The first Democratic debate was the real beginning of the 2020 political season. This was the exciting beginning of something new and long overdue — a group of strong women running for president of these United States. They showed the world that they were perfectly capable of and at times exceeding their male opponents in the debates. Here are some of the results.
It appeared, in an Economist-YouGov Poll and a Morning Consult-Politico Survey that the Democrats were beating the Republicans on a generic congressional ballot if the 2020 presidential election were held today.
The Democrats came in with a powerful lead, 48 percent versus 39 percent for the Republicans in the Economist-YouGov poll. They had an even stronger lead in the Morning Consult-Politico survey 45 percent to 35 percent.
The reason behind this was that the Dems were taking over traditional GOP voters. It appeared that the Democratic party was building upon the momentum of its strong win in the 2018 midterm elections.
They wish to retain that enthusiasm plus the traditionally higher presidential election year vote would expand the existing House of Representatives majority. The blue wave brought them 40 new seats in 2018. A presidential year could grow that number.
The Democrats especially want to take back the Senate seats they lost in the midterm, 53-47, and add a few more so that they would control both houses of Congress. That would make a huge difference, because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has had all legislation and judicial appointments in a stranglehold for the past 10 years.
He even stole President Barack Obama’s last Supreme Court nominee, saying the Senate could not vote for a justice in the year of a presidential election. Of course, he recently said that only applied to Democratic presidents.
In the Economist/YouGov Poll, male registered voters would vote for the Democratic candidate in their district 44 percent to 43 percent. The numbers were 42 percent for and 39 against in the Morning Consult-Political Survey. However, Republicans were only three percentage points behind them in this survey and within the margin of error.
Representative Cheri Bustos (R-IL) who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said:
‘2018 was just the tip of the iceberg for Democrats. We have a clear path to expanding the Democratic majority.’
The DCCC released its plan to overtake 33 Republican-held or open seats in 2020. The Democrats were especially looking at open seats, too, in the suburbs of Texas.
Bustos told The Washington Post that the Democrats were going to rely on “our core values as Democrats:”
‘Everybody has to navigate their own district, and who am I to prescribe how anybody does that? I just think, our core values as Democrats, we’re pretty much on the same page. We want to make sure that people have opportunities to do better.’
She added that the House could lose its majority in 2020:
“We lose 17 seats, and we don’t have a majority anymore. That’s pretty fragile, Who are they to say what the litmus test is? Who is anybody to say?’
The Economist-YouGov Poll interviewed a total of 1,265 registered voters in the time period between July 30 through July 2. Its margin of error was 2.8 percent, which is relatively low. The Morning Consult-Politico Survey interviewed 1,472 registered voters in the period between July 29 through July 1. Its margin of error was three percentage points.
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