Time to meet the 24—yes, 24—Democrats hoping to unseat Donald Trump in 2020
Welcome back to Plain English! This is Episode 165 of the best podcast for learning English. And you can find the full transcript of today’s episode online at PlainEnglish.com/165. The transcript is great if you have trouble recognizing all the words, or if you just want to go back and study some new words. PlainEnglish.com/165.
Coming up today: they all want a shot at taking down Trump on November 3, 2020. They are the twenty-four candidates for the Democratic nomination for president, and the first candidates’ debates will be in Miami on June 26 and 27. Later on in the episode, we’ll talk about the English phrase “scratch your head,” it’s kind of a fun phrase to use. And of course we have JR’s song of the week.
Are you thinking about the IELTS exam? Maybe you have to take the test for a visa application, a graduate degree, or even a job. If so, you’ll want to take the free IELTS Foundations course from our friends at IELTS Advantage. And it’s free for Plain English listeners at PlainEnglish.com/IELTS .
24 candidates vie to take down Trump
Each one wants to be the hero or heroine who takes down the polarizing American president, but the twenty-four candidates have a long battle ahead of them. And the first big test will come next Wednesday, June 26, which is the first of twelve scheduled candidates’ debates.
If you’re outside the United States, you might be scratching your head, wondering if you fell asleep and woke up a whole year later. Why are we talking about the November 2020 American election now, in June 2019? Well, it’s a feature of our drawn-out, two-step election system. In the first stage, which is just getting going now, candidates run for the nomination of one of the two major parties. About a year from now, both parties will have one candidate. Then from summer 2020 until the first Tuesday in November, the two candidates go head-to-head.
But until then, we have the selection process. And it doesn’t happen all at once, it goes state by state through what we call “primary season,” which begins this cycle in February and lasts through the beginning of the summer. States vote in clusters throughout the season, and the candidates try to accumulate statewide wins throughout the primary season. It’s more complicated than that—maybe we’ll get into it in a future episode—but for now, what you need to know is this: the voting to choose the Democratic nominee will start in February 2020, and the candidates are all gearing up for those important early states right now.
As I mentioned before, over twenty-four people have officially registered as candidates for the Democratic nomination. So we have seven months or so, during which time candidates will raise money, deliver speeches, shake hands, kiss babies, take shots at Trump, air commercials, and debate together.
How, you may ask, are twenty-four people—larger than a typical kindergarten classroom—all going to debate each other? It’s a question the Democratic Party asked itself when setting up the debate rules for this year. And the answer is, they’re going to have two nights of debates, each with ten candidates. That means the four candidates with the lowest support won’t appear on stage in the first round of debates.
So who are all these people? Let’s go in declining order of popularity. First up, the front-runner, Joe Biden. The 76-year-old veteran politician was Barack Obama’s vice president and was a senator from the state of Delaware before that. He is considered the centrist, the practical one, the one who knows how to win. He’s familiar to Democratic voters; he’s been a major party figure for decades, and he is leading the pack right now with about 26 percent support in this crowded field.
Next up, Bernie Sanders. The independent Vermont senator ignited the primary field in the 2016 election cycle, but narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton, who, of course, went on to lose to Trump. Though 77 years old himself, he has a strong following among younger, more idealistic voters. He promises radical change on issues like climate change and national health care.
Elizabeth Warren, a senator from the northeastern state of Massachusetts, is polling a strong third and has had a good few weeks. She is well to the left, politically, of Joe Biden, but is seen as a more serious policy-oriented candidate than Bernie Sanders. Her big issue is regulation of business.
These are the big three, with name recognition, fundraising, and policy proposals. Now we start getting into the middle tier of candidates: still serious candidates, but they’ve got their work cut out for them—ahem—if they want to break into the top tier. The most interesting one would be Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old former mayor of a small city in Indiana. He’s a gifted politician and a strong contrast to the septuagenarian front-runners. He would also be the first gay nominee of a major political party. He has about eight percent support in the early polls.
Two more senators, Kamala Harris from California and Corey Booker from New Jersey have national profiles, but have struggled to break out of the single-digits in support. Beto O’Rourke, a former congressman from El Paso, Texas, is a strong retail politician—that means he’s good in small crowds, shaking hands, and such—but he needs to get some more national attention.
So a small-town mayor, two sitting senators, and an ex-congressman make up the middle tier. Now comes the long tail—the seventeen others who are all polling somewhere around zero and one percent each. A few more senators: Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Michael Bennet of Colorado; and 88-year-old former senator Mike Gravel. Several sitting congressmen and -women: Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii; Eric Swalwell of California; Tim Ryan of Ohio; Seth Moulton of Massachusetts; and ex-congressman John Delaney. A couple of governors: Jay Inslee of Washington, whose only issue is climate change; Montana Governor Steve Bullock; former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. Would this country really elect someone whose last name is Hickenlooper?
We’re not done yet. The mayor New York City—I mentioned him a few weeks ago—Bill DeBlasio. Former mayor of San Antonio Julián Castro. The mayor of Miramar, Florida, Wayne Messam. I don’t know where Miramar, Florida is either. The spiritual adviser to Oprah—yes, this is really happening—Marianne Williamson. And entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
I’m out of breath. Twenty-four, yikes. If I had to guess, I would say there will probably be about ten left when the voting starts in the first primary states in February, but then after those first few states go, it’ll be a battle among three, maybe four candidates tops. We’ll see.
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