By It’s technically already started! Yes, the 2020 election may feel ages away (753 days, actually), but the Democratic Presidential primary is well underway!
You won’t see most of the campaigning that’s happening right now – this period is called the “Invisible Primary” for a reason. But it matters.
the Invisible Primary is the period in which candidates lay the groundwork for their campaigns. They visit early voting states like Iowa and South Carolina. They publish books. They campaign for members of their party. They do dramatic things to break into the news cycle. They court donors and interest groups. They try to attract talented staffers.
Some candidates will excel at the Invisible Primary and enter the actual contest as early favorites. Others will stumble at this stage and forgo a race altogether.
Those decisions will start to be made sometime after the midterms, though the official kickoff of the next Presidential cycle is hard to predict.
The 2016 campaign kicked off on March 23rd, 2015, when Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced his campaign. Hillary Clinton launched the Democratic primary a few weeks later, on April 12th.
The 2012 Republican campaign began a little later, on May 11th, 2011, when Newt Gingrich announced his campaign.
Meanwhile, the 2008 Democratic campaign began on December 28th, 2006. Yeah. That was a long cycle. Thanks John Edwards.
We may see a similarly long cycle this time around.
There’s a lot that goes into the timing of a launch though. And who launches first could affect who else enters the race.
Take Joe Biden as an example. Biden is clearly a frontrunner going into 2020, but not an unstoppable juggernaut (see Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Al Gore in 2000). Were he a more dominant frontrunner, an early launch might allow him to force many of his most viable competitors out of the race altogether. After all, why would you run against a candidate you can’t beat?
Still, despite not being a juggernaut, he is a strong candidate. An early announcement could block off a path for other rivals trying to build a candidacy off a similar message.
Consider this: to win a Presidential primary, you need to have a base and you need to have cross-over appeal. Your base is the 10-20% of the electorate that is in your corner. White progressives for Bernie Sanders or evangelical conservatives for Ted Cruz. The base is the first step; your launching pad. If, like Ted Cruz or Mike Huckabee (in 2008), you can’t expand beyond your base, you lose.* This is cross-over appeal. Some candidates, like Marco Rubio, have plenty of cross-over appeal, but no base. Everyone likes him, but he’s no one’s first choice.
So, let’s say Biden enters the race pitching himself as the moderate candidate of the white working-class. As a former Vice President, he can probably lock down the white working-class vote. That could drive off candidates like Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), Governor Steve Bullock (D-MT), or Governor John Hickenlooper (D-CO).
If he decides to wait and see how the field forms, then that might offer an opportunity for one of those candidates to enter before him. They might not be able to win, but they’ll be added competition for Biden. This gives Biden an incentive to enter early, establish himself as a frontrunner, and prevent competition from ever materializing.
On the other hand, if Biden enters in January of 2019 and becomes the early frontrunner, then he has to hold that position for a year. And everyone goes after the frontrunner. Given Biden’s long and sometimes troubling record, that might be a fatal risk to his campaign. A year is a long time to maintain momentum. Just ask 2008’s Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.
So, there’s a lot that goes into a decision on timing.
With upwards of 15 candidates expected to run in 2020 (we could blast right past 20 at this rate), entering early could give lesser known candidates a chance to grab the spotlight during a less crowded news cycle. So, I expect we’ll see the campaign start sooner rather than later. But the order in which candidates enter will likely dictate who follows them later in the cycle.
Either way – get ready for a loooong campaign.
* Donald Trump pretty much only had a base in 2016, but his base was about a third of the GOP electorate and the field was so large that no one else could match him. This is less likely to happen in a Democratic primary because the Democratic Party assigns delegates proportionally. I’ll talk about that more when I do a post explaining my crackpot “Brokered Convention” theory.
Photo Credit: kelly bell photography Flickr via Compfight cc
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