Former Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois ended his primary challenge to President Trump on Friday. He made the announcement during an interview on CNN. Walsh entered the race last summer, facing nearly impossible odds against an incumbent with a Republican approval rating consistently near 90%.
The recently completed Iowa caucuses illustrate what Walsh was up against. He received only about 1% of the vote, with Trump at over 97%.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has surged into a virtual tie with Pete Buttigieg in Iowa as of Thursday morning. The gap narrowed overnight when results from three of four satellite caucuses were released by the Iowa Democratic Party. Sanders dominated these caucuses, which were set up - one in each congressional district - for those couldn't make their assigned precinct.
Overall, 97% of precincts have now reported. The race remains too close too call.
The most important set of numbers is this first one, State Delegate Equivalents. When all the votes are counted, these will be used to determined the allocation of the 41 delegates Iowa sends to the national convention. In addition to the two frontrunners, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden will earn some of these delegates, and Amy Klobuchar may earn one as well.
For more information on what these other numbers mean, see our Iowa Caucus Overview.
An update on Iowa pledged delegate allocation.
Democratic Caucuses: About 71% of the vote has been counted as of Thursday morning. Based on that, 24 of the 41 available delegates can be allocated, per NYT/AP. As of now, they are split between Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. When all the results are in, these candidates will likely add to their total, with Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar also receiving delegates. While Klobuchar is under 15% statewide, she has exceed that in a number of precincts, and is even leading in a few counties. No overall winner for the state has yet been named.
Special primary elections are being held Tuesday in Maryland's 7th Congressional District. The nominees will meet in the special general election in April, with the winner filling the vacancy left by the death of Rep. Elijah Cummings last October.
It's a very crowded field, with 24 Democrats and 8 Republicans seeking the nomination. The most well-known are Cumming's widow, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings and former Rep. Kweisi Mfume, who held the seat before Cummings.
The Baltimore-area seat is safely Democratic; Cummings won his final term by 55% in 2018; Hillary Clinton won here by a similar margin in 2016. As a result, whomever emerges as the Democratic nominee will be a prohibitive favorite in the April 28 special election.
Months of campaigning and millions of dollars in spending preceded the Iowa Democratic caucuses. All that for a mere 41 pledged delegates - just over 1% of the total that will be allocated during the 57 primary and caucus events over the next four months. However, it is the first opportunity for voters to pass judgment on a historically large field. The verdict of voters in Iowa and next week's New Hampshire Primary has proved predictive: Every winner -except one1 1In 1992, Bill Clinton did not win a contest until March 3. The four contests preceding that date were each won by a different candidate. - of a contested major-party nomination since 1980 has won at least one of these two states. Additionally, the result in these states will almost certainly winnow the field.
If you'd like to read more on how the caucuses work, here are some explainers from The New York Times, NPR, Politico, and The Washington Post.
In the interest of transparency, or perhaps to confuse people, the Iowa Democratic Party will release four sets of results tonight. We expect the first results to start arriving after 8:00 PM ET; the tables below will update with those results as they come in.
The Road to 270 is a weekly column leading up to the presidential election. Each installment is dedicated to understanding one state’s political landscape and how that might influence which party will win its electoral votes in 2020. We’ll do these roughly in order of expected competitiveness, moving toward the most intensely contested battlegrounds as election day nears.
The Road to 270 will be published every Monday. The column is written by Seth Moskowitz, a 270toWin elections and politics contributor. Contact Seth at s.k.moskowitz@gmail.com or on Twitter @skmoskowitz.
From statehood through 1964, Arkansas was one of the most reliably Democratic states in presidential elections. Since then, however, it has only voted Democratic three times. Two of these three were for native son Bill Clinton, in 1992 and 1996. The other Democrat to carry the state was fellow southerner Jimmy carter in 1976. The state’s flip from Democratic to Republican stems from a political legacy of slavery and regional factionalism.
Pre-Statehood
The Democratic National Committee announced significant changes to the qualifying requirements for the party's February 19 debate in Las Vegas. Gone is the fundraising requirement, which opens the door to participation by Mike Bloomberg. The former NYC mayor is self-funding his campaign, and is not accepting contributions from individual donors.
There are three different ways to qualify for the Nevada debate, which comes three days before that state's caucuses:
To qualify, polls must be from DNC-accredited pollsters and released between January 15 and February 18. The only candidates that have qualified thus far are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Bloomberg is not participating in contests prior to Super Tuesday (March 3). His avenue to the stage in Nevada is predicated on meeting the 10%/4 poll criteria. He has one such poll thus far.
The next debate will take place February 7 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Seven candidates have qualified for that. That debate will be broadcast on ABC, in partnership with its local affiliate WMUR-TV and Apple News.
John Delaney said Friday that he is ending his presidential campaign. The former Maryland congressman was the first Democrat to join the 2020 field, announcing his candidacy back in July, 2017. Now, 2 1/2 years later, he is exiting just three days before the first votes are cast.
In his withdrawal announcement, Delaney expressed concern that by staying in the race, he would harm the prospect of other moderate candidates in the Iowa caucuses:
The Cook Political Report has updated its rating for the U.S. Senate special election in Georgia. It moves from Likely to Leans Republican following the entry of credible challengers to Sen. Kelly Loeffler from both parties, further complicated by the unusual structure of this election.
Read the full Cook analysis here.
Rep. Doug Collins (GA-9) joined the race on Wednesday, and will challenge Loeffler from the right. On Thursday, Democrats landed one of their top recruits, as Rev. Raphael Warnock announced his bid. He joins other prominent Democrats in the race, including Matt Lieberman, son of former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, and Ed Tarver, a US attorney under Barack Obama.
GOP Rep. Doug Collins (GA-9) said Wednesday he will run for U.S. Senate in 2020. He made the announcement during an appearance on Fox & Friends, confirming news reports of recent days. Collins will compete in the special election to complete the final two years of the seat previously held by Sen. Johnny Isakson, who retired at the end of 2019. The incumbent, Sen. Kelly Loeffler was appointed last month by Gov. Brian Kemp to fill the seat until the special election. That decision went against the wishes of President Trump, who had been strongly advocating for Collins.
The move may complicate the GOP path to holding the Senate seat. Current Georgia law provides that all candidates - from all parties - in a special election appear on a single ballot on Election Day. If no candidate reaches 50%, the top two move on to a runoff, which will be held on January 5, 2021. Collins entry increases the likelihood of a runoff, as it will split the GOP vote which would have almost entirely gone toward Loeffler.
Allies of Collins in the Georgia State House are attempting to modify the law and hold a more traditional party primary. The supporters believe the very conservative Collins would win a contest against Loeffler, and enjoy full GOP support in November.
