How does Steyer stands with unique donors? I have no info about that.

But I agree, it could be two nights again, but each being smaller. 9 are qualified currently and Castro seems inevitable. We could look at around 12 overall.

The fourth debate in October could be stage even more. DNC said it has the same criteria, but gives more time into october. So some who fail to qualify for the third debate might get to the fourth.

No numbers divulged yet, but probably rising quickly? I mean, the guy can literally give the money to people donate back to him...

Yeah, it's not out of the realm of possibility the fourth debate has like 14 people. I hope they decide to split them not between two nights, but into a main debate and a "kid's table" this time around, like the Republicans did. Else the top four won't be debating together until who knows when.

Well Delaney did this trick and it netted him... around 8K unique donors. Not impressed.

I am liking the current format more. We have more than enough debates so that each of the major candidate meets up with each other. This should be fine. In two debates only Warren of the bigger candidates missed Biden so far. With more debates this will change.

The thing is, before the first debate Biden was about 10 points higher, often winning over 40% in many polls. He's going down, slowly but surely...

Also, have a look who's winning: Sanders, Warren, Yang, Booker, Buttigieg, Gabbard, Castro and Inslee. In other words, there's a clear shift to the left in terms of policies, while the establishment candidates are all on the dropping side.

It's a bit sad that Castro doesn't seem to get any higher despite his good performances in the debates. While he's far from being my favorite candidate, he deserves more than what he has from performances alone imo.

As far as I understand, Tom Steyer was a big financier of progressive ideas in the democratic party. As a result, his name might have popped up often enough in the past, especially since he financed ads in favor of progressivism in the past. He's a billionaire in favor for raising taxes for the rich like himself, and a rather big environmentalist to boot. His actions in the past might have given him a good network to build upon.

He's probably running on his 5 Rights principle, which he believes every democrat should fight for. These are the right to vote, and rights for a good health, a complete education, living wages and a clean environment. All in all probably the exact opposite of Trump in terms of billionaires.

Biden lost his announcement boost, and there's a poor first debate, but other than that, I don't see any long-term trend at all?

Yang and Gabbard are far-right darlings (most of their supporters have voted Trump over Clinton at 5:1 and 12:1 rates respectively, according to YouGov) polling at 0% with the democratic mainstream, so I wouldn't lump them together with the other progressives. Besides, Yang lost votes in the data I posted.

Also... in the latest polls, Steyer has 58% of people with no opinion about him, which is less than Ryan and around the same as Inslee, so I'm not sure how well-know he is exactly, despite of what he might have previously done or not.

P.S. Don't get me wrong, I'd love if Warren or Sanders won this, but the effects of the US election all over the world, specially in countries where fascists sit on presidential or prime-minister chairs with their smug faces... no, we can't risk giving them any more moral authority. Else, we'll be subject to their wild ride for at least another half a decade.

Yeah, I've been following Silver for a long time now and he's always been incredibly pessimistic with Sanders. He was pessimistic with Trump pretty much until it was obvious he was going to get the nomination, and even then entertained all sorts of ideas about how he might be stopped, and not until the last couple of months did he have Trump with a decent chance to win through flipping the Rust Belt. The guy is incredibly skeptical of any anti-establishment movement until it's inevitable the movement will succeed.

Yeah well, his statistical model about the 2016 election was good. And he said himself, that his considerations before the model were wrong. I guess if he makes educated guesses, he does not better than us. So that is why he said 'not taken too seriously tiers'.

That said I think his underestimation of Sanders is strange. Although Sanders was and is polling at second place, Silver often put him below Kamala Harris. And it is not as if the other indicator were bad. Sanders has less endorsements than Harris, but not extremely bad. And fundraising is phenomenal for Sanders. But ih well, I also only make educated guesses, so my chances to be right aren't any better.

Don't get me wrong, I generally trust his statistical analysis, the man is really good at what he does. As far as I can tell, it's the best political statistical analysis on the internet. But he seems to believe that his Sanders bearishness is justified because he thinks Sanders has a "low ceiling" without asking himself why that is and what might change that. In the 2016 primary Sanders was the candidate who just kept slowly climbing in the polls, much like Warren is now (and Sanders still, just slower), so he didn't have a ceiling then, why would he now? I mean come on, Biden voters second choice is Bernie, he's a guy that goes on Fox News and Joe Rogan and makes the leftwing case to people across the aisle in such a way that it gets through to them! If Warren isn't near her ceiling yet, then neither is Bernie. And Biden hasn't hit his floor yet, as we've seen. There's already been a poll showing Biden behind nationally, while Bernie never has a weak showing and that showing is continually improving. Bernie should be with Warren on those tiers, and Kamala should be by herself in 1c. His only justification for having Warren in a higher tier is that she "has the most upward momentum" right now, and yet Bernie gained more after the second debate than she did, her climb has just been going on a bit longer. It really just feels like this is a gut feeling of his, and he's guilty of the same things now that he confessed to in that Trump confession you linked, he's being a pundit.

Cut out the fall and climb between the two debates, and you can see a steady decline. Biden didn't even recoup his entire loss in between, and is going down now again.

At the same time, you can see Warren climbing steadily, and Sanders is also starting to recoup from his losses, though at a much lesser pace than Warren does.

The race is long, and Biden seems more and more to be like a pacemaker instead of a front-runner.

Neo-Nazi groups hope that Gabbards stance in support of arabic countries would mean that she's against Israel and Jews in general, hence why those support her. Trump may be a white nationalist, but when it comes to Israel, he's in full support of it. So he's not an option for them this time around despite in everything else he's so often on their wavelength.