Boeing 737 Max 8s Grounded Around the World

A popular new Boeing airliner has suffered two fatal crashes in six months. Now several nations are grounding the surviving planes while the FAA says the model is still airworthy.

The 737 Max 8 is the newest version of Boeing’s well-selling 737 series airliner with a longer range than the common domestic version. The Max 8 entered service in May 2017 with its first commercial flight operated by Malindo Air of Malaysia. About 18 months later, one of the new planes augured into the Java Sea near Jakarta killing 189 passengers and crew. This week, a second 737 Max 8 crashed in Ethiopia under similar circumstances killing 157.

As a result of the two crashes, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration grounded Max 8s operated by Chinese airlines. Chinese companies operate 97 of the airliners said CNN citing state media. The Chinese move was followed by Ethiopian Airways and Cayman Airways as they grounded their fleets. Indonesia also ordered its airlines to ground the planes. It is possible that the Chinese decision may have been influenced by the ongoing trade war with the United States and the knowledge that the move would reflect poorly on a major US export.

By Tuesday morning, other countries had decided to ground the plane as well. Australia, Singapore, and several countries in Latin America announced the grounding of their fleets, bring the total share of grounded jets to about 40 percent of the global fleet.

“Here we have a brand-new aircraft that's gone down twice in a year. That rings alarm bells in the aviation industry because that just doesn't happen,” said Mary Schiavo, a CNN aviation analyst.

The first crash, on October 29, 2018, was a Max 8 operated as Lion Air Flight 610 by an Indonesian airline. Shortly after takeoff, the crew reported a flight control problem and announced a return to the airport. Before they could do so, the plane crashed into the sea, killing all aboard, after a 12-minute flight. The preliminary report on the accident blamed a new safety system designed to prevent the aircraft from accidentally stalling.

The second crash, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, last Sunday was remarkably similar to the Lion Air crash. Although the information is still preliminary, the Ethiopian flight also requested an immediate return after takeoff. Air traffic controllers lost contact with Flight 302 six minutes after takeoff. Both planes crashed in good weather and radar recorded erratic vertical speeds with descents shortly after takeoff when the plane should have been climbing to a safe altitude. The last indication showed Flight 302 descending at 2,000 feet per minute, which is an extremely high descent rate at low altitude.

Despite the similarities and the fact that two US airlines, American and Southwest, operate the Max 8, the FAA has not grounded the US fleet. In a statement, the FAA said, “External reports are drawing similarities between this accident and the Lion Air Flight 610 accident on October 29, 2018. However, this investigation has just begun and to date, we have not been provided data to draw any conclusions or take any actions.”

Other observers are less cautious about a possible connection. Former FAA Inspector David Soucie told CNN, “I've never, ever done this. I've never said that 'Hey, it's unsafe to fly a particular model' but in this case, I'm going to have to go there. I just looked at the flight data of that aircraft. It’s strikingly similar, same issues as with the Max [Lion] Air [crash]. So yeah, I would watch for that airplane.”

The cause of the Lion Air crash appears to be a faulty sensor in a new system that is designed to protect the airplane from a stall. If the wing pitches too high, it loses lift and the airplane ceases flying. The recovery technique for a stall is practiced by all pilots from students to airline captains and consists of lowering the nose of the airplane and increasing power.

A stall typically occurs when the nose of the airplane is raised too high or when the pilot is not using enough power. The safety system in the Max 8 includes a pusher that overrides pilot commands to lower the nose in the event of a stall. In the case of Lion Air, an air data sensor that measures the angle of the wing against the relative wind apparently incorrectly signaled the aircraft’s flight control computers that the aircraft was about to stall. The safety system pushed the nose down, but the plane’s crew pulled up. What followed was 12 excruciating minutes of the airplane trying to push the nose down and the crew frantically trying to pull it back up to keep the airplane in the air.

In the wake of the crash, it was revealed that Boeing initially omitted the new safety system from pilot training manuals for the Max 8. The Lion Air pilots may not have known that the only way to override the new system was to switch it off because older versions of the system in previous 737s could be overridden with pressure on the control yoke. A few days after the Lion Air crash, Boeing released an operations manual bulletin that required airlines to update their pilot manuals, but it is not known whether the Ethiopian crew had received the updated information.

The problem with the 737 Max 8 seems to be partly a mechanical problem with the air data sensors and partly a training problem with pilots who do not apply the correct action when the anti-stall system activates erroneously. Regardless of the exact cause, two crashes and the grounding of the fleet in several countries is a public relations problem for Boeing. The Chinese grounding is a particular problem since China is one of the largest customers of the Max 8. If the airplane gets a bad reputation, passengers may stay away from it, causing airlines to cancel orders.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Why Pelosi’s Decision Not To Impeach Is The Smart Move

Nancy Pelosi said in the Washington Post today that she did not support impeachment of President Trump. The move may come as a surprise to many on both sides of the aisle, but Pelosi is a shrewd politician who has hinted in the past that impeachment proceedings would not be forthcoming. While Pelosi’s decision will anger many on the left, not impeaching Trump is a sound political strategy that potentially has a bigger payoff than the short-term gain of winning an impeachment vote in the House.

“I’m not for impeachment,” Pelosi said in the Post. “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”

While the temptation to impeach the president is strong among Democrats, Speaker Pelosi seems to be looking at the big picture rather than the emotional gratification of embarrassing Mr. Trump and adding him to a short list of impeached presidents. Impeaching President Trump would allow Democrats to win a battle, but it might cost them the war, i.e. the 2020 presidential election.

The most obvious reason not to open impeachment proceedings is the lesson learned by Republicans when they impeached President Clinton: If you don’t have the votes to remove the president, impeachment is pointless and possibly counterproductive. President Clinton became more popular after he survived the attempt to remove him from office and remained a prominent Democrat elder statesman for two decades after leaving office on schedule.

In the case of President Trump, Democrats have the votes to impeach the president in the House, but they lack the votes to remove him from office in the Senate where Republicans retain a majority. Throughout all of Trump’s embarrassing behavior and executive abuse, most Republicans have stood by him. It is unlikely that many – or possibly any – Republicans would cross the aisle to vote to remove the president from office. In all likelihood, if Trump was able to withstand an impeachment attempt, he would become even more popular with his base and possibly with independents as well.

On the other hand, forgoing impeachment removes a major obstacle to electing a Democrat in 2020. If impeachment proceedings were begun, they would be an issue in the 2020 election. Democrats would be pushing the issue against prevailing political winds since 59 percent of voters recently told Quinnipiac that they opposed impeachment. The unpopularity of impeachment could be a drag on Democratic candidates up and down the ticket.

The decision not to impeach also removes a Republican talking point that could have been used to rally the base. A Democratic attack on the president, who remains popular in the GOP, would have spurred Republicans to circle the wagons in defense of the president. Without impeachment on the table, Republican voters disappointed in Trump’s performance might be more likely to stay home.

Further, Pelosi undoubtedly realizes that Donald Trump is his own worst enemy. Allowing President Trump to remain in office will mean that the eventual Democratic nominee faces a weak candidate. If Democrats were somehow able to impeach the president, Mike Pence, a much more capable politician and campaigner would become president. Pence would have a much greater chance of winning re-election than Donald Trump, whose approval is hovering in the low 40s.

Having said all that, there are risks to Pelosi’s strategy. As Jess Fields pointed out earlier, Pelosi may anger her own base and make it more likely that a radical Democrat is the eventual nominee. The conventional wisdom holds that Trump would fare better against Bernie, Kamala Harris, or other of the far-left Democrats than against the more moderate Joe Biden. Indeed, the Quinnipiac poll shows that two-thirds of Democrats support impeachment.

I’m not sure that impeachment makes a difference in this argument since Democrats should want to nominate the most liberal candidate who can win if they subscribe to a mirror-image version of the Buckley rule. Impeachment or no impeachment, Democrat voters are not going to repeat their 2016 mistake of sitting out the election. Not impeaching Trump won’t improve the appeal of second-tier Democrats to moderate voters, but it might make Trump more beatable, as discussed earlier.

Finally, there is the question of what happens if Donald Trump beats the odds a second time and is re-elected. In that case, assuming that Democrats hold the House and possibly capture the Senate, impeachment might be a more attractive option than it is now. With Democrat-led congressional investigations ramping up and the Mueller probe continuing, there might also be more evidence against the president that could even lead some Republicans to vote to remove Trump from office.

As I wrote two months ago, impeachment is not a smart move for the Democrats. Pelosi may be reviled by many on the right, but that doesn’t mean that she’s a dummy. She is a shrewd politician who is playing the odds with her eye on the bigger prize, namely putting a Democrat in the White House.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump Refuses To Stay Down, Requests $8.6 Billion For Wall In 2020

In a move that exemplifies President Trump’s reputation as a fighter, the White House plans to ask Congress to approve $8.6 billion for a border wall in the 2020 budget. The move comes only weeks after a stinging defeat in which the president was forced to accept a spending package that reopened the government without funding for Mr. Trump’s signature project. It seems unlikely that the 2020 funding request will be any more successful, but, like a beaten and bloody boxer who just won’t quit, President Trump refuses to stay down for the count.

Reuters reports that the proposal is based on a 2017 Customs and Border Protection plan to build or replace 722 miles of barriers along the border. The cost for the entire project is $18 billion. So far, 111 miles of the project have been completed or are under construction after Congress approved $341 million in 2017 and $1.375 billion in 2018. The estimated cost of the barrier is about $25 million per mile.

After Congress rejected his 2018 request for $5.7 billion, Mr. Trump declared a national emergency and attempted to redirect $8.1 billion from other projects to the wall. The House has already voted to block the president’s emergency declaration and the Senate is likely to follow suit this week. There are already lawsuits challenging the national emergency declaration as well, leaving an uncertain future for these redirected funds.

“It gives the president the ability to say he has fulfilled his commitment to gain operational control of the southwest border,” an administration official said of the 2020 budget request. A second added, “It’s a question of, will Congress allow us to finish the job.”

The Trump Administration’s request for 2020 seems likely to be dead on arrival in Congress. With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, where spending bills originate, the money is unlikely to be included in appropriations. Even in the Republican-controlled Senate, Democrats have enough votes to filibuster a bill that includes funding for the wall. The situation sets up a repeat of the budgetary showdown from last December that led to the government shutdown and ultimate Republican capitulation.

“Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again. We hope he learned his lesson,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a joint statement, in which they called the wall “expensive and ineffective.”

Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the wall won’t be as effective as President Trump claims. Testing in 2017 showed that the wall prototypes built by the Trump Administration were easy to penetrate and many unfenced areas of the border are unsuitable for a defensive wall in the first place. Statistics from Customs and Border Patrol also call into question the effectiveness of the wall at stopping drug smugglers. The CBP found that about 90 percent of illegal drugs are smuggled through ports of entry rather than unfenced areas of the border. Other smuggling uses tunnels under existing border fences.

Border protection is one of the few parts of the government that is slated for an increase in the 2020 budget request. On Fox News Sunday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said, “The president is proposing roughly a five percent across-the-board reduction in domestic spending accounts.”

In contrast, the Administration is asking for a five percent increase for the Department of Homeland Security. This figure includes a 22 percent increase in funding for Customs and Border Protection and a 16 percent increase for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In addition to the wall funding, the proposal would authorize 2,800 more law enforcement agents and 100 immigration judge teams. In January, The Resurgent reported that despite an authorization from Congress to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents, the agency had only been able to recruit 120 people.

If President Trump’s request to spend more money on the border is likely to go unheeded, his request to cut the budget of other domestic agencies will probably fare no better. Democrats have proven unwilling to cut programs that are not defense-related, even as the national debt climbs above $22 trillion. The budget deficit for the current fiscal year has already increased by 77 percent amid increased spending on the military and entitlements and flat revenues following the 2017 tax reform.

Congress won’t approve President Trump’s budget request for either the wall funding or the spending cuts, but the request will ensure that the debate over border security won’t go away before the 2020 election. The arguments next year may be similar to those heard ahead of the 2018 midterms. While Republican candidates reprise their base-pleasing call to “Build the wall,” Democrats are likely to use the skyrocketing deficit as part of their case against re-electing President Trump. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

How Tax Reform Could Hurt Charitable Giving

It is almost axiomatic that any government policy, however well-intended, will be subject to the Law of Unintended Consequences. This maxim holds that any action, especially those mandated by government, will have effects that reach beyond its intended purpose. One of the unintended consequences of the new tax reform law may be a detrimental effect on charitable giving.

Like many Americans, I was not fully aware of the effects of tax reform until I did my taxes. One of the most visible changes for individual filers is the increase to the standard deduction. Under the new rules, the standard deduction was almost doubled, increasing from $6,350 to $12,000 for single taxpayers and from $12,700 to $24,000 for married couples filing jointly.

In practical terms, this means that I had a pile of receipts that I didn’t need since the standard deduction was worth more than my itemized deductions. In most respects, this is a great thing for taxpayers because it simplifies preparing for and filing your taxes. In most cases, filling out a tax return is going to be as simple as filling out your income and taking the standard deduction.

Nevertheless, it did leave me wondering about how the change would affect charitable giving. Many people give to charities to get the tax deduction. The logical question is if people don’t get a tax benefit from charitable giving when they take the standard deduction, will they continue to give to charity?

Giving to charity to save on your taxes was never really quite as good an idea as many people thought. This is because in the past charitable donations counted as a tax deduction rather than a tax credit. This means that donations only affected the amount you paid in taxes indirectly. A tax deduction reduces the amount of taxable income, which in turn reduces the amount of tax that is owed.

The benefit of a tax deduction depends on a taxpayer’s personal circumstances, but a $1,000 tax deduction for a filer in the old 24 percent tax bracket would reduce the taxes owed by $240. In contrast, a tax credit directly reduces the taxes owed on a dollar-for-dollar basis. If you qualify for a $1,000 tax credit, you would owe $1,000 less in taxes. Because charitable giving was a deduction rather than a credit, givers didn’t get a full refund on their giving at a tax time, but it did help.

The flip side to the argument is that millions of taxpayers were already taking the old, lower standard deduction and they still gave to charity. In the past, taxpayers who didn’t have large deductions such as mortgage interest might well have not had enough deductions to make itemizing practical. The impact of tax reform on charitable giving would most likely affect middle-income donors who had enough deductions to itemize under the old law but not enough under the new tax reform.

The effect of the change will depend on how Americans view charitable giving. Do they give primarily to reduce their taxable income or do they give because generosity blesses both the giver and the recipient?

Many Americans have religious motives for giving to charity. About 80 percent of Americans identify with some religion per Gallup. Of these, about 70 percent are Christian, Jews and Mormons account for about two percent each and just under one percent are Muslim. All four faiths encourage adherents to give charitably. In particular, the Bible teaches believers to tithe, to give 10 percent of their earnings to support churches and the needy. Americans who take religious commands seriously are likely to keep giving even if it doesn’t change their taxes.

Another unintended consequence of tax reform on charitable giving is that there might be a movement away from government-approved charities to more direct giving. Rather than giving to charities that provide them with a tax-deductible receipt, more people might give directly to those in need. For example, a few years ago a friend wanted to fund a scholarship for a needy black student. He set up the donation through a church in part to reap the benefits of the tax-deductible contribution. Under the new rules, he might do just as well to write a check directly to the recipient.

So far, the effects of tax reform on charitable giving appear to be small, but Americans are still learning about the new law. CBS News reported in June 2018 that total revenue to nonprofits fell 2.4 percent in the first three months compared to 2017 while the total number of donors fell by 6.3 percent.

“We know that the main reason why people give to charity is not the tax incentive,” Steve Taylor, United Way Worldwide senior vice president and counsel for public policy said at the time. “We also know that the tax incentive allows people to give a little bit more than they would have otherwise. What you have is tens of millions of people who will give a little bit less, and that adds up to tens of billions of fewer dollars given to charity.”

We won’t know for several years exactly how changes to the tax law affect charitable giving. When the tax returns are filed and examined this year, new data will be available on how donations in 2018 differed over previous years. However, differences in returns this year may cause taxpayers to make changes in their behavior going forward, but those changes won’t be evident immediately. It will be interesting to watch and I'm sure that it will make a great research topic for some economist.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump To Ask Allies To Pay ‘Cost Plus Fifty’ To Host US Troops

Friday afternoon is often the time to drop unpopular and controversial news. As the denizens of Foggy Bottom hurry to leave the District of Columbia for the weekend, it can be a convenient time to unveil news that will reflect poorly on the elites who control the government. That was the case today as the Trump Administration dropped a figurative bomb whose effects will be felt around the world.

As the president toured tornado-ravaged areas of Alabama, Bloomberg reported that Mr. Trump is demanding Germany, Japan, and any other country hosting American troops pay the full cost plus an additional 50 percent. Per Bloomberg, the plan would apply first to Germany and Japan and eventually be applied to every other nation where American troops are based. Under the plan, some countries would pay five or six times their current share of defense costs.

President Trump has reportedly pushed the idea for months and his insistence on the requirement reportedly derailed talks with South Korea about the status of the 28,000 US troops stationed on the Korean Peninsula. Trump allegedly overruled negotiators with a note to National Security Advisor John Bolton that read, “We want cost plus 50.”

The proposal seems tailor-made as an excuse for President Trump to unilaterally withdraw American forces from abroad and bring the troops home. During the 2016 campaign, Trump questioned the need for mutual defense pacts such as NATO and railed against the cost of basing troops abroad. While in office, Trump’s relationship with America’s allies has been rocky and the president has reportedly considered withdrawing the US from NATO. The demand for more money from allies may be intended to resolve the issue by having host countries kick American forces out.

It is possible that the demand is simply a negotiating ploy by the president, who has pushed NATO and other allies to pay a larger share of the cost of their defense in the past. The president may also be swayed by advisors to accept a less harsh deal. This week Mr. Trump reversed himself on a decision last year to withdraw American troops from Syria.

The basing of American soldiers around the world benefits both the host country and the United States. In the War on Terror, the US used bases in Germany as a transshipment point to and from the Middle East. Ramstein Airbase was a vital link in the logistical chain to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Likewise, the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center is the largest overseas military hospital in the world. Many American soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan were sent to Landstuhl for stabilizing treatment before returning home.

It is not clear whether the US is close to making a formal demand of its allies or whether Friday’s announcement is a trial balloon, but the proposal comes at an awkward time. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been waging an offensive war on the borders of NATO against Ukraine, another US ally, since 2014. In Asia, Trump’s attempted détente with North Korea has yielded little in the way of results while China continues to solidify its hold on the South China Sea.

While basing American soldiers abroad has not been free for the United States, it has been beneficial. The seventy years that American troops have occupied parts of Europe and Asia has been known as the Pax Americana, the American peace. The period allowed the US to become the world’s preeminent trading power and the leader of the community of nations.

It is a virtual certainty that the forward deployment of American soldiers prevented numerous wars including a Soviet invasion of Europe. If President Trump gives in to his isolationist tendencies, it is likely that the world may find that the cost in both blood and treasure of bringing American soldiers home is much greater than the cost of basing them abroad.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Chutzpah: AOC Blames Anti-Semitism Backlash On AIPAC

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is not Jewish, but the freshman Democrat is not lacking in chutzpah. The congresswoman, who is of Puerto Rican descent, sent out a fundraising email in the wake of the recent scandals of anti-Semitism within the Democratic Party. That in itself is not unusual. However, the fact that the email blamed AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group, for the backlash against Democratic anti-Semitism is an uncommon act of brazenness.

The email was revealed on several Twitter accounts yesterday. Beneath AOC’s campaign logo, the email leads off with a quote from an unnamed “AIPAC activist” who allegedly said that AOC, Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) “are three people who, in my opinion, will not be around in several years.”

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1103774281450835973

“It’s official,” the email continues in bold print, “AIPAC is coming after Alexandria, Ilhan, and Rashida.”

“Rashida, Ilhan, and Alexandria have at times dared to question our foreign policy and the influence of money in our political system,” the email claims. “And now, lobbying groups across the board are working to punish them for it.”

To be clear, the attacks on the three women are because of anti-Semitic comments as well as statements on policy that can only be described as ignorant. For example, last month Rep. Omar tweeted an accusation that AIPAC money controlled US foreign policy. This accusation was false on its face since AIPAC does not make contributions to political candidates and other pro-Israel groups typically donate more money to Democrats than to Republicans.

Omar issued a statement in which she apologized “unequivocally” and then promptly equivocated by “reaffirm[ing] the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry.”

https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1095046561254567937

Rashida Tlaib posted a similar tweet in January in which she claimed that senators who voted against the BDS movement to boycott Israel “forgot what country they represent.” Like Omar’s accusation, Tlaib’s tweet implies that support for Israel and Jewish companies was because of corruption or divided loyalties.

https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1082095303325609984

In the past, liberals have pointed out that the BDS – boycott, divest, and sanctions – movement was itself anti-Semitic. The Anti-Defamation League wrote that “all too often, BDS advocates employ anti-Semitic rhetoric and narratives to isolate and demonize Israel.” In 2017, the Huffington Post pointed out that there was a strong correlation between BDS activity and anti-Semitic incidents, saying, “BDS activity does not merely encourage, but also causes anti-Semitism.”

For her part, AOC has casually dismissed the anti-Semitic comments of her fellow congresswomen. In February, she tweeted that Rep. Omar “demonstrated a capacity to… learn about [the] history of anti-Semitism….”

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1095393011654103040

Omar and Tlaib don’t seem to need to learn about anti-Semitism, a school of thought in which they seem to be well-versed. The company they keep suggests that, despite their denials, that they are quite comfortable with their anti-Jewish attitudes. In January, Tlaib posed with a Palestinian activist known for his support of Hezbollah and Omar is scheduled to speak at a benefit for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) this month. CAIR has a long history of supporting terrorist groups.

While there are also anti-Semites among the alt-right supporters of the Republican Party, Democratic anti-Semitism is becoming more open and mainstream. The failure of the Democratic House to pass a simple resolution condemning anti-Semitism this week is a telling indicator of which way political winds are blowing within the party.

Originally published on the Resurgent

Unprecedented Number Of Candidates In Dem Primary Still Favors Biden And Sanders

The number of presidential candidates in the Democratic primary is unprecedented and it could lead to a contentious and unpredictable nominating process. With a recent poll of Democratic presidential preferences showing no less than 19 candidates, it is possible that the primary vote could fracture in ways that cannot be foreseen.

Most of us have probably become numbed to the neverending campaign atmosphere, but Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight reminds us that it was not always this way. Silver tweeted yesterday, “At this point in 2015, no major Republicans had officially launched their campaigns. Cruz was the first on 3/23/15. Although 8-9 Republicans had established PACs to formally explore a candidacy.”

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1103004293815246849

To see how a large number of candidates can upend a primary, we need only look back as far as 2016. Seventeen Republican candidates, 16 traditional Republicans plus Donald Trump, contested in a large primary that year. In the 2016 Republican primary, a recurring theme was that Donald Trump benefitted from the large field. Longtime Republicans such as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich split the Republican vote, leaving Trump with a plurality in many state primaries. Trump won a majority of delegates after a long, drawn-out primary campaign, but he only won about 45 percent of the Republican vote.

History may repeat itself in the 2020 Democratic Primary. The large number of candidates may prevent the party from coalescing around a consensus candidate. This is particularly true if Joe Biden, who commands 31 percent support in recent polling, decides not to run. Bernie Sanders, the second place candidate, sits atop a heap of second-tier, mostly unknown candidates, only one of whom, Kamala Harris, currently has support in the double-digits.

Excluding Biden, Sanders is also currently the top second-choice of Democratic voters. Biden supporters picked Sanders as their top alternate, giving the Vermont Democrat-in-name-only a significant advantage if Biden decides against running. Still, Sanders lacks support among the upper-income Democrats who would provide much campaign backing. If these donors rally behind another candidate, it could cause trouble for a Sanders candidacy.

The number of Democratic candidates could start to dwindle soon. Democrats have announced a series of 12 primary debates with the first scheduled to be held in June 2019. With so many candidates, competition will be fierce for donor funds and candidates who don’t do well in the first debate may be quickly forced to drop out of the race.  

In a best-case scenario for conservatives, if Joe Biden does not run, Democratic moderates could reject Bernie Sanders and the Democratic vote could splinter among the remaining viable candidates: Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Corey Booker, and Amy Klobuchar. This could possibly result in Klobuchar, the most moderate of the bunch, eking out a plurality in a situation that is the reverse of the 2016 Republican primary where the most extreme candidate won without a majority. To make this scenario a reality, Klobuchar has a long way to go in increasing her name recognition and building support.

If Biden decides to run and if Sanders maintains his popularity, the two old white guys are the strong favorites to win the nomination. This would be a bad thing for Donald Trump since polling shows that both Democrats are significantly more popular than the president. In recent polling, both Biden and Sanders show a double-digit advantage over Mr. Trump. It’s true that Trump polled poorly against Hillary Clinton in advance of the 2016 primaries and managed to win anyway, but the conditions that allowed Trump to eke out a victory in 2016, such as Hillary’s email scandal and James Comey’s October surprise, are unlikely to be replicated in 2020.

Despite the large number of candidates in the Democratic field, Joe Biden remains the man to beat even though he has yet to officially enter the race. It would likely take a decision from Biden to bow out once again and an implosion of the Sanders campaign to turn the Democratic primary into a fractious free-for-all.

Originally published on The Resurgent