacy of arriving at a hasty generalization about the implications. The fallacy generalized an assumption about the electability of the entire 2020 cohort of women presidential candidates based on the sample of a single campaign and gendered stereotypes in 2016. The ensuing debate about nominating a woman again was entrenched in the question about whether Clinton’s defeat was to be meant as a universal rejection of electing a woman president or merely isolated to Clinton’s campaign (Lerer and Chira 2020). There are scarce misgivings about the role sexism had in the 2016 presidential election, and how that may have permeated the 2020 Democratic primary (Kurtzleben 2020). Research on Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign found that sexism was a factor in shaping voters’ perceptions of candidates (Simas 2017, Ratliff et al. 2019; Franks 2020). The studies found that the effect of sexism on vote choice was significant and that the intensity of hostile sexism increased, “hostile sexism has emerged as a stronger, more consistent predictor of voting outcomes in analyses of data from the 2016 election” (Franks 2020). The findings further suggest how gender shaped the 2020 Democratic primary. Despite women candidates

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modeling their electability, gender still shaped candidate appraisal when it came to the Presidency. In addition to voters’ own perceptions of gender and the presidency, the sitting President weaponizes gender identity. Specifically, Trump weaponizes his appeals to identity while also weaponizing partisan identifiers. When he weaponizes gendered identity, he usually employs hyper-masculinity as means to undermine women’s agency, authority, and leadership (Kurtzleben 2020). By doing so, he cued elicit hostile sexism as backlash for perceived power-seeking and breaking of the status quo (Okimoto and Brescoll 2010; Ratliff et al. 2019). During the primary, Trump’s weaponization of masculinity was aimed to denigrate the Democratic Party as a whole. When the president uses Twitter to attack political opponents and adversaries, he does while intersecting weaponized gender with partisanship (Fig. 5.1). Under those conditions, it was evident that gender had an electability problem. This chapter explores the multifaceted complexity of this

Fig. 5.1 President Trump weaponizes identity to campaign against the democratic party

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predicament. Just like presidential campaigns, the nomination process is gendered. The American political institutions reflect socially constructed gendered expectations that get informed by gender stereotypes (Dittmar 2015). The following sections examine the gendered dynamics of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary to examine the manifestations of gender bias and how it may have affected the candidacies of six women campaigning for president. A discussion of the nomination process, including its relevant rules and actors, will help better address how gender bias is present in the process and how it influenced the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

The Continuity of Sexism in Presidential Politics A stubborn feature of presidential politics is the gender-based scrutiny and prejudice that disproportionately penalize women candidates. Although positive strides were made in the last five election cycles to elect women to political office at the state and federal levels, it does not convey that systemic misogyny has been dismantled, although signs are moving in a hopeful direction that some of those systemic harms are in the process of being disassembled. Sexism in politics does not result from a single factor, but manifests out of the interaction of several social factors (Valentino et al. 2018). The dynamism of presidential elections makes it challenging to isolate a single factor that explains gender bias in presidential politics, but the public recognizes that social perceptions make a contribution to preventing women from advancing to the presidency. To examine how gender influenced the 2020 Democratic primary, it is necessary to revisit the concept of gender and its role in American society, which also shapes politics. On the baseline question of gender, it needs to be understood separately from biological sex. Gender is studied as a socially constructed concept. As a social institution, gender provides society with a method of categorizing humans based on the differences defined by biological sex. Gender bias then emerges from the patriarchal social structure of gender ranking, valuing male over female. This structure defines and reinforces gendered inequality because the devalued gender has less power and less economic potential than the valued, powerful gender (Lorber 2004). The function of gender then, in American politics, commonly gets misapplied as an idea that gendered issues are “female” matters, rather

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than part of the larger social fabric of issues and policies that affects both men and women (Witt et al. 1995; Valentino et al. 2018). Examining how gender functions in political contexts endeavors to illustrate that it is a socially constructed concept. The socially constructed notion of sexbased difference in politics is a well-documented double standard applied to women candidates and officeholders. It is a commonly flawed assumption that women share essential or universal characteristics, creating a gender-based cohesiveness as voters and candidates (Dittmar 2015). The double standard conveys disparate sets of rules aimed at different groups of people on the basis of perceived differences. Our gendered American institutions are connected to our gendered understandings and expectations of politics in general. While women’s political progress has eradicated many of the structural barriers presented to women presidential candidates, many cultural barriers persist. Some of these barriers get articulated through America’s historical legacies of exclusion. Considering how gender structures power in the public sphere, the American presidency is perceived as a masculine institution. Its pathdependent history conveys the assumption that only men are suitable to be its occupant. Women’s representation in these institutions has lagged and “because women have not occupied the pathways to the presidency in great numbers, it is easier to understand why no woman has succeeded in obtaining the position” (Lawrence and Rose 2010, 28). As a result, the general public may have a difficult time imagining a woman president because it has never been modeled. While the constitutional qualifications and requirements are rather basic and vague, the cultural and social expectations of presidential candidates have grown complex, and even more so for women candidates (Jamieson 1995; Lawrence and Rose 2010). Candidate’s sex often influences assumptions about the role of gender in public office, especially when it comes to the executive branch. Research has shown that campaigns are gendered institutions, meaning that gender is embedded in the expectations for behavior of candidates and politics, in general, has long been rooted in masculinity (Dittmar 2015). It is also understood that political institutions are equally gendered. Gender shapes public expectations about interactions, behavior, and all political action within the institution. That has been shifting slowly over time with more women campaigning for and getting elected to public office at local, state, and federal levels. However, campaigning for the presidency remains stubbornly gendered and remains, in effect, a masculine institution.

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Another factor influencing the way gender is interpreted is how it is presented to the public. The role of a candidate’s sex in voter perception of candidate qualification has been extensively studied and findings reveal that women presidential candidates are viewed significantly less qualified to be president when compared with male candidates with similar credentials (Paul and Smith 2007; Lawrence and Rose 2010). One of the vital instruments that shape the public’s perception of women presidential candidates is the news media. A well-established foundation of research documents the gendered double standards frequently applied to women candidates (Bystrom et al. 2001; Bystrom 2004; Carlin and Winfrey 2009; Lawrence and Rose 2010; Washburn and Washburn 2011; Meeks 2012; Shoaf and Parsons 2016). The double standards encompass criteria that effectively create conditions featuring concurrent penalties experienced by women candidates, commonly referred to as what Jamieson (1995) called “double binds.” In the public domain, women are pressured by the challenge to achieve balance between character traits (e.g., femininity versus toughness or equality versus difference) that seemingly stand in opposition to one another. Social expectations of gendered behavior make it increasingly difficult for a woman candidate to embrace one identity trait to the detriment of another because both alternatives carry clear penalties (Jamieson 1995; Lawrence and Rose 2010). Analysis of political communication reveals that, as a result of such double binds based on gendered stereotypes, media coverage of women candidates often focuses on topics beyond the context of the campaign and public policy choices (Bystrom 2004, Carlin and Winfrey 2009). Attention on female candidates is routinely fixated on personal traits and physical appearances; women in politics are evaluated in ways that men are not and these appraisals have been used to construct gender-based stereotypes on women in politics in media coverage (Huddy and Terkildsen 1993; Witt et al. 1995; Jamieson 1995; Jalalzai, 2006; Han and Heldman 2007; Lawless 2009; Han 2010; Fox and Lawless 2011; Sheeler and Anderson 2013; Dittmar 2015; McDermott 2016). A notably vigorous stereotype most exploited by Donald Trump on the campaign trail was the sex-based difference stereotype, intimating that there is something fundamental to women that is incompatible with her ambition for political office—and that the sex-based difference prescribes men to the public domain and confines women to the private domain.

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The 2020 Primary: A Gendered Process The party’s left-leaning progressives and centrists were struggling over organizational and political priorities. The progressives believed that the party needed to expand the tent to grow its base coalition in order to maintain the internal diversity that has shaped the party’s entire history because the progressives believed that it was “a more uniformly liberal party heavily populated by historically marginalized groups” (Azari 2019, 182). The empirical evidence demonstrating women’s electability did not only elevate the hopes of progressives that a woman could secure the party’s nomination, it intensified demands for a candidate who reflected a more contemporary and diverse Democratic Party. On the other hand, the centrists prioritized electability and emphasized the requisite competitiveness of their nominee to defeat Trump in the general election. This intra-party conflict likely penalized women candidates because it activated the party’s institutional conservatism, known as the organizational risk-averse behavior aimed at preserving its chances of achieving electoral victories (Azari 2019). This meant that the candidate who would secure the nomination would be the best known, the best networked, and the best funded, which favored Joe Biden. Biden’s frontrunner status in the invisible primary was determined by the conventional influences of incumbency: name recognition, an established network, political allies, and donors (Cohen et al. 2008). These organizational practices and norms reinforced the lack of an expanded pipeline available to mentor women candidates for the presidency, and in an especially crowded field of contenders, women’s candidacies suffered due to the constrained competition for similar resources (Beail et al. 2019). All things considered, perhaps party leadership falsely assumed it was secure in the stability of its base coalition (the traditional “Obama Coalition”). Much of the party’s intra-party struggle pivoted around the hope that the coalition was stable enough to expand its inclusiveness and accessibility. The logical fallacies driving the electability myth and perceptions of women candidates activated the party’s traditionalist tendencies. Not everyone agreed on what electability meant for a prospective nominee. Compounding this feature of the Democratic primary was the intra-party factionalism that drove disagreements over this electoral strategy to defeat Donald Trump. The party’s coalition was unified in its mission to defeat

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Donald Trump, but not much else. This meant that Democrats prioritized electability over all else in their nominee, which effectively sidelined women contenders. Primary Rules and Party Factionalism While the 2020 rules accepted to govern the process were done so to expand access to voter participation in the primary, there was little internal reconciliation on the larger dispute between party pragmatists and progressives on who was most competitive to defeat Donald Trump. While the party’s rank-and-file leaders and candidates could not openly agree on policy position or policy direction, the singular unifying principle was to defeat an incumbent President, which spurred an internal debate about campaign strategy, and ultimately had implications for women candidates. This ideological conflict underscored the negative perception of women candidates’ electability. Ultimately, the rules had not substantively changed since 2010, which operated on two assumptions. First, there would be a presumptive frontrunner favorite, similar to Clinton in 2016. A presumptive favorite, in theory, would minimize the need for the party’s gate-keeping function and organically winnow the field. Second, the rules functioned on an outdated premise that it was laying groundwork for an incumbent nominee (like in 2012 and 2016). Instead, the rules governing 2020 were accepted with a 2016 context in mind, and turned out to be ill-fitting for a primary conducted under different conditions (Putnam 2019). Party factionalism made it difficult to unify behind the front-runner candidate. The party rules adopted for the 2020 primary showed how the conventional wisdom of previous cycles was ineffective. The rule revisions simply protracted the previous conventional practices of organic, competitive winnowing. Perhaps to placate frustrated progressives, the rules were revised to be more inclusive of candidate participation, which governed access to the presidential debates. They required that candidates polled at 1 percent or higher in any of three polls approved by the party and candidates needed to demonstrate fundraising viability by showing that their campaign had 65,000 donors across at least 20 states with no fewer than 200 donors pers state (Putnam 2019). The implementation of these rules delivered as expected, they slowed the organic winnowing process. However, the optimistic desire to prolong voter exposure to women, outsiders, and long-shot candidates had limited results. The expanded

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presence on the debate stages functioned to showcase the party’s diversity and representativeness, but struggled with translating that into a cohesive message beyond anything “anti-Trump.” Other rule revisions encouraged state parties to employ a model using more open primaries with early voting, and some with a form of ranked-choice voting (Sides et al. 2015). The rationale was that utilizing more open primary election formats created more participatory access for voters, making long-shot, and outsider candidates, more competitive (Putnam 2019). However, it is argued that liability associated with these formats penalized Sanders-like candidates because while outside candidates and long-shot candidates may generate voter enthusiasm, their campaigns have difficulty translating that into voter turnout. Gender and the Invisible Primary The invisible primary is understood as an informal campaign that occurs up to the year of a presidential election (Cohen et al. 2008; Sides et al. 2015). It is necessary to examine this stage to understand how gender was a factor for voters. As noted previously, candidate’s sex provides a frame for influencing voter appraisal. During this stage, the public’s attention, aided by the press and media, is trained on the candidate’s personality— which for women candidates results in uneven scrutiny. During this phase, relatively little is known about the candidates, especially in a crowded field like the 2020 campaign. Table 5.1 shows this regarding the favorability and recognition of likely 2020 Democratic candidates. Table 5.1 reflects four of the six women candidates, listed in alphabetical order and the two front-runner men candidates. This particular survey captured attitudes immediately after the 2018 midterm elections. While no candidates had officially announced, the data shows Warren and Harris were the front runners in terms of favorability and name recognition. Voters seemed to know less about Senators Klobuchar and Gillibrand. Joe Biden is reflected as the clear front-runner and most recognizable candidate. This early data is important to consider against other surveys that indicated that among potential Democratic voters, the ability to defeat Donald Trump was the most important quality a candidate could have.1 The importance of electability appeared to have been particularly detrimental to women candidates, particularly Elizabeth Warren, whom many Democrats said they did not plan to vote for due to perceived lack of

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Table 5.1 Attitudes toward the 2020 democratic women presidential candidates (Compared with Male frontrunners) in the invisible primary

SEXISM AND THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

Democratic Candidate

Favorable (%)

Unfavorable (%)

Don’t Know (%)

Kirsten Gillibrand Kamala Harris Amy Klobuchar Elizabeth Warren Joseph Biden Bernie Sanders

28

29

41

32

33

34

23

17

59

42

44

12

54 48

41 47

5 4

91

Data come from Democracy Fund Study Group/YouGov poll of US registered voters conducted between November 17, 2018 and January 7, 2019 (n = 6,779; margin of error ± 1.8 percent). Available at https://www.voterstudygroup.org accessed 11/11/20. Data collected from the survey question: “Do you have a favorable or an unfavorable opinion of the following people [insert candidate name].” *Survey did not ask about candidates Tulsi Gabbard, Marianne Williamson, or Pete Buttigieg

electability despite the fact they thought she would make the best president out of any candidate.2 It seems that to be taken seriously as political leader or contender, and to win or hold a public office, women need to have more extensive records of holding lower office and better records of accomplishments in their current office (Pearson and McGhee 2013; Volden et al. 2016). During the invisible primary, women candidates called attention to this double standard. Senator Amy Klobuchar brought attention to this disparity by comparing her record of service to other male contenders to illustrate how women must outpace the achievements of their male counter-parts in order to be perceived as a viable contender in the campaign (Dittmar 2015). One of the principal vehicles informing voters during the invisible primary is the news media. The impact of the news media is particularly important here for reasons outlined earlier. The asymmetrical treatment of women candidates is particularly consequential in the invisible primary. This is where the attitudinal barriers that influence perception of women

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candidates are observable. In a crowded field of candidates, the importance of news coverage is amplified. Especially in the invisible primary, voters know relatively little about many candidates and early media attention is essential to signal to voters that, “one is important enough to have been singled out from the large anonymous masses” (Sides et al. 2019, 64). Furthermore, this type of news coverage follows a cycle of discovery, scrutiny, and decline, which picks up on cues by the party’s rank-and-file leaders, activists, and donors about newsworthy candidates and campaigns. The coverage tends to focus on controversy and conflict. These practices played out in the invisible primary and largely penalized women. While media coverage increases visibility, it can have benefits if the tone of the coverage is positive. However, research mentioned earlier, shows that asymmetrical standards routinely subject women to tougher scrutiny, placing them at a disadvantage in the invisible primary. As a result, women running for president must wage and manage two simultaneous campaigns—a traditional campaign on top of a campaign persuading voters of her “electability” (Dittmar 2019). In 2019, there was mixed media coverage of the six women candidates—ample positive coverage captured and framed the electorate’s enthusiasm for a historic number of women contenders, but was countered by ample negative media coverage. For example, because Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris consistently polled ahead of the other women candidates, they received attentive coverage. Nevertheless, as a result, they also received more negative scrutiny. Some examples of headlines covering Warren reflect this, The New York Magazine published, “Elizabeth Warrant Doesn’t Make Sense as a Unity Candidate,” and The Chicago Tribune printed, “Why Elizabeth Warren is not so Electable,” or when she suspended her campaign, The New Republic issued the headline, “Elizabeth Warren Was Her Own Worst Enemy.” This tone in coverage embraced the electability myth, which effectively cast suspicion on Warren’s competencies to be competitive candidate. Whereas coverage of Kamala Harris framed here as an ambiguous candidate with headlines like this issued, “Kamala Harris: The Good, Bad, and Questionable.” Similar articles characterized Harris as a candidate lacking clearly articulated policy positions, and criticized her tough-on-crime record as a California prosecutor, and later, Attorney General (Fish 2020). When Harris suspended her campaign, more negative coverage emerged in a New York Times op-ed titled, “Where Kamala Harris Went Wrong” in which she was portrayed as a candidate lacking competencies in the form

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of clear vision on policy and campaign fundamentals, making her strategy ineffective (Leonhardt 2019). After Harris was named Biden’s pick for Vice President, media scrutiny intensified in both directions encompassing the enthusiasm of the moment and the backlash. The negative backlash showcased a different aspect of the 2020 presidential campaign as Harris was the first intersectional candidate with Black-Asian heritage. Other media coverage elevated the threat perception and liability of Harris on the ballot in headlines that read, “Kamala Harris is not a ‘Safe’ Choice for Biden VP” outlining that her candidacy was not a politically “safe” selection for the general campaign (McNamara 2020). Another factor elevating the perception that a woman Democratic nominee was a political liability rather than an asset is the President’s own rhetoric. Trump cued and weaponized traditional gendered stereotypes to prime misogynistic framing to delegitimize women’s executive leadership. The President also deploys hostile forms of bias against women, especially women leaders, who are perceived as wanting to control and dominate men (Fig. 5.2) (Franks 2020). The nation has never before witnessed the explicit weaponization of masculinity to cue hostile sexism against women candidates and officeholders. Early on, Trump’s rhetoric was deployed against potential Democratic nominees using caustic, gendered ad hominem. His rhetoric toward women in positions of power spread anti-woman sentiments, as a means to resist a perceived “feminization” of American politics (ParryGiles 1996; Valentino et al. 2018; Cassese and Holman 2017, 2019). A female challenger to Donald Trump would have needed to weather a storm of both explicit and implicit (e.g., questions of “electability”) sexism and make effective appeals to women (as well as to male feminists) to capitalize on energy created by extraordinary mobilization and political engagement by women (Simas, 2017; Ratliff et al., 2019; Franks, 2020).

Fig. 5.2 Trump encourages intra-party discord by attacking Elizabeth Warren

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Fig. 5.3 The President denigrates Senator Gillibrand’s presidential candidacy

When it became evident that Joe Biden was going to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination, he publicly committed to selecting a woman as Vice President to the presidential ticket in an effort to bridge the intraparty, ideological schism. The public was receptive to his pledge with 63 percent of voters and 86 percent of Democrats expressing support (Thompson-DeVeaux 2020). As of summer 2020, the numbers held steady with 90 percent of Democrats thought it was the necessary choice and 62 percent of voters overall supporting Biden’s decision.3 During the summer months, opinion surveys showed that over a majority of Democrats (72 percent) expressed the importance of selecting an intersectional woman candidate.4 Among the possible contenders, former rival Senator Kamala Harris emerged as the favorable selection as Biden’s running mate. In August 2020, Joe Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate on the presidential ticket. Building on the progress of previous campaigns, Harris made history as the first Black-Asian American woman candidate to run on a major party’s presidential ticket. The 2020 presidential campaign modeled gendered intersectionality for the first time on the campaign trail (Figs. 5.3 and 5.4).

The Paradoxes of Gender in the 2020 Primary There is no data to suggest women are less electable than men to the American presidency. The six women in the 2020 Democratic primary had never lost an election, coupled with the fact that Clinton secured a three million vote surplus over Trump in the 2016 popular vote (Lerer 2019). The Democrats’ 2016 defeat to Trump and the fallacy used to rationalize it drove the myth that a woman was not electable in the 2020 Democratic primary. This perceived lack of electability of women was an important factor influencing primary voters, who felt pressure to

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Fig. 5.4 The President undermines candidate Harris’ record and identity

compromise their ideological values to support a more electable candidate, even one whose views were less similar to their own (Simas 2017). Nominating another woman was brushed off as a concern secondary to defeating Trump. To better understand the paradoxes involving gender and the presidency that were evident in the 2020 primary, it is necessary to consider the role of declining feminist identities among American voters. Since the 1970s, self-reported feminist identities have declined. This is consequential because the 1970s women’s rights movement advocated for the election of the nation’s first woman president because notions of equality were constructed around political and legal rights. Since then, the feminist decline has been incremental and materialized as an important attitudinal and generational barrier even in the 2016 Democratic primary (Rappeport 2016). By 2019, only 29 percent of American women identified as feminist while 69 percent did not.5 Even though the feminist movements do not seem to resonate with a younger generation of American

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women, feminist issues persist to be relevant in women’s lives. In 2019, Ipsos reported that 83 percent of American women, across all age cohorts, reported that anti-woman sexism is still a problem.6 In summer 2020, a Gallup poll indicated that 66 percent of all Americans, and 75 percent of women, considered the pursuit of gender equality to be incomplete (Saad 2020). Gallup also reported that majority of women surveyed believe there remains a long road ahead before gender equality is achieved in both the political life and the work place. Partisanship continues to yield a stronger effect than gender when it comes to perceptions of women’s equality. According to the Pew Research Center, 69 percent of Democrats are more likely than Republicans to report that more work is necessary for service of gender equality, and the Ipsos survey reported that Americans believe that gender equality will not be achieved until a woman is elected president.7 Considering the impact on the 2020 Democratic primary, the general voting public self-reported individual receptiveness to the prospect of a woman president, and the willingness to support a woman candidate for president. However, that willingness, even enthusiasm, has yet to translate into electing the nation’s first woman president. For eight decades now, public opinion surveys have been asking Americans about their willingness to vote for a woman candidate for president. A longitudinal trend shows that Americans express they are comfortable with a qualified woman candidate (Dolan 2004). In 2007, 55 percent of Americans said that gender of the president was not an issue, suggesting an increased acceptance of the idea of a woman president (Rosentiel 2007). In 2014, that number increased to 75 percent noting that women and men are equally perceived as good leaders (Parker et al. 2015). It is noteworthy to reiterate that even though there has been significant progress in the elevation of women’s political engagement and presence in public life, attitudinal and cultural barriers persist. This is where the paradoxes emerge about attitudes toward electing a woman president. Voters, including women who supported Clinton in 2016, expressed skepticism at nominating another woman in 2020. The record-breaking electoral gains for women in the 2018 midterms inspired some renewed optimism that expectations for women in politics had changed intimating that gender was a political asset, not a liability, to a presidential campaign; however, data shows that voters were cautious about a repeat of the 2016 campaign. Some women voters expressed they would like to see a woman president in her lifetime, but now [2020] was

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not the time, “That was one of the problems with the Hillary Candidacy, thinking that a woman president would be elected after our first African-American president. That was a little too much to ask” (Lerer and Chira 2020). The observation suggests that gender bias was internalized after 2016, because moderate women voters pointed to Clinton’s defeat to validate their hesitation in backing another woman in the 2020 primary. Adding that the stakes of the 2020 presidential election were too high and a woman nominee posed too much of a liability. These observations substantiate previously mentioned research findings that femaleness is associated with high risk, further affirming the party’s preservationist proclivities in the 2020 primary. On the question of willingness to support a woman for president, a majority expressed they are personally ready and receptive to the prospect of electing a woman to be President; however, they did not think the rest of the country was ready or willing (Dittmar 2019; Kurtzleben 2020). The Roper Center in 2019 reported a notable 94 percent of respondents said they thought America was ready for a woman president (up from 80 percent in 2016).8 On the question of readiness, the LeanIn.org research on gender and the 2020 presidential election reported that 53 percent of respondents were either “very” or “extremely” ready for a woman president. When followed-up on the readiness of the county for a woman president, only 16 percent said they believed the country was receptive to the idea.9 These trends on personal and societal readiness for a woman president necessitate turning to social theories of perception to contextualize such discrepancies in public. Table 5.2 reflects the shifts in attitudes to the receptivity of a woman president. The data is particularly useful because it surveys attitudes over a six-month time frame and included likely Democratic primary voters. The first poll was deployed in August 2019 with a follow-up in January 2020. The Ipsos/USA Today poll tracked changes in social perceptions of one’s own subject position on the matter and the social projection onto society at large (Page and King 2020). As the survey asks respondents about what they think others’ comfort levels are with a woman president, a noticeable shift of attitude is observed. Receptivity to a woman president diminishes the further out from one’s own family and respective social network. While the Roper Center reported extraordinarily high levels of receptivity to the prospect of a woman president, the data reported in Table 5.2 shows a rather moderate perspective with 63 percent of all voters in 2019 expressed the country was ready/comfortable with a woman

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Table 5.2 Shifts in attitudes toward electing a woman president Ipsos/USA Survey

Invisible Primary (2019)

Attitudes Reported Probable Democratic Primary Voters (%)

All Voters (%)

Democratic Primary (2020) Probable Democratic Primary Voters (%)

All Voters (%)

Ready for a 75 63 68 56 woman President Not ready for a 12 19 18 24 woman President Personally 88 76 84 71 comfortable w/a woman as President One’s family is 76 64 70 58 comfortable w/a woman as President One’s neighbors 44 37 38 33 are comfortable with a woman President Will be harder for 50 44 50 44 a woman to run against Donald Trump Data from the Ipsos/USA Today survey of two independent samples collected during August 28–30 2019 (n = 2012) and January 24–28 2020 (n = 2011). Survey accessible at www.isos.com. Accessed on 11/11/20. August 2019 is labeled the invisible primary. Survey questions listed in table

as president. That perception declines by seven points to 56 percent in January 2020. When asked if they were personally comfortable with the idea of a woman president, 76 percent expressed they are. This level of personal comfort declines five points in 2020. These attitudes register much higher among likely Democratic voters (and with smaller shifts over the six-month time frame). In 2019, 75 percent of Democratic voters indicated they believed the country was ready for a woman president whereas in 2020, the belief declined by seven points. Democrats’ personal receptivity to a woman chief executive was 88 percent and only declined by four points in 2020. Another compelling trend was respondents did not think other voters were as receptive or ready for a women

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president as they were. Respondents viewed other family members nearly as ready for a woman president as themselves, whereas appraising the receptivity of neighbors, respondents’ confidence declined substantially. One stable belief among all voters was that a woman would experience a harder time campaigning against Trump in the general election. The paradox being that voters self-reported they were receptive and ready for a woman president, but acknowledged it would be more difficult for a woman presidential candidate to defeat Donald Trump. What explains this observed discrepancy of social attitudes toward women presidential candidates? There are two theories of social perception that explain the inconsistency between voters’ personal disposition and how they perceive the rest of society. The false consensus effect and the theory of pluralistic ignorance provide a useful framework for understanding these discernable gaps in public perception in the electability of women to the presidency. They are theories of social perception grounded in social comparison theory in which individuals evaluate their own thoughts and attitudes based on other people. This, in essence, is a principal driver of political campaigns. An extension of this theory is that people take cues from other sources such as political parties, the news media, and candidates and process that information to define social reality, interpret the political landscape, which ultimately guides cognition. In this case, the false consensus effect functions in the opposite direction. The false consensus effect “leads people to wrongly believe that the majority agrees with them (when the majority, in fact, openly disagrees with them), the pluralistic ignorance effect leads people to wrongly believe that they disagree with the majority” (Ross et al. 1977). Here, voters express their own personal readiness and receptivity to a woman president, while extrapolating that the majority of the country is not. Furthermore, the theory of pluralistic ignorance seems to be the most fitting social psychology frame to explain the disconnect between the expressed enthusiasm for women presidential candidates, but their enduring defeat at the top of the ticket. This theory explains that a majority of group members privately reject a norm (in this case that women are not electable as top-of-the-ticket presidential candidates) but go along with it because they assume incorrectly, that most others accept it (Miller and McFarland 1991; Prentice and Miller 1996). This theory of social perception underscores the Democratic party prioritizing the notion of electability over selecting a woman nominee. It also explained the party’s institutional risk-averse behavior. Voters accepted the norm

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that leaned toward Democrats’ institutional conservatism and believed the electability myth, which consciously penalized women candidates in the 2020 primary.

Implications for the 2024 Campaign The historic and symbolic nature of electing the first woman president was supplanted by the heightened anxiety framing the 2020 presidential campaign and this landscape structured the primary. And Clinton’s 2016 nomination was historic, and should not be classified as anything less. Clinton’s nomination modeled the possibility of a woman as the American president. Her candidacy mobilized a new cohort of women candidates in the 2020 Democratic primary. The 2020 Democratic primary reflected a continuation of women building on a legacy of progress in American politics. Social and attitudinal barriers endure, but more women and intersectional candidates are modeling political leadership and success. The American presidency represents the last frontier to exclude women’s executive leadership. The Biden-Harris electoral victory ushers in a new era of gendered politics and substantially altered how voters will view gender and the presidency. The Executive branch will no longer remain a gendered institution. Harris’ historic election as the first intersectional woman to serve in the executive branch serves as a consequential benchmark in American presidential history. Harris’ service as Vice President it provides the nation a model of female executive leadership not before observed and Vice President Harris’ service will begin normalizing women’s national executive leadership. Having this model will further assist in dismantling cultural and attitudinal barriers presented to women presidential candidates. The achievement will likely have implications in the forthcoming election cycles. The implications for the 2024 primary and presidential campaign are contingent upon whether Biden stands for re-election. If he chooses to serve a single term as president, Vice President Harris will emerge as the likely Democratic nominee for 2024. Perhaps by then, women’s executive leadership will be an established norm after having it modeled for four years. Depending on how the ensuing years shape the political context that will define the next presidential election, perhaps the myth of electability of women presidential candidates will finally shed its potency.

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Notes 1. See Dems Prefer Electability in 2020. Monmouth University Polling Institute. February 4, 2019. https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/ reports/monmouthpoll_us_020419/. 2. See NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll. July 15–17, 2019. http://mar istpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NPR_PBS-NewsHour_ Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_1907190926.pdf. 3. See Yahoo! News Presidential Election Poll. August 28, 2020. https:// today.yougov.com/topics/politics/explore/topic/Yahoo_News_YouGov_ polls. Accessed 11/11/20. 4. See Suffolk University/USA Today poll. June 25–29, 2020. https://www. suffolk.edu/news-features/news/2020/06/30/18/53/suffolk-universityusa-today-poll-shows-biden-with-12-point-lead. Accessed 11/11/20. 5. See National Geographic/Ipsos poll. November 25, 2019. https://www. ipsos.com/en-us/american-women-and-feminism. Accessed 11/11/20. 6. See Ipsos Poll on Gender Roles and Issues. November 26, 2019. https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/gender-roles-issues. Accessed 11/20/20. 7. See Pew Research Center. “Views on Leadership Traits and Competencies and How They Intersect with Gender.” Women and Leadership Report. September 20, 2018. 8. See Gallup Poll. The Roper Center at Cornell University. April 2019. https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/madame-president-changing-attitu des-about-woman-president-0. 9. See LeanIn.org survey. How Outdated Notions about Gender and Leadership Are Shaping the 2020 Presidential Race, August 7–12, 2019. https:// leanin.org/data-about-gender-bias-and-electability-in-the-2020-election.

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CHAPTER 6

Gender and the 2020 Democratic Primary: An Analysis of the Warren/Sanders Battle for the Leftwing of the Democratic Party Brian M. Conley and Rachael V. Cobb

Abstract This chapter examines the gender dynamics among the two prominent candidates who were vying to represent the progressive faction within the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Warren made little headway in the crowded field despite her role as a leading progressive critic throughout the Trump administration and evident proficiency at providing detailed policy solutions to numerous national challenges. Sanders benefitted from the endorsements he received and how national news media covered these endorsements.

B. M. Conley (B) · R. V. Cobb Suffolk University, Boston, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. V. Cobb e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Perry (ed.), The 2020 Democratic Primary, Palgrave Studies in US Elections, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0_6

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Keywords 2020 presidential primary · Progressives · Liberals · Bernie Sanders · Elizabeth Warren

“One of the hardest parts of this is all those pinky promises, and all those little girls who are going to have to wait four more years, that is going to be hard,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren explained as she stood soberly in front of a gaggle of reporters outside her Cambridge home. It had been only two days since Warren had come in an embarrassing third place in her home-state primary, which came atop a string of other primary losses. Now she was making official what many had been expecting: she was ending her run for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination. For a nationally regarded champion of progressive politics who promised to enact sweeping changes in Washington, and who led in the early polling, it was a precipitous fall that left many wondering what went wrong. In the testament to the increasingly factional nature of the Democratic Party, Warren had been told early on, she explained, that there would be only two lanes to the Democratic nomination in 2020: a liberal one, most likely to be occupied by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the progressive standard-bearer who many of his supporters felt had been snubbed by the party in 2016, and a moderate one, which would eventually be filled by former Vice President Joe Biden. In 2020, the path to the Democratic nomination was even further narrowed, for Warren and anyone else, pundits argued, by perceptions of “electability,” which followed from the widespread desire among Democrats to defeat Trump at all costs. Warren’s departure from the race left many to wonder whether Warren faced the additional challenge of appearing electable, capable of carrying the progressive banner while also being a woman. Was she competing, in other words, in a contest where, despite Hillary Clinton’s 2016 success in winning the Democratic nomination (and eventually the popular vote), gender still posed a discernable barrier? In the commentary that followed Warren’s departure from the race, few observers doubted that gender played some role in her loss. But, in keeping with the academic literature on the impact of gender on women’s political prospects, most pundits claimed it was not the most important variable in her defeat (Hayes 2011, Dolan and Lynch 2015). Gender, and how it shapes (and is shaped by) electoral politics in the US, have

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been widely studied. Scholars generally agree that its effects, which can manifest in a variety of ways, are mostly harmful to women who seek or serve in public office and are advantageous to men in similar positions. “A long line of research,” writes Dolan, “has documented that American public life relies on stereotyped thinking about women and men in political life” (Dolan 2014, 97). Female candidates and elected officials confront “systemic biases” rooted in culturally, historically, and institutionally entrenched social patterns, enforced expectations, and latent stereotypes. Despite a broad consensus on the presence, and the potentially deleterious effect of gender on women in politics, scholars are frequently unable to demonstrate, in either experimental or observational settings, its impact on voter behavior. They are, as a result, inclined to claim that gender, though doubtlessly important, is limited in its effect, particularly when examined alongside the influence of other variables, notably, partisanship, party affiliation, and incumbency (Hayes, Lawless, and Baitinger 2014, Dolan and Lynch 2015). Media coverage of Warren’s defeat in the 2020 Democratic primary fit this pattern. Of course, gender played a role, pundits argue, but other factors mattered more. But, in addition to its prevalence, such claims also tend to neglect another critical factor in the intersection between gender and politics, namely, the role institutions, from political parties to the government to the media play in reinforcing and perpetuating genderbased inequities in society. Both Senators Warren and Sanders faced considerable skepticism from the media, from their Democratic primary opponents, and from President Trump for advancing an ambitious social justice agenda on the campaign trail. Their embrace, for example, of a single-payer, Medicare-for-All national health care system modeled after legislation Sanders had introduced in the Senate; Sanders’ avowed Democratic Socialism, and Warren’s willingness to publicly rebuke leaders in her own party for being too business-friendly, along with their unapologetic support for large, activist government were each roundly criticized. Yet, despite these commonalities, what an analysis of the 2020 contest between Warren and Sanders for the progressive or leftwing lane to the Democratic nomination suggests is a systematic institutional preference, potentially a bias, in favor of Sanders over Warren in terms of media coverage, but also in terms of party support. This discrepant treatment offers a unique opportunity to examine the institutional, and by extension sociological, effect gender discrimination continues to have on presidential politics in the US. Indeed, to explore

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how institutional variables may have shaped the battle between Warren and Sanders on the leftwing faction of the 2020 Democratic primary vote, we examine (1) the competition between the two candidates for key party endorsements, and (2) how the endorsements were covered in left-leaning media sources in the country. Endorsement decisions are among the most politically significant institutional actions that parties make both in terms of the resources, endorsing organizations can bring to candidates, but also in terms of the signals or cues, they send to voters. Endorsements, particularly those made by either established or emerging power centers within a party, effectively signal a party’s preference. We begin our analysis by reviewing the available scholarship on gender and politics in order to highlight that, despite a preoccupation with sociological variables, the literature provides important insights into how gender also impacts institutional behavior in the country. Armed with such information, we then examine what Warren and Sanders’ endorsements, and how they were discussed in the media tell us about the ways gender continues to impact political institutions in the US.

Literature Review Gender may be broadly recognized, by pundits and scholars alike, as an inescapable part of the political landscape but our analytical understanding of how gender functions institutionally is not correspondingly wide (Daphne and Aaldering 2020). Scholars find that gender inequity can manifest culturally, in terms of stereotypes and the assigning of gender-based personality traits, and politically, in terms of voter attitudes and levels of voter support for women candidates. But, as has been less well reported, gender inequity can also manifest institutionally, in terms of how women in politics are treated by political parties, covered in the media, or portrayed online. Given that researchers tend to view gender in primarily cultural or sociological terms, much of the work done on gender, even that which focuses on politics has neglected to consider how various institutional structures in society create, replicate, and ultimately reinforce gender inequities. Instead, scholars have primarily relied on investigating how individual-level cultural or political variables may impact voting behavior. Researchers have attempted to explore, for example, how prevailing gender stereotypes in society affect individual voters’ perception of, and thus willingness to vote for or otherwise support women candidates (Brians 2005; Simon and Hoyt 2008;

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Lawless 2009; Hayes 2011, Warner and Banwart 2016; Valentino, Wayne and Oceno 2018). But these efforts have been limited by the challenge of teasing out how gender, amid a range of other possible environmental factors, shapes voting behavior. The result, whether intended or not, has been to downplay the continued salience of gender in the nation’s politics. However, studying how gender functions culturally, and thus shapes voter behavior is vitally important to any institutional analysis of gender, since most forms of institutional gender inequality implicitly rely on discriminatory beliefs and traditions latent in the culture. A review of this literature shows that much extant research focuses on the impact of voter “gender stereotyping” or gender-specific “trait attribution” on evaluations of women candidates and elected officials. As Danny Hayes (2011) notes in his research on how gender and party affiliation impact voters’ evaluation of women candidates, “assignment of attributes based on gender,” which is prevalent in society, “extends to politics” (Hayes 2011, 135). Not only are voters likely to believe that female and male candidates will diverge politically, with women being seen as “more liberal” on a variety of issues than men, but voters are likely to believe that they have distinctive personality traits (Koch 2000, 2002; Sanbonmatsu Dolan 2009). “[A] significant body of work suggests that voters ascribe to women candidates certain policy competencies and personality characteristics,” writes Dolan (Dolan 2014, 97). Specifically, voters assign to candidates a list of gender-specific attributes which is familiar to anyone who studies gender and politics in the US, namely that women candidates are believed to be more caring and compassionate, more nurturing, submissive, considerate, and emotive; while male candidates are believed to be more assertive, confident, domineering, and stoic (Glick and Fiske 1997; Fox and Oxley 2003; Dolan 2014, 2015, Stabile et al. 2019). Gender-based stereotypes are also thought to translate into specific policy positions women and men are likely to take as candidates for public office (Alexander and Anderson 1993; Hayes 2011; Lawless 2009). Consistent with attributes voters assign to candidates based on their gender, “women are assumed to be more interested in, and more effective at dealing with, issues such as child-care, poverty, education, health care, women’s issues and the environment,” Dolan explains, “while men are thought to be more competent at dealing with economic development, military, trade, taxes, and agriculture” (Dolan 2014, 97). Voter assumptions about policy preferences of women candidates are the most pronounced, the research suggests, at the presidential level, where women

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candidates are seen as less fit to grapple with the rigors and evershifting demands of executive-level decision-making (Smith and Paul 2007; Pahlke, Bigler, and Patterson 2018; Stabile et al. 2019). Gendered stereotypes are thought to affect not only how voters evaluate the personality traits and policy choices of women candidates, but also whether or not they seem “likable.” More than that, they can inform voters’ opinions about what women in politics wear as well as their overall “appearance” (King and Matland 2003; Hehman et al. 2014; Carpinella, Freeman, and Johnson 2016; Grebelsky-Lichtman and Katz 2019). Taken together, these factors—gendered personality attributes and policy preferences, whether they seem likable as well as their appearance—are thought to impact voter assessments of how “electable” women are to different levels of elected office (Bowman 1984; Anderson 2017; Smith et al. 2018). Despite the breadth of this research, however, scholars have been able to find only limited evidence that gender inequity negatively impacts women in politics (Hayes 2011; Brooks 2013; Dolan and Hansen 2018). Again, few scholars doubt that women candidates and officeholders confront a political culture laden with contradictory and discriminatory ideas, entrenched stereotypes, and dated expectations. But, the available evidence, they argue, suggests that these obstacles do not meaningfully impede what women can achieve in politics. For some scholars, partisanship, and the fact that party affiliation appears to be a more reliable predictor of voter choice than gender has, in effect, shielded women from the full force of prevailing gender stereotypes (Hayes, Lawless, and Baitinger 2014; Dolan 2014, Dolan and Lynch 2015; Jennings and Coker 2020). Nonetheless, much of the literature seems to accept that a certain degree of opaqueness remains in terms of how gender impacts women’s political prospects. Yet, as we have noted, the effects of gender discrimination in society are not limited to the impact they have on public opinion. They also shape how political institutions in this country treat women. In particular, they can potentially impact how parties behave, including how they perform one of their key electoral functions: political endorsements. In their important work, The Party Decides, Cohen, Karol, Noel and Zaller (2008) argue that party elite endorsements are often critical to nomination victory. In the context of elections, “party,” they assert, must be conceived of broadly, as a loosely structured network of elites, including members of Congress, governors, and other political actors

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(Cohen et al. 2008). This group, they argue, exercises a disproportionate influence over the presidential nomination process through their control of critical resources, which they bring to bear on behalf of candidates by way of endorsements. Endorsements, and the funding, expertise, and other “credible cues” they entail serve as a signal to voters about the worthiness and competitiveness of a candidate. Both the timing and the convergence of endorsements indicate candidate viability. Early, significant, and multiple endorsements from Senators, members of Congress and major interest groups and political organizations signal the viability of candidates and, traditionally, a certain amount of elite “party” control. And this continues to be true even as one, the boundaries of the two major party coalitions in the US have grown under pressure from party activists and more ideologically motivated interest groups, and two, the range and scope of party endorsements have changed. It is now possible for voters to rely not only on when candidates receive party endorsements, but from which organizations—among a plethora of groups that formally endorse candidates—as cues for determining a candidate’s viability as well as where they stand on a range of issues. In short, then, even as parties become internally diverse, endorsements remain one way of gauging party attitudes toward affiliated candidates. They are a key way that parties communicate their preferences to voters. As such, we wonder if endorsements, like voter attitudes, can express gender bias, this time in institutional form. In other words, if voters are known to harbor certain opinions about candidates based on their policy positions, their party affiliation, and their gender that may impact how they behave on election day, then maybe the same can be said about parties when it comes to who they endorse, when they endorse and, most importantly, why they endorse.

Research Design To explore what political endorsements may tell us about the impact gender can have on the institutional behavior of a political party, we examine the key endorsements Senators Warren and Sanders received during the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary. Specifically, we examine whether or not the 2020 Democratic primary endorsement contest between Warren and Sanders played out like the broader election, with Sanders besting Warren in their fight for the leftwing faction of the Democratic primary vote, and if so, whether gender may have been

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a contributing factor. To do so, we first look at who endorsed whom, and when. We then consider how the endorsements were covered in the media. We start with who endorsed, knowing that endorsements serve, first and foremost, as “cues” to voters and elites concerning where to locate a candidate ideologically, and thus in relation to their own political and policy preferences. This was particularly important for Warren and Sanders in 2020, as they were competing for the same key faction of the Democratic party: left-leaning primary voters. We also look at the timing of the endorsements, aware that, in the endorsement fight, when endorsements occur can be as important as why, and by which organization or individual. Specifically, we focus on the period between February 2019, when both candidates were announced, and Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020. However, to drill deeper into how gender may have impacted endorsement decisions, we examine how several key endorsements were covered in left-leaning national media outlets during this time period. In particular, we look at the extent to which certain key words, associated with gender bias, notably “electability” and “likability,” but also “voice,” “tone,” and “appearance” shaped the reporting of the endorsements. To do so, we used the web-based Media Cloud platform to examine how the endorsements Warren and Sanders received from the time of their announcements to Super Tuesday were covered in media outlets correlated on Twitter with left politics in the US. Specifically, we looked comparatively at how Warren and Sanders’ endorsements were reported, both in terms of the overall number of news stories and timing, but also in terms of the language used to describe the endorsements. This resulted in an analysis of more than 11,500 unique news stories during the period under investigation that included some combination of our gendered key word searches.

Endorsements and Media Coverage of Endorsements In 2020, Senators Warren and Sanders both sought, as part of their campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, the endorsements of leading party figures and organizations. And, like other candidates for the Democratic nomination, they did so to help clarify for voters where they stood on a range of issues. Such information can be critical for voters, especially when an election includes multiple candidates, or candidates

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with converging policy positions, as was the case in the 2020 Democratic primary. Indeed, an analysis of the Democratic primary suggests that endorsements likely played an outsize role in the primary fight on the left between Warren and Sanders, as both maneuvered to portray themselves as the progressive Democratic choice in 2020. Specifically, the data shows that in terms of who endorsed whom, and when, particularly among leading progressive Democratic politicians and organizations, endorsements in 2020 sent a clear message to left-leaning Democratic primary voters: Sanders was the progressive candidate. In an outcome that matched the primary election results themselves, Sanders narrowly lost to Warren in terms of the total number of endorsements he received from party leaders and officials, but captured the early, and broad endorsement of most leading progressive groups and labor organizations. Indeed, the progressive message was baked into the distribution of the endorsements themselves and reflected both the changing nature of the Democratic Party coalition as well as the endorsement process. Warren won the support of a slightly broader array of party officials, but Sanders commanded the backing of the expanded network of progressive advocacy groups that increasingly makes up the organizational grassroots of the Democratic Party. Drawing on data compiled by FiveThirtyEight, we see that Warren was endorsed by thirteen current members of Congress, as well as sixteen state-level party officials, from Tina Kotek and Joe Moody, the Speakers of the Oregon and Texas state legislature, respectively, to Regina Romero, the Mayor of Tucson and Denise Merrill, the Connecticut Secretary of State. Sanders, by contrast, was endorsed by nine current members of Congress and eight state-level party officials. However, controlling for the support they each received from their home-state congressional delegation—which has nine members in Massachusetts and only one member in Vermont—Sanders received the endorsement of eight current House members compared to seven for Warren. Warren received the endorsement of one former candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination, Julian Castro, while Sanders received the support of two: Marianne Williamson and Bill de Blasio. But, where you do see a larger difference is within the Democratic National Committee itself: Sanders was endorsed by fourteen DNC members, compared to only nine for Warren. Taken together, then, the endorsements made by party leaders and elected officials do not reveal an overwhelming favorite. However, a more coherent, indeed unmistakable signal appears in the endorsements made

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by leading progressive party and labor organizations. Here, Sanders was the clear winner. Among the constellation of groups that came together in opposition to Trump’s 2016 election as president, which is commonly referred to as the “Resistance,” Sanders was the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate of choice (Meyer and Tarrow 2018; Gose and Skocpol 2019). He was endorsed by, among other leading political organizations in the progressive constellation, the Center for Popular Democracy Action, a coalition of more than 50 progressive, grassroots organizations; Democracy for America (DFA); the youth-led climate justice Sunrise Movement; the Progressive Democrats of America; Americans for Democratic Action (ADA); People’s Action; a national network of progressive groups; the Justice Democrats, a group formed in 2017 to elect progressive Democrats to federal office; and the Working Families Party, which first endorsed Warren before switching to Sanders after she dropped out of the race. And, among current members of Congress who endorsed Sanders, he received the endorsement of three of four members of the so-called “Squad”—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib—who have emerged as leading progressive voices in Congress. Sanders’ victory in the contest with Warren for the support of the left faction of the Democratic Party and thus the imprimatur as the progressive candidate in the 2020 primary is evident not only from who endorsed, but when. Sanders and Warren both announced their candidacies in February of 2019, yet the data shows that Sanders, unlike Warren, received several early progressive endorsements, that then only grew in number over the summer and fall. While Warren did not receive her first important progressive endorsement until September 26, from the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which she shared with Sanders, the Progressive Democrats of America had come out in support of Sanders the previous March, less than a month after he announced. Warren would not receive her next significant progressive endorsement until November 6, when Representative Ayanna Pressley—the only member of the Squad to do so—supported Warren, her home-state Senator. Sanders, however, had already received the endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, and Tlaib in October, and would pick up the endorsement of one progressive group or union after another from November through January. These included the National Nurses United in November, the Center for Popular Democracy Action and the People’s Action in December, and the Sunrise Movement and Americans for Democratic Action in January. Warren, by contrast, would not receive another progressive endorsement

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until mid-January, when she picked up the support of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee; Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn, and the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York. The political endorsements made by leading progressive groups in the 2020 Democratic primary sent a clear signal about who they regarded as the most progressive candidate in the race. But what else did the endorsements say to left-leaning Democratic voters? Specifically, what did media coverage of the endorsements say about two candidates whose most conspicuous difference was their gender? To address this question, we consider how the Warren and Sanders’ endorsements were covered and discussed in left-leaning US media sources. We pay special attention to whether or not any of our gendered keywords appear in the coverage. The data underscores, more than anything else, the highly complex, and often submerged nature of gender in US politics. The Warren campaign received substantially more coverage overall—63,504 mentions to Sanders’ 27,854 mentions—in the period between February 2019 and Super Tuesday, March 3, in left-leaning US media sources. But Sanders’ endorsements received almost 9% more coverage than Warren’s endorsements, 6,049 mentions for Sanders to 5,522 for Warren. Of course, this could be attributed to the fact that Sanders, as we noted above, received more key organizational endorsements than Warren and received them earlier in the primary. But, more significantly, the tenor of the coverage, at least with respect to gender, as measured by our keyword searches, is most distinctive for what it does not say, than what it does say. The coverage betrays a studious attempt to avoid questions of gender and how they might shape the primary contest between Warren and Sanders. In the aggregate, there are no systematic references to most of the gendered keywords we examined, specifically, “appearance,” “tone,” and “voice.” References to “electability” and “electable” do appear in the coverage, but they are applied only slightly more frequently to Warren (10%) than they are to Sanders (9.3%). But the data also suggests that Sanders and Warren were frequently mentioned together in the media, and in a way that may have substituted a discussion of their differences, in terms of policy, but also possibly their gender with claims that they, in an undifferentiated way, represented the “progressives” in the Democratic primary. We can see this, for example, in the fact that Sanders was mentioned in 36% of the endorsement coverage that discussed whether Warren was “electable,” while Warren was referenced 18% of the time when the same issue was discussed with

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respect to Sanders. We do not see as strong of a relationship between the two candidates in more generalized coverage of their endorsements, suggesting that references to both candidates increase when their endorsements are discussed in relation to the issue of being “electable.” Given how “electability” is more frequently linked to women in politics than to men, Sanders might be serving as a proxy for addressing such issues with respect to Warren’s candidacy. Only a more exhaustive look at the coverage could say for sure. The connection between Warren and Sanders is further highlighted by another factor evident in the media coverage of their endorsements: the almost complete absence of prominent references to any of the other candidates seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination. There is only one exception: when electability is mentioned, Joe Biden does pop up in the coverage of Warren and Sanders’ endorsements. Biden, it seems, owned the word “electability” throughout the 2020 Democratic primary.

Conclusion As a broad swath of research makes clear, gender inequality in US politics is widely acknowledged, and acutely felt, but difficult to demonstrate when it comes to voting behavior. Unfortunately, these trends seem to have grown more pronounced in the 2020 presidential election. Several women mounted credible campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination. They were led by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. But, despite her undisputed role as a leading progressive Democratic critic in the era of Trump, her powerful articulation of the feeling of economic angst gripping millions of people in the America, and her unmatched ability to provide detailed policy solutions to a myriad of problems facing the country, Senator Warren made little headway in the crowded field for the 2020 Democratic nomination. For many scholars, the problem of gender inequality in US politics is fundamentally sociological in nature, specifically, it relates to the persistence of gendered stereotypes held by a cross-section of voters. But, here too, hard evidence of voter “discriminatory behavior” is difficult to prove. Political scientists are starting to realize that they may not be asking the right questions (Schaffner 2019). To avoid these pitfalls, we looked elsewhere—at the institutional structure of the political system itself, notably political parties and the media, and how they may be communicating a gendered preference to voters through the performance and coverage of one of the

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parties’ key institutional functions: endorsements. Our analysis in many ways encountered head-on the challenges that have confronted studies of voter attitudes: gender inequity is a real, but difficult-to-measure barrier to women in US electoral politics. As such, we point to the pressing need to look beyond sociological manifestations of gender discrimination to examine how such thinking continues to shape the behavior of political parties and other institutional aspects of the US political system.

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Fox, Richard and Zoe M. Oxley. 2003. “Gender Stereotyping in State Executive Elections: Candidate Selection and Success.” The Journal of Politics 65, no. 3: 833–850. Glick, Peter and Susan T. Fiske. 1997. “Hostile and Benevolent Sexism: Measuring Ambivalent Sexist Attitudes toward Women.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 21, no. 1: 119–135. Gose, Leah and Theda Skocpol. 2019. “Resist, Persist, and Transform: The Emergence and Impact of Grassroots Resistance Groups Opposing the Trump Presidency.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 24, no. 3: 293–317. Grebelsky-Lichtman, Tsfira and Roy Katz. 2019. “When a Man Debates a Woman: Trump vs. Clinton in the First Mixed Gender Presidential Debates.” Journal of Gender Studies 28, no 6: 699–719. Hayes, Danny. 2011. “When Gender and Party Collide: Stereotyping in Candidate Trait Attribution.” Politics & Gender 7, no. 2: 133–165. Hayes, Danny. Jennifer L. Lawless, and Gail Baitinger. 2014. “Who Cares What They Wear? Media, Gender, and the Influence of Candidate Appearance.” Social Science Quarterly 95, no. 5: 1194–1212. Hehman, Eric, Colleen Carpinella, Kerri Johnson, Jordan Leitner, and Jonathan Freeman. 2014. “Early Processing of Gendered Facial Cues Predicts the Electoral Success of Female Politicians.” Social Psychological and Personality Science 5, no. 7: 815–824. Jennings, Freddie and Calvin R. Coker. 2020. “’I Just Don’t Think She Has a Presidential Look:’ The Influence of Sexism on Candidate Image.” Information, Communication & Society 23, no. 9: 1353–1367. King, David and Richard E. Matland. 2003. “Sex and the Grand Old Party: An Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Candidate Sex on Support for a Republican Candidate.” American Politics Research 31, no. 6: 595–612. Koch, Jeffrey. 2000. “Do Citizens Apply Gender Stereotypes to Infer Candidates’ Ideological Orientations?” The Journal of Politics 62, no. 2: 414–429. Koch, Jeffrey. 2002. “Gender Stereotypes and Citizens’ Impressions of House Candidates’ Ideological Orientations.” American Journal of Political Science 46, no. 2: 453–462. Lawless, Jenniefer. 2009. “Sexism and Gender Bias in Election 2008: A More Complex Path for Women in Politics.” Politics & Gender 5, no. 1: 70–80. Meyer, David and Sidney Tarrow. 2018. The Resistance: The Dawn of the AntiTrump Opposition Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pahlke, Erin, Rebecca S. Bigler, and Meagan M. Patterson. 2018. “GenderRelated Attitudes and Beliefs Predict White Women’s Views of Candidates in the 2016 United States Presidential Election.” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 18, no. 1: 34–60. Sanbonmatsu, Kira and Kathleen Dolan. 2009. “Do Gender Stereotypes Transcend Party?” Political Research Quarterly 62, no. 3: 485–494.

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Schaffner, Brian. 2019. “How Political Scientists Should Measure Sexist Attitudes.” Presented at the SPCA. https://www.dropbox.com/s/vhlkvj10vrf4 cli/schaffner_spsa_2020.pdf?dl=0. Simon, Stefanie and Crystal L. Hoyt. 2008. “Exploring the Gender Gap in Support for a Woman for President.” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 8, no. 1: 157–181. Smith, Jessi, David Paul, and Rachel Paul. 2007. “No Place for a Woman: Evidence for Gender Bias in Evaluations of Presidential Candidates.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 29, no. 3: 225–233. Smith, Julia, Miriam Liss, Mindy Erchull, Celeste Kelly, Kathleen Adragna, and Katlyn Baines. 2018. “The Relationship between Sexualized Appearance and Perceptions of Women’s Competence and Electability.” Sex Roles 79: 671– 682. Stabile, Bonnie, Aubrey Grant, Hermant Purohit, Kelsey Harris. 2019 “Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes: Gendered Implications of Fake News for Women in Politics.” Public Integrity 21, no. 5: 491–502. Valentino, Nicholas, Carly Wayne, and Marzia Oceno. 2018. “Mobilizing Sexism: The Interaction of Emotion and Gender Attitudes in the 2016 US Presidential Election.” Public Opinion Quarterly 82, no. 1: 799–821. Warner, Benjamin and Mary Banwart. 2016. “A Multifactor Approach to Candidate Image.” Communication Studies 67, no. 3: 259–279.

CHAPTER 7

The Advent of Virtual Party Conventions Luke Perry

Abstract This chapter examines how each party adapted to COVID19 in organizing their national party convention, how 2020 compared to years past, and what the lessons and implications may be for future conventions. The 2020 conventions were more inclusive, more multimedia, and more multiplatform than ever before, enabling greater efficiency in producing engaging television that positively portrays nominees. Not everything was a success worthy of emulation, but the long days of one person on stage at a time giving speech after speech may be numbered. Keywords 2020 presidential primary · National party conventions · Presidential elections · Political parties · Donald Trump

L. Perry (B) Political Science, Utica College, Utica, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Perry (ed.), The 2020 Democratic Primary, Palgrave Studies in US Elections, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0_7

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Public health challenges surrounding COVID-19 reshaped much of American social behavior in 2020, including the national party conventions. “Quadrennial presidential nominating conventions are the biggest campaign events of an election cycle” (Atkinson 2014, 1045). Conventions “require thousands of workers who overtake local hotels restaurants and transportation,” providing “an intense local atmosphere created by thousands of attendees, millions of dollars in revenue, and intensified local media coverage.” In 2016, for instance, tens of thousands of people filled the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention, which I covered as a television correspondent. During prominent speeches, fire marshals prohibited further access to the convention floor, filled to the legal limit, shoulder-to-shoulder with delegates and journalists. Four years later, the scene was very different. Conventions provide a venue for delegates from around the country to cast their votes and officially select the presidential nominee. This process can retain some dramatic elements, even though the outcome is now a foregone conclusion. For decades, conventions provided a “relatively uniform” campaign event “across years and parties in terms of size, purpose and duration” (Atkinson 2014, 1045). Conventions are highly consequential events, accounting for candidates gaining 5 to 12 points in subsequent national polls during the late twentieth century (Campbell, Cherry, and Wink 1992, 287). This “post-convention bump” resulted from a “persuasive effect” of convention speeches as well as an “atmospheric effect that activates general partisan bias” (Cera and Weinschenk 2012, 3). Convention bumps have shrunk in recent years, in part due to party polarization and declining swing voters, but still matter, averaging five points from 1968 to 2016 (Skelley 2020). The abnormal dynamics of the 2020 party conventions raised three key questions: (1) How did each party convention approach this cycle’s unique political and public health challenges? (2) How were convention processes similar and different to years past? and (3) How extensively might new developments in this cycle influence conventions moving forward?

Differing Attitudes and Approaches Republicans and Democrats held markedly different attitudes toward COVID-19 approaching the 2020 conventions, influencing the structures of each event. Twice as many Democrats (80 percent) viewed the

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pandemic as a major public health threat than Republicans (40 percent) during the summer of 2020 (Tyson 2020). Twice as many Democrats also viewed the pandemic as a threat to their personal health (50 percent) than Republicans (27 percent). This came after initial bipartisan support in April for a number of pandemic-related public health measures, including government orders to wear masks, stay home, and close businesses, which garnered over 60 percent support from members of both parties (Christini et al. 2020). Nearly 70 percent supported mandatory testing for people, even those who were asymptomatic, having data submitted into a federal database to aid contract tracing, and quarantining positive people, including removing them from their families so they can stay safe. President Trump was an important force in shaping pandemic perceptions. National crises provide presidents with moments of extraordinary adversity and opportunity. An effective and favorable response can fortify one’s public standing and cement a president’s legacy. An ineffective and unfavorable response can deeply sully one’s electoral prospects and historical legacy. Trump’s leadership, and lack thereof, was heavily scrutinized during the campaign, intertwining COVID with Trump’s reelection prospects. From the beginning, Trump routinely sought to claim credit, often with exaggerations and falsehoods, and deflect blame, criticizing Democratic governors and mayors, even several members of his own administration (Peters, Platt, and Haberman 2020; Moore 2020). Trump’s political rise featured “running against the administrative state” as “an agent of disruption toward the bureaucracy.” This helps explain Trump’s consistent “aversion to council and expertise,” which had “a tremendous impact on the federal government’s response to COVID-19” (Rutledge 2020, 509). Trump closed his reelection campaign amid a large COVID surge around the country “pleading with voters to ignore the evidence of a calamity unfolding before their eyes and trust his word that the disease is already disappearing as a threat to their personal health and economic well-being,” while repeatedly messaging the U.S. is “rounding the corner” (Burns 2020). Most Americans were concerned about themselves or someone in their family getting infected since the first COVID-related death was reported in March of 2020. An even larger majority of Americans, over 80 percent, were concerned about COVID’s impact on the economy. From the beginning, most Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Disapproval peaked at nearly 60 percent in July, and remained

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steady through Election Day, with approval hovering around 40 percent (Bycoffe, Kroskopf, and Mehta 2020). Republicans and Democrats held very different views on this issue. Around 80 percent of Republicans approved of Trump’s handling of COVID during 2020, compared to around 35 percent of Independents and just 10 percent of Democrats. Partisans differed over elements of the government-led response, such as social distancing. Democrats were much more likely to believe social distancing was helping to stop the spread of COVID (Skelley 2020). By fall of 2020, the U.S. had the largest partisan gap among advanced economies over whether the government responded well to COVID (Mordecai and Connahaughton 2020). Extraordinary public health challenges and pronounced political differences help explain the divergent approaches undertaken by both parties in organizing their 2020 conventions. In their own words, Democratic convention organizers “put the health and safety of the American people first and early on recognized the need to adjust plans to ensure a responsible and safe convention.”1 This included “following the advice of public health experts and limiting in-person presence of the convention to only those necessary to orchestrate the event.” Convention programing consisted of “live and curated content from cities, locations, and landmarks in all 57 U.S. states and territories.” Organizers “focused on ensuring that everyone involved with the convention can participate without risk to personal or public health” and instructed speakers and delegates not to travel to the host city of Milwaukee, and instead “conduct their official convention business remotely.” The “Trump 2020: The RNC Convention” website did not mention COVID. Organizers stated that “official business of the 2020 Republican National convention, including the formal nomination of President Donald J. Trump, will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina on August 24, 2020.”2 “Assembled delegates will hold the roll call vote” and “other important convention business will also take place,” including the “Convention Committee on Credentials and the publication of proceedings.” Even these basic details became complicated by public health challenges.

Old and New Democratic Delegates spent their convention days in 30 different council and/or caucus meetings, scheduled hourly by group. These were conducted virtually, rather than in person, and open to the public via

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livestream, unlike in the past, when convention credentials were typically required. Each convention night had a host, who operated like a master of ceremonies. The hosts were all women actresses: Eva Longoria, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kerry Washington, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Hosts stood on a set that resembled that of a cable news network with a wall-size television screen behind them used to transition in and out of various segments. In prior years, the evening portion of conventions unfolded on a stage within an arena, before a live audience, most of whom were not paying attention, unless they were being filmed on live television or there was a prominent speaker. Each night focused on a general theme: (1) We the People; (2) Leadership Matters; (3) A More Perfect Union; and (4) America’s Promise. Speakers were scheduled with these themes in mind, similar to previous conventions, but unlike before, many provided prerecorded remarks. The convention also included many pre-recorded short panel discussions led by Joe Biden, who primarily asked questions of a half-dozen other people (elected officials, activists, and professionals) who participated virtually. Topics included race, criminal justice reform, and healthcare. This new segment increased the party’s ability to include key people in primetime programing, drew attention to prioritized issues, and displayed the nominee as curious, listening, and empathetic toward constituents and current social challenges. The primary function of the convention, a roll-call vote for the presidential nominee, was held unlike ever before. Each of the 57 states and territories had a few moments on camera to cast their votes. This proceeded alphabetically and included typical fanfare, including touting Biden as “the next president of the United States” and highlighting local issues and attributes. The array of different people and backdrops were remarkably varied. States differed in the number of people on screen, including individuals, pairs, and groups, as well as who was involved, including presidential candidates, elected officials, party activists, indigenous peoples, first responders, military personnel, and Democrats at large. Some states included props, from cattle in Montana to calamari in Rhode Island. Others highlighted natural beauty, including oceans, rivers, mountains, farmland, and landmarks, such as the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the nation’s capital, Bill Clinton’s presidential library, and in closing, the train station in Wilmington, Delaware frequented by Joe Biden and renamed in his honor.

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Split screens with delegates from around the country were used to virtually approximate a crowd after Biden was formally granted the nomination and during other key moments of the convention. Those pictured clapped, cheered, and laughed. This was meshed with shots of Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, and his grandchildren, looking on with “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang playing in the background. Prompting public displays of affection is a key dimension to modern party conventions, but proved challenging with the safeguards in place, and at times appeared clumsy and awkward from a production standpoint. The convention included a docket of headline speakers each evening, topped by Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, the first two evenings, and Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the last two evenings. Vice-Presidential nominee Kamala Harris spoke prior to President Obama. The priority given to the Obama’s speaks to their continued national popularity3 and influence on Democratic Party politics. In 2016, Obama “decided early on” that “he wanted Hillary Clinton to be his successor, that she was the best fit for the job and would be strongest candidate” (Issac Dovere 2019). Biden ran twice for president before, withdrawing in 1988 because of “the exaggerated shadow” of his past mistakes (Dione 1987), and in 2008, after a fifth-place finish in the Iowa Caucus. Biden recalls Obama “subtly weighing in against” him running in 2016, believing “he had concluded that Hillary Clinton was almost certain to be the nominee, which was good by him” (Thompson 2020). Biden’s 2020 Electoral College victory, by a slightly larger margin than Trump defeated Clinton, dramatically positioned Biden to preserve, resurrect, and build upon Obama’s legacy. Headline speakers varied in their cinematic approach. Michelle Obama gave her address seated in a tight shot from home, speaking in similar fashion to a fireside chat. Jill Biden spoke live from a classroom in a Delaware high school, beginning with a stroll down the hall, and ending with an appearance from the nominee. Barack Obama stood in the National Constitutional Center, before the “Writing the Constitution” exhibit with a waist-high lectern largely out of sight. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden adopted a more conventional approach at the Chase Convention Center in Wilmington, behind traditional lecterns flanked by American flags. Unlike the Democrats, the physical location and proceedings of the GOP convention changed throughout the summer of 2020. In June,

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North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and other state and local officials refused to provide assurances that all convention gatherings would be permitted, prompting Republican Party officials to move several convention events to Jacksonville, Florida following President Trump’s urging. The revised GOP plan envisioned official business taking place in Charlotte with high-profile moments, such as President Trump’s acceptance speech, occurring before a large crowd in Jacksonville (Fineout 2020). These plans were canceled a month later. “It was not the right time” for a big and crowded convention, Trump conceded, citing concerns about having people “going to what turned out to be a hot spot,” following rising COVID rates in Jacksonville and Florida at large (Haberman, Mazzei, and Karni 2020). Most Floridians agreed. 62 percent of voters thought it would be unsafe to host the convention. Shifting plans created logistical challenges for Republicans. Jacksonville’s host committee spent some of the $6 million out of $20 million committed by donors, which was not refunded in full. 336 delegates gathered in the ballroom of the Charlotte’s Convention Center on the first day of the convention, which differed from traditional norms, by incorporating President Trump in several different appearances. That morning Trump gave a nearly hour-long address before the delegation after receiving the party’s formal nomination via roll call vote. Trump’s remarks resembled a typical stump speech, including several core elements, such as self-aggrandizement and negative attacks toward political enemies through “insult comedy” (Berenson 2016). The main set for the Republican Convention was at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium, located in the William Jefferson Clinton federal building in Washington D.C. The structure resembled a traditional convention setting with speakers walking to a podium in the center of a stage, adorned with many American flags. Each night focused on a general theme, including: (1) Land of Promise; (2) Land of Opportunity; (3) Land of Heroes; and (4) Land of Greatness. Typical convention speeches from the main set were intertwined with a range of different videos throughout each evening. One type of video was akin to standard campaign advertisements, emphasizing Trump’s leadership with appeals to patriotism and populism. These videos meshed Trump’s words with anecdotes from various supporters. Some focused on specific issues, like care for veterans, in which favorable anecdotes from veterans were mixed with text campaign messages, like “PRESIDENT TRUMP IS PUTTING AMERICA’S VETERANS FIRST.”

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Others appealed to tenets of American political culture, such as individual freedom and U.S. exceptionalism, portraying Democrats as a threat and President Trump as a defender of these values. A second type of video provided testimonials from GOP politicians, such Catalina Lauf, and her sister Madelina, two millennials from Chicago, whose mother was a Guatemalan immigrant. Their short feature, which blended them speaking with stock footage, highlighted the themes of family, self-reliance, economic opportunity, and personal responsibility. Representative Kevin McCarthy and Senator Mitch McConnell, the top two Republican leaders in Congress, both spoke via pre-recorded videos. McCarthy spoke over music with various clips adapted to accentuate his points and promote President Trump. McConnell stood before a rural background in Kentucky with intermittent close-up shots for dramatic effect. Vice-President Mike Pence spoke about Abraham Lincoln, connecting him to his home state of Indiana (the location of Lincoln’s boyhood home) and Donald Trump’s vision and policy. Pence sat on a bench at Lincoln’s home, listening to parents and kids facing various challenges. A third type of video highlighted different groups of people, such as workers, women, and people who live in urban public housing. These videos included anecdotes from these “forgotten” people who expressed their support for President Trump and his leadership and polices. A fourth type highlighted aspects of U.S. history and culture, such as the women’s suffrage movement and professional sports. The suffrage video provided an overview with limited political appeals, stating the movement started with a “tea party” and Republican suffragists, and concluded by highlighting Trump’s pardoning of Susan B. Anthony on the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. The sports video highlighted the determination of professional athletes, primarily consisting of clips from people who visited the White House during the Trump presidency, and concluded with the words “On to Victory” as fireworks exploded. A fifth type of video featured the president or Vice President. Most occurred in the White House and included Trump visiting with groups of people. Trump spoke with seven frontline workers in the East Room of the White House. The president asked individuals about their stories, thanked them for their work, and criticized Democrats. Participants thanked and complimented Trump. Similarly, Trump visited with six Americans formerly held hostage in foreign countries. Trump touted his record working to release 50 hostages in 22 countries and listened to

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everyone share where they were held hostage. Each person praised and expressed gratitude for the president’s efforts. Another video provided a religious testimonial from Jon Ponder, a convict who started a nonprofit to help released felons, along with Richard Beasely, an F.B.I. agent who arrested him. President Trump read a statement from the White House flanked by both men, who spoke afterward, expressing gratitude to the president and lauding his support of criminal justice reform and law enforcement. One video began with Trump being announced as the president of the United States, with hail to the chief and two uniformed military personnel saluting and opening the door, as he walked down a hall to join a naturalization ceremony. The five candidates recited the oath before Chad Wolf, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security. After administering the oath, Wolf commended the president for his dedication to the rule of law and “restoring integrity to our immigration system.” Trump then made some remarks and took pictures with naturalization candidates. Wolf said later that he did not know the recording would air during the convention. The video was previously uploaded to a public YouTube channel (Bice 2020). Several of the participants were also unaware the ceremony would be used during the convention, and learned moments before that President Trump would be there (Parti and Bender 2020). In lieu of a formal roll call vote, Republicans provided a “short video” with all states and territories expressing “excitement” for President Trump, in the words of RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. The video began with an individual or group from each state or territory quickly saying its name, followed by a statement of enthusiasm and gratitude for Trump and Pence spliced together, one word at a time, concluding with chanting and cheering from various locations. Like the Democrats, Republican headline speakers varied in their cinematic approach. Senator Tim Scott of North Carolina spoke on the stage of the main set. First Lady Melania Trump spoke in the White House Rose Garden before a crowd that included her husband, front and center. The Vice-President spoke at historic Fort McHenry. President Trump spoke before 2,000 supporters on the South Lawn of the White House, after being introduced by his daughter, and Advisor to the President, Ivanka Trump.

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Implications Television ratings for both conventions were lower than 2016. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton accepted their party’s nomination before 32 million and 30 million viewers, per Nielsen ratings, which do not incorporate on-line viewing (Deggans 2020). In 2020, 25 million viewers watched Joe Biden’s nomination speech, compared to 24 million for Donald Trump. Democrats also outdrew Republicans on the first and third nights of their convention with 23 million viewers, while Republicans had the advantage on the second night, 19.4 million viewers to 19.2 million. Republicans adopted a more traditional approach with live video feeds, focused on speeches from the main convention stage. Democrats utilized hundreds of live video feeds from delegate’s house, as well as stages and landmarks around the country. Video-production kits, including lighting and advanced routers, were provided in advance. Delegates watched the proceedings via quick feeds in a manner that sought to have their reactions simulate a live audience. Logistics was arguably the biggest challenge facing organizers, particularly on the Republican side, after they scraped the Jacksonville plan a month prior to the convention. This included determining how to coordinate different locations and effectively blend live segments with digital ones. Heavily influenced by President Trump, “the goal was to make a gripping TV show” (Isenstadt 2020). After examining the previous two GOP conventions, the Trump team concluded that “segments featuring normal Americans were often far more powerful than speeches by career politicians or lawmakers” (Cook 2020). The president also wanted a mix of live speeches and recorded segments with crisp video production. The Republican convention utilized more pre-recorded videos than Democrats. These varied in type and duration. The Democrats’ approach was safer than Republicans’ live-audience speeches, but at times, less effective television programming. Little boxes of people, akin to the opening to the Brady Bunch show, clapping around a bewildered-looking candidate, will likely not be replicated moving forward. Increased use of pre-recorded videos will likely continue beyond the pandemic. Parties and campaigns can better craft messages and captivate viewers through heavily produced segments incorporating words, images, and sound. These clips can also have more traction on social media than longer speeches.

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Both parties were forced to adapt to less television airtime for their conventions. “We are 16 hours shorter than a typical convention,” observed Democratic convention organizer Stephanie Cutter. “We really have to hit our mark in those two hours a night and use every potential platform to get it out” (Scherer 2020). This created limitations for the overall number of prime-time speakers, often dolled out to appease party elites and factions, and the length of speeches, which was reduced by a few minutes for many speakers. The lack of audience also expedited the delivery since there were not pauses for applauses or chants. These developments enabled speakers to be more efficient and concise, while diminishing theatrics and dramatic crowd interactions. The Republican Convention generated controversy by repeatedly using the White House as a venue for live and recorded events, as well as public officials on work trips abroad, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who spoke from Jerusalem. Democrats claimed that Republicans violated The Hatch Act (1939), a federal law that restrains federal employees from engaging in political activity. In a letter to the independence Office of Special Counsel, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee claimed Trump administration officials “repeatedly used their official positions and the White House to bolster President Trump’s reelection campaign,” prompting “alarm” and evidence “actively undermining compliance with, and respect for, the law.” A White House spokesperson responded that “any government employees who did participate did so in compliance with the Hatch Act.” The Trump administration often sparked concerns regrading this law, while he and senior officials regularly dismissed criticisms, such as White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who said “nobody outside of the Beltway really cares” about the Hatch Act (Daly 2020). While this particular behavior is unlikely to be emulated moving forward, many other key elements of the 2020 conventions could. These conventions were more inclusive, multimedia, and multiplatform than ever before. The COVID pandemic prompted even greater attention toward efficiently developing and producing engaging television. Diminished ratings compared to 2016 were noteworthy, though could be explained by other extenuating contextual factors, like the pandemic, and larger trends, including decline in traditional, synchronous TV viewership and the off-putting nature of hyper-partisanship that helped define recent national elections.

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The long days of one person on stage at a time giving speech after speech are likely numbered. 2020 revealed how this traditional approach still makes sense for the major prime time speeches, but few else. An array of pre-recorded, heavily produced segments, incorporating candidates interacting in various ways with people at large, is more advantageous than rewarding party loyalists with ten minutes in the national spotlight. The COVID pandemic will hopefully conclude well before 2024, but is well positioned to be a spark that prompts major changes in how parties approach national conventions.

Notes 1. See “Frequently Asked Questions,” D20 Democratic National Convention, https://www.demconvention.com/plans-and-details/faq/. 2. See “Frequently Asked Questions,” Republican National Convention, https://www.2020gopconvention.com/faq/. 3. See “Obama Tops List of Best President in Their Lifetime,” Pew Research Center. July 11, 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/07/ 11/obama-tops-publics-list-of-best-president-in-their-lifetime-followed-byclinton-reagan/.

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Campbell, James, Lynna Cherry, and Kenneth Wink. 1992. ‘‘The Convention Bump.’’ American Politics Research 20, no. 3: 287–307. Cera, Joseph, and Aaron C. Weinschenk. 2012. ‘‘The Individua lLevel Effects of Presidential Conventions on Candidate Evaluations.’’ American Politics Research 40, no. 1: 3–28. Christini, Leah, Marc Hetherington, Michael MacKuen, Graeme Robertson, and Emily Wager. 2020. “To fight the coronavirus, most Americans support universal testing and mandatory quarantines.” Monkey Cage; The Washington Post, May 15, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/ 15/fight-coronavirus-most-americans-support-universal-testing-mandatoryquarantines/. Cook, Nancy. 2020. “Last minute confusion: Many Republicans still in the dark about convention.” Politico. August 23, 2020. https://www.politico.com/ news/2020/08/23/rnc-convention-trump-400526. Daly, Matthew. 2020. “Democrats request Hatch Act probe of Convention.” AP, September 20, 2020. https://apnews.com/article/8fe0746f4db1030220f61 14a0a97a485. Deggans, Eric. 2020. “Democrats Beat Republicans in Television Ratings.” NPR¸August 28, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/28/907289022/ democrats-beat-republicans-in-convention-television-ratings. Dionne, EJ. 1987. “Biden Withdraws Bid for President in Wake of Furor,” The New York Times, September 24, 1987. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/ 24/us/biden-withdraws-bid-for-president-in-wake-of-furor.html. Fineout, Gary. 2020. “GOP picks Jacksonville for convention keynotes.” Politico, June 11, 2020. https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/06/ 11/gop-picks-jacksonville-for-convention-keynotes-1292679. Haberman, Maggie, Patracia Mazzei, and Annie Karni. 2020. “Trump Abruptly Cancels GOP Convention in Florida.” The New York Times, July 23, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/politics/jacksonville-rnc.html. Isaac-Dovere, Edward. 2019. “When Obama Talked Biden Out of Running for President.” The Atlantic, April 25, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2019/04/bidens-20202-announcement-brought-praiseobama/587989/. Isenstadt, Alex. 2020. “An Apprentice producer and T.V. obsesses president: Inside the GOP’s convention scramble.” Politico, August 22, 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/22/donald-trump-republ ican-convention-scramble-400222. Moore, Elena. 2020. “Scapegoats and Allies: How Trump Changed His Tune on States’ Coronavirus Reponse.” NPR, August 25, 2020. https://www.npr. org/2020/08/25/904760761/scapegoats-and-allies-how-trump-changedhis-tune-on-states-coronavirus-response.

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Mordecai, Mara and Aiden Connahaughton. 2020. “Public Opinion about Coronavirus is more politically divided in U.S. than other advanced economies.” Pew Research Center, October 28, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2020/10/28/public-opinion-about-coronavirus-is-more-politically-div ided-in-u-s-than-in-other-advanced-economies/. Parti Tarini and Michael Bender. 2020. “Immigrants in Trump-led Ceremony Didn’t Know They Would Appear at RNC.” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/immigrants-in-trump-ledceremony-didnt-know-they-would-appear-at-rnc-11598481345. Peters, Jeremy, Elaina Plott, and Maggie Haberman. 2020. “260,000 words, Full of Self-Praise, From Trump on the Virus.” The New York Times, April 26, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/26/us/politics/ trump-coronavirus-briefings-analyzed.html. Rutledge, Paul. 2020. “Trump, COVID, and War on Expertise.” American Review of Public Administration 50, no. 6–7: 505–511. Scherer, Michael. 2020. “Unconventional Democratic Convention will juggle hundreds of live feeds to recreate the feeling of party celebration.” The Washington Post, August 16, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/pol itics/unconventional-democratic-convention-will-juggle-hundreds-of-livefeeds-to-re-create-the-feel-of-a-party-celebration/2020/08/15/02f887dede60-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html. Skelley, Geoffrey. 2020. “Why Counting on a Convention Bounce This Year is Risky.” FiveThirtyEight, July 6, 2020. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ why-counting-on-a-convention-bounce-this-year-is-risky/. Thompson, Alex. 2020. “The President Was Not Encouraging.” What Obama Really Thought About Obama. Politico, August 14, 2020. https://www.pol itico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/14/obama-biden-relationship-393570. Tyson, Alec. 2020. “Republicans remain far less likely than Democrats to view COVID-19 as a major public health threat.” Pew Research, July 22, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/22/republicans-remainfar-less-likely-than-democrats-to-view-covid-19-as-a-major-threat-to-publichealth/.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusion Luke Perry

Abstract This book’s examination of the 2020 primary was built upon four core questions: 1) Why has conventional wisdom of primary campaign strategy proven ineffective for two consecutive cycles? 2) How did the 2020 primary process make possible a Joe Biden victory rather than nominating a candidate too weak to defeat a vulnerable president? 3) Were the many factions of the Democratic Party a source of strength or weakness? and 4) What are the lessons and implications from 2020 for 2024? This chapter engages these questions with insights from the rest of the book. Keywords 2020 presidential primary · 2024 election · Presidential nominations · Party politics · Joe Biden · Democratic Party

The 2020 Democratic Primary was the most crowded since 1972, when the current system began. The total of 29 major candidates was nearly

L. Perry (B) Political Science, Utica College, Utica, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Perry (ed.), The 2020 Democratic Primary, Palgrave Studies in US Elections, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0_8

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three times the average, prompting comparisons to the crowded field in the 2016 primary that disadvantaged mainstream politicians and benefited the anti-establishment candidacy of Donald Trump. Primaries typically have clear frontrunners, but of course, these candidates do not always secure the nomination. Jeb Bush in 2016 is a prominent example. Early primary outcomes, in particular, can heavily influence candidate success. Joe Biden, the 2020 frontrunner, got off to an inauspicious start, finishing fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire. Biden did better in Nevada, placing second between Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg with over 20 percent of the vote. But news organizations labeled Sanders the frontrunner, while FiveThirtyEight estimated that Biden’s chances of securing the nomination fell to as low as 10 percent. Sanders had secured two victories, and nearly a third, finishing a fraction of a point behind Buttigieg in Iowa. The former South Bend mayor ran a strong campaign with solid showings in Iowa and New Hampshire. Sanders, however, had the distinct advantage of running the cycle before and successfully reformed several aspects of the primary process in his favor. Beginning in 2020, for instance, superdelegates were only permitted to vote on the first ballot if a nominee had already secured enough pledged votes to win the nomination. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was supported by 92 percent of superdelegates when she clinched the nomination, much to Sanders’ dismay (Andrews 2016). Not since 1952 had a nominee failed to win enough pledged delegates in the first round, diminishing the perceived and actual influence of superdelegates in 2020. Joe Biden performed so poorly during the first two contests, he left New Hampshire before the results came in. Biden benefited from the relatively small number of delegates awarded to early states and how this delegate pool was divided among several candidates. Biden only trailed Sanders by 30 delegates after the first three primaries. Another 40 delegates were split among Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar. Biden won South Carolina, a make or break moment for his campaign, then went on to win 10 of 14 states on Super Tuesday, becoming the clear favorite to win the nomination. Media narratives suggested that Biden rebounded from his slow start, but as Peter Enns and Jonathon Schuldt explained in Chapter Three, the primaries ended up as expected in light of their polling. Two years prior to the election, Biden was the preferred candidate identified by Democratic voters when asked to identify any one person they would like to see run for president. Biden spent 48 years in public life and was not a

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candidate learning on the job. Biden’s unorthodox path to the nomination was more about the order of races and allocation of delegates in the primary calendar than surging popularity or enhanced campaign performance. This was very different from Donald Trump upending the 2016 GOP primary field to become the first president without government or military experience. While Biden was able to overcome early challenges, minority candidates were not so fortunate. The first two states disadvantaged minority candidates, even when they had high name recognition and were minority voters themselves. The challenge before national party committees is whether they want to maintain the tradition of Iowa and New Hampshire kicking off presidential primaries or recognize how “the current primary process benefits white candidates because the early states are not representative of the country’s overall demographic composition.” Iowa and New Hampshire were 90 and 93 percent “white alone” respectively in 2020, per U.S. Census Data, compared to just 4.1 percent and 1.8 percent “Black or African-American alone.”1 There were four black candidates in 2020: Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Deval Patrick, and Wayne Messam. Though none were successful in securing the nomination, black voters were pivotal. As Nina Moore discussed in Chapter Four, Biden earned a relatively low share of the black vote compared to previous Democratic primary candidates in recent decades, primarily due to a large field. Black voters were the foundation of Biden’s success, however. In South Carolina, black voters constituted 60 percent of the primary electorate, over 60 percent of whom voted for Biden in the first contest where they figured prominently. Biden’s support among black voters was predicated on his policy positions that overlapped with the issues and perspectives of black voters. Eight years as Vice President under Barack Obama was also beneficial. 2020 illustrated how black voters are not monolithic and exercised their voting power in pursuit of substantive concerns, rather than skin color, elite cues, retrospective assessments, or liberal ideology. Following the 2020 general election, Nevada and South Carolina began pursuing becoming the first, or among the first primaries, with nearly 30 percent of their populations comprised of Hispanics and African-Americans, respectively.2 Primary calendars and processes are fluid. The 2020 primary calendar unfolded faster than 2016, awarding 60 percent of delegates prior to March 15, largely due to California

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moving to Super Tuesday. Super Tuesday became more demographically representative of the country, after previously featuring Southern states. Georgia, for instance, was moved back, a now circumspect decision given its pivotal role in securing Democratic wins with the presidency and control of the Senate. California moving up also contributed to the backend of the primary calendar featuring mostly rural and white voters, as states like Kansas and Nebraska moved back to May. Both states also transitioned from caucuses to primaries, a growing trend. Caucuses allocated 14 percent of delegates in 2016 compared to just 3 percent in 2020 (Cohn 2019). The Iowa Caucus experienced serious administrative problems in 2020, helping to explain growing reluctance for states to conduct caucuses and prompting extraordinary scrutiny for the Hawkeye state. Iowa has been atop the primary calendar since 1972. Strong showings have bolstered numerous candidacies, most notably Jimmy Carter in 1976, whose “impact on the shape and structure of the modern nomination system cannot be overstated” (Karamack 27, 2018). Carter went from 1 percent in the polls in January of 1976 to securing the Democratic nomination by focusing on early contests. As the influence of Iowa and New Hampshire grew in the post-reform era, so did animosity from other states. Iowa and New Hampshire have relentlessly and effectively defended their privileged position while other states jockeyed for positions behind them. In Chapter One Andrew Green and Kurt Sernett explained why Iowa probably remains first in 2024, provided Biden runs for reelection and is unopposed. Biden would be the unquestioned favorite, providing little incentive for Democratic leadership to generate controversy. If Biden is not up for reelection; however, all bets are off. Vice Presidents tend to face competition in pursuing the nomination. Should that occur for Kamala Harris, the presumed frontrunner, the Democratic National Committee would face a more difficult decision: keep the 2020 calendar intact and face growing internal opposition or move Iowa and deal with their blowback and potential tensions with the Republican National Committee in trying to modify the calendar. As a result, there is a good chance Iowa stays put, even with its problems in 2020 and demographic concerns. Still, questions about whether presidential primaries are better served with Iowa and New Hampshire first, or more diverse states, such as Nevada and South Carolina, are likely to persist. What is likely to change is the nature of national party conventions. As Luke Perry explained in Chapter Seven, the COVID-19 pandemic

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reshaped how both parties approached their conventions in light of unprecedented logistical challenges. The result was mostly positive in producing more captivating programming. Speakers and speech times were reduced, while the use of pre-recorded videos increased. There were many different types of videos, several of which effectively helped to humanize and otherwise positively portray nominees and running mates. There is little incentive for convention organizers to return to an endless array of speakers, most of whom, neither the live audience nor the audience at home, pays much attention to. Of course, some elements of the 2020 conventions are unlikely to be emulated, including blatant disregard for The Hatch Act, and little boxes of people clapping around a bewildered-looking candidate. The 2024 national party conventions, when the pandemic will presumably be over, may in some important ways resemble 2020 as much as 2016.

Rethinking the 2020 Primary Process Joe Biden’s general election victory is evidence that the Democratic primary process produced a nominee strong enough to defeat Donald Trump. Still, Trump was vulnerable and Biden’s primary path is not how any campaign would hope to win. Every nominee from both parties won either Iowa or New Hampshire since Bill Clinton in 1992, who finished third in Iowa and second in New Hampshire. The perils of skipping or underperforming in early contests are well documented (Karmarck 2019). Rudy Giuliani, a prominent example, anchored his campaign on Florida, the fourth state in the 2008 Republican primary, believing a strong performance would buoy his prospects on Super Tuesday. Instead, Giuliani finished third and suspended his campaign the next day. At Biden’s inaugural, President George W. Bush, a Republican who did not vote for Trump, told Rep. Jim Clyburn (SC-6) he was “the savior” for Clyburn’s pivotal endorsement of Biden in South Carolina (Baker 2021). Bush believed Biden was the only candidate who could defeat Trump. His comment helps illuminate how Biden’s victory was not a foregone conclusion, even though it was also not a surprising outcome. Ten months of primary debates provided a key dimension of scrutiny and uncertainty. National party committees must weigh various considerations in developing qualification rules. Dozens, if not hundreds of people, file to run for president each cycle, so parties must decide which small portion of these individuals can access the debate stage. Parties want to be fair and

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transparent in these determinations, or at least appear to have developed a legitimate process. Debates ideally provide a beneficial exchange of various ideas within the “big tent” of a party, while highlighting the perceived shortcomings of their opposition. Over time, the process aspires to gradually narrow the field and unify the party around a single candidate. Reconciling these competing interests is not an easy task. The Democratic Party adopted new rules for 2020 capping the first two debates to 20 participants. Eligibility was contingent on polling (1 percent support in three national polls or polls from early primary states) or donations (at least 65,000 donors spanning at least 20 states with at least 200 unique donors per state). If more than 20 candidates met this threshold, candidates who hit both benchmarks would be given priority. This came after Republican Party rules in 2016 created a two-tiered debate process, with one earlier debate between less popular candidates, followed by a primetime debate. Democrats instead opted for two equal debates, ten candidates each, on separate nights. The top polling candidates were separated and the rest were selected randomly. These rules initially created a low barrier following backlash in 2016 that the debate process favored Hillary Clinton (Azari and Maskett 2019). The first two debates met the maximum of 20 candidates in each, including longshot candidates, such as author Marianne Williamson and businessman Tom Steyer. Biden faced several attacks as the presumed frontrunner, most notably from Kamala Harris, who questioned his record on civil rights (Glueck et al. 2019). Biden’s performance sparked the moniker of “fragile frontrunner,” for failing to “quell the growing sense among rivals that while he remains atop the polls, the 2020 Democratic presidential race remains wide open” (Goldmacher 2019). “Biden struggled again” in the second debate, “as other candidates piled on,” critiquing a “lengthy Senate record on a number of issues,” and even aspects of the popular Obama presidency in which Biden served as Vice President (Bush 2019). Thresholds for debate participation were raised in the third and fourth debates, requiring two percent in four polls from an approved list of pollsters, and 130,000 unique donors, including 400 per state in at least 20 states. This cut the number of participants in half for the next three debates and created a single debate stage. Rules gradually intensified even more, winnowing the pool to 6 or 7 candidates for the next five debates, before the final debate between Biden and Sanders in March of 2020. Biden’s debate performance improved as participants decreased. Prior to

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his victory in South Carolina, “the former vice president snapped a string of lousy debate outings that had stoked doubts about his viability as a candidate, let alone a frontrunner” (Korecki 2020). Biden secured the Democratic nomination in spite of his debate performance, not because of it. The advantage of hindsight suggests the debate process produced more risk than benefits in securing a Democratic general election victory. Even more clear was the futility of the Democratic Party enabling extraordinarily wealthy fringe candidates to use the debate stage to promote their individual political views and/or self-aggrandizement. The drawbacks of fundraising qualifications particularly disadvantaged candidates from historically marginalized groups. For instance, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris were popular Democratic candidates, fourth and fifth, respectively, at the very beginning of the race, but were also among the first candidates to drop out, because of money. “My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue,” Harris stated in December of 2019 (Astead, Goldmacher, and Martin 2019). Similarly, Booker’s “decision to drop out largely came down to finances” (Corasaniti 2020). These dynamics were complicated by the fact that Harris and Booker were the only two major black candidates, when African-Americans were among the strongest components of the party’s base. Both clearly had name recognition, coupled with strong resumes, including being U.S. Senators from large states. In contrast, Michael Bloomberg spent $1 billion in the primary and finished with the fourthhighest delegate count, despite not being very popular. If either Booker or Harris had Bloomberg’s resources, Enns and Schuldt observe, “it’s not hard to imagine a more successful outcome.” Money helped provide access to the debate stage, though it could not propel extraordinarily wealthy, self-funded candidates to victory over more experienced and more popular candidates. The Democratic Party would be better served by developing debate rules that did not disqualify diverse, younger, and accomplished candidates at the expense of older, white, wealthier, less experienced candidates, such as Tom Steyer, who participated in nearly all the debates without winning a single delegate.

Experiences with Democratic Factionalism Factionalism has been a defining feature of the American party system since the advent of stable party organizations in the mid-nineteenth

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century. Factions have often been, as the Founding generation feared, a source of bitter conflict within the parties. But they can also periodically be a source of strength, or at least a basis for collective action within otherwise highly federated party structures. There is reason to believe that both factors were at work within the factional divides that emerged during the 2020 Democratic primary. Democrats were divided into two main ideological factions in 2020: centrists and progressives. These factions further broke into four blocs of progressives and two blocs of centrists (Bacon 2019). The largest two blocs of progressives pitted the old guard, such as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, against the new guard, such as Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Pete Buttigieg. The old guard was more concerned about electability and less willing to placate the far-left wing of the party, while the new guard was younger, more diverse, and open to unapologetically pursuing progressive priorities, such as Medicare for All and The Green New Deal. The remaining two blocs of progressives were more liberal than the first two. One group of “super progressives” were critical of the shortcomings of both Republicans and Democrats, led by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Ilhan Omar (MN-5), Ayanna Pressley (MA7), and Rashida Tlaib (MI-13). A second group of liberal progressives, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, widely overlapped ideologically with the first group, particularly in terms of economic issues, but were less focused on identity issues and slightly less critical of the Democratic Party establishment. The two blocs of centrists consisted of moderates and conservative Democrats. The latter has gradually dwindled within the party in recent decades. Conservative Democrats were skeptical of liberal views, both economically and culturally, and were largely found in conservativelearning parts of the country. Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia was a prominent example in national politics, while ConservativeDemocratic governors in Southern states, such as Governor John Bell Edwards in Louisiana, were major players in state politics. Moderate Democrats, such as Reps. Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5), Abigail Spanberger (VA-7), and Conor Lamb (PA-17), were more liberal on cultural issues than Conservative Democrats, but more conservative on economic issues than other Democrats. Joe Biden won a smaller amount of the primary popular vote than any previous Democratic nominee since Walter Mondale in 1984 (Rackich

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2020). Biden not only faced a large field, but one in which five candidates polled in double digits heading into the Iowa Caucus (Collins 2020). The lack of unity behind a single candidate or single unifying vision beyond defeating Trump was a challenge throughout a long 2020 Democratic presidential campaign as Biden did not formally clinch the nomination until June. As discussed in Chapter One, greater polarization between parties has furthered ideological homogenization within parties in the Post-Reform Era, prompting internal alignment and decreased factionalism. This was not exactly the case in the 2020 Democratic Primary. Biden entered the race as the favorite and won, but faced strong challenges from not only progressives, as expected, but fellow moderates, most notably Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg’s unlikely bid for DNC chair in 2017 foreshadowed his campaign skills and his attempt to bridge centrists and progressives as an openly gay millennial who approached governing through his Midwestern, bipartisan mayoral experiences. Buttigieg was often helpful in rebutting progressive positions, but challenged Biden on certain issues, most notably foreign policy. For instance, Buttigieg’s critique of Biden’s support of the Iraq War had added weight because Buttigieg was a combat veteran, unlike the rest of the Democratic field. The contest between Warren and Sanders illustrated the destructive impact factions can have within a party. As Brian Conley and Rachael Cobb explained in Chapter Five, some of Warren’s campaign decisions could be understood as an effort to undermine Sanders’ chances, needlessly splitting the progressive vote. For instance, Warren’s public confirmation during a debate that Sanders told her privately of his doubts that a woman could win the presidency, was not helpful. Moreover, Warren’s decision to stay in the race through Super Tuesday, despite her poor showing up to that point provoked ire from progressives. Klobuchar and Buttigieg had already dropped out and endorsed Biden, unifying centrists and solidifying Biden’s path to the nomination. At the same time, Sanders’s clear victory in the progressive endorsement battle highlights the fact that the Democratic left effectively consolidated behind a single candidate in 2020, and was thus able to assert more overall influence over the course of the primary. Though a moderate won the nomination, Joe Biden represented the most liberal Democratic Party in years, setting the stage for him to become one of the most liberal modern presidents. This influenced issues Biden prioritized upon taking office, such as climate change and racial justice, as well as the composition of the first bill of his presidency,

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COVID relief legislation. The bill included higher relief payments to individuals than in the past and a $15 federal minimum wage, which the Senate parliamentarian determined could be not part of the reconciliation process used to pass the bill. Sanders’ championed many of these causes with a much more impactful voice nationally than he had throughout his political career as a Democratic-Socialist from Vermont. Biden mitigated the liabilities of Democratic party factionalism during the general election campaign by incorporating the progressive faction into campaign strategy. This provided Sanders’ camp with a seat at the table and created space for Kamala Harris to become a visible presence on the campaign trail. This alignment in the shared priority of defeating President Trump did not quell fissures evident in the primary, but temporarily muted them. Gender and race also generated impactful differences in the 2020 Democratic primary. There were a record number of major women candidates, an undoubtedly positive development for the Democratic Party and the country at large, helping to usher in the first woman Vice President in U.S. history. At the same time, factionalism around electability was particularly harmful to women candidates. Presumptions about who was best suited to defeat Trump were implicitly laced with the presupposition that a woman may be disadvantaged in combating President Trump and leading the Democratic Party. These fault lines pushed women to the margins, once again. Ironically, this unfolded before the backdrop of more women running and winning in recent election cycles. In 2018, women candidates were central in flipping the House majority to Democrats, while both Senate pickups by Democrats (Arizona and Nevada) were won by women. A similar pattern was evident in statewide, gubernatorial races. Women were responsible for four out of the seven governorships Democrats won from Republicans (Zhou 2019). In addition, Sens. Harris, Warren, Klobuchar, and Gillibrand were unequivocally talented and accomplished candidates. None had ever lost an election up until that point, unlike their male counterparts. Gender-based scrutiny is less prolific now than just a decade ago, but still hinders women candidates, as gender inequity persists culturally, institutionally, and politically. These inequities result in stereotypes, diminished voter support for women candidates, and suboptimal treatment by political parties and in media coverage. In Chapter Four, Heather Yates explained how the 2020 primary was influenced by a flawed “electability

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myth” that Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 embodied a universal rejection of a woman president. This challenge was exacerbated by varied and shifting explanations among Democrats for why they lost in 2016, which influenced candidate preferences. Biden became the top choice among Democrats who believed messaging, candidate traits, and identity politics were to blame (Masket 2020). Tensions emerged between desires to focus on national electability versus desires to focus on producing a ticket that demographically reflected the party and the country. The former, intentionally or unintentionally, furthered gender stereotypes and organizational risk-averse behavior in a way that negatively impacted women candidates. In Chapter Five, Conley and Cobb discussed how systematic institutional preference and bias influenced the progressive lane of the primary that pitted two ideologically similar U.S. Senators against one another, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The nature and timing of endorsements among leading progressive officeholders and organizations “sent a clear message to left leaning Democratic primary voters that Sanders was the progressive candidate.” Media coverage of endorsements for these candidates contributed to this message, but not through systematic references to gendered keywords, like “appearance” or “tone.” Instead, when the two candidates were mentioned together, which was common, Sanders was twice as likely to be mentioned in coverage of Warren’s electability than when Warren was mentioned in coverage of Sanders’ electability. In the end, Warren was unable to win her own home state of Massachusetts, despite her popular standing as a champion of progressive Democratic politics, her past electoral and fundraising successes, and her reputation as a master of policy detail. Clearly, women are a source of electoral strength for Democrats, but proximate and historic challenges complicated efforts by a large and accomplished group of women candidates in 2020. The presidency remains elusive, though two consecutive cycles of Democrats nominating at least one woman on the ticket is a promising development. Racial barriers before the presidency and vice-presidency, on the other hand, were broken by Democrats within a 12-year span. The 2020 primary unfolded among the unique backdrop of significant racial unrest in 2019 and 2020. Increased awareness of the killing of black Americans by police officers, including Michael Brown, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Breonna Taylor, generated national attention and outrage, propelling

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the Black Lives Matter movement, one of the largest social movements in U.S. history (Buchana, Bui, and Patel 2020). Black Lives Matter was a prominent theme of the primary campaign. Elements of Biden’s long public career sparked related criticism from rivals, prompting Biden to apologize for his support of the 1994 federal crime bill, which bolstered mass incarceration and systematic racism in the criminal justice system. Biden also faced attacks for lauding his ability to work with segregationists and other policy stances, including past efforts to block desegregation-inspired busing programs brought forth on the debate stage by Kamala Harris in very personal terms. As discussed by Nina Moore in Chapter Four, Biden’s support from black voters stemmed from his positions on “black issues,” a category of issues that are distinguishable from national, white, Hispanic, and Asian issues and have high salience with black people. Biden persuaded black voters of his ability to effectively address these issues, which in the 2020 primary, included criminal justice reform, violent crime, COVID-19, economic conditions, and unemployment. Conversely, other prominent issues, such as climate change and immigration, were low priorities for black voters, helping to explain their diminished support for candidates who prioritized these issues, including other major contenders, like Bernie Sanders. The vast majority of black voters committed to Biden earlier than the primary electorate at large and were much more exclusively enthusiastic about his candidacy, rather than multiple candidacies. Incorporating the representation of disparate policy preferences from racial and ethnic groups is a strength of the Democratic Party. At the same time, this is not uniformly helpful electorally. The racial and ethnic diversification of the national electorate is generally perceived to be beneficial for Democrats. Republican candidates have won just one presidential popular vote in 32 years, but still secured two Electoral College victories this century. Moreover, increased entanglements of racial and political identities during the Obama presidency helped develop Donald Trump’s conservative base, which propelled him to victory in 2016. These elements will endure even as Trump’s influence over the party likely diminishes in the years to come. Beyond these immediate experiences, the 2020 primary illustrates how no racial and ethnic group is a uniform voting bloc, nor overwhelmingly compelled to vote for someone by virtue of belonging to the same racial or ethnic group. As result, the notion that Democrats will increasingly dominate presidential elections as the white racial majority evaporates is unlikely proceed so simply.

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Looking Toward 2024 President Biden may or may not run for a second term. If Biden does not, Kamala Harris becomes the presumptive nominee, though ideological, generational, gender, and racial differences within the Democratic Party may reemerge. Quickly unifying around Harris would best enable Democrats to retain the White House, and likely require the Democratic Party organization to improve its internal gatekeeping function. A prolonged and competitive primary would weaken the incumbency advantages of a Biden presidency carried forward by Harris and risk gender once again becoming a perceived liability. How President Biden shapes Harris’s role and responsibilities as Vice President will likely impact her electoral opportunities and that of all women pursuing the nation’s highest office. Several external variables will be in play as well. First and foremost, the ability of Democrats to retain the presidency will be contingent on when and how the country is able to overcome the COVID pandemic. The state of the economy will be near equal in importance. These two incredibly challenging national crises will be difficult to reverse, but also constitute major opportunities for unified Democratic government to lead America back to normalcy, prompting potential electoral benefits akin to Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 or Barack Obama in 2012, depending on the degree of success and popularity of related policies. Conversely, failure or under-delivering will weaken and fracture the Democratic Party, greatly hindering its electoral prospects. The current hyper-partisan era, along with increasingly weaponized misinformation, complicates these efforts and reduces any margin for error. Atop this foundation, more accustomed tensions surrounding political climate, campaign strategy, and intra-party factionalism will unfold. Donald Trump may or may not run again as well. Trump teased another potential candidacy in his first public speaking engagement shortly after leaving office. Unlike past presidents, and his own Vice President, Trump appears disinterested in staying out of national politics as is customary. Instead, Trump continued to claim he won the 2020 election and deeply criticized the nascent Biden presidency before the Conservative Political Action Conference (Jarvis 2021). Trump’s intentions and prospects are unclear. Internal struggles between pro-Trump and antiTrump elements, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY), former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and Republican

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House Conference Chair Liz Cheney (WY), defined the immediate aftermath of the Trump presidency. Another Trump nomination is far from certain, though a candidate who embraces some or all of his conservative populist style would not be surprising. This would likely increase the chances of a male Republican nominee emulating Trump’s hostile masculinity and nativism, prompting recycling of elements from the 2020 campaign playbook for both parties. Such a development could negatively impact women Democratic candidates, as was the case in 2016 and 2020. Midterm elections traditionally serve as an indication of the popularity of a presidency and direction of the country with headwinds favoring the opposition party. President Biden was elected with 51 percent of the popular vote, while his approval rating steadily remained a few points higher in the weeks following his inauguration. The president’s party has lost an average of 25 seats during midterm elections since 1946. This number rises to 37 if the president’s popularity is under 50 percent. Republicans gained 12 House seats in 2020, leaving Democrats with just a 9-seat advantage. Republicans had to defend 35 open seats compared to 13 for Democrats, but won nearly all of them. Democrats still retained an advantage in the national battle for the suburbs as 186 out of their 233 seats were predominately or partly suburban (Skelley 2020). In the Senate, Republicans have to defend six more seats than Democrats, with four retirements announced just months after the 2020 election, many in swing states. With a 50/50 split, competition for control of the chamber could not be any tighter. While conventional wisdom suggests a good opportunity for Republicans to retake the House, a political climate defined by years of crisis may scramble traditional prognostications. Persistence of Trump-related politics will further complicate typical assessments, while reapportionment and redistricting provide yet another wrinkle. Midterm electoral politics are primed to be particularly fluid and unpredictable. State reforms of election law are a related consideration. Trump’s unfounded assertions of electoral fraud date back to the 2016 election, when Trump claimed millions of people voted illegally (Villenueve 2018). Trump then created a voter fraud commission after the election that found no evidence of fraud and was disbanded two years later (Tackett & Wines 2018). Trump’s fraud claims escalated during and after the 2020 election, influencing public opinion among Republicans. Voting-by-mail was a prominent target. Nearly half of voters voted by mail in 2020, as many states sought to make voting safer during the pandemic. 58 percent

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of Biden voters voted by mail compared to 32 percent of Trump voters.3 Trump’s rhetoric and that of his supporters influenced voter attitudes among Republicans. 61 percent of Republicans who cited the Trump campaign as a major source of election news believed that fraud was a major problem with voting-by-mail (Jurkowitz 2021). Once the election was called for Biden, 70 percent of Republicans did not believe the election was free and fair, up from 35 percent prior to the election. Among these Republicans, nearly 80 percent believed mail-in voting resulted in widespread voter fraud (Kim 2020). This remarkable development is the result of proximate factors, including Trump’s atypical refusal to acknowledge defeat and higher electoral trust among the winning party than losing party, as well as larger trends of growing distrust in government over time. Low trust voters were much less likely to accept the election results irrespective of who won (31 percent) than high trust voters (74 percent) (Rainie and Perrine 2019). This produced a clash in state legislatures over electoral reform. In the month following Biden’s inauguration, legislators from 43 states introduced or carried over more than 250 bills that limit mail-in voting and/or require stricter voter identification requirements, a seven-fold increase from the year before. Conversely, legislators from a different group of 43 states introduced or carried over more than 700 bills that expand mail-in voting, make voter registration easier, and/or reestablish voting rights to people with past convictions.4 Republicans controlled 30 state legislatures (61 percent) in 2021, while Democrats controlled 18 (38 percent) with just one divided legislature. Republicans also had the advantage with complete state control, including the governorship, controlling over 23 states (46 percent). Democrats controlled 15 states (31 percent), while 11 states were divided.5 How these hundreds of state bills unfold will likely influence the nature of voting and the electorate. Federal voting reform legislation is being pursued as well, but Democrats will have trouble securing 60 votes in the Senate without eliminating the legislative filibuster, an option likely to get serious consideration in the coming years. The 2020 Democratic presidential primary was one of the most interesting and impactful in recent history. The process included atypical dynamics and valuable insights that help make sense of the past and understand what comes next. The outcome paved the way to displace an incumbent president for the first time in 28 years and deny Donald

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Trump the ability to solidify his historical influence on American politics. The outcome also made history within the Vice-Presidency, breaking centuries-old gender, race, and ethnicity barriers. Many lessons and implications from 2020 will undoubtedly influence the 2024 primaries. The political climate remains particularly fluid and unpredictable thanks to dual crisis of the COVID pandemic and related economic recession, along with the lingering effects of Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican Party. How these crises are resolved is likely to frame party politics and the next presidential election.

Notes 1. See U.S. Census QuickFacts for Iowa (https://www.census.gov/quickf acts/IA) and New Hampshire (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/ table/NH/PST045219). 2. See U.S. Census QuickFacts for Nevada (https://www.census.gov/quickf acts/fact/table/NV,US/PST045219) and South Carolina (https://www. census.gov/quickfacts/SC). 3. See “The voting experience in 2020,” 2020. Pew Research (November 20: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/11/20/the-voting-exp erience-in-2020/. 4. See “State Voting Laws Project,” Brennan Center of Justice, https://www. brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/voting-reform/ state-voting-laws. 5. See “State Partisan Composition,” National Conference of State Legislatures, https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/partisancomposition.aspx. Nebraska is excluded from this analysis because it is unicameral and formally claims to be nonpartisan.

Works Cited Andrews, Wilson, Kitty Bennett, and Alisha Parliapiano. 2016. “2016 Delegate Count and Results” The New York Times, July 5, 2016. https://www.nytimes. com/interactive/2016/us/elections/primary-calendar-and-results.html. Azari, Julia and Seth Maskett. 2019. “The DNC’s Debate Rules Won’t Make The 2020 Primaries Any Less Chaotic.” FiveThirtyEight, Feburary 20. 2019. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-dncs-debate-rules-wontmake-the-2020-primaries-any-less-chaotic/. Bacon, Perry. 2019. “The Six Wings of the Democratic Party.” FiveThirtyEight, March 11, 2019. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-six-wings-of-thedemocratic-party/.

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Baker, Peter. 2021. “Clyburn Says Bush told him he was “the savior” for endorsing Biden.” The New York Times, January 21, 2021. https://www.nyt imes.com/2021/01/21/us/politics/clyburn-says-bush-told-him-he-was-thesavior-for-endorsing-biden.html. Buchanan, Larry. Quoctrung Bui. Jugal Patel. 2020. “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History.” The New York Times. July 3. 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/geo rge-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html. Bush, Daniel. 2019. “What we learned form the 2020 Democratic debates in Detroit.” NPR Politics, August 1, 2019. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/ politics/what-we-learned-from-the-2020-democratic-debates-in-detroit. Cohn, Nate. 2019. “How the New Primary Calendar Changes the Contest for Democrats.” The Upshot. December 11, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/ 2019/12/11/upshot/democrats-2020-election-calendar.html. Collins, Sean. 2020. “Who’s going to win the Iowa Caucus, according to polls.” Vox, February 3, 2020. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/ 3/21115983/2020-iowa-caucuses-winner-polls. Corasaniti, Nick. 2020. “Cory Booker’s Exit from 2020 Race Ends a OncePromising Political Chapter” The New York Times, January 13, 2020. https:// www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/us/politics/cory-booker-drops-out.html. Glueck, Katie, Shane Goldmacher, Sydney Ember and Reid Epstein. 2019. “6 Highlights From Night 2 of the Democratic Debates.” The New York Times, June 27, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/politics/dem ocratic-debate-live.html. Goldmacher, Shane. 2019. “What We Learned from the 2020 Democratic Debates.” The New York Times, June 28, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/ 2019/06/28/us/politics/democratic-debates-presidential.html. Herndon, Astead, Shane Goldmacher, and Jonathan Martin. 2019 “Kamala Harris Says She’s ’Still in This Fight’ but Out of the 2020 Race” The New York Times, December 3, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/ us/politics/kamala-harris-campaign-drops-out.html. Jarvis, Jacob. 2021. “Donald Trump Said ‘Biden’ 36 Times at CPAC, While His Successor Looks Ahead.” Newsweek, March 1, 2021. https://www.newsweek. com/donald-trump-joe-biden-cpac-speech-1572810. Jurkowitz, Mark. 2021. “Republicans who relied on Trump for news more concerned than other Republicans about election fraud.” Pew Research, January 11, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/11/ republicans-who-relied-on-trump-for-news-more-concerned-than-other-rep ublicans-about-election-fraud/. Kamarck, Elaine. 2018. Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates. 3rd Edition. Washington: Brookings Institution Press.

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Kamarck, Elaine. 2019. “Can a presidential candidate really skip the early states? Ask Rudy Giuliani.” Brookings, November 13, 2019. https://www.brooki ngs.edu/blog/fixgov/2019/11/13/can-a-presidential-candidate-really-skipthe-early-states-ask-rudy-giuliani/. Kim, Catherine. 2020. “Poll: 70 percent of Republicans don’t think the election was free and fair.” Politico, November 9, 2020. https://www.politico.com/ news/2020/11/09/republicans-free-fair-elections-435488. Korecki, Natasha. 2020. “Biden finally shows up to the debate stage- just in time.” Politico February 26, 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/ 02/26/biden-democratic-debate-117654. Masket, Seth. 2020. Learning from Loss: The Democrats (2016-2020). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rackich, Nathanial. 2020. “How Does Biden Stack Up to Past Nominees?” Five Thirty-Eight. April 28, 2020. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-doesbiden-stack-up-to-past-democratic-nominees/. Rainie Lee and Andrew Perrin. 2019. “Key findings about Americans’ declining trust in government and each other.” Pew Research, July 22, 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/22/keyfindings-about-americans-declining-trust-in-government-and-each-other/. Rogers, Katie and Michael Shear. 2021. “Biden Wants Harris to Have a Major Role. What It Is Hasn’t Been Definted.” The New York Times, February 6, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/us/politics/ kamala-harris-joe-biden.html. Skelley, Geoffrey. 2020. “Republicans Are on Track To Take Back The House in 2022.” FiveThirtyEight, November 12, 2020. https://fivethirtyeight.com/ features/republicans-2020-gains-in-the-house-set-them-up-well-for-2022/. Tackett, Michael and Michael Wines. 2018. “Trump Disbands Commission on Voter Fraud.” The New York Times, January 3, 2018. https://www.nytimes. com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html. Villenueve, Marina. 2018. “Report: Trump commission did not find widespread voter fraud.” Associated Press, August 3, 2018. https://apnews.com/article/ f5f6a73b2af546ee97816bb35e82c18d. Zhou, Li. 2019. “Women candidates are constantly asked about their electability. Here are 5 reasons that’s misguided.” Vox, August 15, 2019. https://www. vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/15/18525308/electability-womencandidates-2020-elizabeth-warren-kamala-harris-amy-klobuchar-kirsten-gillib rand.

Index

0–9 2016 election, 83, 116, 150 2016 presidential election, 5, 41, 83 2016 Republican primary, 32 2018 midterm, 34, 38, 83, 90, 96 2020 Democratic national convention, 124 2020 Democratic primary, 1, 2, 7, 10, 11, 32, 54, 56, 57, 59–62, 72, 82, 83, 85, 94, 96, 100, 109, 110, 113, 115, 117, 118, 137, 144, 146, 151 2020 election, 10, 16, 24, 43, 54, 58, 61, 65, 149, 150 2020 Republican national convention, 126 2024 election, 10, 11, 17, 24, 43, 44, 100, 140, 152

B Biden, Joe, 1, 8–11, 17, 23, 25, 32–41, 43, 45, 54–60, 64–68,

70–77, 79, 82, 88, 90, 91, 93, 94, 100, 108, 118, 127, 128, 132, 137–145, 147–151 Black Lives Matter movement, 10, 64, 148 Bloomberg, Michael, 32, 33, 38, 39, 44, 76, 143 Booker, Cory, 11, 32, 38, 39, 43, 55, 76, 139, 143, 144 Bush, George W., 41, 141 Buttigieg, Pete, 16, 20, 32, 33, 36, 39, 40, 45, 54, 76, 91, 138, 144, 145

C Campaign fundraising, 9, 89 Carter, Jimmy, 140 Caucus, 4, 10, 16–23, 32, 33, 36, 43, 45, 46, 76, 126, 140 Clinton, Bill, 8, 56, 127, 141 Clinton, Hillary, 6–9, 11, 17, 37, 38, 41, 46, 58, 83, 89, 94, 96, 97,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Perry (ed.), The 2020 Democratic Primary, Palgrave Studies in US Elections, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75572-0

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156

INDEX

100, 108, 128, 132, 138, 142, 147 COVID-19, 11, 66–68, 79, 123–125, 140, 148 D Democratic National Committee (DNC), 17, 18, 20–22, 25, 38, 58, 115, 140, 145 Democratic Party, 4, 7, 10, 11, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24, 39, 54, 82, 84, 88, 94, 99, 107, 108, 114–116, 128, 137, 142–146, 148, 149 E Economic recession, 152 Electoral College, 3, 7, 8, 74, 128, 148 H Harris, Kamala, 11, 25, 32, 34, 38, 39, 43, 44, 55, 56, 76, 77, 82, 90–94, 100, 128, 139, 140, 142–144, 146, 148, 149 I Iowa Caucus, 9, 10, 16–21, 23, 25, 32, 34, 36, 45, 54, 128, 140, 145 K Klobuchar, Amy, 32, 40, 76, 82, 90, 91, 138, 145, 146 M McConnell, Mitch, 130, 149 McGovern-Fraser Commission, 4 Me Too movement, 10

N National party conventions, 4, 11, 124, 140, 141 Nevada, 9, 10, 16, 24, 32, 33, 35, 36, 45, 138–140, 146, 152 New Hampshire primary, 22, 32, 54

O Obama, Barack, 6–9, 22, 38, 41, 42, 46, 58, 128, 139, 142, 148, 149

P Pelosi, Nancy, 144 Post-reform era, 4, 5, 140, 145 Presidential debates, 61, 89 Presidential nominations, 2, 5, 9, 10, 54, 108, 113, 114, 118 Primary, 4, 6, 8–11, 16, 22, 24, 25, 32–35, 37–40, 43–46, 54–63, 65–67, 82–85, 88–92, 94, 95, 97, 98, 100, 108, 109, 114–117, 127, 137–141, 143–149

R Republican National Committee (RNC), 25, 126, 131, 140 Republican Party, 6, 10, 21, 22, 24, 34, 35, 46, 129, 142

S Sanders, Bernie, 7, 8, 11, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 32–39, 41, 45, 54, 57, 59, 60, 64–68, 70–76, 79, 90, 91, 107–110, 113–118, 138, 142, 144–148 Schumer, Chuck, 144 South Carolina, 9, 11, 33, 36, 39, 45, 54, 58, 76, 138–141, 143, 152 Steyer, Tom, 76, 142, 143

INDEX

Superdelegates, 138 Super Tuesday, 33, 36, 40, 45, 114, 117, 138, 140, 141, 145 T Trump, Donald, 1, 6, 7, 9–11, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 32, 34, 35, 39, 41–44, 46, 57, 65, 74, 82–84, 87–90, 93–95, 98, 99, 108, 109, 116, 118, 125, 126, 128–133, 138, 139, 141, 145, 146, 148–152

157

V Voting laws, 73, 151 W Warren, Elizabeth, 8, 11, 32–34, 37–39, 57, 59, 60, 65–68, 70–74, 76, 79, 82, 90–93, 107–110, 113–118, 138, 144–147