Adventures with long-shot candidates

NEARLY TWO dozen presidential candidates descended on Iowa’s State Fair, which began on August 8th, each with a different style and number of supporters. Elizabeth Warren’s were young, loud and pre-loaded with chants. Kamala Harris’s formed a yellow-shirted, fresh-faced, hyper-enthusiastic wave that left stickered, dazed-looking Iowans in its wake. Jay Inslee’s fan club comprised Channing Dutton, an amiable personal-injury lawyer from Des Moines, who held up a home-made sign that read, “Talk Climate!”—referring to Mr Inslee’s signature issue.

Mr Inslee served eight terms in Congress and is in his second as Washington’s governor, where he has enacted a Democratic wish-list of policies, including a moratorium on capital punishment, expanded parental leave and an impressively detailed path to clean energy by 2045. He is tall, square-jawed, handsome and married to his high-school sweetheart. Yet he has struggled in a crowded field, and is polling below 1%, both nationally and in Iowa.

In fact, just three candidates—Ms Warren, Ms Harris and Joe Biden—are polling in double digits in the state. Nationally, Ms Harris drops to 9% in The Economist’s average of polls, while Bernie Sanders is at 14% (a bit lower in Iowa). Sixteen candidates are bumbling along at 1%. Thus there were two contests playing out...

Read More