Biden, others enter crowded 2020 race

Though the 2020 presidential election may seem centuries away, there are less than nine months until the Iowa caucuses to select nominees and a year and a half until Election Day. 

At this stage in the election cycle, candidates try to stand out from the crowd. That is more important than usual this year, with 20 candidates running for the Democratic nomination. 

“At this point, we’ve got a much larger pool than we normally have,” said political science professor Jim King. “At this stage of the race, people are more about these broad strokes of what they’re about and trying to stand out from the rest of the field.”

The current frontrunner is former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden, who only announced his candidacy last week. His policy goals are a continuation of President Barack Obama’s ideas, with a focus on bipartisanship and small, incremental change. 

When compared with the sweeping changes proposed by other candidates, Biden’s ideas can seem antiquated, but King argues that is a benefit.

“Joe Biden is a ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s Democrat. He’s seen by many as a comfortable candidate,” he said. “The lineage of Obama and Clinton comes to Biden more than it comes to most other candidates. He’s very much in the lineage of the presidents of the past.”

Biden also brings considerable experience to the table. 

“He has a breadth of experience with national policy like no other candidate. He’s been serving in the federal government for over 40 years, which is longer than some other candidates have been alive,” King said. 

Many of the other candidates, like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, focus on progressive policies like “Medicare for All” and student debt cancellation. Biden is banking on the general Democratic base disliking these policies and favoring his small-scale change, King said; while these policies are very popular with a specific part of the Democratic base, their crossover appeal is limited.

“Candidates like Warren, their biggest problem is being seen as an extreme liberal,” said King. “These words like ‘socialism,’ they have a resonance among the American public. If Warren wins the nomination, she faces the difficult problem of attracting the more moderate wing of the Democratic electorate.”

Social media is the arena for much of the political discourse at this stage in the race. Candidates like Andrew Yang and Mike Gravel have focused primarily on social media, with Yang canvassing on fringe right-wing sites like 4chan, and Gravel sticking mostly to Twitter. In fact, Gravel has no plans to make any campaign appearances, and made his campaign announcement on Twitter. King has his doubts about the longevity of these candidates. 

“This isn’t like the general election, where everyone votes on the same day. The caucus system is complicated, and to win in Iowa or New Hampshire or in Nevada and South Carolina, you have to be on the ground,” King said. “You can’t rely solely on people on Facebook going ‘Oh, gee, I guess I do want to vote today.’”

While it is good to keep up with the progress of the election at this early stage, to King there is a lot of time left until November 2020 for the election to play out.