Tony Katz ranks the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates who have dropped out of the race. And Michael Moore says President Trump’s base still supports him. As Tony points out, that’s only half the story.
Tony Katz talks to Griff Jenkins on FOX News about Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the 2020 candidates. On Buttigieg: “If Buttigieg Can’t Take on Elizabeth Warren, How Will He Take Trump On?”
Does Pete Buttigieg see a problem in his presidential future? Maybe.
Maybe it’s that he peaked too early in Iowa. The touted Iowa State University poll had him in a solid first place with 26%. The latest poll, from Emerson, has him at 18% in the state. Nationally, he has been flirting with the top three. In the latest FOX News poll, he’s at 7%, and the Real Clear Politics average has him back in single digits, at 9.5%.
Maybe it’s his inability to connect with black voters. Yes, he has serious problems in South Carolina, but his issues with black voters track back his time as mayor of South Bend, IN. His demotion of a black police chief (which he still has not fully explained to any level of acceptableness,) how he handled a police-involved shooting where he was unresponsive to citizens and threw the South Bend policeunder the bus.
Even the campaign’s ham-fisted attempt to show black support was interrupted by a protest from Black Lives Matter. To be clear, the BLM protesters were wrong, and disrupting events the way they do is indecent if not totally predictable and boring. Back to the event, Buttigieg is trying desperately to build up his base of black voters; without them, you can’t win the Democratic nomination. He even put out his Douglass Plan to revitalize black America, and he claimed there were 400 endorsers of his plan in South Carolina.
He sent it to 400 South Carolinians, and then claimed them all as endorsers. But they weren’t endorsers. And 42% of the list wasn’t even black. True story.
Now, Buttigieg is taking his plan to Latinos:
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Tony Katz spoke with Leland Vittert on FOX News about the UK election, Mike Bloomberg’s presidential run, the China Trade Deal and President Trump working on keeping his promises.
When you’re the presidential front runner, you’re gonna take hits.
South Bend, Indiana Democratic Mayor Pete Buttigieg is the front runner in Iowa. And in a race where you could have four different winners before Super Tuesday on March 3rd – with no consensus candidate in sight! – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina take on even more significance.
Buttigieg is getting dinged for his work at consulting firm McKinsey. McKinsey is one of those firms that signifies and symbolizes the ‘elite’ and the ‘DC Swamp.’ And even if one were to argue both of those examples, it certainly represents the idea of the insider. This goes against the image Buttigieg has been desperate to push out: Industrial Midwest Mayor who speaks for the forgotten and ignored with Millennial cool while sporting a boyish grin and a first-day-on-the-job-Supercuts hairdo.
But it all falls apart when you realize that he’s an insider at his core.
Read MoreThe Midwest decided the election in 2016. It was the Indiana primary that clearly stated that outside voices were worth hearing, and Hoosiers voted for Donald Trump over then-candidate Sen. Ted Cruz. In the presidential election, it was Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan that let their voices be heard: Trump over Hillary.
Now that impeachment is upon America heading into the 2020 election, what does the Midwest have to say? This must be a consideration for Democrats and Republicans alike: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio may very well determine the presidency. And Indiana, with it’s May 5th primary, may become a major battleground if no candidate can gain a consensus coming out of Super Tuesday (and it’s looking this way more and more.)
Here’s what the Midwest is saying: Stop talking impeachment and start listening to us! The polling may show America and these swing states are split on impeachment, but the people speaking out are saying they want their lives made better, and they don’t care about partisan narratives.
Wisconsin:
A Marquette University poll shows 51% of respondents do not want impeachment. While national polls are showing more of a 50/50 split on impeachment, Wisconsin is more opposed. And Wisconsin determined 2016 results, a fact that Democrats are more than aware of. 41% say the economy has gotten better. 63% want government doing more for small farmers, which puts more pressure on Democrats to pass USMCA. Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to bring the trade deal to the floor for a vote, fearing (rightfully) that it will help President Trump.
As Real Clear Politics noted in their headline on November 28th, Impeachment Fight Leaves Voters Cold in Contested Wisconsin.
Pennsylvania:
(Pennsylvania may not technically be the Midwest, but they went for Trump in 2016 and their 20 Electoral Votes matter greatly. So, I’m including them.)
The Morning Call shows the same results in their poll. 51% of respondents supported the impeachment inquiry. However, when asked about removing President Trump from office, 49% were in favor, 48% were opposed. The bigger number to take from the poll (which, admittedly, has a MOE of +/- 6%) is that only 2% would consider changing their opinion.
This should not be taken as Pennsylvanians like President Trump. But, as NY Post columnist Salena Zito pointed out on NPR, “(It’s) Not that they like Trump any more – they still don’t like him. But they’re frustrated that the vote that they did give to the Democrats has turned out to be sort of opening up the road towards impeachment, and they don’t like that.”
Again, information that Democrats will have to consider now that they’ve decided that impeachment is their proudly displayed scarlet letter.
Ohio:
President Trump won Ohio with more votes than any Republican since 1988, winning 80 of 88 counties. Without Ohio, the road for any candidate to the White House is difficult. As CNN writes in their headline, Ohio voters voice dismay over Trump’s actions but aren’t convinced on impeachment.
The article is replete with phrases that get echoed across the Midwest:
A poll from CantonRep.com on October 31 showed 47% of voters support impeachment, and 43% percent oppose. Just two weeks earlier, Axios reported that voters they spoke to were “outraged” over impeachment. Among the quotes in there reporting was this, “9 of the 11 participants raised their hands to say impeachment is a distraction from the issues they care most about — things like wages and unemployment, border security, bringing troops home, and health care costs and access.”
The unemployment rate is 3.5%. The wall is still being fought by Democrats. President Trump wants to bring troops home from Syria and, seriously under reported, Trump unveiled transparency rules for healthcare providers; forcing them to provide pricing information to patients before they enter a hospital.
Polling may paint one picture in Ohio, but when the voters are spoken to, they provide a much different view.
Michigan:
President Trump won Michigan in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes, which means the state’s 16 Electoral Votes are available for both major parties. Across the state, according to polls and reporting, the sentiment towards Congress remains the same: Stop focusing on impeachment and focus on issues.
Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee has stated that his constituents are interested more in issues that effect their daily lives:
Mostly, I hear that they want us to work on issues like the prescription drug prices, trade, and the economy,” Kildee told Fox News on Dec. 5. “They do offer their thoughts on this and I think that’s positive, but mostly the American people want us to work on the issues that affect them at the kitchen table everyday.
Another Democratic Representative, Elissa Slotkin, who told a recent townhall that she favored the impeachment inquiry, was booed and heckled.
Axios took a look at head to head matchups between President Trump and leading Democratic presidential candidates in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. In the head to head between Trump and former Vice-President Joe Biden, Trump lost again and again, until recently. In all three states over the last month, Trump beats Biden. From Alex Conant of Firehouse Strategies, “Democrats racing towards impeachment are at serious risk of leaving behind the voters they need to retake the White House next year.”
Impeachment doesn’t fare well in the polling. When you speak to the voters in must-win states, it does even worse.
(This article originally posted at wibc.com)
On Tucker Carlson Tonight, radio host Tony Katz explains to Tucker that Mayor Pete Buttigieg was true to form when he appeared to agree with Pastor William Barber that illegal immigrants are just, “coming back to land we (Americans) stole.”
He doesn’t push back. He’s desperate for that vote. He’s desperate for the black vote. He knows he has a problem. South Carolina (polling) is abysmal….so this is very much in his bailiwick…to wax pseudo-intellectual and be like, “Hmmm…you have a point Reverend Barber,” when no actual point is made.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that she is instructing her Chairmen (including Adam Schiff, Eliot Engel and Jerrold Nadler) to write up Articles of Impeachment against President Donald Trump. A vote on impeachment could come before Christmas.
Rep. Jim Banks (R IN-3) tells radio host Tony Katz that there are Democrats who are begging Democratic leadership to add more articles so they can vote against them, in order to save face in the swing districts they represent:
REP. JIM BANKS: There will be a handful or more, maybe a dozen=n or so, or more, Democrats who will vote against it. That again gets to the heart of the matter, because you’re not going to see a single Republican in the House of Representatives who votes in support of impeachment.
TONY KATZ: You think there’s going to be a dozen Democrats who vote against impeachment in the House?
BANKS: So that’s my speculation today based, Tony, on conversations with Democrats on the floor. There are a number of Democrats who come from moderate, swing districts who know that the results of this will not fair well for them in the election in 2020.
They’re begging Speaker Pelosi to put Articles of Impeachment on the floor they can vote against. That’s why I think you’ll see a handful of articles, because those Democrats want to be able to go home and say at least they voted against some of the articles.
So, I’m speculating at this point. But I really don’t believe she has as much support for impeachment as even she had for the impeachment inquiry vote a couple of weeks ago.
KATZ: But we’re not arguing whether or not she’s got enough votes to have some of the articles passed, and send it to the Senate for trial.
BANKS: They’ll get there with at least one of the articles of impeachment. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. But there are Democrats who are privately begging House Democrat Leader (Adam) Schiff to put articles on the floor they can vote against.
Tony Katz spoke with Pete Hegseth of FOX and Friends about former VP Joe Biden’s “No Malarkey” bus tour in Iowa, and why voters in the Midwest are moving back to President Trump in 2020 after voting for Democrats in 2018.