Nate Silver's Blog, page 73

How Amy Klobuchar Could Win The 2020 Democratic Nomination

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar announced her candidacy for president at a rally in Minneapolis on Sunday, becoming the fifth Democratic senator1 to launch a campaign. In contrast to some of the big names — Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren — who had been expected to run for president for years, Klobuchar is a little bit more of a homespun, independent-label candidate.

But being on an indie label has its upsides and downsides. On the one hand, there’s perceived authenticity and the ability to build momentum from modest expectations. On the other hand, there’s the question of whether your product can get into the hands of consumers without having major-label marketing muscle behind it — and, if so, whether it can expand beyond a niche audience.

So this article is meant to provide a relatively comprehensive assessment of Klobuchar’s strengths and weaknesses — rather than being either a “devil’s advocate” argument or a best-case scenario. It’s informed by conversations with Klobuchar’s campaign as well as with unaffiliated Democrats, but the opinions and analysis are my own. As you’ll see, I think Klobuchar’s upsides outweigh her downsides, but there’s plenty of material in both columns.

Four potential advantages

1. Electability. Democrats really, really want to beat President Trump. A recent Monmouth University poll found that 56 percent of Democrats “prefer someone who would be a strong candidate against Trump even if they disagree with that candidate on most issues,” compared with just 33 percent who held the opposite view.

What it means to be “electable” is somewhat in the eye of the beholder — the term sometimes seems to be a euphemism for a good-looking white guy who isn’t too liberal (hello, Beto).

But Klobuchar can make some good, data-driven arguments for her electability. One of them is simply the overall electoral importance of the Midwest — particularly the Upper Midwestern states of Minnesota (which Trump came within 1.5 percentage points of winning), Wisconsin and Michigan (which Trump won). Winning those three states plus Pennsylvania (or Ohio, or Florida, or North Carolina) would have given Hillary Clinton the presidency. And if the midterm elections were any guide, they still probably represent the path of least resistance for Democrats to retake the White House.

There’s also Klobuchar’s strong performances in Minnesota to consider. She was first elected in 2006 by a 20-point margin and then re-elected in 2012 by 35 points and in 2018 by 24 points. In each case, she performed well statewide and not just in the Twin Cities, winning 79 of 87 counties in 2006 and 85 of 87 in 2012. That declined to 51 of 87 counties in 2018, but given the massive swing toward Trump and Republicans in rural counties elsewhere in the Midwest, Klobuchar still did better than many Democrats.

Class I Democratic senators such as Klobuchar have been blessed not to face election or re-election in a “red wave” cycle — 2006, 2012 and 2018 have all been blue years. Nonetheless, Klobuchar has performed strongly relative to other Democrats in the same elections. Below, for example, is the output from a regression analysis that calculates an expected result in each 2018 Senate race based on every state’s partisan lean (how much more Republican or Democratic it is than the country as a whole2) and whether either party had an elected incumbent running. According to this analysis, you’d have expected Klobuchar — a Democratic incumbent in a blue year, but in a purple state — to win re-election by 14 percentage points. Instead, she was re-elected by 24 points, beating the model’s expectations by 10 points:

Klobuchar was one of the strongest Democrats in 2018

Margins of victory or defeat for Democratic Senate candidates vs. their forecasted margins based on incumbency and the state’s partisan lean

Margin of Victory or Defeat


State
Dem. Candidate
Actual
Expected
Actual less expected




West Virginia
Manchin
D 3.3
R 10.5
D 13.8


Vermont*
Sanders
D 44.4
D 31.1
D 13.3


Minnesota
Klobuchar
D 24.1
D 14.3
D 9.8


Texas
O’Rourke
R 2.6
R 12.2
D 9.6


New Mexico
Heinrich
D 23.6
D 18.2
D 5.4


Nevada
Rosen
D 5.0
R 0.3
D 5.3


Maryland
Cardin
D 34.5
D 29.9
D 4.7


New York
Gillibrand
D 34.0
D 29.4
D 4.5


Montana
Tester
D 3.6
R 0.8
D 4.3


Tennessee
Bredesen
R 10.8
R 14.7
D 3.9


Virginia
Kaine
D 16.0
D 12.8
D 3.2


Arizona
Sinema
D 2.3
R 0.4
D 2.7


Maine*
King
D 19.1
D 16.5
D 2.6


Minnesota special*
Smith
D 10.6
D 8.3
D 2.3


Hawaii
Hirono
D 42.3
D 40.1
D 2.2


North Dakota
Heitkamp
R 10.8
R 12.5
D 1.7


Pennsylvania
Casey
D 13.1
D 11.8
D 1.4


California*
Feinstein/others
D 30.2
D 29.0
D 1.3


Ohio
Brown
D 6.8
D 7.1
R 0.3


Connecticut
Murphy
D 20.2
D 20.9
R 0.7


Wisconsin
Baldwin
D 10.8
D 11.6
R 0.8


Delaware
Carper
D 22.1
D 23.0
R 0.9


Nebraska
Raybould
R 19.1
R 17.6
R 1.5


Wyoming
Trauner
R 36.9
R 35.3
R 1.5


Mississippi special*
Espy
R 7.3
R 5.0
R 2.3


Missouri
McCaskill
R 5.8
R 1.7
R 4.1


Washington
Cantwell
D 16.9
D 21.6
R 4.7


Indiana
Donnelly
R 5.9
R 0.9
R 5.0


Michigan
Stabenow
D 6.5
D 13.7
R 7.2


Mississippi
Baria
R 19.0
R 11.0
R 8.0


Florida
Nelson
R 0.1
D 8.6
R 8.7


Rhode Island
Whitehouse
D 23.1
D 32.3
R 9.2


Massachusetts
Warren
D 24.2
D 35.1
R 10.9


New Jersey
Menendez
D 11.2
D 22.8
R 11.7


Utah
Wilson
R 31.7
R 17.1
R 14.6

Potential presidential candidates are in bold

* In Vermont and Maine, the independent is treated as the Democrat. In California, the aggregate results for all Democratic candidates in the June 5, 2018, primary is used, since two Democrats advanced to the general election. However, in the Mississippi special election, the result of the Nov. 27 runoff is used since that race featured a Democrat against a Republican. Races with appointed incumbents — namely, the Minnesota and Mississippi special elections — are treated as open seats rather than as equivalent to races with elected incumbents.

Source: Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

That rates as the third-strongest performance for a Democratic candidate for Senate last year, slightly behind West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders3 and just ahead of Texas’s Beto O’Rourke. Among other actual or potential Democratic candidates who ran Senate races in 2018, New York’s Kirsten GIllibrand also performs relatively well by this metric, whereas Ohio’s Sherrod Brown gets an average rating, and Massachusetts’s Warren a poor one.

That’s not to say you should expect Klobuchar to tout her own electability on the campaign trail, which can seem uncouth. (The first rule of electability is: Don’t talk about electability.) But it’s an argument we’re liable to hear a lot from her surrogates.

2. Potential strength in Iowa, and in the debates. As compared to candidates such as Harris and O’Rourke, who might hope to blitz their way to victory on the basis of strong fundraising and early delegate accumulation in California and Texas, Klobuchar is probably playing a long game. But doing so requires hitting two important mile markers. First, success in the debates. And then a strong performance in the Iowa caucuses.

Klobuchar’s team believes she should have two advantages in the debates. First, like Harris, Klobuchar is a former prosecutor — having been county attorney in Minneapolis’s Hennepin County — a skill that should translate well into the sharp-elbowed stage of the debates. And second, she can be candid and funny, potentially allowing her to surpass expectations among voters who expect Midwestern blandness or “Minnesota nice.” It’s a credible-enough case, but Klobuchar, who starts out with name recognition well below 50 percent, will need some big moments in the debates.

Her potential to succeed in Iowa is more obvious. She will probably be the only major candidate in the race from a state that borders Iowa and one of relatively few Midwesterners in the field. And in her statewide races in Minnesota, she relied heavily on a retail approach to politics, something that should translate well to Iowa. Looking at past results from the Iowa caucuses makes it pretty clear that there’s a regional advantage in this contest, although other politicians who are not from the region but have strong retail skills (a description that might fit Booker and O’Rourke, for example) can also perform well there.

Beyond Iowa, Klobuchar’s path is less clear. In New Hampshire’s open primary, voters typically favor liberal New Englanders such as Sanders and Warren.4 And the electorates get much less white after Iowa and New Hampshire, whereas Klobuchar’s strengths with nonwhite voters are less than obvious. So she’d be hoping for a polling bounce out of Iowa, something that used to occur regularly but has been more fleeting in recent years.

3. The beer track … without the baggage? Klobuchar’s campaign is likely to emphasize her working-class Midwestern roots, her staff said; you’ll hear stuff about how her grandfather worked as an iron-ore miner, for instance. It will also pitch her to voters on candor, honesty, pragmatism, an ability to “get stuff done,” work ethic and so forth. It’s going to lean pretty heavily into her Midwesternness, in other words.

The idea is to draw a contrast — probably softly at first, and maybe more explicitly if the campaign grows more combative — between Klobuchar and more left-wing candidates from the coasts, particularly Harris, Warren, Sanders and perhaps Booker. In some ways, this will recall the old distinction between “beer-track” (“flyover-state” moderates) and “wine-track” (coastal liberals) Democrats. However, Klobuchar isn’t likely to have the beer track to herself; Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown could be playing in the same lane, and, more significantly, so could former Vice President Joe Biden. There’s also what you might call a “craft-beer track,” consistenting of candidates who are from the middle of the country but whose appeal might be stronger among college-educated voters, such as O’Rourke and (craft brewery founder!) John Hickenlooper, a former governor of Colorado.

Does that mean Klobuchar is liable to run explicitly as a moderate — campaigning, for instance, against policies such as “Medicare-for-all”? Her campaign wouldn’t quite say as much, instead describing her as a pragmatist and a realist — but that’s a fussy distinction at best.

But there is an interesting twist to Klobuchar’s triangulation: Although she has a relatively moderate voting record, it’s fairly liberal relative to Minnesota, which (despite its reputation as a bastion of liberalism) is a purple state. Of the 13 Democrats who are either already running for president or are clearly telegraphing a run and who served in Congress during President Trump’s tenure, Klobuchar has the 12th-highest Trump score, meaning she’s voted with Trump comparatively often (31.5 percent of the time, trailing only former Maryland Rep. John Delaney among the presidential contenders). But she has the 10th-lowest Trump plus-minus rating, meaning that she’s voted with Trump much less often than you’d expect from someone from a purple state or district. Only Oregon’s Jeff Merkley, and Brown and Rep. Tim Ryan from increasingly red Ohio have a lower Trump plus-minus among the potential presidential candidates. By contrast, O’Rourke, although he voted with Trump slightly less often than Klobuchar, has the highest Trump plus-minus in the field because he represents an extremely blue district in El Paso.

All of that is to say: Klobuchar may well try to finesse the distinction between being a moderate and a realist, however meaningful that distinction might or might not be to Democratic voters. And she’s likely to express support for at least some decidedly liberal goals, having signaled support for the Green New Deal, for instance.5

Klobuchar looks moderate in the Democratic primary field

Trump score, predicted Trump score and Trump plus-minus for likely and declared Democratic candidates for president who have served in Congress under Trump. Klobuchar’s voting record is moderate relative to other Demoratic candidates for president but liberal relative to a purple state.

Trump score



Member
Actual
Predicted
Trump Plus-Minus




Sherrod Brown
29.5%
67.7%
-38.2


Tim Ryan
20.6
49.6
-29.0


Jeff Merkley
13.5
34.9
-21.4


Amy Klobuchar
31.5
50.0
-18.5


Cory Booker
15.7
31.4
-15.7


Michael Bennet
29.2
43.9
-14.7


Kirsten Gillibrand
12.4
25.1
-12.8


Elizabeth Warren
13.5
22.8
-9.3


Bernie Sanders
14.8
23.4
-8.6


John Delaney
34.4
38.5
-4.1


Kamala Harris
18.0
21.7
-3.7


Tulsi Gabbard
22.8
20.5
2.3


Beto O’Rourke
30.1
18.8
11.3

Trump score indicates the share of votes for which the member voted in line with Trump’s position. The predicted score is what we expect that member’s score would be based on Trump’s 2016 margin in that member’s state or district. The Trump plus-minus is the difference between the actual and expected scores.

Klobuchar also has some other arguments to make against the rest of the beer-track candidates. Or at least, she arguably has less baggage than the rest of them. Her credentials — 20 years in public office — are sound by presidential standards (unlike O’Rourke’s). She isn’t 76 years old, as Biden is, and she doesn’t represent a state that is heavily invested in the financial industry, which is a problem for Biden and for all of the New York and New Jersey Democrats. The beer track will likely also be dominated by men — including possible candidates Biden, O’Rourke, Brown, Hickenlooper, Ryan and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock — so Klobuchar could have a lot of strength with working-class women, an overlooked and important part of the Democratic base.

Of course, it’s also possible that the beer track is a road to nowhere. Democratic delegate allocations are based on the number of Democratic votes for president in each state, which means they’re deliberately biased toward blue states. And an increasing number of Democrats view themselves as liberal rather than moderate.

4. A reasonably clear contrast to Trump. Before I started researching and reporting out this story, I thought one Klobuchar strength was that she could formulate one of the clearest contrasts to Trump. It’s almost always helpful for candidates in the primaries to draw stylistic and substantive contrasts against the other party’s president, as Trump did against Barack Obama, as Obama did against George W. Bush, and as Bill Clinton did against George H.W. Bush. My thinking was that Klobuchar’s mild-mannered Minnesota-niceness and long career as a public servant — and the fact that she’s a woman — would look to Democratic voters like the antidote to Trump’s bombast and braggadocio.

I still think that theory is mostly true and that Klobuchar is an above-average Democrat in her degree of not-Trumpness. But I want to hedge against it a little bit. The version of Klobuchar we see in debates and on the campaign trail may be scrappier, blunter, more sarcastic and more emotive than people are expecting (and reports of angry and abusive behavior toward staffers may facilitate those perceptions). Moreover, to the extent that her campaign is drawing distinctions between her beer-track persona and the wine-track elites from the coasts, she’ll in some ways be echoing arguments that Trump might make about Democrats.

Overall, this is an impressive list of strengths, even if some of them are quite hedged. They’re why Klobuchar has a considerably better chance of winning the nomination than you might guess given her relatively low profile. But she also has a couple of significant weaknesses.

Two potential problems

1. Lack of a clear path with nonwhite voters. Minnesota is not quite as white as you might think. It’s home to several immigrant groups, including some relatively smaller ones such as Somalians and Laotians. And its nonwhite population has grown significantly since 2000. Nonetheless, as of 2017, about 80 percent of Minnesota’s population was non-Hispanic white, compared with 61 percent for the U.S. as a whole. And since many of those nonwhite Minnesotans are recent immigrants, the share of whites among the electorate is even higher, at about 89 percent.

That’s not to say that white politicians can never find appeal with nonwhite voters. John Kerry did quite well with African-Americans, for instance, and O’Rourke was elected to Congress three times from one of the most Hispanic congressional districts in the country. This year’s Democratic field features several people of color, however, and Klobuchar doesn’t have any obvious strategy to appeal to black, Hispanic and Asian voters, which together will make up around 40 percent of the Democratic primary electorate. Instead, several of her likely strategic choices — running on the beer track, heavily investing in Iowa and (perhaps) New Hampshire — would emphasize trying to capture as much of the white vote as possible before turning to minorities.

Klobuchar also isn’t likely to have a lot of initial appeal to the left. She may subtly and selectively push back against some left-wing policy proposals while embracing others — or she may run more explicitly toward the center, depending on who else enters the race. (Biden’s decision about whether to run could significantly affect her calculus.) But either way, the left will have candidates such as Sanders, Warren and Brown as their first choices. That means Klobuchar doesn’t perform well according to our “five corners” heuristic, which regards black voters, Hispanics and The Left as three of the five major constituencies within the Democratic Party:

The five corners don’t capture everything. In particular, they don’t account for voters’ gender, even though around three-fifths of the Democratic electorate will be women.

But it does mean that Klobuchar’s campaign will need to proceed in stages, without necessarily having a lot of margin for error. First, she’ll have to perform well in debates and town halls to boost her name recognition. Second, she’ll need to win Iowa — or at least beat expectations there — to vault herself ahead of the other beer-track candidates. Third, she’ll need to heavily emphasize electability to win the slugfest against the wine-track candidates. Each stage holds risks for Klobuchar, and she doesn’t have a lot of shortcuts or detours at any point along the route if she gets knocked off track.

2. Staffing a campaign and building support among insiders. Articles published by HuffPost and BuzzFeed News have included allegations of abusive behavior by Klobuchar toward her staff, citing both statistics showing her high turnover and heretofore largely anonymous accounts of bad behavior from former staffers.

These rumors have been widespread for a long time. (To insert myself as a barometer here, as someone who doesn’t live in Washington and who is sort of ambivalent to political gossip, I’d heard about them several times.) In some ways, the HuffPost and BuzzFeed stories are relatively gentle in that they don’t contain that many details and are largely anonymous. Furthermore, this criticism can be gendered: A woman who exhibits the same behavior as “tough” or “demanding” male boss might be typecast as as “b—-.”

They also reek of inside-baseballness. Having a reputation as a bad boss can be problematic within your industry. But without salacious details, it’s not the sort of scandal that voters are liable to care all that much about.

At the same time, the nomination process is to some extent an inside game. If, as the HuffPost story claims, Klobuchar has trouble recruiting the layers of highly talented staffers that the other candidates have because of a reputation (well-earned or not) for being an abusive boss, that will hurt her. It will hurt her more if it signifies a general wariness about Klobuchar among Washington insiders, which could yield fewer endorsements and less willingness by “party elites” to rally around her if the field has been winnowed down to two or three candidates.

So I’ll be looking to whether Klobuchar is able to gather a few endorsements in the early stages of her campaign, especially from outside of Minnesota. There’s an extent to which a measured amount of pushback from Beltway elites could play into Klobuchar’s brand as a tough, no-BS outsider. But it’s really hard to go it completely alone in the primary, especially when your strategy involves winning over one faction of the party first (the beer track) and then building bridges to the other factions later on.

From ABC News:

The Eastern Conference Battle Just Escalated Quickly

chris.herring (Chris Herring, senior sportswriter): While there wasn’t the blockbuster deal that some thought might come at Thursday’s NBA trade deadline, there were plenty of moves — and non-moves — that affected each of the top teams in the East and will factor heavily in the playoff race from here on out.

And on the flipside, there are a handful of teams that aren’t in contention that made trades I liked for their future. (And one that did almost nothing, which confuses me.)

This is insane, by the way:

The Hornets, Jazz, Timberwolves, Spurs … That's it for teams who did nothing? 26 teams making moves? Phew …

— Sean Deveney (@SeanDeveney) February 7, 2019

neil (Neil Paine, senior sportswriter): Chris, this has to be up there with the most active deadlines ever.

chris.herring: So what stood out to you all as the deadline came and went? The trades themselves are over, but a number of teams seem likely to keep an eye on the waiver wire for big names that could become available via buyout.

I have to be honest: I loved Milwaukee’s trade for Nikola Mirotic.

neil: Yes, a week ago, the Bucks were third-best in the East in our ratings. Now they are No. 1. (At least, in terms of full-strength rating.)

chris.herring: They took four second-rounders and the spare parts they got in deals from the past couple of days to get a stretch big who fits their offense perfectly.

Tobias Harris is a more complete player than Mirotic, but the fact that they could get the deal done without giving up much on the personnel side was really impressive.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): What stood out to me is that the biggest losers of the whole trade deadline period were the Lakers and the Celtics, even though they didn’t make any moves. (Well, the Lakers traded for Mike Muscala, but I’m not sure that counts.)

tchow (Tony Chow, video producer): It doesn’t.

chris.herring: The Sixers could have benefited from a deal like Milwaukee’s.

neil: Yes, the Sixers gave up a ton in that Harris deal.

tchow: The thing that stood out to me is it seemed like Toronto, Milwaukee AND Philadelphia all made moves with the assumption that their time is NOW. They all seem to believe they can win, if not the NBA Finals, then at least the East. Now, obviously, all three of them (four if you include Boston) can’t make it out on top, so it’ll be interesting to see who, if any, regrets these moves at the end of the season.

natesilver: The Celtics were the biggest losers because all three of the other Eastern contenders made trades that make them much tougher outs. Obviously Philly gave up a lot more to do it than Toronto or Milwaukee did, and I agree that the Mirotic trade is the best of the three.

chris.herring: That’s interesting, Nate.

natesilver: The opportunity cost of not making a move is pretty high if you’re Boston.

Especially if they’re now underdogs to make it out of the second round, which won’t help their case for keeping Kyrie Irving.

chris.herring: I actually didn’t feel like Boston was a massive loser here. On the one hand, yeah, they didn’t change the roster. But they also seem to have played a role in Anthony Davis not being moved, which is a win in some ways, no? I guess it depends on whether you’re looking at short-term (which you probably have to, since the Celtics are a contender) vs. long-term/summer.

neil: Certainly Davis staying in play for the summer is a win for Boston, although Davis’s agent and his father have said he’s not interested in signing long-term in Boston.

natesilver: My thing is like: Kyrie has very openly flirted with the idea of leaving. And both the Knicks and the Clippers, two of the most attractive destinations, have totally cleared their books in way that make them very plausible fits for him.

chris.herring: That’s certainly true

natesilver: The Celtics have to fade a lot of risks: AD openly griping about going there, Kyrie not leaving, the Knicks getting the No. 1 (or maybe the No. 2?) pick — in which case their offer for AD could be pretty darn attractive — and maybe none of the Lakers players having a breakout in the playoffs, which would make them more attractive trade assets, too.

chris.herring: All completely fair.

tchow: Yea, if the Celtics get knocked out in the first round or even the second round of the playoffs this year, I feel like they’re going to really regret not making any moves before this deadline.

natesilver: Like, what if the Celtics had traded for Tobias Harris as a rental?

chris.herring: Maybe I’m just of the opinion that the Celtics doing nothing AND watching AD get dealt to the Lakers would’ve been worse for them.

natesilver: The weird thing about Boston is that they don’t have any obvious weaknesses, so they’re a little hard to improve unless you’re actually getting a star. But still…

chris.herring: I don’t know if I would have liked them dealing for Harris, who is kind of a taller Jayson Tatum with less upside, given their difference in age.

neil: Are the Lakers even going to MAKE the playoffs?

tchow: Maybe? Right now, we project them to be a 9 seed.

chris.herring: That’s a good question, Neil.

natesilver: We have them as 2-to-1 underdogs, although they’re going to benefit from the Clippers semi-tanking. And maybe our numbers don’t account for motivation, as much.

tchow:

neil: Hard as it is to believe a LeBron James team misses the playoffs.

chris.herring: The Clippers are interesting because even after dealing Harris, they aren’t by any means in a bad spot.

natesilver: Yeah, the Clippers have a lot of guys on expiring contracts, so they have incentive to play hard.

In the abstract, the Kings are not tanking, but our numbers hate Harrison Barnes, so that trade didn’t help their chances at all.

chris.herring: I didn’t like that deal for the Kings.

I like that they’re going for it. But I didn’t love trading Justin Jackson.

The Bulls’ deal for Otto Porter was better, IMO.

neil: But it also felt like the Lakers and AD overplayed their hand a little here. It felt like an orchestrated effort to bully the Pelicans into trading a generational player for less than attractive prospects. And the Pelicans didn’t blink.

To hear some tell it, out of spite.

chris.herring: There were a handful of things that played out today that I didn’t understand.

tchow: Fellow Justin Jackson fan here, checking in.

chris.herring: Toronto’s deal for Marc Gasol was interesting. He’s a former defensive player of the year but has slowed down. You deal Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright, CJ Miles and a second-rounder for him. I don’t know how much better that makes the Raptors. Maybe Gasol is less of a defensive liability, but Valanciunas could beat up on second-string bigs pretty well. And I like Wright’s versatility at times.

What did our projections have on that one? The way the Raps handled deadline was interesting. You kept hearing Lowry’s name floated around, etc.

neil: Our projections still like Gasol quite a bit. Mainly for his defense.

chris.herring: Also, to Nate and Neil’s question about the Lakers, at this point, I’m more interested in how the youngsters play from now on. Many of them had never been through this, with it being public that they’re all for sale. How they respond, how hard LeBron pushes himself and how much the Lakers push him will say a lot about whether they’re in the playoffs. It may not be totally worth it for LeBron to push himself to the limit, given how old he is and how slim a chance they have of taking out the West’s contenders.

natesilver: I think literally every player on the roster other than LeBron was rumored to be going to New Orleans at some point, which can’t have helped with morale.

chris.herring: Exactly.

neil: Probably no coincidence they lost by 40+ on Tuesday.

chris.herring: YUP.

natesilver: Plus, the Lakers’ plan B isn’t that bad. Sign Klay Thompson or something this summer, give the young guys more chance to develop, and be opportunistic; there are still several ways you could end up with AD, and if you do, you’re going to have a lot more assets to surround him and LBJ with.

chris.herring: Some teams surprised me by not making a deal today. I thought Atlanta — with guys like Kent Bazemore, Jeremy Lin — could have dealt away a vet to get something in return. Utah seemed to want Mike Conley, yet Memphis decided not to trade him just yet.

But I love Orlando getting Markelle Fultz. They badly need someone at point guard. So I like the first-round pick as a gamble there.

tchow: But our projections HATE Fultz, Chris.

chris.herring: Of course. He hasn’t been good yet!

neil: I don’t think anybody’s projections know what to do with Fultz.

natesilver: Fultz isn’t a guy that projection systems are set up to deal with.

neil: Right.

chris.herring: One team that continues to confuse me some is Houston. They kind of cheaped out. Moved James Ennis for very little. Picked up Iman Shumpert, but also dealt away Nik Stauskas right after landing him in a trade. All seemingly to stay beneath the luxury tax. Those guys could’ve been useful. Maybe not great, but useful. On a team with a ton of injuries and little depth.

It would be interesting to know how James Harden views that sort of thing as he’s doing everything by himself, damn-near.

natesilver: Shumpert with good coaching/management could be an interesting fit. But yeah, Daryl Morey is sort of a home run hitter, and this felt like him fouling off a few pitches instead.

chris.herring: True. They’ve always been bold, when it comes to certain things, that boldness pays off. They washed their hands of Carmelo Anthony a lot earlier than some would have, but they turned things around shortly after. Now the Lakers are interested in picking Melo up off the waiver wire, apparently.

tchow: Speaking of Melo, Chris, in the beginning of the chat, you mentioned something about buyouts, and I keep hearing NBA circles talking about a robust or much coveted buyout market this time around. Who are some of the players that are being circled right now? I have no idea why it’s “robust.”

chris.herring:

The Lakers plan to evaluate the full buyout market once it takes shape, but Carmelo Anthony is expected to be among the considerations too, league sources tell ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 7, 2019

Not everybody has been bought out yet. But there are a few key ones, Tony. Among them: Robin Lopez, who’s thought to be headed to the Warriors. Wesley Matthews, who sounds set on Indiana.

natesilver: What if Houston traded Chris Paul for the Lakers’ young guys this summer?

Not that crazy if AD goes elsewhere, right?

chris.herring: I don’t think the young Lakers shoot well enough to put them around Harden.

But that idea is still kind of fascinating. I don’t trust CP3 health-wise beyond this year — especially not with that money he’s making. So they would be smart to get something for him if someone is willing to give them a king’s ransom.

natesilver: The 76ers really need a buyout guy. The drop-off from their starting five to their bench is about as steep as you’ll ever see.

tchow: Scouring on NBA Twitter right now, and Wayne Ellington (Tar Heel!!) is another name that is being mentioned a lot.

chris.herring: Yeah. Ellington def isn’t playing with Phoenix, so he’s another — maybe to the Rockets, even. He waived a no-trade clause to leave Miami, so he’d probably only join a contender.

natesilver: Speaking of Philly, the Fultz move actually opens up some cap space, so they could decide to keep Harris and target another max guy if Jimmy Butler leaves.

chris.herring: That Harris deal was such a big, interesting move for them.

Being able to keep him as insurance depending on what happens with Butler — who isn’t my favorite long-term max option anyway — is huge. Harris is also a lot younger than people realize because Philadelphia is already his fifth team at age 26.

tchow: He’s only 26???

natesilver: I like it more for the Sixers than a lot of people do, in part because it gives them several different options going forward.

chris.herring: Yep.

natesilver: Also, if Ben Simmons is your point guard, you need forwards who can make a 3.

chris.herring: I was tough on them last year, but can we circle back to the Pistons right quick? Because they are seemingly punting on this season. They gave up Stanley Johnson for Thon Maker, which I don’t mind on its own. Thon could be good. But they dealt away a very decent/good player in Reggie Bullock to the Lakers.

neil: And according to our projections, Detroit has a 56 percent chance of making the playoffs!

chris.herring: THAT’S WHAT I’M NOT UNDERSTANDING

neil: Same.

chris.herring: Like, there’s a possibility they could be trading themselves out of the playoffs.

Now, maybe that risk isn’t terrible — especially now, with what happened with the Wizards.

neil: Making the playoffs is a pretty low bar, especially in the East. But Detroit has only done it once since 2009.

natesilver: Top to bottom, Detroit has to be in one of the worst situations in the league. They’re stuck in that in-between zone, but without very many young assets to pull them out of it.

chris.herring: As it stands, they still wouldn’t be in. And I feel like they hurt their chances, if anything

tchow: Yea, I was about to say. Detroit making the playoffs might be surprising, but if you look at the East, who else would be the 7 or 8 seed that seems more probable? 56 percent seems about right to me.

neil: The Wizards basically blew everything up. (Although I was a little surprised Bradley Beal wasn’t on the move.)

chris.herring: Miami. I trust Erik Spoelstra and that group more than Blake Griffin and the Blakettes.

natesilver: If the Pistons decide they want to blow things up, then I wonder if they’d consider moving Blake this summer.

chris.herring: I guess they probably want to build around him going forward. But yeah, Blake probably should be moved. He could make several teams really interesting.

tchow: Man, I feel so bad for Wizards fans.

chris.herring: Yeah. Speaking of the Wizards, I liked the Bulls jumping in on the Otto Porter situation. Some Bulls’ fans didn’t like it. But Chicago has done literally nothing to make itself more appealing to free agents this summer. So they sacrifice that space by getting Porter, who’s young. But they at least have a young vet who is decent on both ends to put around that young core.

natesilver: There are so many teams with max cap slots open that some of these “bad” contracts, e.g. Blake or CP3 or maybe Kevin Love, could start to look like assets.

All of those guys can still play obviously, but they get very expensive in the back half of their contracts.

tchow: Aren’t all those teams waiting for the summer though, Nate?

natesilver: Yeah, I think the summer is going to be totally wild. Dallas also cleared a max slot, or close to it.

chris.herring: Yeah! The Dallas situation was big. Last week, when we discussed them, we talked about how they didn’t have space. By moving Barnes now, they do. Accelerates the timeline quite a bit, which you obviously want to do now that you have Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis together.

chris.herring: LOL

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) February 7, 2019

The way the Pelicans handled this whole scenario is ridiculous.

neil: So petty.

tchow: The NBA is the pettiest league. But that’s also what makes it the best league.

chris.herring: Although the Lakers’ core wouldn’t have had me excited to make a deal, either.

neil: No, and I think part of it was New Orleans feeling like planting a flag for the small-market teams of the league. The Lakers can’t just have anyone they want whenever they want.

natesilver: If Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram had played, like, 20 percent better this season, everything would be so much easier.

neil: That’s definitely true.

chris.herring: I think the Pelicans’ social media team just called the Lakers’ offer the equivalent of the Fyre Festival.

sorry, but hard pass on the villas in the Bahamas

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) February 7, 2019

neil: I didn’t realize FuckJerry was referring to Jerry Buss.

Lol

tchow: LOL

natesilver: But maybe the Lakers deserve some blame for that. The chemistry around the team is really weird and there are a lot of mixed messages about what their objectives are.

chris.herring: Completely. I don’t think it was ever fair to assume they could get the deal done. But I do understand L.A.’s frustration if, as reported, they weren’t even getting counteroffers back from the Pelicans.

natesilver: A lot of the better deals of the past few years, like Paul George or Kawhi Leonard or on a smaller scale Mirotic today, are just about teams being opportunistic.

Instead of trying to call their shots.

chris.herring: Yeah. It would’ve been something had Milwaukee or Toronto been able to land Davis. Probably too big of a gamble for Toronto, and maybe Milwaukee didn’t have enough outside of Giannis.

But the gamble for PG paid off; especially considering OKC generally isn’t in play for the biggest free agents because of location.

natesilver: It was sorta funny that AD’s list included the Lakers plus three teams that didn’t really have pieces that fit.

neil: Yeah, there was another conspiracy theory floating around that that was to provide cover when eventually talks circled “back” to the Lakers.

chris.herring: Yeah. It was Lakers or bust this whole time.

natesilver: If the Knicks get the No. 1 pick, what are the odds they flip it for Davis? Gotta be at least 50/50, no? It just feels like a very clean transaction.

chris.herring: Nate, I think the Knicks would be very well-positioned if they win the lottery. They would have the No. 1 pick (Zion Williamson), two recent lottery guys — in Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox — AND the future first-round picks they just got from Dallas.

I don’t think too many teams can touch that. Not a whole lot in the way of players who can make a big, immediate impact. But Zion alone is something you can sell to your fans, as well as a boatload of future picks. And now that the Davis saga is being pushed out to the offseason — and with Boston perhaps being put in a weakened situation, given the lack of clarity around Kyrie — the team that wins the lotto could be best position to make NOLA an offer.

tchow: Circling back to things that did happen, outside of the AD saga, the story of these trades seems to be about the moves the top Eastern Conference teams made. FWIW, this is how the top of the East looked a week ago, compared to now:

neil: I love the East horse race this season! I think the favorite changed hands, like, three times in the last few days. Everyone is making their move now that LeBron is out of the picture.

chris.herring: As they should!

tchow: The King is gone — the throne is wide-open. It’s like “Game of Thrones” in the Eastern Conference.

chris.herring: I really do like the Mirotic trade for Milwaukee. When I tweeted about it, someone said, “Yeah, but how does he help them against Golden State?” Milwaukee hasn’t gotten out of the first round since 2000. They have a real chance to make the finals now, with an elite player, offense and defense and an explosive scheme that allows them to rain threes.

tchow: So. Many. Shooters.

neil: Right, Ray Allen and Sam Cassell were Bucks the last time they were in a spot like this.

chris.herring: Mirotic isn’t perfect. But he really helped AD and the Pelicans down the stretch last year. Can certainly help Milwaukee.

tchow: All right, enough about the trade deadline. Who’s ready for the All-Star draft?

Check out our latest NBA predictions .

Which 2020 Candidates Have Had The Best Campaign Kickoffs?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): None of us know when the 2020 invisible primary officially began. (Was it the day after the 2016 election? The day after the midterm elections in November? Jan. 1, 2019?) But now that we’re a little over a month into 2019, let’s take a moment to step back and assess the 2020 Democratic presidential field.

Who has done well? Who hasn’t? And who do we think will get into the race but hasn’t yet?

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): The field is definitely coming into focus, which I appreciate.

With Amy Klobuchar looking likely to join the race this weekend, I would say that all the top-tier candidates are now officially in except Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke.

And those are the three who can afford to wait, in my opinion, because they already have built-in name recognition and support.

Lesser-known names like Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand had to jump in early, which they did.

But I think Kamala Harris has had the best launch so far — based on reports about early donations to her campaign, spikes in Google searches of her name, bumps in polling/prediction markets — followed by Elizabeth Warren.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Hmm. I probably have a couple of quibbles there.

One being that I’m not sure Booker and Gillibrand should be thought of as “lesser-known names.” Or to the extent that they are, maybe that reflects the fact that they’ve had bad rollouts. (Although we should probably keep Gillibrand and Booker separate. I’m not sure they belong in the same category.)

The other quibble is that I’m not sure Beto belongs with the other B’s (Biden and Bernie).

Biden and Bernie are unique in that they’re “next-in-line” candidates: the vice president to the most recent Democratic president and the runner-up in the most recent Democratic primary. So they have a unique amount of notoriety and stature, and nobody is going to challenge their credentials.

For Beto, it’s sort of the exact opposite. His credentials are a little light. And IMO it reeks of arrogance to take all this time to decide when other, more experienced candidates have already gotten into the race.

I don’t think it’s particularly damaging in the long run necessarily, but in terms of someone whose stock has declined, Beto is on that list.

nrakich: Sure. We’re probably just drawing the lines between tiers in different places.

I would put Beto below Biden and Bernie even though they’re all in the upper tier.

sarahf: Yeah, if Beto is in fact running. I agree with Nate that I’m perplexed about why he hasn’t yet thrown his hat in the ring. Although maybe we can expect an answer this month?

Beto O’Rourke says of when he’ll decide on running for president: "The serious answer is really soon. Before the end of this month.”

— Matt Viser (@mviser) February 5, 2019

nrakich: And, yeah, Beto has fallen back into the middle of the pack after seeming to emerge as a front-runner immediately after the 2018 election.

But that was probably going to happen anyway — it’s bad to peak too early.

And he remains a talented politician when it comes to town halls and fundraising, so it’s not over for him.

natesilver: Oh I dunno, Rakich. I think Beto is probably more likely to win the nomination than Bernie. Or maybe not. But you could debate it, at least, so there’s definitely a question.

sarahf:

Why I’m More Interested Than Usual In Tonight’s State Of The Union

We’re of somewhat mixed minds here at FiveThirtyEight about the importance of the State of the Union, both its value as a political tradition and the likelihood that it will yield a substantive change in perceptions of President Trump or his agenda. Truth be told, I’m usually a State of the Union skeptic. When the 2019 State of the Union was originally scheduled for Jan. 29, a date when I had a pretty hard conflict, I wasn’t the least bit upset about missing the speech.

This year’s speech is liable to be more interesting than most, however — perhaps even worth spending some of your evening on. (We’ll be live-blogging it, of course.) That’s for one main reason and two secondary but nonetheless important reasons.

The big reason the State of the Union is important: The fight over the border wall isn’t over yet. The reason that tonight’s speech was rescheduled, of course, is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had disinvited Trump from delivering the speech while the government was shut down. Although the shutdown officially ended on Jan. 25, the Friday before the speech was originally scheduled, it nevertheless pushed the timing of the address back by a week.

But the “end” of the shutdown was temporary, as Congress passed a three-week continuing resolution to fund the government, which will expire on Feb. 15 — 10 days from now. So while the political world has been busy considering the omnishambles of Democratic scandals in Virginia, the possible impact of a coffee-store magnate running for a president and so forth, the possibility of another shutdown has loomed in the background.

Trump has essentially three options now, all of which are pretty terrible:

He could agree to a longer-term budget deal without border wall money and just move on, which might rekindle anxiety among his base, some parts of which dubiously claimed that the three-week continuing resolution was a “genius” move to force Pelosi to the negotiating table.
He could reopen the government but declare a national emergency so he could use executive powers to designate funds to build the border wall, a strategy that could split Republicans in Congress and which would likely be highly unpopular.
Or he could decline to declare a national emergency but also refuse to sign a bill to reopen the government unless it included border wall money. This could result in another shutdown or in Congress overriding a presidential veto, which would be another embarrassing outcome for Trump.

Trump might think he has a fourth option, namely signing a deal with Democrats that includes border wall money. But unless he’s willing to make a verrrrrrry generous offer in support of some Democratic priorities, Democrats have basically no reason to go along with that considering that their base is strongly opposed to the border wall and that all of Trump’s other options produce either embarrassment for the president, a split within the Republican base, or both.

So one thing to watch for tonight is whether Trump tips his hand in any of these directions. And if he implies that he wants to make a deal and that Democrats need to come to the table — a strategy that he already tried and that basically already failed — is he merely playing out the string, or does he actually think that he can get a deal done? The more in touch Trump is with the reality of how the shutdown fight played out, the less likely he is to inflict further damage to himself.

The second reason: Trump may try to pivot, and if so, it will it be interesting to see if it’s a full-fledged pivot or a half-assed one. President Trump’s advisers are claiming that the speech will strike a “unifying, bipartisan and optimistic tone” — something that’s typical for State of the Union addresses but not typical for Trump, of course. In theory, a sustained pivot toward the center would be a huge deal and could considerably improve Trump’s re-election chances.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Here’s a more modest question: Can Trump get through the speech without taking swipes at Pelosi or other Democrats, the Mueller investigation, or the news media — and without engaging in fearmongering rhetoric about immigrants? And if he does, can he maintain some degree of message discipline for, say, 48 hours after the speech, avoiding Twitter rants or other ways of stepping on his own message?

This is not a high bar to clear. But it would be out-of-character enough for Trump that it would be interesting to see how everyone reacted to it (though, he did feint in this direction in his first State of the Union).

The third reason: Stacey Abrams has a chance to defy the streak of bad State of the Union responses and further her star potential. In contrast to the State of the Union itself, where the media’s expectations for Trump are low enough that he’s set up to succeed with a merely competent speech, Georgia’s Stacey Abrams, in delivering the Democratic response to Trump, is in a position where most politicians have failed. The barriers to delivering an effective rebuttal are numerous: Whatever setting you speak from is probably going to be less grand than the United States Capitol; you don’t really have time to actually respond point-by-point to the president’s speech because it isn’t released far enough in advance; State of the Union speeches are usually long and boring, so nobody is in a patient mood by the time you come on; it’s always harder to deliver a speech without a live audience right in front of you.

But maybe the polarity has reversed — where the “curse” of the rebuttal has become well-known enough that Abrams, the former state representative who narrowly lost her bid to become Georgia’s governor, could also be deemed successful with a merely competent speech. She also has two ways in which her speech could succeed: by placing an emphasis on voter rights and thus make the issue more salient as part of the Democratic agenda, or by drawing further attention to Abrams herself, who could run for Senate in 2020 or — although she doesn’t seem inclined to do so — even for president.

Or maybe not. It’s a hard speech to get right.

From ABC News:

Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative Voters Preferred Trump In 2016

The conventional wisdom is that a socially liberal, fiscally conservative independent presidential candidate — like, say, Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO, who is considering just such a run — poses a threat to Democrats in 2020 by potentially dividing the anti-Trump vote. But there’s another possibility: that Schultz, or a candidate like him, could divide the pro-Trump vote instead.

I’m not going to purport to provide a comprehensive analysis of whether a Schultz-like candidate is more likely to help or hurt President Trump’s re-election chances, which is a question that can be approached from many angles. The answer will depend on what sort of candidate the Democrats nominate and what Trump’s political standing looks like late next year.

What we can do, however, is look back to 2016, when voters who are socially liberal but fiscally conservative also had to choose a presidential candidate.

Who did these voters, who are somewhere around 15 percent of the electorate, go for in 2016? The answer is complicated because it depends on which social and economic issues you look at: racial attitudes were more determinative of their presidential vote than views on gay marriage, for example. But according to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a comprehensive survey of more than 60,000 voters organized by Harvard University and conducted by YouGov, these voters were slightly more likely to vote for Trump than Hillary Clinton.

My approach in this story is fairly straightforward: I chose five questions on social issues and five questions on economic issues from the CCES, with the idea of pairing them up two at a time to see how voters who held both positions voted. For instance, how did voters who wanted to grant legal status to large numbers of undocumented immigrants (a socially liberal policy), but who also wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act (a fiscally conservative policy), vote in 2016? And which of these issues had more influence on their vote?

Rather than predict exactly what Schultz’s platform would be — so far, he’s been short on detail, and it’s not clear that his candidacy is going anywhere anyway — let’s instead undertake a more general analysis of how socially-liberal-but-fiscally-conservative voters behaved in 2016. (If you do want more detail on Schultz’s stance on each issue, please click on the footnote after each item.) First, here are the five fiscally conservative positions:

Prioritizing the budget deficit: These are voters in the CCES who said the budget deficit is of “very high importance” to them.1
Favoring cuts to entitlement programs: Given a three-way choice, these voters said they’d prefer to cut “domestic spending (such as Medicare and Social Security)” rather than cut defense spending or raise taxes to balance the budget.2
Opposing a minimum wage hike: These voters said they were against raising the minimum wage to $12.3
Favoring Obamacare repeal: These voters favored repealing the Affordable Care Act.4
Opposing environmental regulation: These voters said they opposed strengthening enforcement of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act “if it costs U.S. jobs.”5

And these are the socially liberal stances I tracked:

Favoring gay marriage: These voters said they favored “allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally.”6
Favoring amnesty for immigrants who entered the country illegally: These voters favored granting “legal status to all illegal immigrants who have held jobs and paid taxes for at least 3 years, and not been convicted of any felony crimes.”7
Favoring abortion rights: These voters favored “always [allowing] a woman to obtain an abortion as a matter of choice.”8
Favoring gun control: These voters supported a ban on assault rifles.9
Thinking that white people benefit from their race: These voters strongly or somewhat agreed that “white people in the U.S. have certain advantages because of the color of their skin.”10

Next, here’s how voters11 who took each of these issue positions voted in 2016, according to the CCES, along with the share of the electorate that holds each position. There aren’t going to be any huge surprises here: Voters who took socially liberal positions tended to vote for Clinton, and those who held fiscally conservative ones mostly went for Trump.

Trump won fiscal conservatives; Clinton won social liberals

Share of all voters who took each position, and how each group voted in the 2016 presidential election

2016 Vote


Fiscally conservative positions
Share of Electorate
Trump
Clinton
Other




Prioritizes budget deficit
43%
70%
24%
6%


Favors cuts to entitlement programs
39
70
24
6


Opposes $12 minimum wage
33
77
15
8


Favors ACA repeal
53
72
20
7


Favors jobs over environmental laws
44
73
21
6





2016 Vote


Socially liberal positions
Share of Electorate
Trump
Clinton
Other




Favors gay marriage
64%
29%
64%
7%


Favors amnesty for illegal immigrants
56
26
67
7


Favors abortion rights
61
27
67
6


Favors gun control
67
29
65
5


Thinks whites benefit from race
54
17
76
7

Estimates of vote shares are weighted based on weights recommended by the CCES.

Source: Cooperative Congressional Election Study

Like I said, no huge surprises — although there are a couple of things worth your attention. One is that more people than you might think voted for Trump despite holding at least some socially liberal positions: Clinton won voters who favor abortion rights by “only” a 67-27 margin, for instance, and won those who back amnesty for undocumented immigrants only 67-26. Conversely, slightly fewer voters with fiscally conservative views were willing to defect from Trump: He won voters opposed to the $12 minimum wage 77-15, for instance. The big exception to this pattern was the question on race, which was more determinative of voting than the other social issues; voters who thought white people have advantages because of their race went for Clinton by an overwhelming 76-17 margin.

But what happens when we start pairing these positions together? Between the five socially liberal positions and the five fiscally conservative ones, there are 25 possible combinations of positions, taken two at a time. And in the rather long table below, I’ve shown how voters who held each of those combinations voted in 2016:

Who won fiscally conservative, socially liberal voters in 2016

Share of voters who took each combination of positions, and how each group voted in the 2016 presidential election

2016 Vote


Combination of positions
Share of Electorate
Trump
Clinton
Other




Prioritizes deficit Gay marriage
19%
49%
46%
5%


Prioritizes deficit Amnesty
15
44
49
7


Prioritizes deficit Abortion rights
18
48
47
5


Prioritizes deficit Gun control
21
50
45
5


Prioritizes deficit Race helps whites
14
34
58
7





2016 Vote


Combination of positions
Share of Electorate
Trump
Clinton
Other




Cut entitlements Gay marriage
17%
55%
37%
8%


Cut entitlements Amnesty
14
51
41
8


Cut entitlements Abortion rights
15
51
43
6


Cut entitlements Gun control
18
53
41
6


Cut entitlements Race helps whites
12
37
55
8





2016 Vote


Combination of positions
Share of Electorate
Trump
Clinton
Other




No $12 minimum wage Gay marriage
14%
60%
28%
12%


No $12 minimum wage Amnesty
11
58
29
13


No $12 minimum wage Abortion rights
12
59
31
10


No $12 minimum wage Gun control
13
61
31
8


No $12 minimum wage Race helps whites
7
43
43
14





2016 Vote


Combination of positions
Share of Electorate
Trump
Clinton
Other




Repeal ACA Gay marriage
24%
59%
31%
10%


Repeal ACA Amnesty
19
57
34
9


Repeal ACA Abortion rights
22
57
35
8


Repeal ACA Gun control
25
60
34
7


Repeal ACA Race helps whites
16
43
47
10





2016 Vote


Combination of positions
Share of Electorate
Trump
Clinton
Other




Jobs > environment Gay marriage
19%
58%
34%
8%


Jobs > environment Amnesty
16
54
38
8


Jobs > environment Abortion rights
17
54
39
7


Jobs > environment Gun control
19
56
38
6


Jobs > environment Race helps whites
12
39
53
9





2016 Vote


Combination of positions
Share of Electorate
Trump
Clinton
Other




Average of all 25 combinations
16%
52%
40%
8%

Estimates of vote shares are weighted based on weights recommended by the CCES.

Source: Cooperative Congressional Election Study

For most of the combinations, Trump won more of these voters than Clinton, but before we really get into the conclusion about which party’s voters Schultz or someone like him might poach, there are a couple hints in this data about the size of a potential market for a Schultz-like campaign. One is that, depending on which combination of issues you choose, an average of about 16 percent of the electorate holds both fiscally conservative and socially liberal positions. That’s not a terribly large constituency. It’s smaller than what you’d get if there was no correlation between social and fiscal conservatism and voters were equally distributed between four quadrants.12 The CCES data produces is a slightly larger estimate for the size of this population than other researchers have found, but it still isn’t anywhere near a winning coalition unto itself.

We do see, however, that it is a natural group for independent or third-party candidates to pursue. On average between the various issue combinations, 8 percent of socially-liberal-but-fiscally-conservative voters went for candidates other than Clinton and Trump in 2016, a bit larger than the overall third-party vote in 2016, which was around 6 percent.

But the headline is that, when choosing between the major-party candidates, these voters were more likely to go for Trump than Clinton. Among the 25 combinations of socially liberal and fiscally conservative views, Trump won the most votes 19 times, Clinton did so five times, and there was one draw. And on average between the 25 combinations, Trump won 52 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 40 percent. That’s not a huge margin: a 12-point edge among 16 percent of the electorate. But it adds up to enough voters that, if all of them had gone for a third party instead, Clinton would have won Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida, and therefore the Electoral College.

The big exception to the pro-Trump trend was the question on race, which tended to outweigh every other issue. For instance, among all voters who wanted to cut entitlement programs to balance the budget, Trump won 70-24. But among voters who want to cut entitlements and who think white people have an advantage because of their skin color, Clinton won 55-37.

Related:

An alternative approach is to look at which set of issues — fiscal views or social views — had influence on people’s votes by performing a series of regression analyses. Without getting too technical, this is probably more robust than the method I used above because it’s less dependant on the overall popularity of a particular policy view and instead reveals more about how two views compare to one another. With that said, it yields fairly similar answers, so feel free to skip ahead to the (brief) conclusion at the end.

Specifically, I ran a series of probit regressions to estimate the probability that a voter chose Clinton or Trump13 for each of the 25 combinations of policy positions. For instance, one of the regression models estimated the probability that a voter selected Clinton or Trump based on whether or not they support gay marriage and whether or not they wanted to repeal the ACA. I also ran a series of regressions that again tested the policy positions but controlled for whether or not the voter was white and whether or not he or she had a college degree.14 The results are detailed in the table below.

Were fiscal issues or social issues more influential in 2016?

How powerful each combination of positions was in predicting 2016 vote choice according to two models: Model A, which does not control for race or education, and Model B, which controls for both

Regression coefficient by issue



Model A
Model B


Combination of positions
Fiscal
Social
Fiscal
Social




Prioritizes deficit Gay marriage
0.87
1.26
0.96
1.39


Prioritizes deficit Amnesty
0.96
1.30
1.03
1.31


Prioritizes deficit Abortion rights
0.91
1.35
0.99
1.37


Prioritizes deficit Gun control
0.91
1.58
0.99
1.60


Prioritizes deficit Race helps whites
0.88
1.80
0.94
1.72





Regression coefficient by issue



Model A
Model B


Combination of positions
Fiscal
Social
Fiscal
Social




Cut entitlements Gay marriage
1.04
1.02
1.09
1.13


Cut entitlements Amnesty
1.02
0.99
1.07
0.97


Cut entitlements Abortion rights
1.00
1.10
1.06
1.09


Cut entitlements Gun control
0.98
1.14
1.04
1.15


Cut entitlements Race helps whites
0.92
1.57
0.97
1.45





Regression coefficient by issue



Model A
Model B


Combination of positions
Fiscal
Social
Fiscal
Social




No $12 minimum wage Gay marriage
1.33
0.99
1.29
1.10


No $12 minimum wage Amnesty
1.30
0.95
1.28
0.94


No $12 minimum wage Abortion rights
1.27
1.07
1.25
1.06


No $12 minimum wage Gun control
1.24
1.08
1.21
1.09


No $12 minimum wage Race helps whites
1.16
1.51
1.16
1.41





Regression coefficient by issue



Model A
Model B


Combination of positions
Fiscal
Social
Fiscal
Social




Repeal ACA Gay marriage
1.84
0.80
1.84
0.92


Repeal ACA Amnesty
1.85
0.81
1.87
0.80


Repeal ACA Abortion rights
1.82
0.91
1.84
0.90


Repeal ACA Gun control
1.80
0.91
1.82
0.94


Repeal ACA Race helps whites
1.67
1.31
1.71
1.19





Regression coefficient by issue



Model A
Model B


Combination of positions
Fiscal
Social
Fiscal
Social




Jobs > environment Gay marriage
1.29
0.93
1.27
1.06


Jobs > environment Amnesty
1.29
0.93
1.28
0.91


Jobs > environment Abortion rights
1.26
1.04
1.26
1.03


Jobs > environment Gun control
1.22
1.04
1.22
1.05


Jobs > environment Race helps whites
1.10
1.45
1.12
1.34





Regression coefficient by issue



Model A
Model B


Combination of positions
Fiscal
Social
Fiscal
Social




Average of all 25 combinations
1.24
1.15
1.26
1.16

All correlations are shown as absolute values (positive numbers).

Source: Cooperative Congressional Election Study

Don’t worry much about the technical interpretation of the numbers (coefficients) in the table; it’s their relative value that counts. In fact, they produce some fairly clear conclusions about which issues tended to influence how people voted:

The question on racial attitudes, as already mentioned, was an especially strong predictor of voting behavior. Its influence diminishes slightly if you control for the voter’s race, but it still beats all the fiscal issues, except for …
Obamacare. Views on repealing the ACA had the largest influence of all, beating even the racial question. Health care was a huge issue in 2016, as it was again in 2018 and as it will probably be in 2020.
Prioritizing the deficit, which is one of Schultz’s central points of emphasis so far, was one of the least influential factors.
Perhaps more surprisingly, views on immigration were not that important either, as the question on amnesty was the least influential of the five social issues.

On average, this method produces a more equivocal result than the one I reported earlier. Which social issues and which fiscal issues you choose matters a lot, with race (social) and health care (fiscal) being especially important. Still, the fiscal issues were slightly more influential, on average. Among the 25 pairings testing a fiscal issue against a social issue, the fiscal issue “won” (was more influential) 15 times and the social issue won 10 times in the basic version of the model. In the version that controls for race and educational status, the fiscal issue won 14 times against 11 times for the social issue.

But again, my goal here is not necessarily to convince you that a Schultz candidacy would certainly hurt Trump. Rather, it’s to discourage you from giving too much credit to the conventional wisdom, which asserts without much evidence that the opposite is true. Voters who are fiscally conservative but socially liberal — about 15 percent of the electorate — are often swing voters, rather than definitively being in one party’s coalition. In 2016, these voters swung slightly toward Trump, at least according to the CCES, which was perhaps enough to give him his Electoral College majority given that his margins in several decisive states were extremely narrow. Maybe they swung toward Democrats in last year’s midterms — the 2018 version of the CCES isn’t available yet — and maybe they wouldn’t be inclined to vote for Trump in 2020. But the effect of a Schultz-like candidacy is less predictable than what the pundits are telling you.

From ABC News:

Politics Podcast: The Politics Of Taxing The Super Rich

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In recent weeks, high-profile Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have floated policies that levy new taxes on the super rich. The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew discusses the support for such proposals and what their legislative prospects are. The team also assesses Sen. Cory Booker’s prospects of becoming the Democratic nominee.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

What Have The Knicks Done?

New York Knicks executives in recent years have said they would rebuild cautiously and avoid trading their first-round picks. That approach paid off — sweet-shooting big man Kristaps Porzingis, the Knicks’ first-round pick in 2015, quickly ascended into a star, giving the team hope that it could finally build something sustainable with just another solid move or two. All the organization needed to do was avoid somehow taking a step backward.

And then Thursday happened.

New York has agreed with Dallas on trade that includes Kristaps Porzingis, Courtney Lee, Tim Hardaway Jr., for Wesley Matthews, Dennis Smith Jr. and DeAndre Jordan, league sources tell ESPN. Players and agents are being notified of particulars. Deal may include more draft assets.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 31, 2019

In response, FiveThirtyEight’s biggest NBA fans gathered to process the reported trade.

chris.herring (Chris Herring, senior sportswriter): I covered the Knicks for five years. Not their worst five, necessarily. But saw their worst season in franchise history. You’re naturally going to see them do things that make you scream, “Why?!” But this is a new level, even for me.

This Porzingis trade, if they don’t land a max-level star or two, is just befuddling.

tchow (Tony Chow, video producer/angry Knicks fan): I think I’m going to be a Brooklyn Nets fan now. Why the hell would you do this?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Do we know what draft pick compensation they got, if any? Because that seems pretty important. (These details, which weren’t clear during the time of the chat, emerged shortly after we finished the conversation. New York will receive two future first-round picks in the trade.)

chris.herring: Not the exact terms, no. Though it seems really likely that the Mavs are going to give up something on that front.

natesilver: I guess I’d say this: The process by which the Knicks got to this point is crazy. The outcome, I think, might not be as bad as it seems at first glance. But it really depends on the pick(s).

chris.herring: More than anything, this was about allowing the Knicks to send over their bloated contracts so that they could clear salary cap space. Especially Tim Hardaway Jr., whose deal would’ve made it tough for them to add a second star next to Porzingis this summer.

neil (Neil Paine, senior sportswriter): Yeah, if there is a silver lining (Is there a silver lining?), they just freed up a massive amount of cap space.

The Knicks could be staring at $74.6M in projected cap space for next season. That would be good enough for 2 max slots.

— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) January 31, 2019

tchow: Welcome to New York, Kevin Durant!!

chris.herring: Only spent seven or eight years there, but this is where my New York cynicism comes into play. The Knicks haven’t had a very good history when it comes to FAs.

natesilver: They also got a buy-low guy in Dennis Smith Jr., although it seems like they have about 14 other buy-low point guards on the roster right now.

tchow: But in losing Porzingis, doesn’t that make the Knicks a less attractive destination to come play? If you were a max player, why would you look at this team and say, “I want to go to there”?

natesilver: Well, yeah, that’s the catch.

tchow: I guess maybe two max players could buddy up and that nullifies what I just said.

natesilver: A team of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and … uuuhhhh, who’s the third-best player on that team? Smith Jr., I guess?

tchow: I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. This is INSANE!!! I’m still in shock.

chris.herring: If nothing else, I guess this all just surprises me because it speaks to one of two things. Either 1) You have that much confidence that a superstar is coming …

tchow: Well you’re forgetting Zion, Nate.

chris.herring: Or 2) Things had gotten so bad/toxic with Porzingis that you didn’t see how you could make it work with him anymore. They really had no obligation to give into this right now, even if he was unhappy.

neil: Right, he was only a restricted free agent after the season.

tchow: Well, Chris, if things have gotten that bad with Porzingis, you would think they were secretly shopping him around earlier. Is this really the best deal they could get? I find that hard to believe.

natesilver: It is worth keeping in mind that Porzingis has a serious injury that other guys have struggled to recover from, that he hadn’t reached superstar status yet, and that he was about to get expensive. The upside is so high, though, that you’d think a team, maybe a cap-constrained team, might have given up a little more.

chris.herring: Yep. I’m not blown away by the fact that they dealt him. It’s what they dealt him for.

natesilver: Getting technical, but his cap hold is only like $12 million this summer, so that was a big benefit too.

chris.herring: There are two or three different reasons to potentially deal him. I just don’t know that any of them were worth dealing him for that return.

natesilver:

Kristaps Porzingis, who can become a restricted free agent this summer, has yet to make a decision on his future with Dallas, league sources tell ESPN. He expects to start the process of getting to know the organization soon. Porzingis will continue to rehab his ACL injury.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 31, 2019

tchow:

Sources: All-Star Kristaps Porzingis is planning to inform the Dallas Mavericks his intent is to sign the qualifying offer in restricted free agency this summer.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 31, 2019

FIGHT!!

natesilver: No those don’t contradict. Sign the qualifying offer for one year. Then become a full-fledged free agent in summer 2020.

tchow: Oh damn … you’re right. OK … back to crying.

chris.herring: During the time I spent on the Knicks beat, I got used to watching them attach useful players to ones whose contracts were albatrosses. They traded Tyson Chandler (useful) to unload Raymond Felton (albatross). And Iman Shumpert (useful) to unload JR Smith (albatross).

natesilver: Were Hardaway and Lee that untradeable? They aren’t terrible players, and their contracts aren’t that bad.

chris.herring: Neither is a bad player. Maybe overpaid (I’ve definitely argued that with Hardaway).

natesilver: In some sense, everyone in the deal is a distressed asset.

chris.herring: If anything, Hardaway is just pricey because of what you want to accomplish this summer.

tchow: Watch Dennis Smith Jr. come out of this as the best player in the trade.

natesilver: It’s not nothing.

chris.herring: But Porzingis should not be the sweetener in any deal like this! He’s the lone All-Star changing hands here.

neil: Smith Jr. certainly got a lot of hype as a rookie last year.

tchow: KP

Politics Podcast: Do Americans Want A Candidate Like Howard Schultz?

By Galen Druke, Nate Silver and Perry Bacon Jr., Galen Druke, Nate Silver and Perry Bacon Jr. and Galen Druke, Nate Silver and Perry Bacon Jr.












 












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In light of the possible presidential run of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew discusses the appetite for a “centrist independent” candidate among Americans. The data shows that while there are many self-defined independents in the American electorate, few of them are actually centrists — and Schultz may not even be one himself.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

Why Is Howard Schultz Getting So Much 2020 Attention?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): On Sunday, Howard Schultz, former longtime CEO of Starbucks, told “60 Minutes” that he was considering a run for president — but he said he wouldn’t run as a Democrat, instead he’d run as a “centrist independent.”

Schultz’s announcement was met with swift backlash from many in the Democratic Party, including those who fear that a third-party candidate will pave the path for Trump’s re-election. Others, such as David Frum at The Atlantic, have argued that Schultz might be the kind of candidate needed to defeat Trump, as the anti-Trump majority is strong, but it isn’t all that progressive.

So, what do you think — can an independent win?

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): Probably not, but I have learned my lessons from 2016 about naysaying.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): People are being too absolutist in thinking that Schultz has a 0 percent chance of winning. He may very well have a 1 percent chance!

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): An independent could win the presidency, but I don’t think it’s very likely, and Howard Schultz seems like one of the least likely independents to win the presidency.

julia_azari: Whether an independent candidate could have a chance of winning is less about ideological positioning and more about having a solid Electoral College strategy. But I don’t see Schultz demonstrating that he would have one.

Instead, I think he’s trying to make a point about the Democrats moving too far left.

natesilver: I guess if we want to distinguish a 1 percent chance or a 0.1 percent chance from a 0 percent chance, then sure, he “has a chance.” But, I dunno, is Schultz more likely to win the presidency than Pete Buttigieg or Tulsi Gabbard? It’s probably pretty close. And Buttigieg and Gabbard aren’t being booked on every television network.

nrakich: Yes, it’s pretty dramatic how much our political system is stacked against independents.

Parties are very powerful organizations (especially in this era of polarization/partisanship) with built-in operations and supporters. And our winner-take-all system makes it very hard for even a strong independent — say, one who gets 25 percent of the popular vote — to get ANY Electoral College votes.

julia_azari: I’d add that nationalized messaging really puts independents at a disadvantage in a presidential election.

natesilver: I don’t think that’s quite as much of a barrier as people assume.

Like, if the independent gets 37 percent of the vote, and the two major-party candidates get 26 percent each, he’s probably going to win.

julia_azari: Permission for a brief history geek-out?

There have only been a few independent/third-party candidates who won Electoral College votes. Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 — although it probably helps when you, like, used to be the president. Before that, but as part of a related political movement, James Weaver ran as a populist in 1892 and got some Electoral College votes. (The Progressive and Populist movements had a sort of regional base in the West and Upper Midwest, and that’s generally where they did well).

And of course, George Wallace won a bunch of states in the South in 1968, as did Strom Thurmond in 1948.

Third-party politics has changed as television and other mass communications have made regional campaigning less of a thing. The signature third-party candidate of the current era is Ross Perot, who ran as a centrist without a particular regional tie. Perot won a lot of votes in 1992, but no states.

nrakich: Right, the most “successful” independent campaigns tend to be regionally based. But, of course, you can’t win the presidency with just one or two regions, and winning is (theoretically, anyway) the whole point of running.

sarahf: So if Schultz is at a disadvantage as a third-party candidate and is just as much of a longshot as Buttigieg or Gabbard, why is he getting so much attention?

nrakich: That’s the million-dollar question!

I agree with Nate that it’s unwarranted.

But I think it’s probably because media elites generally run in those (small) circles where there is an appetite for a centrist alternative — specifically, someone who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative, a trait Schultz and much of the Acela corridor have in common.

natesilver: Because he’s a rich guy, because the media thinks “Anything Is Possible Because Of Trump,” and because it’s sort of a slow news week.

sarahf: But what do we make of arguments from conservatives like David Frum that part of the panic we’re seeing from Democrats is that the anti-Trump majority is strong, but it isn’t all that progressive, so a candidate like Schultz actually offers more moderate voters an alternative?

julia_azari: I buy the concept that David Frum’s argument resonates with some people. After all, it’s likely that there are people who don’t like Trump, but who also remember Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and, going further back, George McGovern, losing big in presidential elections. Those voters may be worried about the Democrats becoming too liberal and losing in 2020.

nrakich: I’m not sure I buy Frum’s argument. A lot of so-called “progressive” priorities, like Medicare-for-all and legal marijuana, actually have strong majority support, if you believe polling.

natesilver: The panic is dumb and it’s about equally likely that Schultz will hurt or help Trump. But Democrats like to panic and, paradoxically, they’re also feeling very confident about their ability to beat Trump, so they don’t want anything to screw it up.

sarahf: Walk us through those two scenarios, Nate.

natesilver: I guess the scenario Democrats are worried about is that if, say, only 40 percent of the country likes Trump, Schultz will siphon off enough of the anti-Trump vote to allow Trump to be re-elected somehow.

There are a lot of issues with that, though.

One issue is that it presupposes that Trump’s still going to be at a 40 percent approval rating on Election Day next year. If he is, then frankly Trump is pretty screwed, most likely, with or without a third-party candidate in the race. I suppose things would be so dire for Trump at that point that any sort of wild card would help him. But it’s a big assumption to make.

Another issue is that lots of people who disapprove of Trump are going to be inclined to vote for him, especially if they identify as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.

nrakich: As they did in 2016.

natesilver: Yeah, Trump won quite a few votes last time from people who did not like him because they also didn’t like Hillary Clinton and figured “Why the hell not?” Giving those voters an off-ramp — we’re talking about people who are basically conservative, but not Trump fans — might be helpful to the Democratic nominee, because if forced to make a choice between the major-party candidates they’re probably more likely to vote for Trump than, say, Kamala Harris or Bernie Sanders.

julia_azari: So one of the questions I’ve been thinking about here is ideology vs. partisanship.

The arguments for and against Schultz often assume people vote their ideology, and if there’s an option that’s not as far to the left as other Democrats, maybe they’ll choose that — putting aside for a moment whether this is a real segment of the electorate.

But there’s actually a decent amount of research that pushes back on that, saying that partisanship isn’t just about ideology — it’s also about disliking the other team.

It’s hard to argue that this isn’t the case with Trump and many Democrats.

natesilver: What are the implications of that, though? If anything, it seems to me like anti-Trump sentiment is so strong that Democrats will be very strategic in how they vote.

julia_azari: Exactly.

natesilver: Which means that Schultz wouldn’t pick off very many votes from Democrats.

julia_azari: Yes, that’s what I was trying to get at.

natesilver: And the reaction to his candidacy is sorta proof of that, maybe.

nrakich: Right, and the stereotypical Schultz voters — well-educated, elite — seem like the type who would vote strategically.

They understand, perhaps better than anyone, how voting for a third party runs the risk of throwing your vote away.

sarahf: So is that how Schultz hurts Trump? He takes voters away from Trump who were never going to vote for a Democrat but would support someone different than Trump?

julia_azari: For me the big takeaway is that the current party system precludes third-party impact — not just that third-party candidates aren’t likely to win. Rather, because voters are likely to be really averse to the idea of doing anything that might help the other party win, third-party candidates like Perot have had a harder time gaining traction in the national conversation.

I doubt that reluctant Trump voters would be drawn to Schultz’s socially liberal positions, either.

After all, a big reason why conservatives came home in 2016 and voted for Trump was because of abortion issues and the Supreme Court.

sarahf: So who does Schultz even appeal to?

natesilver: People who hated the Seattle SuperSonics.

People who read Axios.

sarahf: I struggle to understand his appeal as a candidate. Because if Democrats are going to vote for a Democrat regardless, and he’s not going to have much success in pulling away reluctant Republican voters, who then is his base?

natesilver: People who like mocha Frappuccinos.

sarahf: Nate.

nrakich: Probably very few people. Our default assumption should be that he’ll start off at the same level as a generic independent/other candidate in the polls.

julia_azari: He probably appeals to some rich, comfortable Democrats and moderate Democrats — but I just have my doubts about whether he appeals to them enough to attract a vote in the general.

natesilver: Yeah, the “both parties are too extreme” rhetoric will appeal to a certain number of voters.

But not necessarily a ton, especially because Schultz’s message is so substanceless (so far) and superficial. And he isn’t an especially interesting or dynamic guy. But, hey, politics is superficial sometimes.

nrakich: Schultz’s team is trying to argue that there’s an appetite for his candidacy because around 40 percent of Americans identify as independents. But I think that demonstrates how politically naive Schultz is. In reality, many of those people are Democratic or Republican leaners. Only about 12 percent are true independents.

And then even fewer of those independents are actual centrists. Independent does not equal moderate! Many independents are libertarians, or people on the far left who don’t think the Democratic Party goes far enough, like a certain Vermont senator.

natesilver: I’d also note that Schultz isn’t exactly a centrist.

In the context of American politics c. 2019, his economic views are quite conservative.

julia_azari: Centrism is an incredibly hard concept to nail down.

natesilver: Trump has largely given up on deficit reduction as either a rhetorical or an actual objective, for instance, whereas it’s maybe the headline message of Schultz’s campaign.

julia_azari: Right, that was a signature issue for Ross Perot, but the game is different than it was in 1992. Economic inequality has become a key item on the national agenda as a result of figures like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and vocal movements like Occupy Wall Street. Republicans began talking about the issue a few years ago, too.

Presidential elections turn on whether the economy is good. And, not to revisit the 2016 primary too much, but Bernie Sanders seemed to resonate with certain voters by arguing that the economic system is rigged.

sarahf: So, if you’re Schultz, who is a lifelong Democrat, why not run as a Democrat?

That’s one thing I don’t get about his candidacy. Branding yourself as an independent thinker by running as an independent isn’t necessarily the best way to roll out a platform.

natesilver: Probably because you know you’d get crushed in the primaries.

And also maybe because you’re hearing stuff about Medicare-for-all and a 70 percent marginal tax rate and you don’t think that’s good for you, personally, as a Really Rich Person.

julia_azari: I saw a tweet from Jon Favreau of Pod Save America asking why Schultz thought he could just skip the Democratic primary and go straight to the general election — and asked pretty pointedly if it was because he has a lot of money — which I thought was interesting framing.

But another reason one might arguably go outside the normal party structure is that the parties are a bit beleaguered right now. Case in point: Trump and Sanders got a great deal of mileage out of anti-party messages even in their party primaries.

natesilver: To make an obvious comparison, Bloomberg is polling pretty badly right now. And Bloomberg is much more progressive than Schultz, is much better known, and has a much longer track record of actually doing stuff to support liberal causes (e.g. on gun control).

So if Bloomberg is having trouble seeing an opening, Schultz has no chance in hell.

julia_azari: And Bloomberg has actually held elected office.

natesilver: Yeah. Like, this conversation would be a lot different if Schultz had been mayor of Seattle or something.

Or Tacoma, even. Olympia. Walla Walla.

Anything that showed commitment to public life or any interest in public policy.

julia_azari: I’m not totally sure how to characterize this, but I think his candidacy and the attention it’s garnered is kind of a last gasp at this centrist idea that a non-politician is going to come in and save us.

Some people may have felt this way with Perot almost 30 years ago, but my sense is that the idea may no longer hold the same appeal.

nrakich: I don’t know if it’s a last gasp. I kind of feel like the three constants in life are death, taxes and baseless media buzz about a third-party candidate who’s going to shake up the presidential race.

Remember Americans Elect in 2012? Good times.

And Bloomberg in 2016?

This happens every year.

julia_azari: Sure, but anti-party politics are evolving, and I think Trump and Sanders are more illustrative of what the landscape looks like now.

nrakich: That anti-party messages are most effective within a party?

Yeah, it’s pretty ideal if you can run against the party and give people the rhetoric they want to hear, but still take advantage of all the structural benefits.

natesilver: To the extent it’s the last gasp, it might be because Schultz is such an ineffective messenger for it.

julia_azari: Yeah, I don’t mean it’s the last time this will happen, but I do think its appeal has diminished.

Please don’t ask me to predict the rest of human history, guys.

natesilver: I don’t use these terms a ton, but it reeks of a certain kind of entitlement and privilege to basically say that you’re the only reasonable person in the room and that a “silent majority” (Schultz’s term) of Americans support your ideas, when (1) those ideas just so happen to be in your economic self-interest and (2) you’ve put no real effort into learning about how politics or policy work.

sarahf: I still wonder though what Schultz’s candidacy would mean for the Democratic primary if he were to run as a Democrat. Would it force the conversation to hit more issues in the middle? Or are we past that point, and now if a candidate doesn’t support some version of Medicare-for-all they can’t win the nomination?

natesilver: In terms of what would happen if Schultz were a Democrat, I think he’d get literally almost no traction and it would be a non-story.

sarahf: So that’s interesting. Are we only experiencing the current Schultz-mania because he’s an independent?

natesilver: I think so, Sarah. I mean, look, there’d be a few days of coverage. But there’s not a big market for this candidacy in the Democratic primary and, to the extent there is, Schultz is not the right vessel for it.

nrakich: This is only tangentially related, but I also don’t know how much appetite there is among anti-Trumpers for yet ANOTHER rich businessman with no political experience.

Just another reason Schultz isn’t the best type of independent, I guess.

natesilver: I agree with that, Nathaniel. It’s an awfully weird time to claim that running as a businessman with no political experience is an asset, when you’re also claiming that Trump is a terrible president.

julia_azari: But on the topic of “electability” (heavy quotes), a conversation that was already happening before Schultz announced, Schultz theoretically possesses the qualities that make voters feel more confident — he’s a centrist, he’s older, and he’s a white man.

Arguably, he’s also a foil for what could be a very diverse crowd of candidates in the Democratic primary.

natesilver: But to some extent, he can be a foil for whoever the Democratic nominee is anyway.

julia_azari: Unless it’s Biden! Since he’s also an older white man and has kinda distanced himself from some of the heavy redistribution policies that other Democrats have advocated.

natesilver: In part because (so far) he’s a pretty bad spokesman for his positions.

Maybe he’ll get better.

nrakich: Honestly, the backlash has been so swift and unanimous, I wonder if Schultz even goes through with it.

sarahf: Yeah, maybe he won’t run.

natesilver: To appear in the presidential debates, he’d have to get enough of a base to poll at 15 percent.

nrakich: He got his media attention. He’s selling his book. Why drag yourself through the mud on an actual presidential campaign?

natesilver: But, like, having Kamala Harris standing on stage against two old rich business dudes who are saying we need to roll back the welfare state is a contrast that probably works pretty well for Kamala Harris.

julia_azari: Definitely in the Democratic primary.

sarahf: Any closing thoughts?

nrakich: I think Kyle Kondik pretty much summed up my thoughts on Howard Schultz’s chances as an independent:

One way of thinking about third party presidential aspirants in 2020. In 2016, two of the least-popular major party candidates in history faced each other, and third party candidates received… just 6% of the total vote.

— Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) January 28, 2019

 

Politics Podcast: Lessons From The Government Shutdown (And More 2020 Announcements)

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President Trump reversed course on the government shutdown, signing a bill on Friday that reopened the government for three weeks without any guarantees of funding for a wall along the southern border. The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team discusses why he decided to back down and debates what kind of agreement lawmakers and Trump could come to on border security. And in the latest installment of “The Theory of the Case,” the crew considers the presidential bids of Tulsi Gabbard, a U.S. representative from Hawaii, and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.