The center of the U.S. political world moves to Nevada from New Hampshire, then South Carolina and Super Tuesday in 14 states on March 3. If Iowa was a fiasco, the New Hampshire results muddled the Democratic race even more, with Senator Bernie Sanders winning but seeing his vote margin decreasing from 60% in 2016 to under 30% this time around.
More moderate candidates: ex-mayor of Indianapolis Pete Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and ex-vice president Joe Biden received over 50% of the votes. In a bit of a surprising development, in Nevada a key labor union expected to back Sanders decided not to support any candidate largely because Senator Sanders Medicare for All proposal would undermine the health care they have fought to get from their employers.
Hmmm, wonder what the broader meaning is there if Sanders is the eventual Democratic candidate. Looking forward, the opposition of large labor unions to Medicare for All, a key agenda item of the leader of the race, could be a sign of troubles to come. That said the first two primaries have clearly shown that Sanders, not Senator Elizabeth Warren, is the leader of the leftmost wing of the party.
The leadership of the moderate wing is becoming less clear by the day. Buttigieg has had strong showings in both Iowa and New Hampshire but Klobuchar did well in the Granite State. Meanwhile, the former Vice President has demonstrated he isn’t the anointed leader of the moderate wing, and former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg has moved up to be a serious contender in most national polls. While Bloomberg won’t be on the ballot until Super Tuesday, he may participate in next week’s Nevada debate on Wednesday.
While the Democratic race has dominated the headlines, President Donald Trump did unveil his budget for fiscal year 2021, and it was a campaign document that encouraged his conservative Republican supporters. However, it unlikely to be enacted with a lower House controlled by the Democratic party. The budget debate is likely to be overshadowed by the battle to find a Democratic nominee and, unfortunately, the most likely outcome is that Congress will be deadlocked and unable to develop a budget until after the November election. For a budget, look to new Congress starts in January of 2021.
The week ended with two interesting developments for the President. First, the Attorney General William Barr went on a national news program to proclaim that the President’s tweets “made it impossible to do my job.” Barr obviously wanted to deliver a messageand like others has learned the best way to do that is to communicate to Trump via television.
After a hearing Thursday, Senate Republicans on the Banking Committee told the White House that Judy Shelton, the gold bug nominee for the Federal Reserve, may not win confirmation and recommended that the White House withdraw the nomination. For more on this, see page 6.
Figure: Top Trump Tweets
