There’s a new top tier — and a sense among the campaigns that the Democratic primary has broken wide open.
For months, the Democratic presidential primary has been dictated by Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. That primary is now over.
The campaign’s evolution came gradually at first — then violently amid the debates. Biden, already damaged by his shifting views on abortion and his one-time work with segregationists, withered under Sen. Kamala Harris’ filleting of his record on busing for school desegregation. “There’d been this whole not-so-subtle electability argument,” said Rebecca Katz, a progressive consultant who advised Cynthia Nixon in her primary campaign against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year. “That one-two punch [from Warren and Harris] showed not only that women can hold their own, but they can smoke ‘em.”
Biden’s debate blundering appears to have pierced any remaining notions that the former vice president was on a glide path to the nomination. Advisers to at least six other presidential campaigns told POLITICO that Harris’ successful ambush of Biden, in particular, suggested an opening for other candidates, as well.
That same day, Biden defended his civil rights record before a mostly African American audience in Chicago and, later, at fundraisers in California. A former Obama bundler said that while he expected Biden to initially lose only three to four percentage points in public opinion polls, the effect could quickly compound.
On Sunday, Sen. Cory Booker kept up the criticism of Biden on issues of race, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the Democratic nominee must be able to “talk openly and honestly” about the subject.If Biden falters, possible beneficiaries include not only Harris and Warren, but also Booker and Pete Buttigieg.
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