Biden Mystery Solved

I've been trying to figure out who the Democrats are and who they are becoming. For the most part, I've got it solved. The one odd piece of data I could not connect involved Biden's lead in the primaries. I understand it now. There's an age break in the Democratic party.

Here's the deal. More than 60% of Democratic Primary voters will be women. As I've mentioned, there is a ton of activity from these women centered around wanting to toss out the men who form the party facade and instead run women. That said, there is a strange disconnect between this and polls which show Biden at 38%. Not only is Biden a white dude (and therefore flies in the face of the women's only movement), but he's not even an "interesting" white dude like Buttguy or Bernie. So what is happening?

It turns out, he's a nostalgia vote...

Apparently, Biden's support comes almost entirely from Democrats older than 55. They want someone "electable" and they view Biden as (1) having a long, respectable history in the Senate and (2) being Obama's right hand man... or is it left hand in the Democratic Party? Anyways, that's what they think.

Not coincidentally, only 20% of these Democrats describe themselves as "very liberal," with most describing themselves as "moderate" or even "conservative." 41% of these people support Biden.

Go younger than that, however, and everything changes. Just over 40% of younger Democrats call themselves "very liberal." None call themselves conservatives. The rest split between "liberals" and "moderates," with liberals winning. Biden draws 17% here, behind both Bernie and Elisabeth Warren.

So what we are seeing is likely a last hurrah of the older "conservative" Democratic vote. They've focused on Biden as compared to a split field on the left. What that means now is a good question. What it means for the future is bad for the Democrats. As these older Democrats die off, they are being replaced by a group that has a center much farther to the left (a true shift in ideology) and are basically devoid of anyone on the right. That puts them much further outside the ideological mainstream of America. Combining this with the rise of women in the party suggests a coming party that looks and sounds like something quite foreign to most Americans... a sort of Progressive Party of Single White Women. Indeed, white women under 45 voted 70% for Sanders in 2016, making them hardcore leftists and nothing like the dying Democrats.

So can Biden win? Good question. His support is about 40% among half the party. That's not a bad base if he can make it grow. But his support is an awful 17% among the other half of his base, the energetic portion. That's not good. The one grace he has is that no one else has grabbed the ring. But that sounds more like he's just waiting to get the boot by some new candidate rather than a march toward victory. If no one else comes along, then he might win a plurality election. But I think the problem with that is that Bernie Sanders will dominate the caucus states, which tend to be the middle of the country where the older voters are. That will quarantine his support and make him vulnerable to whoever wins the left. Who that is remains to be seen!