I actually think that both together would make one hell of a team. Sanders has the most diverse supporters, Warren the most white. Sanders supporters tend to have lower education, while Warren supporters tend to be college educated. That list goes on and on, basically both together cover most of the economic and ethnic groups and whatsnot in the US.

In other words, if they want to go for most voters on election day, then Sanders/Warren would be the Dream Team, no matter who's running for president and who's the running mate, as they each would pull a lot of support for the other one.

Yeah, I also don't understand why @SpokenTruth was expecting Delaney to drop out now. With Messam I don't know what to expect like I said, but the next 2 candidates on my list who might drop out are Bullock, Ryan, Bennet, De Blasio and Gillibrand. Bennet, Bullock, Blasio (the B-Team) and Ryan never really got anywhere, while Gillibrand just dropped more and more and more.  What probably keeps Gillibrand (and to a lesser degree, Bennet) from dropping out of the race despite having lost almost all of her support is that she also has the most cash on hand and only spent about one third of her money.

Of course, I also expected Inslee to go at least until the fourth debate, so my expectation might be a bit off here.

A ranking of the democratic primary contenders

I made three overviews of the field in past months:

• in April
• in June
• in July

That was each time basically a big data dump for the main indicators about how well the campaigns are running. But I feel like this is hard to process. That's why I thought I mix it up a little and rank the contenders into tiers, based on the data. I use the usual A to E ranks and additionally X for extraordinary, so something one or two candidates are far beyond the usual.

I gave a little thought about if I should use relative or absolute criteria for putting the candidates into tiers. Relative means it uses the current race and sets the criteria based on that. Upside would be, that for every category would be candidates in each of the tiers. Absolute criteria are more oriented at how it compares historically to other races. Downside is, that for some categories no candidate at all might reach A-tier. I still decided to go with absolute criteria, because it helps to understand that historically speaking this race is far from over. I make exceptions for some stuff that is hard to compare in absolute terms.

As for categories I used the usual three criteria to gauge a campaign: polls, endorsements and campaign finance. As the DNC has so well defined criteria for qualifying to the debates, debate qualification is the fourth criteria. This is also a category, where I apply relative criteria, as the qualification to debates is incomparable to past nominations. As a fifth criteria I go for media attention, both classical media and social media. And I have a category other for some other stuff that might be interesting but doesn't fit elsewhere.

All data is available in a spreadsheet.

debates

First I go with the debate qualification. This is pretty straightforward. So far candidates could qualify for three debates (actually four, but at the moment there is no difference between qualification for third and fourth debate). So I look at two data points: how many debates the candidate made and how many qualifying criteria he met. As the DNC has two qualifying criteria for each debate (unique donors and polls) a candidate can make at most 6 of these currently.

The tiers are given as follows:

• for debate attendance: 3=A, 2=B, 1=C, 0=E
• for qualifying criterias: 6=A, 5=B, 4/3=C, 2/1=D, 0=E

These are the results:

No surprise here, we know that 10 candidates qualified for all three debates, they also have fulfilled all criteria. Therefore they are overall in A-tier. Gabbard, Gillibrand, Inslee and Williamson all fulfilled both criteria for the first two debates, but so far struggle to reach the third debate. They are B-tier. Following are the candidates that made the first two debates only by polling. Gravel and Steyer each haven't made any debate, but have fulfilled the donor-criteria for one. And the rest did never meet one of the qualifying criterias of the DNC.

polling

Polling is interesting. I was thinking for a while how to put the thresholds for the tiers here. There are some points though, that made my decision. If one candidate polls over 50%, that clearly means no other candidate can reach that mark. That must be X-tier then. Another mark is 15%, as this is the hurdle to get delegates. This is a bit complicated though, as this hurdle is both for state and districts, an 538 had an article explaining that. Still 15% is an important milestone, so I put B-tier there and A-tier then at double the amount: 30%. To close it I put C-tier at 5%, D-tier at 1% and E-tier for everyone below 1%.

So for this category I looked at different polling averages. 270 to win and Realclearpolitics both not only have national polling average, but also one for the early voting states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina), so I included that, as these early primary states in the past were important to shape the nomination. I didn't include the polling averages of the Economist and the New York Times in my past overviews, as they put some candidate at '<0%' and this is impossible to graph. But it is fine to put into tiers, so this time they are on board. Also I included this time 10@10 average.

As you can see, none of the candidates made A-tier. This may be because of the crowded field, but the crowded field also means the frontrunner has a harder time to win, so this actually makes sense. Biden is the only one dipping into A-tier in some polls, especially in South Carolina). Sanders and Warren fill up B-tier with solid polls. Buttigieg and Harris make C-tier as the only candidates getting stable over 5%.

endorsements

The next category are endorsements. This is reflecting the theory that the party establishment decides the candidate. Data suggests that endorsement of party officials and party members elected into public office are often a good indicator of the candidate that gets the nomination. But as always: what comes first. Do the endorsements steer the course of the nomination, or are the officials just endorse candidates who look like they would win?

Anyways, so far I am only aware of 538 methodically tracking endorsements. I look both at the point value and the pure number of endorsements. As 538 has a defined pool of possible endorsements, I can make percentages out of these numbers and go with them.

As with polls, if one candidate gathers 50% of the endorsements, no other can (as 538 only count endorsements if they are exclusive). But in difference to polls 15% is not special. Also it is possible to have exactly no endorsement and securing even one endorsement is better in my book. Also endorsements tend to happen in big chunks, so it seems fine to have strong differences between the tiers. So I define the tiers as follows: 50%=X, 20%=A, 5%=B, 1%=C, <1%=D, none=E.

None of the candidates so far comes beyond C-tier. The reason for that is quite simple: the party officials are hesistant this year to support a candidate. That may or may not change as the process continues and more candidates drop out. So far though nothing decisive comes out of the endorsements yet.

It sometimes happened also in the past, that the party officials failed to coalesce around a candidate. Most notably that happened in the 2016 Republican nomination. In the end a candidate the party establishment despised made it: Donald Trump.

campaign finance

I base this data on the official filings at the FEC. So as the last quarterly data filed was up until end of June, the  data only reaches that far. Take that into consideration. That means we have no filed data yet from Tom Steyer and Joe Sestak.

I looked at the total funds, as these are used to get the campaign going and at the last quarterly data (Q2), as this is an indication if a campaign gets fired up or slows down. As Wikipedia said in 2016 both Sanders and Clinton got past 200M$ I set X-tier at 250M$. I go down from there with 100M$=A, 50M$=B, 10M$=C, 5M$=D and E-tier for less than that. For quarterly funds I go with 50M$=X, 25M$=A, 10M$=B, 5M$=C and 1M$=D (and E for less).

No candidate has so far reached B-tier and above in total finances, as we are still early on. But Sanders and Warren are pretty close and should make it in this quarter. Joe Biden and Buttiegieg can make it there, if Q3 is strong for them.

media attention

For media I looked at a lot of stuff. As before I counted how much major media included the candidate in their lists of major candidates. A-tier is only for making all lists, the other tiers go down from that. Besides that I looked at total cable news mentions in 2019 as counted by the New York Times. I only recalculated it as percentages, to better put them into tiers. Also I included cable news mentions and online stories of the last week, as calculated by 538. For social media attention I counted the number of followers on twitter, facebook and instagram. Again I calculated percentages of the total number for creating tiers.

Here is how it looks:

Only Biden and Sanders make A-tier here. But they have different ways to it. Biden gets much attention from classic media, both in cable news and online. Sanders on the other hand is the social media king. Harris and Warren follow on B-tier in the media attention. Booker and O'Rourke make the C-tier. Everyone else is on the lowest two tiers.

other

In this category I collected some interesting critieria not fitting anywhere else. For one I looked into the unique donors each candidate had according to the donor map of the New York Times. This includes data up until end of June. I hope this map gets updated the next quarter, as it is quite interesting. I also look at the number of qualifying polls made for second and third debate. Debate qualification is reached with three (for second) and four (for third) respectively. But the number of qualifying polls each candidate had is also quite telling. And lastly I looked at favorability as asked for by Morning Consult. I substracted unfavorable from favorable for net favorability, and added both for name recognition.

As I expect for candidates vying for the office of president, I assumed they need a high name recognition, so starting with 50% for D-tier and adding 10% for each other tier. Here is really telling, that Biden and Sanders both reached X-tier in name recognition, but everyone else has B-tier max. This means these two are way more well-known than everyone else in the field. They both are also the only ones reaching 50% net favorability, which I set for A-tier.

Sanders is the only one having more than 500 thousand unique donors (at least in June). Elizabeth Warren at least is close here.

result

Well now, if we put all of that together… we get this:

I want to mention that the candidates that have withdrawn so far are among the D- and E-tier. Therefore I expect that Michael Bennet, Wayne Messam, Tim Ryan and Joe Sestak may be the next to drop out.

Yeah I totally agree with you. A Sanders/Warren ticket is the dream team for me too. Although I would prefer Sanders as the president because I feel he would be able to energize more people who want change to fight for it as he is literally saying he wants a revolution. Also the fact that he's Jewish, has lived in Israel, and has family there would mean his criticisms of the Israeli government would carry a lot more weight as president and it wouldn't be scandalized by the media for being anti-Semitic. Those are just a couple of examples of why I'd prefer Sanders but I'd be really glad no matter who of the two is president though.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/16/politics/cnn-town-halls-bullock-de-blasio/index.html
Bullock and de Blasio are getting a townhall today at 6 and 7pm eastern.

Bofferbrauer, you're simply mistaken about battery storage not being enough. You're echoing right wing talking points, in fact. There will always be fluctuations, whether you have "base-load" or renewables with batteries. You're missing the point of the different business model. The demand will always fluctuate, but with sufficient storage and enough connected microgrids, and pricing electricity as a service instead of a per-kWh utility, the fluctuations are irrelevant.

Biden plunges in a new poll by Monmouth. A three way tie with 20% Sanders (up from 14%), 20% Warren (up from 15%), and 19% Biden (down from 32%).
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_082619/
Biden continues his downward trend, it really is becoming a battle between Sanders and Warren.

Looks like tsogud just beat me to it, dang. That is one hell of a plunge for Joe. And from Monmouth, at that! This isn't the first poll to show him behind, but now there are multiple polls showing this, from different pollsters, and at least one trustworthy one with Monmouth. Biden is not even remotely inevitable now. Let's hope this trend continues as people realize Joe for the uninspiring weirdo he is.

Here he is asking a crowd to imagine Obama being assassinated:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-poses-hypothetical-assassination-obama-n1046006

The context was the unrest of the late 60s, but still, that's just fucking weird. Why are you so weird, Joe?

In the Monmouth poll Williamson picked up her first qualifying poll for the third and fourth debate.

EDIT: I think with more time for the fourth debate, Steyer, Gabbard, Williamson and Gillibrand probably will make the fourth debate. It looks difficult for the third debate, as time runs out.

Like I said, Biden is slipping further and further down. Still, I consider the monmouth an outliner, just like those from Yougov/economist (who have him at 21-23%). Especially since it has only a sample size of less than 300 people. They may all be registered voters, but such a small group tends to weight things differently than having 3000 people, as someone voting for somebody is already 0.3% of all votes. Now have a few more than average voters for one specific candidate and you get these big changes and effects.

Also, the statistics are against him. Would have been the first time in decades if the early frontrunner in the democratic primaries kept his lead until the finish line without it's opponents getting dismissed, ignored and what have you (I'm looking at you, Hillary!). I said it in the past that time is against Biden, and so far I've been proven right. He will slide further down the more people get interested into the primaries and have a closer look at things. His constant slip-ups don't help matters, either.

Just look what I bolded. I don't know if I wasn't clear enough, but that was my entire point: That we don't have anywhere near sufficient storage yet to go full renewable and that we have to massively expand that capacity if we want to go there (which I'm 100% for). And that will take many years, if not many decades to realize, and thus we will need other power sources to bring a reliable and predictable power baseline until we have the necessary energy storage capacity. Trust me, I was working in the industry, I know what I'm talking about. Without anything to absorb that excess energy from solar and wind the entire grid will fry.

I would support going full renewable if we had the capacity to do so already, but while we have the technology, we don't have the structures for it yet. Hence my last point in the previous post about that:

"I would say however that there could be a way out: having to force buildings that they need to install a battery which size depends on the power consumption of it. This could become pretty huge batteries in skyscrapers (or several smaller ones), but that way we would escape the need for the megabatteries mentioned above."

This was supposed to bring us the necessary energy storage capabilities and, just as importantly, having them close to the energy consumers (this is a great problem in Germany, as the renewable power is produced mostly in the north of the country, while most of the consumption is in the south. This is also why Germany is buying electricity right now, power plants from neighboring countries are closer to the industrial centers than the own electricity production capacities, and using those would risk overloading and fry the power lines).

I do agree on you with power as a service, it's something I have been advocating for years (along with water and internet as a service, the latter as a one-size-fits-all) to be considered as basic human needs in the modern world. There is one reason however I would still advocate for pricing electricity by the kilowatt: it can give an incentive to switch to less consuming goods and appliances, which wouldn't exist if priced as a service.

Considering the state of the GOP right now, one might count Trump into that list, even though he's a pretty negative example.