Debate debate

Report: Presidential Primary Debate Audiences

This memo looks at the audiences the Presidential Primary debates received in 2016 and 2008.  The Republicans have completed their full 12 debate schedule for the 2015-2016 cycle.  We now have the final numbers for the debate audiences for the Democrats and Republicans.  The top line analysis can be found below, and tables of the audiences of each debate which received ratings in both 2016 and 2008 can be found on pages 4 and 5 of the full memo, attached (at bottom).  More information about the debate over the 2016 debates can be found in our backgrounder (Updated on Wednesday 5/25/16).  

Summary 

2016, Republicans – 12 debates, 186.3m total viewers, 15.53m viewers per debate.   

2016, Democrats – 9 debates, 72.03m total viewers, 8m viewers per debate. 

2008, Republicans – 14 debates, 42.87m total viewers, 3.07m viewers per debate.

2008, Democrats – 16 debates, 75.22m total viewers, 4.7m viewers per debate (Dems had another 10 debates which were not rated, so total viewership was higher than 75.22m).

Key Findings

GOP Dramatically Outperforms Dems in 2016 and Rs in 2008 – In 2008, the 16 Democratic debates outperformed the 14 GOP debates by more than 53% per debate (4.7m per debate vs 3.07m).  In 2016, the 12 GOP debates have outperformed the 9 Democratic debates by a much larger margin, over 94% per debate (15.53m vs 8m).  It is a dramatic reversal. 

The 12 GOP debates have produced more than 5 times the audience per debate than their 14 debates produced in 2008, and almost 5 times the total audience.  The 9 DNC debates produced almost twice the audience per debate that the 2008 debates produced, but, in aggregate, produced a total audience 3 million less than the 2008 debates produced.  

Democratic Debate Schedule Struggles to Match 2008 – Despite very large audiences for the debates this cycle, the smaller number of Democratic debates (9 compared to 12 GOP in 2016 and 26 in 2008) means that the total audience of the Democratic debates in 2016 was 3 million less than the 2008 Democratic total, and 114m less than the 2016 GOP total.

DNC’s Original Debate Schedule Audience – The DNC’s original six debate schedule produced an audience of 48.4m.  After requests from many, including the Clinton and Sanders campaigns, the DNC added four debates on February 3rd.  The DNC also smartly brought in CNN to augment its PBS and Univision debates.  These improvements in the schedule brought an additional 24m viewers, 8m from the CNN re-broadcasts and 16m from the three additional debates conducted so far.  Augmenting the original schedule increased the overall Democratic debate audience by 50%. 

The Townhalls – While the audiences for the CNN town halls were not significant, the formats were.  Each of these programs gave viewers a window into the candidate the more rigid debate formats have not.  They have been an important innovation this cycle by the DNC, and in coming years should be given more prominence.  Our guess is if adequately promoted with more time, viewership for these town halls could be far more significant.  

 

Audience Per Debate

              

 

Total Audience

 

The Trump Bump Part II, Learning from Bernie and The CA Debate Should Proceed

Despite Spirited Challenges, Clinton Holding Her Ground A slew of new polls confirm the "Trump bump" we first discussed in last week’s column.  While the CBS/NYT poll had Clinton’s lead at 6, and NBC/WSJ at 3, the ABC/Washington Post poll had Trump ahead by 2. Clinton had an 8-10 point lead over Trump throughout March and April.  That advantage is probably down to 2-3 points now as Republican voters consolidate behind their new leader.

Importantly for Clinton we haven’t seen any decline in her substantial advantage over Bernie Sanders during this same period.  Barring an unforeseen event, she should wrap up the nomination in early June.  At that point expect Clinton to get a “bump” too, putting the race back into a 5-8 point margin for her, a far more comfortable place for Democrats eager to see this as a year of opportunity.

A 2016 caveat is, however, needed here and in the remainder of my columns – do not underestimate Donald Trump.  He is taking hold of his party more rapidly and effectively than many imagined, and while his campaign apparatus is dangerously behind a well constructed, hybrid Clinton/Obama machine, his masterful use of free and social media this cycle has been a 21st century political gamechanger.  Few Democrats believed the race would ever get this close, and that this will be a highly competitive and challenging race is slowly settling in across the country.

More Analysis Needed on Sanders’ Strong National Showing – One of the more remarkable bits of data coming from a week of new polls is how much better Sanders performs than Clinton in head to head polling against Trump.  In the most recent polls, Sanders is often above 50 against Trump, and has leads of 15, 4, 13, 13, 12, 10, 9 and 15.  In the last four polls tracking both Sanders and Clinton, Sanders’ lead against Trump is 12, 7, 7, and 11 points higher than Clinton’s.  During the course of this messy, contentious election cycle no candidate of either party has performed this well in general election polls for this long. It is no small achievement.

The conventional wisdom in town is that Sanders runs this strong because no one has ever roughed him with negative advertising, and that his “socialism” would tank him voters if they really knew what he was proposing.  Perhaps.  Whatever the case, it would be wise for Democrats to study and come to understand why this rumpled, unknown old lefty has run so strong in this election, particularly with unaffiliated voters (independents) and young people.  My guess is that like Trump and Cruz, his steadfast rejection of conventional politics (even attacking the DNC itself) has significant appeal to an electorate who felt let down by their leaders.  But the Party should both be giving Sanders more credit for what he has done, and begin working hard to learn from it for the all important fall elections.

Sanders, Clinton and the DNC – A new Politico piece contains the following passage:

"The perception that the DNC and other state parties have unfairly favored Hillary Clinton is going to make the reconciliation of Sanders and Clinton supporters nationally and in the states far harder," said Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, president of the NDN think tank. "The DNC should have tried much harder to address this perception early on, as it always had the potential to become a reason for Sanders partisans to question the legitimacy of Clinton's victory”

As readers of our work are aware, I’ve been warning for months that the DNC needed to do far more to address what were reasonable concerns about its impartiality in the race (remember the DNC Chair getting booed at a major New Hampshire event in September).  I don’t exactly know what can be done at this point, many months too late, to reestablish the DNC’s role as independent arbiter, and uniter of the spirited factions that have emerged this cycle.  But one obvious opportunity for the DNC Chair to publicly affirm her impartiality is to ensure that there is a 10th and final debate in California.  This debate was agreed to by the Sanders and Clinton camps, and became an “officially sanctioned” DNC debate.  For the DNC to walk away from the debate now, given that Sanders has signaled his desire to proceed, will only confirm the worst suspicions of Sanders partisans.

And why wouldn’t Democrats want to debate in California, the state that is arguably the American center-left’s greatest success story in recent years?  The state that is driving global innovation and entertainment? A state whose demography is a window into our future?  And a state with a long list of super talented next generation elected officials like Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Alex Padilla, Adam Schiff, Xavier Becerra and Eric Garcetti?  The DNC should be working aggressively now to get this debate scheduled, honoring their agreement, and giving the tens of millions of potential voters in June a chance to hear a fresh airing of the issues.

More on the 2016 Election – Be sure to review our deep dive on the 2016 map and the opportunities it offers Democrats; our tally of the Presidential primary debates audiences which finds the GOP far outperforming the Dems; the Democratic bench is stronger than it appears; Clinton should become a champion of political and electoral reform; thoughts on the "children of Reagan;" my in-depth interview with conservative author Matt Lewis on what the GOP can learn from a generation of reform and success on the center-left; my long form magazine piece on the descent of the GOP into a reactionary mess, anticipating the rise of Trump; Rob Shapiro on Trump's economic plan and the crackup of the GOP. 

"Monday Musings" is a new column which looks at the national political landscape and is published most Mondays here on the NDN site. You can find previous columns here. It also appears each week on the London-based progressive site, Left Foot Forward

Full disclosure: I am supporting Hillary Clinton for President, and have given the maximum contribution to her campaign. I am not, however, a consultant to, or paid by, any campaign or party committee.

Sanders, Cruz Soldier On; A Year of Opportunity for Democrats?

If current polling holds tomorrow night and Cruz and Sanders prevail in Wisconsin, it will give them a vital boost heading into a very important stretch where the terrain looks less favorable for them – New York on April 19th and then the Northeastern “Super Tuesday” of Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island on April 26th. Polls from the past few days show Trump with large leads in these late April delegate rich contests, while Clinton retains about a 10 point lead in New York. So while each frontrunner may take another hit this week, April could be the month where both Trump and Clinton finally put their race away.

Having said that, these last few weeks have been challenging ones for both frontrunners. Sanders racked up big wins in recent states, and had another impressive record breaking fundraising month in March. Video of Clinton in an angry exchange with a voter got her off message this week, and the campaign has yet to really find its footing again. Recent Trumpian interviews with the Washington Post and New York Times have been disastrous for him, reinforcing not just his radicalism and misogyny but his extraordinary ignorance of global and domestic affairs. Polling showing him slipping behind Cruz in Wisconsin raises questions about whether we are beginning to see evidence of a broader Trump weakening (Tues am - NBC/Survey Monkey finds evidence of some Trump slippage this week). I remain unconvinced that Cruz or Kasich at this point are strong enough or capable enough to take full advantage of a potential Trump stumble, and am keeping my money on the one with the hair to prevail outright on the 1st ballot in Cleveland.

As of press time, the Sanders and Clinton campaigns had not resolved their differences to settle on a date and place for a promised 9th debate. This is an unfortunate occurrence, as people voting in April, May and June deserve their own fresh debates. I put the blame for this debilitating squabble squarely on the DNC (Democratic Party), whose original, inadequate schedule had the last English language debate taking place on February 11th, when only 2 of the 50 states would have voted. Remarkably, when confronted with the inadequacy of the schedule, the DNC repeatedly ruled out adding any additional debate beyond this early February one, suggesting that DNC expected/wanted the primary to end in March not June. The reason these debates are negotiated upfront, long before the voting begins, is to avoid exactly what is happening now – in the heat of battle both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns are having to spend time negotiating with one another (no easy thing), and fighting this out in the media rather than talking about the issues that will drive the fall election. That we are even talking about this at this point is a sign of the extraordinary mismanagement of the debate schedule by the DNC this cycle (Tues am - the two sides agreed to next Thursday, April 14th for a Brooklyn debate). 

A Year of Opportunity for Democrats? Several reports this week signaled that the election could be shaping up to be a year of opportunity for Democrats. A new report from Gallup found Party ID starting to break open for Democrats, moving from 42/42 in October to 46/40 today. (see the graph below). Gallup’s daily track of the President’s approval rating, a key shaper of broader public opinion, has been consistently finding Obama in the low 50s, even hitting 53% this past week. Both the 46% Party ID and 53% Presidential approval are highs for the President’s second term, and suggest a very favorable environment for the Democrats this fall. 

A new poll by Stan Greenberg’s Democracy Corps found similar movement toward Democrats, away from the Republicans and early indications that key elements of the Democrat coalition have begun to become far more engaged in the election. House specific questions yielded similar results, suggesting that the movement towards Democrats we are seeing could extend below the Presidential level. As my own recent analysis of this year's electoral map showed, Presidential success for the Democrats in 2016 is likely to have a disproportionate impact on the battle for the Senate and House, potentially even putting the House in play.

Despite the rancor of this tough political year, it could very well be that these numbers reflect the public giving credit to the President and the Democrats for a job well done.  Millions more are working today, and wages have begun to tick up; annual deficits are a third of what they were, and interest rates remain low; the President's health care reform has insured 20m people in just its first few years and health care costs have slowed; the global energy paradigm is changing in ways good for the planet and the United States; and while the world remains a challenging and difficult place, far fewer Americans are dying today than during the previous President's terms, diplomacy has been introduced into the Middle East, the President has advanced a far reaching plan for Asia anchored in his hard fought TPP, etc.   Much has gone right these past 7 years, and the country is stronger for it.  There can be little doubt that this record of achievement will be used effectively by many Democrats this fall to help draw a stark contrast with a generation of ineffectiveness and ideological extremism on the other side. 

So, yes, this data is early, and much can happen. But every election takes on a specific set of characteristics as the cycle unfolds. And at this point, there is a growing body of evidence that this could be a year of enormous opportunity for Democrats to not just win the Presidency but to make up valuable ground lost in the very tough 2010 and 2014 midterms.

More on the 2016 Election - Be sure to review our deep dive on the 2016 map and the opportunities it offers Democrats; our tally of the Presidential primary debates audiences which finds the GOP far outperforming the Dems; the Democratic bench is stronger than it appears; Clinton should become a champion of political and electoral reform; thoughts on the "children of Reagan;" my in-depth interview with conservative author Matt Lewis on what the GOP can learn from a generation of reform and success on the center-left; my long form magazine piece on the descent of the GOP into a reactionary mess, anticipating the rise of Trump; Rob Shapiro on Trump's economic plan and the crackup of the GOP.  

"Monday Musings" is a new column which looks at the national political landscape and is published most Mondays here on the NDN site. You can find previous columns here. It also appears each week on the London-based progressive site, Left Foot Forward

Full disclosure: I am supporting Hillary Clinton for President, and have given the maximum contribution to her campaign. I am not, however, a consultant to, or paid by, any campaign or party committee.

A Very Good Week for Bernie Sanders; Our Creaky Democracy

The unpredictable 2016 race gave us some new twists and turns last week as Bernie Sanders won 6 of 7 contests by shockingly wide margins – 82/18, 79/20, 78/21, 73/27, 70/30, 69/31 (incl Democrats Abroad). As many of these states were small and did not award many delegates, the essential trajectory of the race hasn’t changed – Clinton still holds a commanding lead. To date she has won 56% of the delegates allocated through voting, and retains a strong lead over Sanders in most national polls. But these convincing wins give Sanders and his team a powerful rationale to soldier on through what will be a busy April: 

April 5 – Wisconsin

April 9 - Wyoming

April 19 – New York

April 26 – Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island

The nature of the April schedule is going to be very consequential to both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns. Sanders has done far better on days when fewer people were voting, using the power of his campaign/message to make significant gains (think MI on 3/8 or these last round of states) against the natural name ID advantage Clinton has wielded effectively, particularly on the two Super Tuesdays, March 1st and 15th. The first three April states are one on one contests, which have historically played to Sander’s advantage. New York, however, is a closed primary (no independents), and the Clinton brand remains awfully strong in the Big Apple. But it is the final batch of states on April 26th which may indeed be Bernie’s last stand. He has not performed well on these big Tuesdays, and if Clinton can come close to replicating her previous Super Tuesday performances it could end the race once and for all.

Alternatively, if Bernie can surprise in Wisconsin and New York, April 26th could be a day of enormous opportunity for the spirited Sanders effort.

Given Bernie’s need for name ID in these large contests in late April, it should be no surprise now that the two campaigns have now begun to squabble about the previously agreed upon April debate. Debates matter in American politics, and one should not underestimate the power of debates to help insurgents gain recognition and support. A far superior GOP debate schedule has yielded 186m viewers, and helped power a telegenic insurgent, Trump, into a commanding lead. On the Democratic side, a late and poorly designed debate approach has yielded just 66m viewers, denying the Democrats’ plucky insurgent national air time that could have made a difference for him, particularly in those Super Tuesday states where he just did not have the time or money to compete in so many states simultaneously. So watch this week for news on this new round of debate over debates, and be sure to see our report on the debate audiences so far. 

As for Trump, it is belief he is going to win the Republican nomination. I will spend more time on Trump next week, but at this point I just don’t see how Trump isn’t the GOP nominee.

Our Creaky Democracy – We’ve seen it all these last few months – no paper ballots in Iowa, preventing a recount in an historically close election; 5 hour waits for voting, and far too many people leaving lines because they couldn’t wait any more; voters denied the ability to vote due to new draconian “Voter ID” laws being implemented for the first time; and the absurdity of “caucuses,” which guarantee a very low turnout even in a Presidential campaign. We are long overdue for a big national conversation about how to update our democracy for a new century – look for more from us on this in the coming days. The US must be an exemplar for the very best election practices, and we have a lot of work to do to get there in the years ahead.

More on the 2016 Election - Be sure to review our deep dive on the 2016 map and the opportunities it offers Democrats; our tally of the Presidential primary debates audiences which finds the GOP far outperforming the Dems; the Democratic bench is stronger than it appears; Clinton should become a champion of political and electoral reform; thoughts on the "children of Reagan;" my in-depth interview with conservative author Matt Lewis on what the GOP can learn from a generation of reform and success on the center-left; my long form magazine piece on the descent of the GOP into a reactionary mess, anticipating the rise of Trump; Rob Shapiro on Trump's economic plan and the crackup of the GOP.  

"Monday Musings" is a new column which looks at the national political landscape and is published most Mondays here on the NDN site. You can find previous columns here. It also appears each week on the London-based progressive site, Left Foot Forward

Full disclosure: I am supporting Hillary Clinton for President, and have given the maximum contribution to her campaign. I am not, however, a consultant to, or paid by, any campaign or party committee.

Heading into Super Tuesday, Trump and Clinton Remain in the Driver’s Seat

This week’s Monday Musings memo finds Trump and Clinton still in the driver’s seat, with each appearing to have a very commanding lead in their Party’s fight for the nomination.  Both are doing well in the Super Tuesday states, and while neither may win every state it is hard to see how their current path to victory gets dramatically altered tomorrow.   Let's drill down a bit: 

Democrats – The most important polling we’ve seen these last few days is in Massachusetts, where two different polls in this Sanders must-win state show Clinton ahead.  If Clinton denies Sanders in CO, MA, MN and OK tomorrow very hard to see a path for victory for him, despite what is shaping up to be a record setting fundraising month for his spirited campaign.  Clinton continues to improve and grow on the stump, becoming ever more comfortable in the language and terrain of this challenging campaign in an unsettled time. 

An issue we’ve been raising for months – the enthusiasm gap – has gotten a bit more attention this week.  See this piece from Zach Carter in the Huffington Post, and this from Rachel Maddow.  Our latest debate audience tally has the GOP now at 158m for their ten debates, and the Dems at 55m for six.  The difference remains vast, and worrisome.    

Republicans – I move on this morning to the general election for a bit of a reality check on the Trump insurgency.   Using the 2012 Obama map as a guide, it shows how challenging it will be for Mr. Trump to win.  Assuming NY, NJ/New England and all the southwestern heavily Hispanic states remain out of reach for him (and that is without Arizona, which could be in play for Dems this time), he has to take 63 electoral college votes from either the 83 in IA, MI, OH, PA, VA, WI or the 112 if Florida is in play.  Of these states if Dems hold PA and FL, they only need to win one other of the five remaining states to win.  In some of these states there are 2016 specific winds blowing the Democrats’ way: in Michigan, the Flint water scandal has weakened the Governor and his party; in Wisconsin, the incumbent Senator Ron Johnson is being routed by his opponent Russ Feingold, and Scott Walker is no longer the same strong governor after his washout Presidential bid; in Pennsylvania, the Democrats were able to reclaim the governorship in 2014 and will have their convention there; and in Virginia, one knows that the current governor, Terry McAuliffe, one of Hillary Clinton’s closest allies, will move heaven, earth and maybe more to get Hillary elected (and there may be a Virginian on the ticket).  The path for Mr. Trump is challenging indeed.

It should also come as no surprise that when the choice for Republicans narrowed these three – a nationalistic Anglo and two Hispanics with recent immigrant roots – we discovered that the Hispanic candidates had a very low ceiling and the Anglo started grabbing most of the remaining outstanding votes.   Was just too much of a leap for a party that could produce Trump to end up going for Cruz, or Rubio, who has, so closely identified with his Hispanic immigrant roots. 

Another worry for the Republicans this fall is the unusual campaign Trump has run.  As he hasn’t raised money, put folks on the ground and bought television ads, he and his team will not have had the experience of working through all this in the primaries as most campaigns do.  It means that he if begins to put on the trappings of a traditional campaign, which one will assume he will need to do against the Democrats this fall, he will be doing it all for the first time, reducing his chances of doing it well.   Perhaps he can muscle through the general as he has the primary, but the Democratic Presidential machine has won more votes than the GOP 5 of the last 6 elections, is very modern and sophisticated, and has a built in electorate college advantage.  Trump's refusal to learn and build a traditional campaign apparatus means he will have fewer tools at his disposal in what will be a tough election this fall.  

Rubio and the "children of Reagan - In a 2014 post-election memo, I discussed the significance of the rise of the "children of Reagan" to national prominence in the GOP.  Marco Rubio has started using this phrase in his campaign, and even cut an ad with it last week.  Learn more about the idea behind the phrase here.  

A note on the coming “GOP crackup”- Last week I wrote about why the rise Trump should be no great surprise.  But I want to add one more observation to what is certainly one of the bigger stories in the campaign this year. 

Looking back over the past generation of American politics, perhaps the starkest difference between the two parties is that Democrats have produced two successful Presidents, and the GOP have given us what were in essence two failed Bush presidencies (we cover this in a different memo here).   There simply is far more reason for Republican voters to be angry at their establishment, for it has been almost 30 years since GOP voters have had a leader who they could be truly proud of; and in that time, the analysis goes, the failures of the GOP allowed the Democrats to bring far too much lasting change to the nation.   It is literally astonishing that in the past year the House Republicans deposed a Speaker who had given them their largest majority in almost 80 years, and that the three remaining Republicans in the Presidential have all run explicitly against a failed GOP establishment.  The “crack up” is much bigger than Trump, and where it goes and what it means very hard to tell right now.

Frankly, the nominees of both parties this time are going to have a harder time putting it all back together again than is typical in US politics. 

More on the2016 Map - The emerging 2016 map makes the Dems choice of Philadelphia for their convention look more prescient now, while strengthening the case for Senators Cory Booker and Tim Kaine for Vice President.  On the GOP side, the map suggests a northern Rustbelt or Florida VP strategy for Mr. Trump, putting Governors Christie, Kasich and Walker at the top of the list, with Senator Rubio perhaps a bit of a long shot.   Will be talking about this more in the months ahead. 

"Monday Musings" is a new column which looks at the national political landscape and is published most Mondays here on the NDN site.  You can find previous columns here.   It also appears each week on the U.K. progressive site,Left Foot Forward

Full disclosure: I am supporting Hillary Clinton for President, and have given the maximum contribution to her campaign.  I am not, however, a consultant to, or paid by, any campaign or party committee.  

Monday Musings: On to Nevada and South Carolina

On to Nevada and South Carolina - The race changed quite a bit last week with Sanders and Trump scoring significant victories in New Hampshire. The unorthodox nature of the race was captured in two stats: “extremist” Trump won the vote of moderate Republicans, and “extremist” Sanders beat a Clinton in NH (a state long favorable to them) among independents by 3 to 1. Sanders and Trump continue to defy easy ideological classification, and the traditional “left-center-right” way of understanding US politics, long overstated and exaggerated, is proving to be particularly unhelpful this cycle. Discontent with the elites and the DC political class continue to be a significant – if not paramount – sentiment driving 2016 on both sides.

On the Democratic side much comes down to the Nevada Caucus this Saturday. If Sanders prevails in such a diverse state, the Dem contest could go on for some time. If Clinton prevails, given her advantage in South Carolina, it could be the beginning of the end of the spirited Sanders insurgency.  There is, however, a growing body of evidence (here, here and here) that despite the conventional wisdom, Sanders now has a larger, better funded and deeper campaign, something that could become truly significant in the early March states. It sure appears now that the Clinton campaign simply did not contemplate or plan for a competitive Sanders effort, raising over $80m for the DNC and their SuperPAC over the last few months that would not be accessed until after the nomination was settled. That so much effort was expended raising this much money not designed for use in the primary itself will be a decision long debated; but it leaves the Clinton campaign with the very unpleasant reality that they may be out-spent and out-organized over the critical month ahead (though some of Bernie's possible advantage will be mitigated by free media advantage of Clinton's powerful surrogates, including her husband and daughter, allowing them to be in more than one place a time). 

The good news for Hillary is that she is a vastly improved candidate.  In my mind she bested a tired Sanders in the debate last Thursday and in general is putting in strong performances when it really matters now.   She has also found what may be her first successful and durable attack on Sanders - that she will be far more effective at building on the Obama legacy (i will have more on both the pros and cons of this argument in a later post).   I am less convinced the "single issue" attack will work, as Sanders has been anything but a single issue candidate in the election so far.   There is a difference from having a powerful overarching narrative (rigged economy, corrupt political system) and being a single issue candidate. 

Given that over 50 percent of eligible voters will vote in the two weeks from March 1st through March 15th momentum and organizational strength really matters now. If Clinton wins both Nevada and South Carolina, she will a big advantage heading into our March Madness. If they split, given Bernie’s apparent organizational advantage, expect this period to be very competitive and potentially dangerous for the Clinton candidacy.

On the Republican side, it is a different story. Trump has once again become a powerful and capable frontrunner, and he question of whether any of the next four – Bush, Cruz, Kasich and Rubio – can emerge to go one on one is the big one on the GOP side. As long as the anti-Trump vote remains split, he remains the front runner. The sad truth for Republicans is that just isn’t clear that any of their remaining four challengers is strong or capable enough to defeat Trump. And all of these candidates are going to start having money problems soon, and may not even make it to the all important March window. The unprecedented compression of the primary season into this extraordinary March run benefits candidates like Trump and Clinton with strong name ID and money. Sanders appears to be the only other one with enough of both to seriously challenge after Nevada and South Carolina.

What’s Next – On Thursday, the Democrats have one of their television “townhalls,” this one with MSNBC and Telemundo. On Saturday, the Democrats caucus in Nevada and the Republicans have a traditional primary in South Carolina. Another big week ahead!

GOP Silliness on the Supreme Court – The Republican argument on the next Supreme Court justice boils down to “we don’t want to do it.” Isn’t any more to it than that. And of course that just is not good enough.  Yes this is a big new development in 2016.  More on this next week. 

GOP’s debates continue to outperform the Dems – We have updated our report on Presidential primary debate audiences to include the latest debates. Summary: GOP on track to 5x their 2008 debate totals, Dems will just barely top theirs. So far the R debates have generated 143 viewers, the D debates 55m. It is a large and consequential difference.

Showing Up In the Press - You can find some of my recent 2016 media appearances and quotes here, and have fun with my segments on Bernie and Hillary and Trump and the Supreme Court from yesterday's MediaBuzz show on Fox News.  

"Monday Musings" is a new column which looks at the national political landscape and is published most Mondays here on the NDN site.  You can find previous columns here.   Full disclosure: I will vote for Hillary Clinton in the DC Democratic primary, and have given the maximum contribution to her campaign.  

Monday Musings on 2016 – What Will New Hampshire Bring?

Trump, Sanders lead the polls – Both Sanders and Trump seem to be in good shape in New Hampshire as of today. But as Iowa showed us last week, anything is possible in this volatile race. Iowa could have given us two nominees if Trump and Clinton had decisive victories. But it didn’t, and as I wrote last week, the entire election changed. What surprise will NH produce? What order will 2-4 be on the GOP side? We will find out tomorrow night. But here are a few things we know:

- Rubio had a campaign altering meltdown on Saturday, and so far his reaction to it seems to be digging the hole deeper.

- Cruz isn’t wearing well. His exchange with Carson on Saturday, and his incredible lie about what actually happened was a bad sign for his campaign. He is still very much in this thing but there are all sorts of warning signs emerging.

- That Rubio and Cruz have had a rough week means that the Donald has had a good one.

- Sanders outraised Clinton last month by a third ($20 to $15m). Remarkably, Sanders will likely be able to match Clinton’s money as the map gets bigger. No one could have imagined that even a few weeks ago.

No predictions, but my sense is that Trump may re-emerge as the frontrunner this week; Clinton will close and make NH tight but not win; Sanders will close everywhere else, including the next Dem contest, Nevada.

What’s next for the Democrats? The two Democrats will debate this Thursday on PBS/CNN, and then have Nevada on 2/20, South Carolina on 2/27, and on 3/1 AL, AR, CO, GA, MA, MN, OK, TN, TX, VT, VA. It is going to get big, fast.

Still can’t understand why Clinton is embracing more of a reform agenda – I’ve covered this issue in the last few weekly memos but it remains the great mystery of the race to me. Sanders, Trump, Cruz and Rubio have all made challenging the broken system central to their campaigns. The resistance by Clinton to do so, given that she has a very strong set of campaign and voting rights proposals, seems at this point – at best – tone deaf. Something to watch in the days ahead, and be sure to review Ari Berman's smart piece "Hillary Clinton's Bold Plan for Voting Rights." 

Bad Week for Dems and debates – The much and appropriately maligned DNC approach to the debates is perhaps best understood by the audiences garnered by the recent New Hampshire debates. The first DNC NH debate was the on the Saturday before Christmas. The second was hastily thrown together by candidates needing greater exposure than the inadequate DNC schedule had given them. The first debate, on ABC, received 8m viewers. The second, on MSNBC in weekday primetime, received 4.5m viewers. The GOP NH debate which aired this past Saturday also on ABC received 13.2m viewers. The GOP weekend debate outperformed the weeknight DNC debate three fold this week; the GOP ABC debate on a far better Saturday night had a 65% higher audience than the Dem ABC debate; and the single GOP NH debate this week had more viewers than both Dem NH debates combined.

The inferior and flawed debate DNC approach has let the Democrats down this cycle, giving their candidates and their arguments far less exposure than what Republicans have received. So while we are pleased that the two campaigns decided to add four more debates to the original six, it is tragic that these campaigns, in the middle of the most intense period of the election so far, had to take so much time to improve what was a terribly inadequate approach crafted by the DNC. 

For more on the debate debate see our memo which compares the audiences received by both parties in the 2008 and 2016 cycles.

Enthusiasm/Interest – Watch tomorrow night for turn out numbers. As we wrote last week, in Iowa Democrats experienced a 40% drop from their 2008 Caucus vote, while the GOP saw a 50% increase. We know GOP debates are on average getting more than 60% more viewership than the Dems. Are numbers like this predictive of the outcome in the fall? Of course not. But they are instructive as where the two parties stand today; and I want to go on the record now saying I believe this is a problem for the Democrats in 2016, exacerbated by a horribly misguided approach to their debates. 

"Monday Musings" is a new column which looks at the national political landscape and is published most Mondays here on the NDN site.  You can find previous columns here.   Full disclosure: I will vote for Hillary Clinton in the DC Democratic primary, and have given the maximum contribution to her campaign.  

 

Mondays Musings: With Two Weeks To Go Till Iowa, A Close Race

What a political week. 2 debates, a State of the Union, dramatic events in/with Iran. Where do things stand?

The Democrats – Polls suggest that Sanders and Clinton head into the all important February window with Iowa a tossup and Sanders slightly ahead in New Hampshire. If Sanders wins Iowa and New Hampshire, he will then be able to mount a very serious challenge to Secretary Clinton as he has the resources and organization to compete even as the map gets bigger.  I am not sold, like many, that the “Clinton firewall” survives losses in Iowa and New Hampshire so what happens in Iowa in two weeks is shaping up to be very consequential.

My take on the Sunday night debate was all three candidates did well, and there was no “winner.” Sanders held his own in what was a very tough debate for him. O’Malley impressed, again. But Clinton may have had the best night, strategically, as she opened up an attack on Sanders (his distance from Obama) that I think over time will be very troublesome for the Vermont Senator. Yesterday the President hit 51% approval in the Gallup daily track, his best showing since early 2013 and a very respectable number this late in his Administration. It has long been my contention that Democrats must defend the Obama Presidency in 2016, for if we cannot convince the public our team can do a good job when in the White House why elect more of us? So I think this argument will be central to both the primary and the general, and it was artfully argued by Secretary Clinton on Sunday night.

And of course hats off to the President for a terrific SOTU speech, and for what will be increasingly seen as a successful two terms in the White House.

The Republicans – They also face the prospect of an outsider candidate winning both Iowa and New Hampshire – Trump in this case. Two weeks out Iowa appears to be a tossup between him and Cruz, with Trump holding big leads everywhere else. If Trump wins Iowa sure feels it will be hard to stop him from winning the nomination at that point. There is evidence that the various attacks on Cruz – Goldman loan, eligibility, Ethanol opposition – are beginning to take their toll on him. How much so? We will find out in two weeks. Unlike the Ds, the Rs have another debate before Iowa/NH, coming on Jan 28th. This one will really matter.

Debate viewership tally so far: 6 GOP debates, 102m viewers (17m per debate), 4 Dem debates, 43m viewers, (10.75m per debate). At this rate the 12 GOP debates will be seen by about 204m viewers, the 6 Democratic debates 64m At 10.2m viewers, NBC's 4th Democratic debate was the second most watched Democratic debate, but still came in lower than any of the 6 GOP debates so far, including their two on a little watched cable network, Fox Business (updated 1/18/16).

Over the next 10 weeks the Republicans will have 6 more debates, the Democrats 2. Of those 2 Democratic debates one will be in Spanish. Despite the prospect of the Democratic race going into the late spring, the last English language debate the DNC has scheduled is on Feb 11th.

In 2008, the 17 Democratic debates which had ratings were seen by at least 75m viewers. So even though the Democratic debates this cycle have received more viewers per debate, the total viewership of the 6 debates will come in about 10m less than what the Democratic debates achieved in 2008, and only a third of what the Rs are getting this cycle with their better debate approach. Very hard to spin any of this as positive for Democrats, or "maximizing" opportunities. 

See here for more on the "debate debate."   

"Monday Musings" is a new column looking at the national political landscape published most Mondays here on the NDN site.  You find previous columns here.  And yes this one came out on a Tuesday. 

Full disclosure - I will vote for Hillary Clinton in the DC Democratic primary.

Monday Musings: Can Anyone Stop Trump? Dems Wake Up To A Competitive Race

New WSJ/NBC/Marist Polls – New polls released yesterday give us a fresh look at where things stand three weeks before Iowa.

The GOP - For the GOP, there is really only one question now – can anyone stop Trump? Trump has big leads in all the early states except Iowa, so the cold reality is if Trump wins Iowa it is really hard to see how he doesn’t run away with the election regardless of who finishes third or fourth in New Hampshire. And on that front, the two big attacks on Cruz now – questions about his eligibility to be President, and a very sustained campaign against him in Iowa by Ethanol backers (as a Texan and oil/gas man he has taken an aggressive anti-Ethanol stance in Congress) – appear to be making a difference in Iowa. The NBC poll mirrors other recent polls, finding the race tightening up, with Cruz 28 Trump 24. Again, if someone does not beat Trump in Iowa, just hard to see how he doesn’t run away with the nomination given where things stand today.

All of this makes the next two GOP debates – on 1/14 and 1/28 – very consequential.

The Democrats – The NBC polls found what many believed had taken place over the past few weeks – Iowa has tightened up. The NBC polls found Iowa at Clinton 48 and Sanders 45, New Hampshire Sanders 50 Clinton 46. At this point anything is possible in these states, including Sanders winning both. For Clinton Iowa really becomes a must win now, as – and it must be said – Sanders, with ample resources and a surprisingly capable campaign, has become a real threat to win the nomination. The Democrats only have one more debate before Iowa and New Hampshire. It is this Sunday night on NBC News, and will be an important one too.

So, remarkably, with three weeks to go before Iowa, three staunchly anti-establishment candidates – Trump, Sanders and Cruz – seemed poised to make a serious run at winning their nominations. Remarkable indeed.

Yes We Can! Obama's Final State of the Union Address - Barack Obama will address the nation as President for perhaps the last time tomorrow night in what will be an important scene setting speech for the coming 2016 debate. Early press reports indicate he will focus on the progress made by the nation over his Presidency, an idea we explored in our recent end of year message. One thing I will be looking for is how much a clear articulation of what a well run government can do, and the positive changes it can manifestly make in the lives of our people, will be able to be used by other Democrats to challenge the all government is bad argument of the post Reagan GOP this cycle. 

The GOP’s descent into a reactionary mess – What exactly is going on inside the GOP? I return to a long form magazine article I wrote a few years ago which anticipated the rise of a reactionary candidate like Donald Trump. An excerpt:

.....There can be little doubt that despite the remarkable progress made over the past generation across the globe, there are significant challenges remaining: tackling climate change, improving the way we provide skills to our workers and students in a more competitive global economy; state capitalism as seen in China and Russia and other nations; and a still unstable Middle East and Islamic world just to name a view.

But while significant challenges remain, there can be little doubt that humankind is going through perhaps it’s most remarkable and productive period in all of our history. More people can do, contribute, and participate meaningfully in the life of their communities and nations than ever before. What lies before us may be indeed a dark time, but my own sense is that we also may be entering – if we get things right – an unprecedented age of possibility for the people of the world.

While this age holds great promise it has proven to be profoundly unsettling to the great architect of this age, the United States. In the past decade and a half we have seen a President impeached; a contested Presidential election settled along partisan lines; high levels of electoral volatility; twelve years of no wage and income growth for American workers; dangerous levels of inequality; reckless foreign engagements which cost the nation extraordinary sums of money, global prestige and human capital; a Great Recession; a financial collapse; a burst housing bubble and one of the most devastating attacks ever on American soil. It is hard to argue that America’s response to this first decade or so of this new century has been successful abroad or at home.

Additionally, these great global changes have manifested themselves in very particular ways in American society, which has magnified the sense of rapid and even unsettling change which is so much a condition of modern life across the world. As perhaps the most technologically advanced nation on Earth, the transformation of our economy from industrial to digital has been perhaps more profound here than just about anywhere else. One very direct impact of this has been the incredible speed in which remnants of the industrial age – companies, skills and schools, well known consumer brands, broadcast media – have been rendered obsolete and not yet fully replaced by their digital analogs.

But perhaps most profound of these uniquely American changes is the way our people have changed. Our demographic and racial history – the triumph of Europeans over Native Americans, and the subjugation of African slaves – is well known. It produced a society dramatically unequal, where an overwhelming majority oppressed powerless minorities. Any student of American history knows how significant the struggle over equality and racial integration has been, and by the early 1960s American had become a nation ninety percent of white European descent and about ten percent black and everything else. But this demographic and racial trajectory set on a very different course in the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s finally ended institutional segregation in America. And one of the most important piece of legislation ever passed in America that no one has ever heard of – the immigration act of 1965 – had the effect of changing America’s immigration targets from white Europeans to Asians and Latin Americans.

The net impact of both these changes is the most profound demographic and racial transformation of the people living on this land called America since the arrival of the Europeans in the late 15th century. In the past 47 years, fueled by high levels of non-white immigration, America has gone from a 90 percent white/10 percent minority nation to one 65 percent white and 35 percent people of color. Current estimates have the nation becoming majority non-white in 2040. Of course the central driver of this change is an historic wave of immigration from Mexico and Latin America into the US. In 1965 there were 3 million Latinos in the US. Today there are 45 million Latinos 15 percent of the US population, a group is they were their own country would be the second largest Latin country in the Americas (if we exempt Iberian Brazil). There are now more Latinos in the US than African Americans, and people of Mexican descent make up a full ten percent – one out of ten – of the people who live in the US today. This figure is expected to double by that magic crossover point in 2040, with Latinos making up fully 30 percent of the US population, or almost a third.

Additionally, the great baby boom generation, for so long the dominant driver of American culture, is aging, and yielding to a new generation, made up largely of their children, the Millennials. This generation is the largest generation in US history and is beginning to enter the American electorate in very large numbers. Its members have grown up in the world I have described – more global, more connected, more competitive more diverse and have had very direct experience the inadequate response offered by American leaders in the past decade. America has in essence its own “youth bulge” and how this generation swings politically might just determine which party reigns for the next 30-40 years and much else about American culture. By any measure – our own youth bulge and this historic transition to a non-white America - is an extraordinary level of demographic and socio-economic change, one which should be expected to roil the traditional politics of a nation.

It is the premise of this essay that American politics in 2012 can be best understood by examining the reaction of political parties, ideological movements and elected leaders to the vast changes – demographic, economic, geopolitical – roiling the world today......

Read on.  It all still rings very true a few years deeper into these profound changes. 

Monday Musings" is a new column looking at the national political landscape published most Mondays here on the NDN site.  You find previous columns here.

Monday Musings: The Sprint to Iowa and New Hampshire Begins

Real voters head to the polls less than a month from now. Where do things stand? A few things we know:

4 candidates lead in the early states – Cruz and Clinton lead in Iowa, Trump and Sanders in New Hampshire, Clinton and Trump lead in the less polled Nevada and South Carolina. Only these four candidates can claim leads in the early states and top tier status as 2016 begins. All four have plenty of money and will be able to compete as the map gets big when over half the country will vote in just the first 15 days of March. These four all clearly have a shot at this point. The path for every other candidate in both parties is far harder to see.

So much weakness on the GOP side – Consider these Real Clear Politics national averages now:

Christie 4.8, O’Malley 4.6, Bush 4.3, Paul 2.8, Fiorina 2.5, Huckabee 2.0, Kasich 1.8

After months of significant exposure to the public and tens of millions of dollars of television ads, the four GOP candidates who have gotten a huge amount of press and free media coverage – Christie, Bush, Fiorina and Kasich – stand at 13% combined, less than Ted Cruz, far less than Bernie Sanders, and any one of them now is only running even with or trailing Martin O’Malley, who has been totally ignored by the national media. Republican voters have had a good long look at these candidates and just don’t seem to be buying. Hard to see how any one of them breaks out in the weeks ahead and challenges the top tier, Trump and Cruz, and Rubio who is still hanging in their but continues to struggle to find his place.

Will the debates change anything? The GOP field is far more likely to be affected by the debates, as they hold three before New Hampshire – Jan 14, 28 and Feb 6 - while the Dems only hold one, on Sunday night Jan 17. Expect the ratings for all these debates to be very high as voters all across the country will be paying much more attention now (see here for our collection of materials on the debate strategy of the two parties so far).

So, what is going to happen? Who knows….but as 2016 begins, four candidates – Trump, Cruz, Clinton and Sanders – have a real shot.  For the rest, including Rubio, the path to the nomination is hard to see.  But of course we know things will change, and could change quickly.  Stay tuned!

Monday Musings" is a new column looking at the national political landscape published most Mondays here on the NDN site.  You find previous columns here.

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