Three days after the vote, the complete results of the Democratic Caucus in Iowa were released on Thursday, February 6, but no winner has been announced due to a computer bug in the party’s mobile application. Despite this fiasco, these results give a first estimate of the personalities on track to become the Democratic candidate for the American presidential election in November.
Thirty-something Pete Buttigieg surprised everyone by finishing neck and neck with Senator Bernie Sanders – according to results for all polling stations, Buttigieg won 26.2% of the vote, compared to 26.1 % for Mr. Sanders -, imposing himself no matter what an inescapable candidate in the race for the White House. The other surprise comes from the poor score of Joe Biden, the vice-president of Barack Obama, who arrives fourth, behind the senator Elizabeth Warren, while he dominates the polls at the national level for months.
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Pete Buttigieg, the thirty who surprises
A former mayor of South Bend, a small town of 100,000 in Indiana, Pete Buttigieg is the son of an emeritus professor of literature and has had a distinguished academic career. Having graduated from his private high school, he was noticed by the Kennedy family in 2000 by winning the JFK Prize for Essay on Courage. His prestigious career led him to graduate in history and literature at Harvard, then at Oxford.
Pete Buttigieg worked for Democrat John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004, then as a consultant to Defense Minister William Cohen from 2004 to 2005. In 2013, for seven months, he was mobilized as an officer Navy reservist intelligence in Afghanistan.
The youngest member of the Democratic race defends centrist positions. Hostile to universal health care funded by the federal government, he defends the freedom of choice to move from the private insurance system to a public system. He is in favor of raising taxes for the wealthy and advocates free higher education on a means-tested basis. Regarding ecology, he is opposed to new licenses to exploit hydrocarbons, including offshore, and he is in favor of a carbon tax. He advocates a solid defense budget as well as the repatriation of deployed troops.
The first openly gay Democrat candidate in history, Buttigieg was slated to compete in the election of the governor of Indiana in 2020, but chose to target the Oval office by announcing his candidacy on January 23, 2019. If he is less known nationally as his direct competitors like Joe Biden, he intends to take over the torch from the moderate wing at the age of 38 and reaches out to the voters of Donald Trump.
Bernie Sanders, candidate for the left wing who this time has many competitors
An independent senator from the small state of Vermont since 2007, Bernie Sanders has established himself over the years in the left wing of the Democratic Party, to establish himself as the only competitor of Hillary Clinton in the race for Democratic nomination in 2016. A duel that he will lose (43.1% of the votes against 55.1%), not without putting up resistance which has surprised more than one observer of American political life.
A self-proclaimed socialist in a country where socialism is associated with communism and erected at the end of the political spectrum, Mr. Sanders is one of the most progressive candidates for the primary. The Vermont senator favors the elimination of private insurance that guarantees health protection for the majority of Americans and replaces it with a system financed by the federal state (" Medicare for All »).
He also supports heavy taxation of the wealthy and universal health coverage. Alone in proposing the total cancellation of student debt, demanding free public education, he is also an ardent supporter of the fight against global warming and the defense of civil rights and public freedoms. He notably wants to shut down nuclear power plants and ban hydraulic fracturing.
When he was the only real opponent of Mme Clinton in 2016, Mr. Sanders faces this time many other candidates, younger and embodying new momentum for the party. The 78-year-old senator, who ran as a candidate on February 19, 2019, is currently in second place in the national polls, behind ex-vice president Joe Biden and ahead of Elizabeth Warren. Affiliated to the Democrats but not inset, Mr. Sanders is also criticized for his independence and his lack of solidarity with the party line.
Elizabeth Warren, a good speaker with growing popularity
From a large and modest family in Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren pursued a career as a law professor specializing in bankruptcy regulation and consumer protection.
Mme Warren, 70, is one of the most prominent Democrats to succeed Donald Trump, whom she described as "Racist brute" and D'"Tyrant apprentice". A good public speaker, perceived as a combative opponent of private interests, her popularity is growing in the Democratic electorate. Sign of the weight it represents, it is regularly the target of mockery of Donald Trump.
The candidate espouses many of Bernie Sanders' ideas, such as free higher education, targeted cancellation of student debt, a ban on fracking, reduced military spending and the repatriation of troops. But the firmness of his political positions – especially on the regulation of the financial sector – has been built at the expense of party unity, according to several senators. The fact that its intransigence divides the different sensibilities of the Democratic Party can constitute a real difficulty in gathering a fairly large electoral base. The Massachusetts senator since 2012 has yet to show that she can be the best candidate to beat Donald Trump.
Joe Biden, the false favorite
Born into a modest family in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden graduated in political science and history from the University of Delaware in 1965, and in law from the University of Syracuse (New York State) in 1968. He entered through the small carries politics by being elected to the county council of New Castle (Delaware) in 1970. It was in this state that, two years later, he was elected senator. A difficult period marked by the death of his wife and one and a half year old daughter in a car accident shortly after his election. Mr. Biden then raised his two sons, who survived, on his own, before remarrying a few years later.
Constantly re-elected to the Senate by his Delaware electorate, Mr. Biden joined the institution's powerful judicial committee in 1981 and took over the presidency in 1987. By his profile as a moderate, centrist member of the Democratic Party, he established himself as a influential and particularly bipartisan senator. But he failed twice to win the Democratic primary (1988 and 2008). He became running mate of Barack Obama after his retirement from racing in 2008 and will be his vice-president during his two terms.
Since entering the campaign on April 25, Joe Biden has repeatedly said that his long experience in government and parliament has made him the Democrats' best hope of defeating Donald Trump.
On the economic front, his tax reform proposals mainly tackle inequalities between states and focus on workers, calling for example to double the minimum hourly wage. Joe Biden has also long supported environmental protection and the fight against climate change, notably by proposing the introduction of a carbon tax.
Its program also provides for an extension of the Obamacare to provide health coverage to those without it. Like all the other candidates, he defends a federal minimum wage of 15 dollars per hour (instead of 7.25 dollars currently). It is also for the regularization of undocumented migrants when they entered the country and for the supervision of the firearms market. He advocates a high defense budget and the maintenance of troops abroad.
Joe Biden appeared on the start line of the Democratic primary marathon with flattering polls and weighty backers. The Iowa caucus, the first leg of the race, therefore tripped him. A mismatch that returns to the central question that hangs over Joe Biden: in contemporary America, can a 77-year-old white man with centrist political positioning having spent more than forty years in Washington electrify a democratic electoral base which increasingly aspire to radical change?
