This post refers back to another two days ago titled “And the Candidate Is: Part VII” that suggests Joe Biden is not the front-running candidate the media reports he is and the 23-candidate Democratic presidential field is already reduced to a few real choices with a possible multi-ballot convention resulting a year from now.
From the start, these posts have emphasized the importance of California moving its 2020 primary from a traditional early June date to Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020, when the state containing 12.5 percent of the U.S. population will dominate on a day of nine state presidential primaries.
California will send 416 elected and 79 super delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
A poll released today (June 13, 2019) conducted for U.C. Berkley/The Los Angeles Times showed:
Joe Biden, 22%
Elizabeth Warren, 18%
Bernie Sanders, 17%
Kamala Harris, 13%
Pete Buttigieg, 10%
No other candidate at more than 3% (Beto O’Rourke).
It is a clarifying poll little more than a week before the first Democratic candidate debate. The first debate, all the debates and seven more months of campaigning before the first caucuses in Iowa lie ahead. They can and will change the race but, for now, this poll confirms a lot about where the race stands as all that awaits.
It says even more clearly than any poll before now that the field of 23 candidates is presently a field of five or six real contenders, cluttered by more than a dozen other candidates gaining no traction.
It says Biden is a thin front runner, who 70% or more of Democrats do not want as their nominee.
It says Warren has moved into second place supplanting Sanders (this being the second poll in a week putting her second, a spot Sanders had held until now).
It says Harris, for whom her home-state California primary is the acid test, is not breaking through.
It says be sure to watch that first debate June 26 & 27.
Peeling the Onion 