Booker Campaign Post-Mortem

“At some point, there’s going to be an interesting post-mortem on his campaign. Why did it never get going?

That post-mortem will read that Joe Biden basically locked down the African American vote. Back when I discussed Booker’s initial entry, I outlined his strategy to win over the sizable fraction of the Democratic Party that is minority voters. That was supposed to be what happened. But when Biden entered the race, the former Vice President shot to the top of the polls, and he’s stayed there, largely buoyed by support from black voters who appreciate his role in Barack Obama’s presidency.

Of course, what’s notable here is that we’re reading a post-mortem while the body is still alive.” –Presidential Politics for America, November 20, 2019

Welp, the body is dead. (But what a body it was!) Having little support in early states and no realistic path to the nomination, Cory Booker has suspended his campaign.

I still wonder how the Booker and Harris campaigns would have turned out were it not for Joe Biden sucking up so much African American support. We’ll never know. Or maybe we will? They’ll be back in four to eight years, I imagine. (And might even be VP picks in the meantime.) Perhaps that’ll be better primary cycles for them.

In the meantime, John Delaney moves up yet another spot in the Power Rankings.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a preview of tomorrow night’s debate. In the meantime, here are some answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the Iowa caucuses.