— Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice enter our list of Joe Biden’s vice presidential contenders.
— Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) drops off.
— The top names remain the same.
— Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) seems to be rising in the Biden veepstakes.
— Late Wednesday, Jon Ossoff (D) apparently captured the Democratic nomination to face Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), thus avoiding a runoff.
— Primaries in South Carolina and West Virginia saw protest voting in some key races.
Harris, Demings leads our list of contenders; Biden is wise to wait on making his pick.
— Joe Biden should not be in a rush to name his vice presidential pick. Circumstances may change his list of contenders — and probably already have.
— A predictable name leads our list, but a not-so predictable name is second.
— Biden has many plausible options, but no perfect one.
— History, and the president’s own public statements, suggest that the Trump-Pence ticket will stick together in 2020.
— The last time an elected president running for reelection changed his running mate was Franklin Roosevelt way back in 1944.
— But there are some reasons to believe that Trump could revisit his running mate choice between now and the Republican National Convention.
When sizing up the 2020 election, it is natural for campaign pros and analysts to consider the kinds of voters who might defect from their 2016 selection. Can Joe Biden claw back some small but important share of the Barack Obama voters who defected to Donald Trump? Can Trump stop his party’s slide in the suburbs?
Vulnerable incumbents get a boost in the midst of crisis.
— Many state governors have received high marks for their handling of coronavirus.
— Three of them on the ballot this November get a boost in our gubernatorial ratings this week.
— As of now, the open seat in Montana seems to be the seat likeliest to change hands on the relatively sparse presidential-year gubernatorial map.
There is a widespread consensus that, in the battle for the Senate, there are four races that may effectively decide the majority.
Dubbed the “core four” by one operative, the races in Republican-held Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina are the ones that the Democrats seem to have the best chance of flipping. (For sports fans, the “core four” term may ring a bell: It describes the four players at the heart of the New York Yankees’ dynasty of the late 1990s and early 2000s.)
Generic ballot, money edge point to retained blue majority; seven rating changes.
— The Democratic lead in House generic ballot polling has been very consistent over the course of Donald Trump’s presidency.
— Democrats also have a significant money edge in the lion’s share of their most vulnerable districts. Money is not everything, but it can help.
— We have seven House rating changes, four in favor of Republicans and three in favor of Democrats.
— Put it all together, and Democrats remain favored to hold their House majority.
Wisconsin is one of perhaps the two or three likeliest states to vote for the winning presidential candidate this fall, so it is no surprise that anything that happens politically in the Badger State attracts widespread attention.
Top-two primary results generally decent for Democrats, but a May special election held amidst uncertainty of the pandemic could give Republicans a chance to make up a little ground in California.
— Democrats netted seven House seats in California in 2018, winning 46 of the megastate’s 53 seats.
— The state’s top-two primary election system can provide clues for the fall. With results almost entirely complete, none of the newly-elected Democrats appear to be in serious trouble, although a few are definitely vulnerable.
— A special election in CA-25 in May might provide Republicans with their best opportunity to claw back some of their lost California turf. We’re moving our rating there from Leans Democratic to Toss-up.
— We also are upgrading a couple of the few remaining GOP-held seats in California to Safe Republican.
Democrats edge slightly ahead, but presidential race still a Toss-up; upper chamber battle gets closer; governors face what likely will be the biggest test of their tenures.
— Tuesday night’s primary results generally showed Joe Biden running stronger versus Bernie Sanders than Hillary Clinton did against Sanders four years ago.
— Biden won every single county in Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri, and he performed more than well enough out West.
— Biden’s delegate lead is expanding, and should continue to next Tuesday.
He will have to beat the polls once again, but he may have benefited from an anti-Clinton vote not present this time.
— Ahead of several delegate-rich contests this month, both national and state-level polls suggest that Joe Biden is solidifying his lead over Bernie Sanders.
— Though a handful of states will be voting tomorrow, Michigan, given its significance in the 2016 primary, will be a focal point of the night — and is likely a must-win state for Sanders.
— But some of Sanders’ great showings outside of Detroit from 2016 seem unlikely to repeat themselves this time.
— In Montana’s Senate race, Democrats now have their best-possible recruit, in Gov. Steve Bullock. We still see Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) as a favorite but are moving this race from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.
Joe Biden’s challenge on Super Tuesday was to build on his victory in South Carolina and defend the other Southern states from incursions by Bernie Sanders. Not only did he accomplish that, but Biden was William Tecumseh Sherman in reverse -- using the South as a springboard to move North in force.
Sanders vs. Biden may be determined by who breaks through on the other’s turf.
— Joe Biden’s victory in South Carolina re-established him as the main challenger to Bernie Sanders.
— There is some indication their battle could break on regional lines, with Sanders fighting for inroads in the South and Biden for access to the North. Biden’s task on Tuesday is protecting the six Southern states from incursions by Sanders (and perhaps others, including the unproven Michael Bloomberg).
— Sanders will lead in delegates after Super Tuesday. The question is by how much.
— Texas, both Southern and Western, is the most interesting state to watch on Tuesday.
How our Electoral College ratings might change if he becomes the presumptive nominee.
— If Democrats nominated Bernie Sanders, they would, initially, start off with somewhat of a penalty in our Electoral College ratings.
— Sanders’ policy prescriptions and rhetoric may complicate Democratic prospects in the Sun Belt, where the party’s recent growth has been driven by highly-educated suburbanites.
— Given the composition of the 2020 Senate map, which features more Sun Belt states, Sanders’ relative strength in the Rust Belt — assuming that even ends up being the case — nonetheless doesn’t help Democrats much in the race for the Senate.
Last April, we noted that despite the ever-growing Democratic presidential field and delegate allocation rules that can string out a nomination fight, there was the possibility of a single candidate getting an early grip on the nomination because of the frontloaded calendar. By the end of St. Patrick’s Day, states awarding more than three-fifths of all the pledged delegates will have voted. We here at the Crystal Ball are big fans of the wisdom of the late Yogi Berra, and we used one of his gems at the time to sum it all up: “It gets late early out there.”
Why his potential nomination makes some Democrats worry; the low-hanging fruit for both parties.
— Bernie Sanders may be a poorer fit for the Democrats’ Senate targets than some other Democratic contenders if he wins the nomination.
— There are two Senate rating changes this week: Colorado moves from Toss-up to Leans Democratic, while Alabama moves from Leans Republican to Likely Republican.
— Republicans remain favored to hold the majority.
The battle is breaking in his favor, even as his own performance has not been that strong.
— There are mixed signals from Bernie Sanders’ narrow victory in New Hampshire, but for now he’s supplanted Joe Biden as a weak frontrunner for the nomination.
— Overall, though, the race remains very uncertain as the scene shifts to the more diverse states of Nevada and South Carolina.
— Center-left candidates got substantially more support than progressive ones in New Hampshire, but the center-left vote split in such a way that Sanders was able to win. Pete Buttigieg has slightly more delegates so far, though.
Muddled, delayed, and confusing result could end up contributing to more of the same down the road.
— As of this writing, days after Iowa, the ultimate outcome there was still unclear.
— Joe Biden’s poor showing probably forecloses the possibility of him winning the nomination quickly.
— The odds of a rare, contested convention probably went up, although there’s still time for the race to sort itself out.
