Senate Democrats running for the White House have missed significantly more votes than presidential hopefuls in recent presidential election cycles, including a pair of top-tier candidates.
Of the 252 Senate floor votes this year, starting Jan. 28, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has missed the most votes, at 47%, of each of the seven senators seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, according to govtrack.
California Sen. Kamala Harris is right behind Booker, missing 46% of the votes brought to the floor so far. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand both missed 41% of floor votes.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has missed 29% of votes, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet 28%, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar 24%. That comes out to an average missed vote percentage of 31%.
Harris has been considered a key challenger to 2020 front-runner Joe Biden, though her poll numbers have flagged of late. Sanders, in his second consecutive presidential bid, has seen his numbers rise lately. A Monmouth poll released Monday that found former Vice President Joe Biden and Warren and Sanders all statistically tied for first place in their party’s presidential primary.
[Also read: Biden campaign dismisses poll showing 13-point drop in support]
The 2020 crop of Democratic White House candidates includes one of the highest percentages of sitting senators in decades. But they’re still below the 53% of Senate votes Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain missed in 2007, during the early stage of the 2008 cycle, in which he later captured his party’s nomination. During a comparable time frame to 2020 Democrats, 277 voters were brought to the Senate floor.
During that period, Senate Democrats, by comparison, were reasonably more diligent about making Senate votes. Then-Delaware Sen. Joe Biden missed 26% of floor votes, while future President Barack Obama, then an Illinois senator, missed 21%. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton missed only 3% of Senate floor votes at the time. Add in Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, at 26%, and the average missed vote percentage then was 26%.
In 2016, all the primary candidates missed votes, though still at a lower clip than the current batch of Senate Democrats running for president. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz missed 27%, while Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul missed 1%. Sanders, runner-up to Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination, only missed 4% of votes.
Missed Senate voters are obvious fodder for political opponents of past presidential candidates, though it’s tough to make the charge stick years after a presidential race. And the issue quickly fades if a candidate missing votes actually makes it to the White House, George Mason University political science professor Jeremy Mayer told the Washington Examiner Monday.
“This is an old tactic in campaigns. It was used against John F. Kennedy when he was running in 1960. Lyndon Johnson in particular was prone to say Kennedy wasn’t there for this vote or that vote,” Mayer said.
