Help! I've Fallen And I Can't Get Up: Biden Drops To Fourth In New Iowa Poll

Matt Vespa | November 02, 2019 1:19 AM

Debates can make or break you. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) underwent quite the rise when she took on Biden on the debate stage. Now, she’s closing field offices in New Hampshire. She wasn’t ready for primetime. People know she’s left-wing, but that has not translated into any clear agenda for the country. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) knifing her on stage for her tough record as a prosecutor in which Harris is known to toss scores of marijuana users in jail. Former Vice President Joe Biden has the more ignominious fall. Barack Obama, the most popular Democrat in recent memory, won’t endorse him, his fundraising hauls are not what you’d expect from someone considered a heavyweight in the party, and he’s fallen to fourth place in a recent Iowa poll. Yeah, the nominee, the guy who was supposed to lock this up could lose the first critical primary for the 2020 season (via The Hill):

A new poll shows a tight race in Iowa, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leading the early voting state and former Vice President Joe Biden slipping to fourth.
The New York Times–Siena College poll released Friday showed Warren with 22 percent support from likely Democratic caucusgoers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with 19 percent, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) with 18 percent and Biden with 17 percent. All four fall close to the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.
No other candidate was near the top four, who were distantly trailed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) with 4 percent, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) with 3 percent and entrepreneur Andrew Yang with 3 percent.
The survey is among a series of recent polls showing Warren leading the field in Iowa. A RealClearPolitics average of polls showed the senator ahead of the former vice president by an average of 5 percentage points Friday morning.

Biden was ahead due to name recognition and the notion that he could be the only Democrat could beat Trump, given his blue-collar background. Ten years ago, yes, I’d agree that Biden could have chipped away at some of Trump’s base of support. Not now. Not with this Trump impeachment circus engulfing the Hill and certainly not with how left-wing the Democratic Party has become. Should Biden win the nomination, he would need to veer very much to the Left and his lays to the center will seem inauthentic at best. His serial gaffes are also an issue; there’s a reason why he was never a frontrunner in his past failed presidential attempts. I think Joe has fallen, and if he keeps tripping up on the trail, hauling in weak sauce cash totals, and look mediocre on the debate stage—he won’t get up.