Here's the state of the Primary...

[brooklynite]

There is a concept in European football leagues called "promotion and relegation", in which, at the end of the season, the worst teams drop out of the league and are forced to play in the minors, and the best minor league teams get a chance in the majors. That is the framework for the Primary fight today.

To begin, the clear leader is Joe Biden. You can argue that he's coasting on name recognition, but after two uneven debate performances and some campaign stumbles (the Hyde Amendment, the "working with segregationists" gaffe), he's still on top with 1/3 of Democratic Primary voter support.

You then have three top tier candidates: Warren, Harris and Sanders. Their goal is not specifically to win the nomination; it's to become the alternative choice to Biden when then race gets down to two candidates. Warren is currently the most likely, as she provides the clearest contrast in ideology and adds the value of being a woman. Sanders appears to be slowly dropping, having lost too much of his 2016 support to Warren, and being unable (and unwilling) to try to expand his base. Harris had a window of opportunity after her challenge to Biden in the first debate, but doesn't seem to have capitalized on it, and appears to have lost a chunk of support after debate two.

Below them is the second tier: Buttigieg, O'Rourke, Klobuchar and Booker. Their goal is to replace one of the top tier candidates in the fight to be the not-Biden candidate. In my estimation, there's only room for one of them to be promoted. Buttigieg continues to be the prospective "inspirational" fresh face, and his messaging continues to resonate. O'Rourke hasn't shown any forward momentum, but the El Paso terrorist attack gives him a unique platform for an anti-white nationalism/anti-Trump/pro gun control message. Klobuchar would like to challenge Biden as the "better" moderate choice (mid-west, younger, female) but didn't seem to accomplish much in the second debate. Booker had a good debate performance but still needs to find a compelling message for what he represents (African-American? Urban vs rural?) that's different from the others.

Below THEM is the bulk of the third tier candidates: Castro, Yang, Gabbard, Bullock, Inslee, De Blasio, Steyer, Delaney, Gillibrand, Ryan, Bennet and Williamson. They've had barely enough support to make it into the debates (or have the resources not to need debate access), but need a spark to get people to pay attention to them. Williamson, Yang and Bullock had some good moments, but it's unclear is any of them can turn those sound bites into forward motion.

Finally, you have the bottom of the barrel: Moulton, Messam, and Sestak. They seem unable to generate any buzz that would get them noticed.

[ALBliberal]

1. El Paso not San Antonio....I believe .... unless sadly

there were mass shootings in both and I missed Sam Antonio

[ancianita]

2. Why did you leave Inslee out? Doesn't the governor of the #1 progressive state deserve notice?

[brooklynite]

3. Not intentional, I put him in third tier.

[MineralMan]

4. Well-reasoned, I think.

[highplainsdem]

5. I'd say we have a top tier of Biden alone, a 2nd tier of Warren & Sanders, a 3rd tier of Harris,

Buttigieg, O'Rourke, Klobuchar & Booker, and all the others polling so low that they're effectively also-rans.

Harris has been wobbling between the 2nd and 3rd tier, but a number of polls at the moment show her closer to Buttigieg than to Warren and Sanders. And I think the fact that she's getting only 1% of the black vote in the latest Quinnipiac poll makes it unlikely that she'll be able to stay with the leaders. Quinnipiac has her at 7% support overall compared to 32% for Biden. And Buttigieg is close behind at 5%.

I definitely can't call Warren and Sanders top tier because they're trading 2nd and 3rd place, with their combined support typically only equal to Biden's.

I know the media would like this to look like more of a horse race by talking about 4 top candidates. But no one covering a horse race would pretend it was close with this much of a difference in how well each is doing.

Biden's the front-runner. Period. And it's been that way for several months already.