1.Sanders Becomes Democratic Front-Runner After Nevada Caucus
Senator Bernie Sanders last weekend won the Nevada Caucus — the third contest in the Democratic presidential primary process. Winning almost half of the voters (47 percent) among seven candidates, Sanders’s runaway Nevada victory has made him the unmistakable front-runner in the Democratic field, and the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic nomination in July.
Sanders’s performance in Nevada represents a tipping point in the primary, and reveals electoral strengths that were not on display in Iowa and New Hampshire. First, he won in a landslide, beating second-place finisher Vice President Joe Biden by more than 2-to-1. Second, Sanders showed that he can attract non-white voters — most notably African-Americans and Hispanics — two indispensible groups within the Democratic electorate, and groups that Sanders has struggled to attract in the past. Nevada has a significant non-white population (17 percent of eligible voters are Hispanic, and 10 percent are African-American), and demographically more closely resembles the Democratic party (and the nation) than Iowa and New Hampshire. Other challengers like Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who ran neck and neck with Sanders in Iowa and New Hampshire, have failed to attract support from black and Hispanic voters.
Sanders’s surge of momentum is now dividing the Democratic party, resembling the dynamic between Donald Trump and the Republican party during the 2016 campaign. A number of establishment figures within the party are now openly expressing their fear that a Sanders nomination will guarantee a Trump reelection in the fall (e.g. this memo released over the weekend by Third Way — a think tank aligned with centrist Democrats, as well as Bill Clinton’s former campaign manager James Carville). Sanders himself has expressly suggested that the “Democratic establishment” opposes him. The 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was in Berlin this week and brushed off criticism to her skepticism to Sanders (although she has pledged to support the eventual nominee). But despite Sanders’s political drawbacks, many polls also show Sanders performing similarly to most other Democratic candidates against Trump — including in the decisive states of Pennsylvania and Michigan.
As Sanders comes closer to the nomination, much more attention and criticism will be paid to his policy platform and positions, which are heavily skewed toward domestic policy (e.g. “Medicare for all,” child care, a wealth tax, relief from student debt, etc.). Relevant for Germany: Sanders stated in a television interview over the weekend that he “believes in NATO,” and views “threats to our allies” as grounds for military intervention. This presents a contrast to President Trump, who has at times cast doubt on whether the United States is still committed to collective defense under Article V of the Washington Treaty. (Notably, U.S. troops and equipment began arriving in Germany days ago for “Defender Europe 20” — the largest NATO exercise in some 25 years.) Also in contrast to Trump, Sanders has promised to reduce military spending.
Sanders’s health will also continue to be a campaign issue; he will be 79 years old on Inauguration Day, and had a heart attack in October. Sanders’s campaign has released doctors’ letters, but not “comprehensive” medical records that he promised to release by the end of 2019. At the same time, however, three other Democratic candidates are at least 70 years old (Bloomberg, Biden, and Senator Elizabeth Warren), and President Donald Trump is 73 years old.
Of the remaining candidates, Biden may be the only one who still has a narrow path to win a majority of delegates. Biden was the front runner during most of the 2019 campaign season and led Sanders by more than 25 points last spring. However, he must win decisively in South Carolina on Saturday to have any hope of survival. Biden’s second-place finish in Nevada was weak, and he needs at least one very strong victory to propel his campaign to “Super Tuesday” next week. The influential politician Rep. James Clyburn (D-South Carolina) plans to endorse Biden today, which could help Biden solidify his path to victory there. Of the other candidates (Bloomberg, Warren, Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Tom Steyer), it is difficult to imagine any of them catching Sanders — particularly since the field remains so large.
Importantly, the chances continue to rise that no candidate will arrive at the Democratic Convention in July with the 1,991 delegates necessary to win the nomination. The polling site 538 now places the odds of this scenario (a so-called “contested convention”) at 43 percent — up sharply in the past three weeks. In such a case, the question will be whether the candidate with the most delegates should presume to secure the nomination. At the Nevada debate last week, Sanders said that the candidate with the most votes should clinch the nomination; the other five candidates said that the process should “play out,” meaning that a candidate other than the leader should be given a chance to become the nominee. We will have much more information to analyze in the coming weeks; on Super Tuesday (March 3), 1,357 delegates are up for grabs, and more than half of the total 3,979 delegates will be awarded by March 17.
2. Grenell May Leave Ambassadorship Sooner than Expected
President Donald Trump said Sunday that he plans to nominate a new ambassador to succeed Ric Grenell in Berlin, suggesting that Grenell’s tenure as Ambassador to Germany could end soon. Grenell has already become the acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) — an surprise appointment that became effective immediately, without Senate confirmation. The DNI job (whether temporary or confirmed) is a huge responsibility and not compatible with simultaneously serving as an ambassador in Europe. Thus, the announcement to nominate a successor is not entirely surprising, even though Grenell’s role as acting DNI is expected to last for only 90 days. (Grenell also currently has another assignment unrelated to Germany — as special envoy for the Serbia-Kosovo peace negotiations.)
As acting DNI, Grenell can be expected to continue advocating forcefully for Germany and other Western allies to ban Huawei from building new 5G communications networks. Grenell has created controversy by threatening to curtail intelligence sharing with Germany if it fails to ban Huawei. Notably, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) repeated a similar warning about working with Huawei (without the threat to curtail intelligence) in Munich and Brussels during her European swing last week. Grenell has also criticized the amount of German defense spending, and the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline project.
Trump’s announcement raises the question of what Grenell might do after his tenure as acting DNI ends, in late May. He could, for example, resign as ambassador and take a position with the Trump campaign. That leaves the possibility that there would be — as is the case currently in Brussels — no ambassador in Berlin. Realistically, it will be challenging to nominate and confirm Grenell’s successor before the U.S. elections on November 3. The process of vetting a nominee and getting on the Senate calendar can take many months even under the best of circumstances. It can also be challenging to identify a willing nominee so close to an election, which after all could result in the inauguration of a new President in January 2021, and the recall of any ambassador.
President Trump is expected to nominate a candidate to be the permanent DNI by March 11. Names floated for the permanent DNI job include Ambassador Pete Hoekstra (formerly Chair of the House Intelligence Committee), and Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas).