Believe it or not, the race for the Democratic nomination has already narrowed to two main players and a gaggle of extras. The clutch of polling thus far is of uneven quality, to say the least, but former Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) are the clear frontrunners with everyone else auditioning for Veep.
The fact is, the Democratic nomination process has become fairly predictable and stable. You have to go back to 1992 to find a race where multiple candidates were in the mix before and through the early primaries. The last true dark horse winner was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Even in “open” contests (where a sitting president or vice president was not running), the race was down to two heavyweights very early — or even one heavyweight. Biden v. Sanders (Yes, Joe Biden was the clear favorite in 2020), Clinton v. Sanders, Obama v. Clinton, Gore v. Bradley, and, inexplicably, John Kerry v. nobody.
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The early polling is strange, to say the least, but generally shows what one might expect: Harris, with high name ID and tens of millions of Democrats having twice voted for her, in a leading position. The other candidate with high name ID and years of media exposure, Newsom, also running strong.
In the 17 polls logged by RealClearPolitics since Labor Day, Harris leads in 10 polls and places second in 5 polls. Newsom leads in 7 polls and places second in 10 polls. Both are national figures and can get media attention any time they want. Only former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg looks like he could crash the party, with a national profile — if less than Harris or Newsom — and a RealClearPolitics average of 10.3%, good for third. Bizarrely, the Harvard-Harris poll omits Buttigieg entirely.
Buttigieg’s numbers are propped up by some questionable polling. He gets his best numbers from Emerson and Atlas Intel, mostly at the expense of Harris. For a while, the results from Atlas looked like something cooked up by Buttigieg’s staff. The occasional DOT secretary scored leads of 15 points over Harris in May and 11 points over Newsom in July. Although the poll has drifted back to Earth, its most recent poll has Harris at a mere 8%, 27 points below Newsom. That’s not believable.
Emerson’s polling also looks wonky. In consecutive polls, Buttigieg scored 16%, good for second place, putting Harris in third. That’s the highest number for any poll in that time period, and only Emerson and our friends at Atlas put Harris in third.
The problem could come down to the biggest factor bedeviling polling and causing poor results: sampling. In order to provide a robust and credible result, a poll needs to survey enough people — at least 1,000 is preferred for a national poll. Ideally, pollsters should have a “fresh” sample for each poll (new respondents). But all of that is expensive. Pollsters are increasingly using “panels” recruited online, where the same people are sometimes polled in consecutive months.
From my outsider’s view, Emerson suffers from a low sample size and possibly a bad panel. When you peel off independents from its most recent poll, it leaves just 321 Democrats — that’s nothing. Even then, the numbers shift away from Buttigieg to 22% for Newsom, 17% for Harris, and 14% for Buttigieg.
Atlas has a bigger sample at over 2,300 respondents. But it appears their online recruiting could use some work. Newsom zoomed from a mere 7% in May to 35% in December, while Harris crashed from 17% to 8%. No other poll has had these kinds of ructions.
Other national polls have similar sampling problems, with most polling between 1,000 and 2,000 voters, translating to 500 to 700 Democratic voters. With low samples, any analysis requires the same results from multiple polls to be reliable. In that vein, Harris and Newsom can feel comfortable about being on top of the heap.
Despite Harris’s desultory campaign thus far, there are key factors that will make her tough to beat. According to both Harvard-Harris and Yahoo News polls, Harris has solid leads with black voters and polls strongly with Hispanics, lower-income, and younger voters. The Harvard-Harris poll has Harris at 59% for black voters and 42% for Hispanics, far ahead of Newsom. For Newsom, his polling gets better the older, richer, and whiter the voter.
The results for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are very salient for Harris. The only other woman and the only Hispanic in the race, Yahoo News puts her at 12% overall, with 16% of Hispanics and 19% of 18-29 voters, groups with which Harris also polls well.
What happens to Ocasio-Cortez voters when they figure she is (probably) not running? Are they in her column now because they won’t vote for Harris, or will they shift to the nearest gender and ethnic equivalent? If Harris scoops up the Ocasio-Cortez acolytes, she becomes almost unstoppable.
For all her faults, Harris knows how to read a poll. She is leaning into Democratic identity politics — which is her strong suit. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) was a loser on Election Day in Texas, but the Harris endorsement was a winner for Harris.
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The grandees of the Democratic Party may want to move on. But Democratic primary voters could have very different ideas. If the elites are not on board with Newsom, they don’t have much time to find someone. And if they are on board with the white guy from an elite California family, Harris and the identity police are going to have a field day.
The punditocracy can laugh all they want at Harris. She won’t be an easy out.
Keith Naughton is a U.S.-based journalist.
