Despite continued stellar debate performances, Tulsi Gabbard’s stagnated polling indicated that her October appearance would be her last. Her national polling still hovered around 1%, and her early state polling was even less impressive.
That is, until Hillary Clinton gave Gabbard the gift of an election cycle.
Clinton, perhaps the only person in the country capable of losing to a nonincumbent Donald Trump, claimed that Republicans were “grooming” Gabbard and called her, a member of the military as well as Congress, a “Russian asset.”
And just like that, a candidacy was revived. A star was born.
Gabbard’s national polling stayed solid without any real increases, but she went from invisible in Iowa to matching the polling of self-described “top-tier candidate” Kamala Harris. In CNN’s New Hampshire poll, she catapulted from 1% in the summer to 5% after the Clinton spat. She never started polling like a candidate who could win the presidency, but then she never campaigned like a candidate who would win the presidency. Instead, she’s made it to the critical November debate, making her the 10th and last candidate to do so.
Gabbard does not have the ground game, funding, or obvious Democratic constituency to win a single state. But her campaign has always had a clearer rationale than those of former Next Big Things such as Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke. That’s why the former has flailed and the latter has failed. If Gabbard can keep enough buzz after the debate, which is just 75 days prior to the Iowa caucuses, she can keep up her racket, for better or for worse, attacking the top-down control of the Democratic Party.
It’s yet another reminder of a constant truth in American politics: No political enemy is more useful than Hillary Clinton.
