What happened to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign?

Less than 24 hours after Joe Biden’s victory in Saturday’s South Carolina Primary, an unexpected announcement about the 2020 race dropped: former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced he was suspending his campaign to be the Democratic nominee for President.

The announcement came as a surprise to many who were following the primaries: “Mayor Pete”, as he is affectionately known, had had a fairly successful run in the early contests, winning the Iowa Democratic Caucus and tying with Bernie Sanders for first place on delegates in the New Hampshire Primary. Before Saturday, Buttigieg was the second-placed candidate in the contest behind Sanders; it was only former Vice President Joe Biden’s runaway win in the South Carolina primary which nudged Buttigieg down into third place.

A lot of speculation is being afforded to why exactly Buttigieg chose to end his Presidential campaign when he did: some have suggested that this might have been a strategic move by Buttigieg to leave his voters and delegated free to support more moderate candidates such as Biden. Some have also raised suspicions that an offer may have been made to Buttigieg to drop out: perhaps the offer of a cabinet position or perhaps even the vice presidential slot on the ticket. However, we can draw some clues for Buttigieg’s decision from recent polling.

Whilst Buttigieg’s Super Tuesday polling was looking reasonably consistent across the board, ranging from upper single digits to the mid-double digits, but was languishing behind leading candidates such as Sanders and, crucially, Biden. Polling was even putting Buttigieg in fifth in multiple states, including delegate-heavy states of California, Texas and North Carolina. These three states hold just over 750 delegates between them, and poor performances in those states would have left him without a chance of catching the frontrunners, especially if Sanders took healthy victories in California and Texas.

Another suggestion as to why Buttigieg’s campaign fell a little flat was the voter demographics he appealed to: Buttigieg was popular with white, college educated voters, but failed to make significant ground with African American and Latino voters. While an Emerson College poll from February 19-20 showed that Buttigieg was polling at 24.4% with Latinos in Nevada – a state where 29% of the population identify as Hispanic or Latino – a separate Emerson College poll from February 29-March 1 found that Buttigieg was on just 3% with Texas Latinos, who in turn make up 39.6% of the state’s population. Over in South Carolina, Buttigieg polled just 6% with African Americans who make up 27.1% of the state’s population.

Buttigieg’s failure to appeal across different demographics is probably the primary suggestion for his decision to suspend his campaign. Based on the Super Tuesday polling, he probably sensed that his campaign was stalling, even with a slate of 14 states voting in the contest (it’s important to remember that, in many states, 15% of the vote is the threshold required to be awarded any delegates; even if Buttigieg had received 14% of the vote he might not have been rewarded any). However, he has quickly thrown himself back in to the campaign, endorsing Joe Biden along with Amy Klobuchar – who also exited the race – and former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke.

While Pete Buttigieg’s campaign is over, he and his campaign have a lot to be proud of. Despite his age – just 38 at the end of his campaign – and relative inexperience, Buttigieg had built up a reputation as a moderate who aimed to understand the issues which had drawn swing voters to Donald Trump in 2016. It’s too early to say what his role in a potential Democratic administration after 2020 would be, but what we can all safely say is that we have not seen the last of Mayor Pete.

Catch up on Nevada: Sanders wins again, and what this means going forward

Saturday saw the third contest in the race to pick the Democratic challenger to Donald Trump: the Democratic caucus in the state of Nevada.

Whilst the state of Nevada has a small and sparse population, with most of the state’s population being confined to the Las Vegas metro area, the Silver State remains an important swing state as far as national politics goes. Nevada has long been a purple state and a fairly reliable bellwether: the state has voted for the winning candidate in all but seven Presidential election since its statehood in 1864 – including all but two elections (1976 and 2016) since 1908. The state is also home to a large Hispanic population, with 29% of the state’s population identifying as such. While the Nevada Caucus is a small stage in the nomination process, the results can give us some useful clues about how the individual candidates might perform in the long run.

As it happens, the result of the caucus was pretty clear: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won the contest by a considerable margin, taking 46.8% of the vote when all votes were counted. Former Vice President Joe Biden, whose campaign was looking doomed just a few days ago, finished second with 20.2% of the vote. Not far behind him was Mayor Pete Buttigieg on 14.3%, with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren further back with 9.7%.

Unlike a primary system, which involved a straight vote with delegates being awarded on either a proportional or winner-take-all basis, Nevada’s voting takes place at the precinct level: after a first round of voting, any candidate who fails to achieve 15% of the vote has their votes re-allocated in the final round. From there, an estimated total of delegates will be awarded to the candidates. Sanders took 24 of the 36 available delegates, Biden took 9 and Buttigieg the remaining three. However, like in Iowa, there were a number of issues with the reporting of results from the Nevada caucus, including delayed results (some results were still awaited two days after the close of polls), confusing rules and some alleged irregularities in the voting process.

For Sanders, the result from Nevada is very encouraging for a man looking to cement his status as the frontrunner in the contest. Sanders was able to enjoy a much stronger lead in Nevada than he had in either Iowa or New Hampshire, where he had been tussling with Pete Buttigieg for the top spot.

Joe Biden, who was a fairly respectable second, has probably just about done enough to survive at this point, at least until Super Tuesday. He is expected to do reasonably well in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, which could certainly help to buoy him. For Pete Buttigieg, whilst he finished a distant third in Nevada, he is still currently second in the runnings behind Sanders, and his strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshere can easily compensate for his third place finish. Pete Buttigieg certainly looks like he could enjoy a positive string of Super Tuesday states, including possibly Minnesota, California and Maine.

Elizabeth Warren’s position, however, continues to look uncertain. Warren is currently the fourth-placed candidate in the nomination process, only ahead of Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar by a single delegate. While she is likely to stay in the contest until Super Tuesday, she ideally needs at least a couple of solid performances that day, including in her home state of Massachusetts, to have any chance of survival. Even then, just surviving will not be enough to catch Sansers, especially if he continues his winning streak through Super Tuesday.

Of course, amongst all this analysis, we cannot forget to mention another success story from the night: Tom Steyer topped the poll in one county in Nevada, winning Mineral County with a total of 16 votes out of 53 cast, just edging out Buttigieg by a single vote.

So we move onwards to the South Carolina Primary on Saturday March 29th, and Super Tuesday beyond that on March 3rd. With the concentration of primaries on Super Tuesday, there is the potential for a lot to change; we are only three contests in, after all. However, it does look increasingly like the contest could be Sanders’s to lose.

After the storm: Unpacking Iowa and looking ahead to New Hampshire

Finally, almost a whole week after the Iowa Caucus took place – and less than 48 hours before the long-awaited New Hampshire Primary – the results of the Democratic caucus have now been published by the Iowa Democratic Party. I’m taking a very brief look at the results as New Hampshire Democrats will be voting in their primary tonight, so I am going to try and cover both bases here.

When all the votes were tallied in Iowa, it was South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg who came out on top – barely – with his estimated take being 14 delegates. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was pushed into second place by the tiniest of margins with 12 delegates, despite actually receiving more votes statewide than Buttigieg. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was third with 8 delegates, ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden with six. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar rounded off the pack with a single delegate.

My initial feeling was that Sanders would top the poll with a small lead over Biden, Buttigieg would be a respectable third and Warren would underperform in 4th. I also thought there would be fairly respectable showings for Klobuchar and Andrew Yang. As it happened, it was Biden – largely viewed as the favourite for the nomination – who underperformed, with Buttigeig exceeding expectations and Warren performing largely as expected. Yang, meanwhile, finished a fair distance behind Klobuchar and failed to win any delegates.

Even at this early stage in the contest, a fourth-place finish will likely be worrying for Biden as Buttigieg – at 38, a man half Biden’s age – could be seen as a more serious contender for the mainstream Democrat vote and thus continue to siphon off Biden’s votes in future contests. The result will be encouraging for Sanders, despite narrowly missing out on the win for the second time in a row, as he continues to hold a respectable lead over Warren and had managed to avoid many of the age-and health-related concerns which have dogged Biden recently.

Let’s take a look at New Hampshire now. New Hampshire tends to possess a more libertarian, non-conformist political outlook than many of its New England neighbours; the state has no income tax or sales tax, and maintained the death penalty until only last year. For many years, New Hampshire has been the only real purple state in the North East, and Republicans often get good chances to win here, even if they are not always successful. Donald Trump lost the state to Hillary Clinton by fewer than 3,000 votes in 2016, and the state was previously won by George W Bush in 2000.

If New Hampshire is decidedly less liberal-leaning than its neighbours, then there is an opportunity for more centrist Democrats to come out on top here: Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang and possibly Pete Buttigieg might hold a stronger appeal here. Meanwhile, there is always an opportunity for more local candidates to capitalise; Bernie Sanders – who won the 2016 New Hampshire Primary with 60.1% of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 37.7% – is from neighbouring Vermont, while Deval Patrick and Elizabeth Warren are from Massachusetts, although I feel at this point that Warren’s appeal may be more limited in New Hampshire.

So as New Hampshire voters go to the polls, my thought at this point is that Sanders is once again the favourite to win, and I would expect strong performances again from Buttigieg and Klobuchar. Biden I expect will finish in fourth once again, showing some consistency at least, while Yang might have a chance to push Warren out of the top five. I will re-evaluate this prediction once the results are all in; however, we could expect to see a couple of candidates suspend their campaigns if they continue to underperform or fail to get off the ground. Patrick, Tom Steyer and Tulsi Gabbard could wrap up their campaigns if they leave New Hampshire without delegates. For candidates like Biden and Warren, however, an underperformance in tonight’s primary will unlikely spell the end of their campaigns, but it may lead them to question whether or not they really can keep up between now and Super Tuesday. In any case, in a state where anything politically can happen, the outcome of the New Hampshire Democratic Primary is not guaranteed.

Of note, the New Hampshire Primary is a primary, not a caucus, and so votes are cast and tallied in the traditional way, and delegates are awarded proportionally. With any luck we may get the results in quicker than we did from Iowa.

So what exactly happened in Iowa last night?

Last night. Democratic supporters gathered in caucuses across the state of Iowa for the famed first-in-the-nation caucus. This was the first stage in the process of selecting the Democratic candidate for President in 2020, with candidates being awarded delegates.

Caucus watchers had been expecting early results to come in from 9pm Central Time on Monday night. However, by the time Tuesday morning came around, and there were no results from the caucus, no vote totals for any of the candidates. Something had gone wrong in the Iowa Democratic Caucus.

It wasn’t until 10:45pm came around that a statement was released by the Iowa Democratic Party saying that the party had “experienced a delay in the results due to quality checks”. However, 45 minutes later and still with no results, the party issued a second statement saying that owing to a “reporting error”, the party had found “inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results”. The party was, however, quick to point out that there was no cyber security issue behind the problems. In the end, the night ended with no results for anyone to dissect. However, that didn’t stop Pete Buttigieg from declaring victory shortly after the close of polls.

With many media outlets and commentators describing the Iowa Democratic Caucus as chaotic, the failure of last night’s caucus tells us two things: firstly, the Iowa Democratic Party was not effectively prepared for its first-in-the-nation caucus. This poses a huge risk to the party in the 2020 elections – that the Democrats cannot effectively organise themselves – which Republicans will likely try and capitalise on. Secondly, the caucus method is really not an effective method for selecting candidates. The rules for caucusing are often unclear and can vary from location to location. Furthermore, candidates receiving less than 15% of the vote from a particular caucus location often will not get their votes counted, meaning that they do not count towards their delegate totals. Furthermore, the very nature of caucuses means that votes are not even secret. Most states have now abandoned caucuses for more standard and much more straightforward primaries – it would make sense for Iowa to do the same.

Some observers are laying the blame for the bad reporting on an app that the party was using for the reporting of caucus results. Under caucus mechanics, party supporters will gather together in a room and either raise their hand or gather in a group in order to vote for their preferred candidate. Democratic Party operatives would then use the app to report the number of caucus votes to the Iowa Democratic Party. However, due to technical issues with the app, no vote totals have been reported, meaning field directors had to take photos of the vote totals and text them to party operatives’ cellphones. There are reports of the field directors’ helpline being overwhelmed by distress calls, and one field director reported being hung up on after being on hold for over an hour when they were trying to contact the state party for help, with one field director reportedly taking to Facebook to try and get through.

So, because of a malfunctioning app, the Iowa Democratic Caucus was thrown in to chaos. This event has exposed how over-complicated and inefficient the party operation is in Iowa, and there will likely be a lot of reflection on the future of the Iowa Caucuses. Former Vice President Joe Biden has already said he is looking for answers (although there are already conspiracy theories brewing about Biden and Buttigieg’s ties to Shadow, the app development company). At the time of writing this post, there are still no results available. The Iowa Democratic Party has said they expect “the majority” of returns to be published by 5pm Eastern Time; let’s hope that by Wednesday morning we will be able to see them.

There was one big winner out of last night’s Iowa caucuses, however: Donald Trump won the Republican caucus, taking over 97% of the vote.

The Democrats won the Kentucky Gubernatorial Election, but how much of an upset was it?

Tuesday saw the final round of major elections take place in the US before the 2020 Presidential Elections. Elections to Governorships in Kentucky and Mississippi took place, as well as various other statewide offices in those states, along with elections to the Virginia State Legislature. Meanwhile, numerous local and civic elections and ballot initiatives were taking place across the country.

Possibly the main highlight of Tuesday’s elections was the election for Kentucky Governor. Incumbent Republican governor Matt Bevin was running for a second term. Bevin was heading into a tough race, and  many outlets rating the race as a tossup; at the time of the election, Bevin was also the second-most unpopular Governor in the US, according to Morning Consult.

In the end, the result was incredibly close, and Bevin lost the election to Democrat Andy Beshear, Kentucky’s incumbent Attorney General by a margin of just 5,000 votes. While Bevin was waylaid by his unpopularity, Beshear benefited from a good turnout, particularly in Louisville and Lexington, the state’s two biggest cities. Meanwhile, although Bevin has refused to concede, Beshear has declared victory, and virtually every news outlet has called the race for Beshear.

Many outlets, including NBC, have been quick to comment on how a deep-red state electing a Democrat under President Donald Trump’s watch is a huge upset; this was a state which the President won in 2016 by a clear 30 points, after all. However, before anyone draws any conclusions about how this bodes for Trump’s re-election chances in 2020, let’s take a look at the state’s voting history and ask ourselves how much of an upset this result is.

Kentucky’s electoral history is a lot more mixed than it appears today. Like much of the South, Kentucky had a long Democrat-voting streak, only backing a Republican for President on five occasions from 1864 to 1964. From 1964 until 2004, Kentucky was a bellweather state, backing the President who would go on to win the election. It has only been in recent years that the state has become safer for the Republicans. But that’s just at the Presidential level: what about at the state level?

Blue for Democrats; red for Republicans.

As we can see from this table, just as Kentucky previously had a history of supporting Democrat presidents, the Democrats have a long history of winning Kentucky’s offices of state. Republican officeholders have been scarce over the last 50 years having only actually held the Governor’s Mansion for three terms since 1967. If anything, the Republicans’ victory in four of the five offices of state is more of an anomaly than the Democrats winning the governors’ mansion.

While Beshear was victorious in the gubernatorial election, the Republicans won the offices of Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Auditor and State Treasurer; the first time the Republicans have held all four offices at once. Indeed, there has been more of a concentration of Republican officeholders in Kentucky since 2015 than before. So it hardly amounts to an upset to see a Democrat winning the Kentucky gubernatorial election.

We mentioned that Andy Beshear was aided by high turnout in Louisville and Lexington. However, he was likely buoyed by his stance on the issues, and how they resonated with voters in Kentucky. Beshear’s campaign was not run like a national Democratic campaign and did not focus on the President and his re-election prospects. Instead, Beshear’s campaign put emphasis on the importance of the economy and returning jobs and hope to Kentucky, as well as bread-and-butter issues such as public education and working families. These are likely issues that would appeal to blue collar Democrats who gave their vote to Donald Trump in 2016, and will likely do so again in 2020.

Another important takeaway from this result is that the Democrats’ successes and failures in the 2020 Presidential Election could hinge on turnout. The urban-rural divide is one of the most important dividing lines in American politics today, with cities and urban areas being home to more liberal and Democrat-leaning voters. With turnout highest among older, white voters, and with rural voters being more conservative, an effort to drive turnout among urban and suburban voters can sway elections, as Andy Beshear’s 5,000-vote victory demonstrates.

Heading into 2020, however, the issues which endeared Kentuckians to Beshear may not necessarily translate to a national audience. A red state Democrat may be able to connect in the issues with the voters in his or her own state, but would a Democrat from a more liberal state, such as California or Massachusetts, be able to connect in the same way? As with the Kentucky gubernatorial election, whether or not the Democrats will be successful in the 2020 Presidential Election may come down to the candidate.

So while the Democrats will no doubt be pleased with their capture of the Kentucky governor’s mansion from the Republicans, be careful when describing the result as a major blow for Donald Trump: it is not as straightforward as that.

One year to go: five scenarios for the 2020 Presidential Election

The 2020 Presidential Election will take place exactly one year from today. Donald Trump is running for a second term as President, and despite a handful reasonably well-known primary challengers, the Republican Party is likely to endorse him for a second term without too much of a primary season. Meanwhile, the Democratic primary contests continue, although  with a slightly smaller field after Beto O’Rourke’s exit on Friday.

But – looking a year ahead into the future – what is the outcome of the Presidential Election likely to be? Many people are looking at states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to once again swing the outcome of the election, but what’s the picture around these states? In this post I consider five possible outcomes for the 2020 presidential election to give you an idea about what the Electoral College map might look like once all the votes are counted. These are just scenarios, not necessarily predictions of the election outcome; we’re just running through what we might see.

1)  Trump holds his own

This is probably the most likely outcome for the election, looking at it from a year out. This scenario sees Trump winning in 2020 with almost exactly the same outcome as in 2016. Once again, attention is going to be back on the Rust Belt; this is where Trump has been focusing much of his efforts throughout the last three years trying to deliver on his promises of manufacturing jobs and tax cuts. While this hasn’t always been successful, all that Trump needs to do to secure re-election is to convince these voters that he is still a better hope for their jobs, families and wellbeing than the Democrats would be. To that end, it is more than likely that we will see Donald Trump focussing his re-election campaign in the Rust Belt.

Within this outcome there is also a very real chance that Donald Trump could pick up a state or two that he didn’t win last time (such as Minnesota – illustrated here as an example – or New Hampshire), seeing as no two presidential elections have ever produced identical outcomes to each other. Trump could also potentially afford to lose a state or two and still win the election; out of the Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Donald Trump only needs to win one of these three states in order to win the election, provided he can hold on to the rest of the Republican states from 2016. Chances are though that, if he wins, he will take a state he didn’t win last time.

2) The Rust Belt falls away

This, along with the first map, is one of the more likely outcomes, but shows a Democrat victory. This map demonstrates just how precarious Trump’s election was in 2016; his victory rested on Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania which he won by just 23,000 votes, 11,000 votes and 44,000 votes respectively. In the most immediate sense, the Democratic nominee would only need to win over these 78,000 voters to flip the Electoral College (provided the rest of the map stayed the same).

This is certainly the easiest path to victory for the Democrats. But all of this will hinge on whether the Democrats can effectively learn from their campaign mistakes from 2016; to recover Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidate will need to convince wayward Democratic voters that they will do better for them than what Donald Trump is doing, or will continue to do, and focus on blue collar concerns such as job security. However, if the Democrats puss a platform that is too progressive and seems too heavily influenced by interests from the East and West Coasts, then we will likely see the 2020 election map looking more like the first scenario.

3) A new generation of swing states

Whilst it an unlikely approach, the Democrats could also find a path to victory through new target states in the Sun Belt: the south and south west. The Democrats have focused efforts in recent years on Arizona, Texas and Georgia, competing in high-profile Senate and Gubernatorial elections in these states in 2018. They are likely to re-focus these efforts in 2020: Arizona will see a highly-competitive special election: incumbent Republican Martha McSally will face a tough challenge to win the seat in her own right, having been appointed to John McCain’s old seat in January this year. In Texas, the Democrats will be looking to improve on Beto O’Rourke’s Senate election in 2018 when they take on senior Republican John Cornyn. In Georgia, meanwhile, the retirement of Republican Senator Johnny Isakson leaves an opportunity for the Democrats to snap up an open seat. With the attention it will no doubt generate for the Presidential election, these races could not have come at a better time.

This kind of scenario would be much more of a longshot, but the Democrats could potentially identify a weak spot in Trump’s campaign, especially if the President focuses too heavily on his Rust Belt strategy, and if his message on illegal immigration and border security fails to capture voters’ interest a second time around. I think it is unlikely that any of these states will fall to the Democrats in 2020 – Arizona is probably their best bet – but it could demonstrate the dangers of Trump focusing his campaign too narrowly.

4)  Trump: Man of the People

Looking beyond the narrow wins to the more unlikely scenarios: here we have to imagine a scenario in which Donald Trump enters 2020 with a refined message which resonates across the country. If coupled with a haphazard, chaotic and divided Democratic campaign and an electorate open to Trump’s message of jobs, the economy, law and order and border security, then this scenario may seem less far-fetched than it looks: every state picked up by Donald Trump on this map requires a swing of less than 5%.

However, there are two key problems here: first of all, this sort of map assumes a uniform swing across the country; while perhaps Nevada, Minnesota or New Hampshire could still swing to Trump under normal circumstances, it will be a difficult task for the Republicans to maintain this sort of swing in states like Virginia or Colorado, which have more of a pro-Democrat trend. Secondly, Trump’s personal approval is – to put it mildly – not good, raking in negative scores even in Republican states such as Montana, Nebraska and Utah, as well as some Republican-trending states of Iowa and Ohio. This sort of map might be manageable for a more mainstream Republican nominee with better ratings, but stranger things have happened before.

4)  Democratic washout

Just as unlikely as a Trump landslide in 2020 would be a Democratic landslide. On the one hand, a less-than 5% uniform nationwide swing in the other direction would see a number of key swing states fall to the Democrats, including Florida and North Carolina, as well as Arizona and Georgia. Beyond that, a big swing could bring down now-Republican states Ohio and Iowa, and Texas (although I think the Democrats’ chances of turning Texas blue are overstated). On the other hand, if we consider the results of last year’s midterm elections, there is nothing from that night or since which suggests the Democrats will walk it in 2020: whilst the Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives and won a handful of governorships, they were also rolled back in the Senate and lost a number of races which they were thought to be favoured in. Just as there are no signs pointing to a sweep for Trump, there is nothing to suggest the Democrats will enjoy this success.

However, if it were to happen, we would see movement beyond the Rust Belt; indeed, the Rust Belt would likely not even be the epicentre of the Democrats’ victory. The Democrats would also be able to show that they are capable of winning Presidential Elections in almost every region of the US.

So what can we expect?

The 2020 Presidential Election is likely to be close and uncertain. The final Electoral College map is likely to be somewhere between the first and second scenario, with focus once again being on the Rust Belt and Upper Midwest; even if a state like Arizona or Georgia comes into play for the Democrats, I doubt that could be done without some sort of ripple effect being felt in Michigan. Similarly, it is unlikely that Donald Trump could break ground in Minnesota for example whilst taking a careless loss in the South. However, as Donald Trump proved three years ago, there are no real rules to winning the Presidential Election. We could well be surprised, but I am going to remain fairly conservative with my estimate.

In case you missed it: Louisiana Gubernatorial Election round-up

On Saturday, the first major election in the lead-up to 2020’s elections took place: the race for the office of Governor of Louisiana. Incumbent Democrat John Bel Edwards was running for re-election to a second term.

Edwards was facing, among others, Republican Representative for Louisiana’s 5th District, Ralph Abraham, and businessman Eddie Rispone and perennial candidate Patrick Landry, both also running as Republicans. Also running in the election were Omar Dantzler, another Democratic candidate, and independent Gary Landrieu.

The result of the election was that Edwards took 46.6% of the vote, with Rispone taking 27.4%, and the more-favoured Abraham just behind on 23.6%. However, in this election, there was no winner as a result of the count. This is because this was a runoff election; as no candidate obtained more than 50% of the vote, the top two candidates – Edwards and Rispone – will go forward to a final general election on November 16th.

Louisiana does not hold Republican or Democratic primaries for state-wide or local offices, such as for Governor or United States Senator, hence why Saturday’s election saw multiple candidates running under the Republican or Democrat label: a similar system exists in California, where it is not uncommon to see a US Senate election take place between two Democrats, as it did in both 2018 and 2016.

John Bel Edwards occupies an interesting position: he is the last remaining Democratic governor of a state in the Deep South; a region which historically was almost unilaterally Democratic. Louisiana gave Franklin D. Roosevelt as much as 92.8% of the vote in 1932, and never less than 80% in the four Presidential Elections he fought. The state was also carried by Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968 in their breakaway Democrat campaigns; the state’s Democratic roots run deep. The state also voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976, and backed Bill Clinton twice.

Whilst much of the Deep South is now largely reliable Republican territory, there are still some deep blue pockets across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Edwards as a governor, however, has pursued a largely conservative platform: during his first term, Edwards signed strident anti-abortion legislation into law, has largely adopted a pro-second amendment stance, and has sought to protect police officers by making targeting of an officer a hate crime, through what is known as a “Blue Lives Matter” law. He also opposes Common Core.

So how is Edwards likely to fare, as a conservative outpost sentry in a left moving party, running for re-election in a more solidly Republican state? Looking at the vote tally from Saturday’s election, the three Republican candidates’ vote tallies added up to 51.8%; enough to have won the ballot if all the voters rallied around one candidate. But, of course, that is not always how it works, and not every Republican voter will vote for every Republican candidate.

If we look back to Edwards’s performance in his first gubernatorial election in 2015, Edwards only took 39% of the first round vote, compared to 57% shared between three Republicans. In the general election that year, however, Edwards defeated his Republican runoff opponent, David Ritter, by 56-44%. So looking at Saturday’s results, we can see that Edwards has already made a significant improvement in first round votes alone; an extra 3.4% of the vote would have put him over the line for the election, without the need for a run-off. These figures suggest that Edwards has certainly not been doing too badly as governor.

John Bel Edwards will now face off against businessman Eddie Rispone on November 16. At this point, and considering the improvement in his first-round results, Edwards’s chances of re-election are certainly looking good. However, this is a day and age where being a successful businessmen is an attractive offer for a candidate for political office, regardless of any prior experience, and also of political polarisation: the Democrats are becoming much more progressive, and conservatives such as Edwards are more of an endangered breed within the party. So to that end, Edwards will still be facing a battle for re-election.

Now on to tonight’s main feature: the CNN Democratic Debate from Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio – where I was a student.

The Democrats are formally moving to impeach Trump. But what will they actually achieve?

Impeachment is a topic that has never really left the forefront of political debate when it comes to the Trump administration. Indeed, it is an issue which I have discussed previously on my blog as well as on my US politics podcast, The Spin Off. And once again it is tonight’s hot issue; this evening, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that her party would begin a formal impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump.

This particular move towards impeachment relates to a telephone call that President Trump made in July to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump is said to have put pressure on Zelensky to work with Rudy Giuliani to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, possibly in order to try and compromise Biden’s 2020 presidential election campaign. The President is also accused of withholding aid from Ukraine until they agreed to co-operate, although Trump has said this was unrelated to any investigation of Biden.

This issue is separate to the issue of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 Presidential election, which failed to definitively accuse the President of any wrongdoing with regards to his possible involvement in the interference (although it didn’t clear him of any wrongdoing, either). However, this is an incredibly serious allegation: the President is alleged to have put pressure on the Ukrainian president to potentially interfere in the 2020 Presidential election. Pelosi announced Tuesday afternoon that, by asking a foreign power to provide dirt against one of his potential 2020 Presidential election rivals, amounts to “betrayal of the oath of office, betraya; of [the US’s] national security, and the betrayal of the integrity of elections”. If nothing else, Donald Trump has always professed his innocence with regards to the previous Mueller report and Russian interference in the 2016 election; this allegation, to say the least, certainly does not look good in light of the investigation.

For those who are not familiar with how the impeachment process works, here’s a quick rundown: impeachment is permitted under Article II, Section 4 of the US Constitution. In the event that a president commits “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”, the House of Representatives will vote for articles of impeachment, which are similar to criminal charges. The House can then vote to impeach a President through a simple majority (50% of votes plus one). The impeachment process will then get handed to the Senate for a trial presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The Senate can then vote to convict the President, but they will need a two-thirds majority to convict him.

It’s worth remembering, also, that only two Presidents – Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton – have been impeached; both were acquitted in the Senate. The House of Representatives voted in favour of articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon in 1974, but Nixon resigned before impeachment processes could begin.

If the President is convicted, then he will be removed from office. It is largely assumed that the Vice President – in this case, Mike Pence – would be sworn in as President. However, as no President has ever been removed from office in this way, this in itself would likely generate some debate.

So what does this mean for Donald Trump? As the Democrats control the House of Representatives, it is fairly likely that they would be able to vote to approve articles of impeachment; NBC News reported in May this year that 180 House Democrats favoured some sort of impeachment against the President. Assuming this number holds up, then the Democrats would need fewer than 40 of the 55 remaining House Democrats to side for impeachment; that’s without counting former Michigan Republican Justin Amash or any other GOP House members who might decide to vote to impeach.

However, beyond that lies the same obstacle to impeachment for the Democrats which has always existed through the Trump Presidency: the Senate is controlled by the Republicans. Even if the Democrats can get enough House votes to begin impeachment of the President, it will be highly unlikely – barring any new and exceptional information which comes out during the investigation – that two-thirds of the Senate will vote to convict the President. Unless Pelosi and the House Democrats are simply looking to make a point by impeaching the President, there is little more than defeat in the Senate which they can expect to come out of this inquiry. However, the Democrats will likely want to use the opportunity to make an example of Trump and indicate that there are behaviours from the President which will not go unchecked, even if he is not removed from office.

For himself, President Trump has said he will release the unredacted transcript of the telephone call with Zelensky; unless this turns out to be a smoking gun, Trump will likely use this as a way of showing he has nothing to hide. And there is still the question of 2020; the Democrats are still at risk of being punished in the 2020 elections – both in the Presidential race and in control of the House – if the impeachment process fails badly if it turns out there is little to substantiate the accusations, or if the Democrats are seen to be acting purely out of partisan interests. Indeed, the President still contends that impeachment proceedings will still be positive for him.

I have always had the feeling that, as long as the Democrats were in control of the House of Representatives, it was always a question of when – rather than if – the Democrats would move to impeach Donald Trump. However, as with throughout the Trump presidency, the numbers have been against him. Calling an impeachment inquiry is a declaration of war by Nancy Pelosi, but without the numbers in Congress, the decision on whether to remove Donald Trump from office may simply end up being deferred to a higher authority: the voters at the ballot box in November 2020.

Unpacking the North Carolina 9th District special election

Tuesday, September 10th saw a special election taking place in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. A vacancy existed in this district after the 2018 election was declared void; an investigation into voting irregularities by the North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Reform resulted in the board refusing to certify the results of the November election. Therefore, this election was essentially a re-run of the November 2018 election.

So to give a bit of background: North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District was seen as a highly marginal House seat ahead of the 2018 midterm elections in a year where the Democrats’ key prize would be winning control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans. And in the end, the district was indeed highly marginal: Republican candidate Mark Harris bested Democrat Dan McCready by just 905 votes.

However, allegations emerged of ballot tampering in the election, especially with regards to absentee ballots. McCready, who was entitled to a recount under North Carolina election law, called for the North Carolina Board of Elections to investigate the allegations, and the board approved a new election after Harris himself called for one, saying that the confidence of the district’s voters had been undermined in the previous election. Harris then declined to run again as the Republican candidate.

So, on Tuesday – ten months after the void election – voters once again went to the polls, with Dan McCready facing off against Republican State Senator Dan Bishop. The district includes some suburban areas around Charlotte, the state’s biggest city, and includes parts of Mecklenburg County, which backed Hillary Clinton by nearly 30 points over Donald Trump in 2016.

Once all the votes were counted on Tuesday night, Republican candidate Dan Bishop, held on to the district taking 96,081 votes – or 50.7% of the vote – to Democrat Dan McCready’s 92,144 votes (48.7%). A two-point Republican victory certainly appears narrow, especially considering that former Congressman Robert Pittenger won by over 16 points here in 2016, and President Donald Trump carried this district himself by 12 points in that same year.

However, Bishop’s 3,937 vote lead in Tuesday’s election over McCready is still several times the 905 votes that separated Harris from McCready in November 2018. Considering the possible legal issues surrounding the ballot-tampering issue and the subsequent attention which was generated for the race, as well as the personal approval of President Donald Trump and his hopes for re-election next year, the GOP will no doubt be pleased with this outcome.

But what does the result really mean for Democrats and Republicans, both nationally and within the district? As a result of recent issues in the state surrounding redistricting, there is not a long history of election results from this district that we can consider without digging deep into the county and precinct results (and there is not enough space in this entry to do that). But here is what we can look at from the election results since 2016, when the current Congressional District boundaries date from:

The above table shows the results for each county in North Carolina’s 9^th District in the three elections since 2016. As we can see, the district has seen huge shifts within its boundaries, and largely towards the Democrats: the portion of Mecklenburg County within the District – home to the south-western suburbs of Charlotte – has seen a 14 point swing from the Republicans to the Democrats since 2016, while Union County, which itself is part of the Charlotte-Concord metro area, has seen an almost 8-point swing in the same period. While Union County remains a fairly reliable Republican county, it demonstrates that the Republicans – likely influenced by Donald Trump – continue to have a suburban problem.

Ultimately though, the result of the special election represents a slight unwind overall for the Democrats from 2018. Districts such as North Carolina’s 9^th – with its mix of urban and rural voters – could be seen as bellwether districts, especially considering the importance of suburban voters. A good result for the Democrats in this special election, given all the attention this race has had, would perhaps indicate that they are heading for a solid series of results against Donald Trump and the Republicans in 2020. However, that indication is not present in this race.

What this result does show for the Democrats, however, is a continued strength in formerly GOP-leaning suburban seats: as the urban/rural divide continues to be one of the most important schisms in voting behaviour, so we can see how the divide plays out in seats such as this which have both large rural and suburban voter bases. Trump continues to have difficulty among suburban voters who would have happily backed John McCain or Mitt Romney, but have shifted allegiance away from the President. However, the fact is that the Republicans held their own in this District, despite the baggage that this re-run election came with. When placed in the context of the urban-suburban-rural divides in American voting today, despite the close-run result, this election actually indicates a decent Republican performance.

So let’s look ahead to 2020: North Carolina is likely to be an important state at every level in 2020, with a huge slew of key elections taking place; aside from the President, the Tar Heel state will also elect a Senator and Governor in what are likely to be highly marginal contests. The state also contains a handful of highly competitive House districts. Democratic Governor Roy Cooper is up for re-election, having won in 2016 by just 0.2 points, while Republican Senator Richard Burr – who won by just over 5 points in 2014 – will be seeing to hold of a challenge from the Democrats who will be looking to scrape together as many Senate seats as they can in what will likely be an uphill battle.

However, it’s only now 14 months until the next election in North Carolina’s 9^th District – as well as all the other elections taking place. If you like exciting election results, you won’t want to look away from the Tar Heel State in that time.

Robert Mueller has spoken publicly about his findings. What happens now?

On Wednesday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller made a public statement regarding his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. This was Mueller’s first public comment on the investigation in the two years which it has been running for, when it was triggered by President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey; Comey had been investigating suggestions that the Trump Campaign had possible connections to Russian officials who were attempting to undermine the election.

Mueller’s statement was essentially to state that his investigation was now closed and that, his job done, he would be resigning as special counsel and returning to private practice. Mueller reiterated the content of his investigation, which took the form of two parts: the first being an investigation into the extent that Russian actors interfered in the election. The second part was the extent to which the President had obstructed justice.

For the first part, Mueller stated unequivocally that there were “numerous efforts emanating from Russia to influence the election” in 2016. Those efforts involved hacking into computers used by the Hillary Clinton campaign, and the stealing and releasing of private information through Wikileaks. Mueller also stated that Russian citizens would pose as US citizens on social media in order to try to influence voters. This section of the report also considers the Trump Campaign’s response to this activity, but found that there was “insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy”. The second part of the report concerned the investigation into whether there had been any obstruction of justice by the President. Finally, Mueller ended his statement by re-iterating that “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election” had taken place.

As you may be aware, the Mueller Report was not able to lay any cause for indictment on the President. However, neither did the report clear him of any wrongdoing. Mueller said “If we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime”.

What this means, of course, is that while the President has not been convicted, possibly due to a lack of evidence, he has not been completely exonerated, either. For some opponents of the President, this still leaves the door open to charges which can be brought against the President. However, the report agrees with Department of Justice policy that a President cannot be charged with a federal crime while in office, as this would be unconstitutional. There had previously been some discussion – and disagreement – over whether Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh shared this view, as some commentators thought that Kavanaugh, once appointed, would simply use this vote to that end to try and protect the President should he be indicted. However, it seems that Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice share the view that a sitting President cannot be indicted in criminal cases.

However, investigation of a sitting President is permitted according to the report – and carrying out such investigations is “important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available”, Mueller said, and that any evidence turned up by an investigation can also be used against co-conspirators, if not the President himself. One interpretation I offered of Kavanaugh’s view in a previous episode of my American politics podcast, The Spin Off, was that perhaps a President would need to be impeached and removed from office before any charges could be brought.

Which brings us to impeachment: the Mueller report clearly states that Congress reserves the right to begin impeachment proceedings against the President. In fact, page 8 of the report states that “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President ‘s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.” Congressman Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee – which has the power to initiate impeachment proceedings – stated that Congress will now “respond to the crimes, lies and other wrongdoing of President Trump”. Nadler did not state, however, whether that response would include any kind of impeachment process.

However, just because Mueller’s report said that Congress can impeach Trump, he did not say and it does not mean that they should.  But that has not stopped key Democratic figures such as 2020 Presidential candidates Kamala Harris  and Elizabeth Warren from referring to Mueller’s report as an “impeachment referral”, and numerous others from calling for impeachment proceedings to begin. Of course, it goes without saying that Congress would need to obtain evidence beyond that given in the Mueller Report that President Trump had committed an impeachable offense. While the Mueller Report was not able to definitively rule that Trump has not committed any obstruction of justice, the fact that it was not able to do so is not automatically proof of guilt, or that there is necessarily more truth to be uncovered. “It would be unfair to potentially accuse someone of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge”, Mueller states; this is no different whether that someone is the President or a private citizen. Beyond that, there has been question over whether Robert Mueller would testify in front of Congress, should they conduct their own investigations (as they would be within their right to); however, Mueller has stated that the report is his testimony, and that he would have nothing further to add should he be asked to speak to Congress.

So what does this statement from Robert Mueller change, both for the Trump Presidency and for Congress? The answer, in reality, is probably very little. Throughout the investigation, the President has claimed that the investigation has been a witch hunt and that there is no evidence of collusion or obstruction; since its publishing, he states he is exonerated and the case is closed. The President has also continually decried and demeaned Mueller and his investigation; if nothing else, it is not a good look for someone who wanted to be shown as innocent. As for the Democrats, I imagine there are few outcomes the report could have had which did not result in key party figures calling for the President’s impeachment.

In any case, the House Democrats would do well to think carefully before pressing on with impeachment, which no doubt many of them would like to do. Impeachment, while having the potential to remove Trump from office, would be a very risky decision to make: aside from the fact that impeachment would almost certainly not clear the Republican-controlled Senate, it would likely be an unpopular move with voters. According to a Morning Consult poll from April, just 34% of voters support impeachment of the President, compared to 48% who oppose it. This figure includes 59% of Democrats and 31% of independents. However, 44% of independents are opposed to impeachment, as well as a majority of voters in the Midwest, the region which sealed Trump’s election in 2016. It is too early to say if Mueller’s statement or the release of the report will change any of these figures – I imagine not – but the Democrats can ill-afford to alienate these groups just a year before a Presidential election.

So where do we go from here? The key detail to look out for is how big a deal the Democrats make of impeachment – and for how long. Donald Trump could spin this to his advantage with voters if he can show he is continuing to run a business-as-usual government while the Democrats obsess over impeachment. So to Democratic 2020 Presidential candidates who are calling for impeachment proceedings to begin in light of the report, I would make the following three points of advice: firstly, I hope that they have real evidence of any kind of obstruction or wrongdoing by the President. Secondly, they will more than likely not have the votes for impeachment to succeed. Thirdly, I hope they consider how this move might be received by voters, especially if it fails.

All of the above aside, Mueller closed his statement by saying that the fact that there was external interference in the 2016 Presidential Election deserves “the attention of every American”. A free and fair Democratic system is hat separates free countries from authoritarian regimes. Investigations such as the Mueller Report are worth holding in order to protect and uphold such systems, and if any public figure actively sought to profit from such interference, then of course they must be investigated. But this must be done purely on evidence and not out of dislike for that figure.

So by all means, the Democrats can push for impeachment of President Trump if they so feel there is a case to be made, but they will do so at their own risk.

You can read the Mueller Report here, and watch Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s statement in full here. All quotes unless otherwise sourced are from the report or the statement.