It’s been a little more than a month since Deval Patrick launched his 11th-hour presidential campaign, but it’s unclear what he has to show for it.
There are seven weeks before Iowa Democrats caucus on Feb. 3, and Patrick, 63, has yet to make a mark in national or state-based polls, including in New Hampshire or South Carolina. The former Massachusetts governor and Bain Capital executive hasn’t managed to pull crowds at events scattered along the campaign trail.
Patrick, who’s open to super PAC help, also won’t appear in Thursday night’s primary debate in California after he failed to notch up enough donors to qualify, a missed opportunity to introduce himself to members of his party who don’t know his name.
Patrick’s last-minute push has been handicapped by his minimal infrastructure, light schedule, and absence from the airwaves. Although the ally of former President Barack Obama has hired senior staff members, including a couple of Beto O’Rourke alumni, he’s still building out his campaign. This week, he placed an ad for a deputy press secretary, among others.
The team’s lack of preparedness was on display last week when it issued an angry statement over its omission from Michigan’s ballot. The oversight was later attributed to the organization’s failure to tell the state party it was contesting the 2020 nomination. It has since submitted the required 11,000-plus-signature petition.
Democrats such as liberal activist Jonathan Cohn of Massachusetts question the very premise of his candidacy since the 15-person field is already filled with moderately center-left figures such as former Vice President Joe Biden, along with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a left-wing populist, and socialist Bernie Sanders.
“Deval Patrick’s entered the field very late, at a time when voters had been wanting the field to shrink, not grow. So that itself puts him at a disadvantage. But the liberal activists in Massachusetts who helped his first election and then reelection — and pressured him and the Legislature during his eight years — are mostly with Warren,” Cohn told the Washington Examiner. “Deval Patrick hasn’t managed yet to craft the narrative or the platform to explain why him and why now.”
Patrick’s also at odds with the liberal faction of his party given his corporate career, which includes his role in the 2000 merger between Texaco and Chevron, as well as his time on ACC Capital Holdings’s board, whose subsidiaries created about $80 billion in subprime mortgages.
A representative for the Patrick campaign didn’t immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
A New Hampshire WMUR/Mass Inc. poll released this month found that Patrick registered less than 1% support, a disappointing result since his White House bid hinges on a strong New Hampshire showing as a neighboring state contender. He recorded roughly the same level of popularity in South Carolina, according to a Change Research/Post and Courier survey looking at the other early voting state, where he was hoping to gain some traction with the majority black primary electorate given his own background.
The polls reflect the tepid enthusiasm for Patrick’s candidacy among Democrats around the country. After making his first foray in front of voters at a California state party convention and then at a Nevada state party cattle call event last month, attendees told the Washington Examiner they were open to the latecomer. Although only 50 people stayed to hear him speak at 11:45 p.m. at the Nevada Democratic Party’s “First in the West,” that was better than the turnout he attracted in Atlanta ahead of November’s debate: His staff canceled a speaking engagement at Morehouse College after only two people showed up.
Political analyst Dan Schnur, an independent and former Republican now at the University of Southern California, agreed that Patrick “hasn’t been able to explain to the voters what he brings that the other candidates don’t.”
Meanwhile, fellow late entrant Michael Bloomberg, 77, who announced his campaign a week after Patrick with a $30 million-plus ad buy, already averages 5.4% support in RealClearPolitics’s polling aggregator. Although that figure means he trails Biden, whose sputtering campaign was his impetus for contesting the nomination, it’s miles ahead of Patrick.
The former New York City mayor is a former Republican who’s skipping the early nominating states and focusing on wooing “Super Tuesday” delegates who’ll vote on March 3. Bloomberg has also rushed to establish a 300-strong team, using his estimated $56 billion net worth to pay low-level field staff $6,000 a month, or $72,000 a year, a third higher than Biden and other top-tier candidates.
“Money matters, but it’s not all-powerful. All those billions won’t guarantee Bloomberg the nomination, but the big ad buys and years of giving to Democratic candidates and causes give him table stakes to get in the game,” Schnur added.
