Tulsi Gabbard hit Kamala Harris where it hurt during the second Democratic primary debate. John Delaney was given more than 10 minutes to go head-to-head with the liberal front-runners. And Marianne Williamson was the most searched for candidate on Google during and after the debate. But none of these lower-tier candidates have anything to show for their moments in the spotlight.
A new Quinnipiac poll shows that the candidates who needed the debates the most benefited the least. Gabbard remains at 1%, while Delaney and Williamson sit at 0%.
On the other hand, Democratic front-runner Joe Biden maintains his lead at 32%, down 2 points from before the debate. Elizabeth Warren surged, now at 21% after gaining 6 points. Harris, however, tanked. She is now at 7% after losing 5 points.
Harris’ ratings are the most telling: Gabbard might not have directly benefited from going after Harris, but she still did some damage. Of course, this doesn’t matter to Gabbard, who needs 2% or more support in at least 4 national polls to reach the debate stage in September. Right now, she has only one.
Lower-tier candidates like Gabbard depend on the national debates. For most of them, it’s the only chance they have to gain national notoriety. They don’t have the advantage of familiarity. Few knew who Marianne Williamson was until she stepped onto the first debate stage. And even now, few Democratic voters understand and connect with these candidates’ platforms.
Unlike the front-runners, the lower-tier candidates can’t buy the attention they need. They don’t have the money that Biden, Warren, and Bernie Sanders or even the second-tier candidates such as Harris, Cory Booker, and Pete Buttigieg have (or latecomer Tom Steyer) which means they can’t funnel millions of dollars into ads.
It’s unlikely we’ll see much more of Gabbard, Delaney, Williamson, and the others. Without a decent showing in the polls, they’ll get little media attention. Their novelty status has worn off. And even if they make it onto the third debate stage, we know now that viral moments tend to have little effect overall.
As the largely unchanging polls show, the bottom-rung never had a chance. If anything, the lower-tier candidates should learn from Gabbard: They can still at least drag the top candidates down. The underdogs should capitalize on Biden’s weaknesses, or Warren’s, and Sanders’. Doing so might not help the lower-tier’s dwindling campaigns, but it can hurt the big ones.
