Senator Kamala Harris
One of my friends and readers had this question for me today...
With all of female Democrats who have announced/will announce bids for presidency, what are the odds that a) the 2020 Democratic nominee is a woman, and b) that the 2020 presidential winner is a woman?
So early in the campaign season, this is a difficult question to answer. The 2nd question is a bit easier to ask as we can avoid the quagmire that is the Democratic field right now. Ignoring them for a bit, can we guess if the GOP candidate will be a female candidate or that a third party female could win the nomination?
The GOP question is easy to answer. President Trump almost certainly has a lock on the nomination and will not likely face a serious primary challenger, let alone a female one. Trump's base approval rating among voters was 52% as of yesterday according to Rasmussen but his approval among the GOP has been in the 80 to 90% range. With numbers like that I don't see a serious challenge coming during the primaries.
Furthermore, I struggle thinking of a credible female candidate who is both conservative and anti-Trump. Most of the die-hard anti-Trump conservatives have pretty much either left the party or have been kicked out. I can't really think of any credible candidates. Carly Fiorina ? Ann Colter? I have no idea. If there is a primary challenger it's going to be an establishment male from the GOP. Think Mitt Romney or John Kasich.
I should also point out there is a small possibility that Trump could decline to run, resign, get impeached or, God forbid, die. If that happens then the GOP field is wide open. In that case it is possible that a female could run if for some reason Mike Pence doesn't want to. That's about the only way I could see the next president being a female Republican and I don't see any of those options being likely outcomes.
As for third parties, I can't see any of them winning with a woman. Jill Stein could run again, but I don't see her winning much of anything. She got 1% of the popular vote and no electoral votes and I don't see that changing in 2020. And I haven't even heard that she is running yet, the Green Party may nominate someone else. The other major third party, the Libertarians, hardly ever seem to draw female voters, let alone female candidates. I can't see a woman winning the nomination for that party, let alone winning the presidency.
Now for the Democrats. As of this posting five women have announced their campaigns for president (or exploratory committees in one case). In no particular order they are, Kamala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard, Kristen Gillibrand (exploratory committee), Amy Klobucher and Elizabeth Warren. It is also very likely that more women will announce they are running, with Stacy Abrams and, ugh, Hillary Clinton being the biggest speculative candidates.
However, none of those women are front runners right now. Every poll I have seen has put Joe Biden in first place, even though he hasn't announced. Plus, the field of men is large. Only four have declared so far but there are many more waiting in the wings, like Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders.
I also think that the establishment has made itself very clear that they don't want three of these women to win. Warren, Gabbard and Harris all had major scandals erupt (or reignite in Warren's case) right around when they announced their candidacy. Warren had the American Indian controversy, Gabbard got the "Russian Bot" slander and Harris got exposed as sleeping her way to the top with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. All of these reports originated from left wing media (even if my sources aren't) and all of them seem to me to show a rejection of these candidates.
Why? I think all three of them are seen as threats to the establishment in some way. Warren's biggest flaw was the American Indian scandal that would have killed her campaign if it broke out after the candidate. By exposing it now they either knock her out of the race or at the very least give her plenty of time to react to the scandal. Given Warren's similarity to Hillary Clinton and President Trump's unique skill against her (seriously, Warren has completely failed to not take the bait every time Trump trolls her) they may realize she doesn't have a chance to win.
Gabbard is a threat due to her foreign policy. She's similar to President Trump in rejecting regime change as an option and not seeing Russia as the worst thing in the world, but even more so than Trump. Trump has been reluctant to start any new wars but Gabbard would absolutely refuse (which is why I admire her more than most Democrats). The party wants to destroy her now using the same tactics they tried to destroy President Trump with by implying that she is somehow compromised by them since she isn't chomping at the bit to go to war with them.
As for Harris, I am not quite sure why her story got published. She seems like a decent choice for the Democrats as she is both a minority and a woman. There is also some question if she is even eligible to run for president as both of her parents weren't citizens when she was born even though they became citizens later. Though various fact checking organizations say that theory of eligibility is wrong, it could come up as a legal challenge for her (similar to Ted Cruz's situation in 2016 had he won). Given the ambiguity of the law and the makeup of the Supreme Court it is no guarantee that she would win any court case and even if she did it would taint her presidency. Perhaps the Democrats want to avoid that headache? Or maybe they just don't want to deal with her sex scandal at all?
As for Gillibrand and Amy Klobucher, I don't see either of them as a serious candidate. Neither of them have any name recognition and are overshadowed by bigger, more established candidates. And I doubt that if/when Hillary Clinton enters the race at some point that she will do well after failing so many times. And Stacy Abrams is pretty much a joke as a failed candidate for Governor. I can't see her winning either.
Regardless though, it doesn't matter who wins if I think that President Trump is going to win reelection regardless. The Democrats have a lot going against them right now and the biggest is the natural advantage of incumbency. The only candidate in recent history to lose a 2nd term was George Bush 41. He lost mostly because of credibly third party run by Ross Perot and breaking his campaign promises.
There is a possibility of a third party challenge this year. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is exploring a run as an independent but if he does I don't see him drawing many Trump voters. He's a center-left globalist and Trump's base are center-right populists. He would draw many more from the Democrats than the GOP, which is obvious if you have paid attention to the hysterical tone being used against him in the media. He's not a threat to President Trump but he's a huge problem for the Democrats.
Trump also has the advantage of being loved by his base. Most people that voted for him seem to want to do so again and he has kept quite a few of his campaign promises. He has lowered our taxes, punished outsourcing, enforced immigration, destroyed ISIS and kept us out of new wars. He hasn't gotten the wall built but that isn't from lack of trying. Most Trump voters have very little to be unhappy with him so unless he really screws something up, like signing a major gun control bill or totally giving up on immigration, he should be fine.
The Democrats have also been fairly scandal ridden lately. I have gone over those scandals enough already but if they continue long enough they could drive more people away from the Democratic Party or at least make them stay home on Election day.
I also have to say that with so many candidates and none of them being as charismatic and popular as President Trump was in 2016, it's very possible that all the candidates vying for the nomination will bring each other down. In order to stick out from the crowd they will either have to attack each other or go so far to the left that they aren't electable. It will be a bunch of crabs in a bucket dragging each other down anytime one of them starts to stand out. At the end the survivor will likely be too weak to fight President Trump successfully. This process is the other interpretation of the Warren, Gabbard and Harris stories as opposed to rejection from the party.
Finally, I think that there is a very good chance that the Democratic establishment will choose a candidate that won't represent all the wishes of the Democratic coalition. That already happened in 2016 with Bernie Sanders and probably cost them the presidency as Sanders getting screwed by the party left the economic leftists out in the cold. Many of them stayed at home or voted against the Democrats and the party fragmented a bit. With the prominence of the social justice left (I call them the "woke" left) it will be very hard for an establishment candidate to please both the Sanders style economic leftist and the woke social justice left while keeping their more mainstream establishment neo-liberals on board. It's very possible that the whole party implodes entirely and splits.
So do I think the 2020 election will end with a female president? It's a long shot and extremely unlikely. There is almost no chance of Trump not being the GOP candidate and I don't see a credible third party female winning. And even if a woman wins the Democratic ticket, unlikely due to the obscurity of two of them and the apparent rejection of the other three, they would have a very difficult time pushing out President Trump. It's not impossible but 2020 is not the year America elects a female president unless something extraordinary happens.
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