Joe Sestak. Politico/Getty.
Montana Governor Steve Bullock announced this morning that he will be dropping out of the 2020 Democratic Primary. NBC news. Bullock had not been polling well and he failed to qualify for the past few debates. Bullock had tried to take the centrist lane as he is a Democratic governor of a deep red state. He often warned about the negative consequences of a medicare for all program saying people like having private insurance. Bullock also declined to run for Montana's senate seat up for grabs in 2020. Bullock did not make much of an impact but he did participate in the 2nd debate. He will continue to serve as governor for another year.
Bullock joins another candidate in leaving the race as former congressman Joe Sestak dropped out as well. Politico. Sestak was a longshot and never made an impact in polling or qualified for any debates. Sestak was also a high ranking Navy Admiral but that did not translate into name recognition. He also entered the race in June, which is considered late. With both Sestak and Bullock out the field has shrunk to 16 candidates, including late entries Michael Bloomberg and Deval Patrick.
My Comment:
A couple more of the "also rans" have finally dropped out of the race. Bullock and Patrick never really had a shot of making it in the 2020 primary. Neither of them have any national name recognition and were drowned out by bigger names.
Steve Bullock was the more serious of the candidates, if only because he somehow managed to qualify for a single debate. He made next to zero impact with me since I knew he was in the debate but I'll be damned if he said anything I remember at all. I couldn't even place him if I met him on the streets.
Name recognition was only part of Bullock's problem. He also didn't really have a path. Joe Biden had locked up the "moderate" lane for 2020 but even so, Bullock was at a disadvantage. He's a white male which is two strikes right there. He also hails from a red "flyover" state that the modern Democratic Party can't even hide their disgust for. Finally, he actually criticized the party for moving too far to the left. He never had a chance.
As for Joe Sestak, this is probably the most media coverage he got in the 2020 cycle. He entered long after many of the big names had come in and had next to zero name recognition. It's also telling that the Politico article barely mentioned what he was campaigning for. Furthermore, he hadn't even served in congress since 2011. That's ancient history in today's political climate. I don't think Sestak ever really had a chance.
It's crazy to me that these two are dropping out while Michael Bloomberg and Deval Patrick are dropping in. And Bloomberg at least is being treated as a semi-viable candidate, despite his unpopular positions and media blunders. The 2020 Democratic field is a chaotic mess and it's crazy that there are still 16 candidates in the race. The Iowa Caucus is only two months away but there is zero clarity about who the candidate is going to be.
I think we will see a few more candidates drop out before the Iowa Caucus. Candidates like Julian Castro, John Delany and Marianne Williamson don't have a real chance of winning and probably won't last much longer. Other candidates, like Corey Booker, Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar will probably stay until Iowa for the sake of appearances but will drop out after.
The other candidates though? I have no clue. I'm not even sure why some of them ran, like Deval Patrick or Michael Bloomberg. I think Biden, Warren and Sanders are the frontrunners and Peter Buttgeig might have an outside chance? The rest? No way. Yang and Gabbard are there to push the Overton window towards their branch of the party while the rest are just also-rans.
No matter what though, the huge number of candidates and the fact that new candidates are still entering the race shows me that the Democrats are grasping at straws. I think that they know that President Trump is likely to win and they can't really do too much to stop him. Even their impeachment scam isn't hurting him at the polls, and the Democrats desperately need an Obama like figure to unite both their party and the independents they lost in 2020. I, personally, don't think they will be able to do it.
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