Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

SUN EDITORIAL:

The larger the field, the less likely we are to get a moderate president

In a crowded field of presidential candidates, most of whom are at or near the middle of their party’s political spectrum, an extremist can grab enough solid support from the fringe to win the nomination as the other candidates divide the moderate votes.

Are we talking about 2016? Yes, but we’re also talking about a possible scenario in the Democratic Party in 2020.

As more and more Democrats jump into the race, they create the same dynamics that led to Trump’s nomination.

This is a numbers game.

Despite the depressing extreme partisanship of today’s politics, it remains true that most voters tend to be moderate and exist in the middle of their parties’ spectrum.

The more mainstream candidates who run, the more the support for each individual candidate will be divided and watered down. That gives candidates on the radical edges a huge advantage — they enjoy a hardened base of other extremists who are a tiny but loyal minority of the electorate. If those voters make up, say 15 percent of the party, then the extreme candidate gains a stronghold as the remaining 85 percent divide their votes between the large field of more centrist candidates.

That’s certainly what happened in Donald Trump’s case. He likes to brag about how he beat 16 rivals, but the reality is that the existence of those 16 other hopefuls is a major reason he wasn’t demolished early in the primary process. He gained a stronghold of support from the extreme right, and it carried him through as too many GOP candidates lingered too long.

We all saw that dynamic happen in real time — Trump won primaries because the conventional candidates split the votes and refused to drop out early enough in the process. Head-to-head in a primary season that only included two to four candidates, Trump never would have survived.

Enter the Democrats who are lining up for 2020. With too many candidates in the field, one who can grab that solid 15 percent on any issue — likely an extreme position of some sort — could easily take the nomination as his or her rivals fracture the moderate majority of the electorate into pieces smaller than 15 percent.

In other words, a candidate with the least broad-based support could win — just as Trump did.

One difference between Democrats in 2020 and Republicans in 2016 is that there will be a huge Super Tuesday in March during the 2020 primaries that might well give Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., an advantage and weed out other contenders.

But that difference aside, the Democrats could be priming the pump for their version of Trump.

Another extremist is not what the nation needs. Rather, after four years of Trump’s insanity, Americans need a responsible, qualified leader who focuses on solving problems as opposed to partisan issues and his or her own ego.

That being the case, it’s critical for Democrats who may be thinking about entering the race to consider whether doing so will legitimately be in the nation’s best interests. And for those who pull the trigger — and those who’ve already jumped into the race — it will be just as critical to promptly jump out if they fail to get traction.

This is a time for intense self-reflection, not putting personal aspirations over the needs of Americans. It may be painful to decide not to run or to bail out early, but doing so will help ensure that the best candidate wins.

For the past two-plus years, we’ve seen in all too depressing detail what happens when competition among an overly large group of mainstream candidates gives a lousy one from the edge a clear lane to the nomination.

Democrats must not let that happen on the left in 2020.