20 BriefingThe Democratic race The EconomistFebruary 8th 2020
2 would cost $34trn over ten years.
Unlike Ms Warren, who got into a da-
maging flap over costing a similar promise
and has since retreated to a position of
“transitioning to” Medicare for All, Mr
Sanders is not fazed by such numbers. He
talks in broad terms of payroll taxes on em-
ployers and tax rises for wealthy and mid-
dle-class households (which he insists
would be more than offset by reduced
health-care costs). But he feels little need to
trouble himself with specifics.
Mr Sanders would not be able to afford
such nonchalance as president. Even if he
were gifted a Democratic Senate and
House, they would dread putting to the test
his claim that Americans “would be de-
lighted to pay more in taxes” to cover a
comprehensive health-care system. Some
of his surrogates softly proclaim him open
to compromise, and cast his maximalism
as more of an opening position than a fixed
point. This suggests that, one way or an-
other, the supporters to whom he promises
radical change (and lots of free stuff ) might
find the reality of a Sanders presidency a
terrible disappointment.
The prospect of a generation’s unrealis-
tic idealism curdling, though, is not what
most worries other Democrats about a
Sanders candidacy. What they worry about
most is that, like that fiery populist Wil-
liam Jennings Bryan, he would lead them to
defeat. Socialised medicine may not turn
off voters as much as it once did; socialism,
though, is still an unpopular idea outside
the world of millennial urbanites.
Mr Trump would hammer Mr Sanders’s
proposals for a moratorium on deporting
illegal immigrants, breaking up the Immi-
gration and Customs Enforcement—since
2002 the country’s primary immigration-
enforcement agency—and decriminalis-
ing unauthorised entry into the country. In
swing states that produce oil and gas—no-
tably Pennsylvania—he would make hay
with Mr Sanders’s proposed fracking ban.
Some of his attacks might be odd—at a rally
in Des Moines four days before the caucus-
es he warned that the Green New Deal
would “kill our cows”—but that does not
mean they would be ineffective.
Mr Sanders is hardly a sure thing. But
Mr Biden, long seen as topping the league
in terms of electability, has started to falter,
and the lead he enjoys over Mr Sanders in
The Economist’s aggregate of national prim-
ary polls was narrowing even before the
caucuses. With more candidates than usu-
al getting tickets out of Iowa, Mr Sanders’s
particularly devoted fan base could im-
prove his chances of winning a plurality, if
not a majority. Betting markets have him
the front-runner. His support has been
inching up in South Carolina and he is in
the lead in California, the biggest of the 14
“Super Tuesday” states which, along with
American Samoa and Democrats Abroad,choose their candidates on March 3rd.
Mr Buttigieg, on the other hand, is cur-
rently polling sufficiently poorly in New
Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada
that he will need a peculiarly bountiful
Iowa bounce to win in any of them. He is
doing particularly poorly with black voters.
His charm and popularity might cost Mr Bi-
den a victory without winning one for him-
self. To avoid this, some mainstream
Democrats may turn instead towards Ms
Warren, suspecting her more likely than
Mr Sanders of tacking to the mainstream.
That would be likely to give Wall Street a fit
of the vapours.But dawn is breaking
Voters could instead look elsewhere. As the
Iowa circus flew into the New Hampshire
morning, none with more than a dozen or
so delegates, Mike Bloomberg was on a
rather longer flight from California, which
has 415 delegates up for grabs on Super
Tuesday, to Michigan, where the primary a
week later will decide the loyalties of a fur-
ther 125. All told, the polls on March 3rd and
10th will provide 43% of the pledged dele-
gates, more than ten times as many as
those that can be won in all the primaries
and caucuses of February. Taking this into
account, Mr Bloomberg, a media entrepre-
neur and former (Republican) mayor of
New York, is building his campaign for the
Democratic nomination on the idea that
running in the early states is not necessary
if you are really rich.
This makes him, for now, literally un-
beatable—how can you beat someone who
isn’t there? He has also avoided innumera-
ble fish fries, town halls and other intimate
settings that favour practised, glad-hand-
ing politicians over uncharismatic billion-
aire technocrats. This abnegation denies
him the possible advantages of early victo-ries and whatever momentum they might
offer. But he thinks he can make good that
lack by spending truly remarkable sums on
advertising in the states where he is run-
ning: according toFiveThirtyEight, a web-
site, he has spent $255m so far, more than
the rest of the field combined.
The strategy remains widely seen as a
long-shot. But it has made an impression
in national polling, where pre-Iowa he had
pulled clear of Mr Buttigieg, his fellow ex-
mayor. The Democratic National Commit-
tee has altered the rules for its televised de-
bates in a way that makes it possible for
him to participate in one later this month.
If Mr Biden’s campaign has not recovered
by Super Tuesday—a situation Mr Bloom-
berg’s ads may encourage—he might
change the contours of the race.
But as everyone else was flying around,
the person who may have done best out of
Iowa was tucked up in his doubtless splen-
did bed—or at least not tweeting. Demo-
crats had expected that disapproval of Mr
Trump would lead to much higher turnout
at this year’s caucuses than 2016’s. It did
not. After a year in which you couldn’t
shake a corn-dog in Iowa without hitting a
presidential wannabe, voters may have
found the whole field rather uninspiring.
On Monday around 80 of Mr Trump’s
surrogates—cabinet members, supportive
legislators and his family—fanned out
across Iowa where, unsurprisingly for a sit-
ting president with no serious challengers,
he won 97% of the vote. The next day the
president delivered a jubilant state-of-the-
union address. And in Wednesday’s vote on
impeachment Republican senators backed
him even more resoundingly than Iowa
caucusers had. The Republicans will go
into the campaign united. The Democrats
have a lot of flights to take before they can
promise the same. 7Two potential beneficiaries, back when they played with each other