The current state of the Democratic and Republican primaries

The current state of the Democratic and Republican primaries

By COOPER ADKINS

Opinion Editor

The democratic primary field is rapidly shrinking due to the fact that some cantidates have dropped out and others haven’t reached the threshold required for the next debate. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Cory Booker, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang have all qualified for the debate.

To qualify for the September debates, a candidate must have reached at least 2% in four separate national polls, and have 130,000 individual donors.

John Hickenlooper and Jay Inslee are the only two major candidates who have dropped out of the race already.

This leaves around 11 major candidates who are still in the running but have not qualified for the September debates.

A few are on the verge of getting into the debate, but with the deadline being this week, odds are they will not be able to qualify.

If no more qualify for the debate, the debate will happen on only one evening; as opposed to the two night debate format the previous debates used.

The candidates who don’t qualify for the September debates still have a chance to qualify for the October debate. Since most have the funding due to either donations or their own wealth, odds are that they won’t drop out until the Iowa Caucus in the spring.

On the Republican side, former Congressman Joe Walsh announced this week that he would be running for president. He joins former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld in challenging Trump in the 2020 Primary.

However, these two candidates have been polling poorly against the incumbent president according to a USA Today poll Trump was polling at 90% while Weld polled at 5%. This is mostly due to the fact that the President holds a high favorability of 88% among Republicans according to recent Gallop polling.

Additionally, history is on Trump’s side; no incumbent has ever lost a primary challenge.

Currently, Biden narrowly leads the Democratic field, followed closely by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Senator Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete Buttigieg close out the top five with single digits. President Trump has a massive lead over former Governor Bill Weld.

The Iowa caucus, the first state to vote in the primary, is still five months away though so both primaries could significantly change by then. Of course, one should still keep in mind Donald Trump was not leading at this time in 2015. There is still a long way to go in this race.