Welcome to 2020 Vision, the new Yahoo News column covering the presidential race. Reminder: There are 311 days until the Iowa caucuses, and 585 days until the 2020 presidential election.
[Who’s running for president? Click here for Yahoo News’ 2020 tracker]
The Buttigieg effect
Buoyed by an impressive appearance at a CNN town hall, Pete Buttigieg is becoming something of a sensation in this very early stage of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. In an Emerson University poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers released Monday, the 37-year-old openly gay former mayor of South Bend, Ind., came in third (11 percent) behind frontrunners former Vice President Joe Biden (25 percent) and Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent-Vt., (24 percent). Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., (10 percent) was the only other candidate to clear double digits. In Emerson’s January Iowa poll, Buttigieg was polling at zero percent — not bad for a candidate who told voters in Manchester, N.H., earlier this month that “I think it’s safe to say I’m not extremely famous.”
Buttigieg’s battle for name recognition got another bump Friday with a profile on the front page of the New York Times. Headline: “He’s Caught On With Voters, However They Say His Name.” (For the record, it’s “BOOT-edge-edge,” Buttigieg says.)
He told the Times that the Democratic Party’s lack of a winning message led to Trump’s election in 2016 — and it could happen again.
“I think there’s still an attitude in some parts of the party that what we have to do is find the final proof that Trump’s a bad guy and show it to everybody,” Buttigieg said. “What it misses is there’s a lot of people where I live who were under no illusions about his character. They already get that he’s a bad guy, but they made a decision with their eyes open to vote to burn the house down.”
And earlier this week, Buttigieg stopped by “The Breakfast Club,” a nationally syndicated radio show that has become a must-stop for 2020 candidates looking to reach an audience of mostly young black listeners. On the show, Buttigieg discussed a number of hot-button topics, including Chick-fil-A and its founder’s controversial stance against same-sex marriage.
“I do not approve of their politics, but I kind of approve of their chicken,” Buttigieg said.
He even joked that he could unite the gay community and fast-food chain.
“Maybe if nothing else, I can build that bridge,” Buttigieg said. “Maybe I’ll become in a position to broker that peace deal.”
Who?
Speaking of mayors, Wayne Messam, mayor of Miramar, Fla., announced this week that he is running for president. Miramar is a city of 140,000, inland from the Atlantic Coast between Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
In an interview with CNN, Messam spoke about being a son of Jamaican immigrants.
“My father came to this country from Jamaica as a contract sugarcane cutter,” he said, “chasing the American dream. And I’m living that American dream. But I see that American dream slipping away for a lot of people.”
“He is the longest of shots, the darkest of horses,” the Miami Herald noted. “What media coverage he’s been able to nail down so far has focused mostly around the question of why. As in, why do this?”
“Just to be blunt, I think a lot of people are seeing this announcement and are saying, ‘Who?’ And ‘from where?’”
— CNN’s John Berman to Miramar, Fla., Mayor Wayne Messam, who announced his 2020 presidential bid this week
Welcome to Miami
The Democratic National Committee announced Miami as the site of the first Democratic debate of the 2020 presidential cycle, which will take place over two nights on June 26 and June 27. The event will be hosted by NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo.
To qualify for a spot on the debate stage, a candidate must receive donations from at least 65,000 donors in at least 20 states and poll at 1 percent or more in at least three national or early-state polls, according to the DNC.
As of Friday, 13 candidates appeared to qualify.
Trump’s post-Mueller ‘victory’ tour
In his first rally since special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was delivered to the attorney general, President Trump offered a preview of attack lines voters will likely hear often over the next 20 months. He was speaking in Grand Rapids, Mich., a key swing state, on Thursday night.
• He declared himself totally exonerated by Mueller probe, which is not true. The special counsel said that although he “does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” according to a four-page summary of the report issued by Attorney General William Barr.
• He lashed out at both probe itself and congressional Democrats who are vowing to continue it. “After three years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead,” Trump said. “The Democrats now have to decide whether they will continue defrauding the public with ridiculous bullshit.” (He referred to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence committee, as “Little Pencil Neck Adam Schiff.” That was a step up from the time last November when Trump, in a tweet, spelled Schiff’s name with two t’s.)
• And he again said the “the Republican Party will become the party of great health care,” although there is no GOP plan for a replacement for Obamacare.
Also worth noting: Donald Trump Jr. warmed up the crowd in Grand Rapids with an attack on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and her Green New Deal, which lead to a chant of “AOC sucks!” The refrain was a reminder of how Trump rallies have come to resemble sporting events, with Trump standing in for the home team and Democrats as the hated rivals. Can you imagine in 2011 the crowd at a Barack Obama rally chanting insults at, say, Republican Congress members Trey Gowdy or Mike Pompeo? You can’t. But that was pre-Trump.
One 2020 Democratic hopeful defends Trump
Mueller reported Trump did not collude with Russia to influence our elections. Now we must put aside partisan interests, move forward, and work to unite our country to deal with the serious challenges we face. pic.twitter.com/xTkHkyrAxp
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) March 28, 2019
Bernie vs. Beto
Supporters of Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke have been bombarded in recent days with emails and texts messages soliciting small campaign contributions ahead of the March 31 Federal Election Commission deadline to publicly report fundraising.
It’s not so much a push for fundraising as it is for bragging rights. Both Sanders and O’Rourke are vying for the mantle of the candidate with the most grassroots support. In its first 24 hours, the Sanders campaign raised nearly $6 million from just under 225,000 people, with an average donation of $27, according to a Sanders campaign release. O’Rourke’s campaign narrowly exceeded that first-day haul, collecting $6.1 million from donors who gave an average of $47.
By the process of arithmetic — dividing $6.1 million by $47 — Sanders’s campaign concluded, in an email to supporters, that “the good news is, we more than likely had a lot more individual donations than he did.”
Now, Sanders is looking to reach a different benchmark: 1 million individual donations by Sunday. According to the Sanders campaign, it received more than 765,000 as of Friday.
Warren’s policy primary
Voters and pundits will spend the next year debating what matters most in the Democratic primary. Is it candidates’ messaging and oratory? Their difficult-to-define “electability”? Their ability to stand up to President Trump in a debate? Or will this be a race based on issues and who has the best ideas on how to solve them?
If the race will be decided on policy papers, the clear leader in the field is Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts senator has spent the last few months rolling out legislative plan after legislative plan. Her latest is meant to appeal to individual farmers by targeting agribusiness, an issue that could be of particular interest to caucus-goers in Iowa, where the plan was introduced in an exclusive article in the Des Moines Register.
“Today a farmer can work hard, do everything right — even get great weather — and still not make it,” wrote Warren in a Medium post spelling out the policy. “It’s not because farmers today are any less resilient, enterprising, or committed than their parents and grandparents were. It’s because bad decisions in Washington have consistently favored the interests of multinational corporations and big business lobbyists over the interests of family farmers.”
The plan would break up big agribusiness companies while rewriting antitrust rules. It really gets into the weeds by proposing a national right-to-repair law that would make it easier for farmers to work on their own equipment. (Manufacturers now often incorporate software in their machinery that prevents do-it-yourself repairs.) Warren has also released policies that would address housing shortages, break up major tech companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook and provide universal childcare. Warren has also proposed a constitutional amendment to address voting rights and abolish the Electoral College. — Christopher Wilson
[Also read: The rent is too damn high, so here’s how some candidates hope to lower it]
Gillibrand’s tax challenge
Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent-Vt., told a CNN town hall audience that he planned on releasing a decade’s worth of tax returns “sooner rather than later.” Sanders was one of many Democratic contenders preaching transparency as a counter to Trump, who refused to release his tax returns during his presidential campaign, or since. But after more than a month, Sanders has yet to release the documents and his campaign told the Washington Post Wednesday that was there was no update on their disclosure. (Sanders released his 2014 tax returns during the 2016 primary cycle.)
The first candidate to release her 2018 returns is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who released hers this week. “This is what transparency and accountability is all about,” said Gillibrand in a YouTube video, revealing that she had paid $29,000 in federal taxes on $214,000 in individual income.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee released his 2007 to 2018 tax returns on "Fox & Friends" Friday while challenging Trump — who has long resisted calls to release his tax returns — to do the same.
"It's time for him to come clean with the American people," Inslee said.
Warren has posted her tax documents from 2008 to 2017 on her website and her campaign told the Post she will add 2018 once they’ve been filed.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, have all said they will release their returns but have not provided timetables. — Christopher Wilson
Another somewhat old white guy? Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is 62, is leaning toward jumping into 2020 race, CNN reported this week. McAuliffe has been telling allies he is likely to declare next month.
‘I think you don’t run for second place.’
— Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost her race for Georgia governor last year, when asked on ABC's "The View" about a report that Joe Biden may launch his 2020 bid with a pledge to choose her as his running mate
WATCH: Sen. Cory Booker describes "nervous" attempt to ask Rosario Dawson for her number https://t.co/IMf0fm1Rcg pic.twitter.com/ytMWfyYTkc
— The Hill (@thehill) March 29, 2019
Weather forecast
Des Moines
• Friday, March 29: Rain, 50°/34°
• Saturday, March 30: Partly cloudy, 42°/23°
• Sunday, March 31: Sunny, 50°/31°
Manchester, N.H.
• Friday, March 29: Showers, 53°/40°
• Saturday, March 30: Showers, 55°/50°
• Sunday, March 31: Rain, 58°/30°
Source: Weather Underground
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