Democratic governors running for president love to tout their records of getting things done. But in the race for the party’s nomination in 2020, voters appear to be nearly done with them.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper all debated on stage in Detroit this week, Bullock qualifying for the first time. But despite their home state popularity and record of accomplishments, the three governors lacked the kind of breakout performance that would propel them to an easy slot on stage in Houston, where the Democratic National Committee has upped the threshold to compete.
“There was a period of time when governor was the single greatest springboard to the presidency,” Mo Elleithee, a longtime Democratic strategist, said. “But if you look at the last cycles, governors have really struggled.”
ADVERTISEMENT
In an unpredictable primary with nearly two dozen contenders, it’s former Vice President Joe Biden, as well as senators—Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Kamala Harris (D-CA)—who are leading most national polls. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who has struggled to gain mainstream momentum, had the kind of campaign-advancing moment he needed on Wednesday night that helped him land a spot for the next debate. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced on Friday morning that she has also qualified.
Inslee, Bullock, and Hickenlooper each poll in the low single digits, routinely failing to crack even 3 percent of support. It’s that requirement—each Democratic candidate must poll at at least 2 percent in four qualifying surveys, as well as report 130,000 unique donors—in order to secure a place on stage that could prove particularly difficult.
And their debate performances, judging by the early reviews, didn’t do much to change their fortunes.
“Part of the challenge is, our politics have become a lot more nationalized,” Elleithee said. “Governors used to have an even shot at getting national attention, but that’s not the case now.”
On the surface, the trio have much in common: they’re all middle-aged white men, popular state-wide executives re-elected for second terms, and hail from the Western part of the country. While their polices span the ideological spectrum—with Inslee preferring a more progressive approach, compared to Hickenlooper, who’s running a decidedly centrist campaign from one of 2020’s biggest battlegrounds, and Bullock, who talks up his pragmatic style in a red state on the campaign trail—they’ve each struggled to make compelling cases for taking on President Trump.
“Look, I'm a pro-choice, pro-union, populist Democrat who won three elections in a red state. Not by compromising our values, but by getting stuff done,” Bullock said in Detroit this week. “That's how we win back the places we lost: showing up, listening, focusing on the challenges of everyday Americans.”
But they’ve each had unique hurdles that the first two debates did little to alleviate. Hickenlooper faced a massive staff shakeup after his campaign struggled to successfully make the case for a centrist alternative Biden, who leads the national polls. His repeated jabs at Sanders over socialism have so far proved ineffective, and several staffers have encouraged him to drop out of the race before the debate.
Bullock suffers from a different issue: his lack of name recognition. The term-limited Montana governor announced his presidential bid later than nearly any other candidate in the race, saying he wanted to finish out his state’s legislative session. But despite having some top strategists advising his movements, he’s struggled with messaging, other than being the only candidate in the race who won a state Trump carried in 2016.
Inslee, who has dedicated his entire campaign to a single issue, has failed to bring climate change to the forefront more than rivals Sanders and Warren, who are in favor of the concept of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) Green New Deal. He will have a chance next month when two major cable news networks devote forums to his signature issue. But it’s unlikely to garner the same level of national spotlight as the Houston debate in September, where rivals will again present their electability cases to the public.
The Democratic Governors Association, which Inslee and Bullock both chaired, and of which Hickenlooper was a vice chair, declined to comment on what it could mean if there were no governors on stage for the third debate. But Elleithee suggested it’s a tough road ahead.
“We reward those who are able to seize the spotlight,” he said. “What used to be a given, we have been on this trajectory now for two decades where governors are not getting the attention at the national level that they used to.”
