Winnowing Is Finally Working for Democrats
The orderly departure of Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Steyer from the presidential race signals that chaos is receding as a threat.
Nice try.
Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images North America#WinnowingWorks. With the billionaire investor Tom Steyer dropping out of the Democratic presidential nominating contest on Saturday, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg following him on Sunday and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota joining them on Monday, it’s now pretty clear that the same incentives that have pushed out candidates in previous election cycles are still operating in 2020.
Now there are only two serious long-shot candidates left in this week’s Super Tuesday contests to challenge the two front-runners, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Vice President Joe Biden. They are Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and it seems likely that if the polls are correct and they do poorly that they, too, will exit rather than staying in as spoilers. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, said on Monday that he is still “in it to win it,” but all candidates say they're never going to drop out until they actually do.