I am well aware of my advancing age.  I remember well the presidential campaign of 1960, in which the ultimate victor, John F. Kennedy did not announce his candidacy until January of the election year itself. 

In terms of the current art and science of Presidential campaigning, the election of 1960 is light years ago.  Modern presidential campaign planning begins no later than the midterm election year.  Candidates must make their official announcements early in the calendar year preceding the election calendar year and begin active fundraising.  It is the “money primary” that almost always determines the nominee of each party, the best case in point being Bill Clinton’s unanticipated success in the “money primary” of 1992. 

In New Jersey, the speculation is on whether incumbent US Senator Cory Booker will seek the Democratic presidential nomination.  New Jersey recently experienced a presidential campaign by one of its leading political figures, to wit, Chris Christie in 2016.  Booker, however is a far more viable candidate.

Cory Booker has far more charismatic voter appeal and communication skills than Chris Christie ever had, a larger fundraising capacity, and a much more incisive knowledge of federal political and policy issues.  While his record as mayor of Newark will come under close scrutiny, it is highly unlikely that he will run under a Damoclean sword of scandal comparable to Christie’s Bridgegate. 

There is a major obstacle facing Booker, however, namely, his “bracket positioning” in the contest for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

As I mentioned in my InsiderNJ column of September 5, 2018 (https://www.insidernj.com/look-cory-comes-kamala/), as with the NCAA basketball championship, you have brackets emerging in presidential nomination campaigns.  The nature of the brackets changes from campaign to campaign, and they will tell you something about the likely final outcome.

Three brackets have already emerged for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination sweepstakes:  1) the Traditional Democrat bracket; 2) the Progressive Democrat bracket; and 3) the Star Quality bracket, this last bracket in many ways overlapping the first two.

Former Vice President Joe Biden now is by far the leading entry in the Traditional Democrat Bracket.  Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren are the leading candidates in the Progressive Democrat lane.   

As shown by this week’s USA Today/Suffolk University Poll, however, the recent midterms resulted in a substantial diminishment of value in the ownership of the Progressive Democrat lane.  Both Sanders and Warren scored a net negative among Democratic voters as to whether they should run.  The message is clear: Democratic voters want a winner, and the Democrats take too high a risk if they run a progressive.

In the aforesaid poll, among all prospective candidates, Joe Biden has by far the highest net positive on the issue of whether he should run.  Yet the dominant preference among the Democrats polled is for “someone entirely new.”

Such a “new face” is most likely to emerge from the aforesaid “Star Quality” bracket, a lane now occupied by Booker, California US Senator Kamala Harris, and a recent entry, former member of the US House of Representatives from Texas Beto O’Rourke, off his strong showing against Ted Cruz in the midterm US Senate race.   It’s not clear if O’Rourke will run, but the entry of Harris is a certainty.

Assuming O’Rourke runs, both he and Harris have two significant advantages over Booker, basically a product of their respective home state geographic bases.  First, they have a greater capacity for fundraising from their respective home states than Booker has in New Jersey.  Second, and even more significant, their respective home states are far more delegate rich than Booker’s home state of New Jersey.  In fact, a victory by either Harris or O’Rourke in the primaries in their respective home states will yield each a significant percentage of the delegates they need to win the nomination.

This advantage for Harris and O’Rourke appears even more significant when one views the current 2020 presidential primary schedule.

The Iowa caucuses constitute the first nomination contest on February 3, 2020, followed by the New Hampshire primary on February 11, 2020.  Then, both the Texas and California primaries are scheduled for Super Tuesday on March 5, 2020.  It should be noted that there is early voting in both the Texas and California primaries, and that both states have had robust early voting in the past. 

If Joe Biden runs, he is the likely winner of both the February Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, given his broad-based appeal to all sectors of the Democratic primary electorate.

That is not a problem for Harris and O’Rourke, given the high likelihood of their garnering huge totals of delegates in the subsequent March primaries in their home states, enabling them to come back quickly.

For Cory Booker, however, Biden’s entry into the race creates an almost insurmountable obstacle.  Booker does not represent a delegate-rich state, as do Harris and O’Rourke, and he must win either the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary to establish viability.  Otherwise, his fundraising will dry up quickly.  He has no March home state comeback option, as do Harris and O’Rourke. 

A Biden candidacy makes it virtually impossible for Booker to win in either Iowa or New Hampshire.  That means his 2020 candidacy will be short lived.   

I have no idea as to whether Joe Biden will run.  But I have little doubt that Cory Booker hopes he won’t. 

 Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission under former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman.