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A woman candidate for the 2020 Presidential Elections in the United States is the Democrats’ best option, says David Wasserman
The mid-term elections in the US were held in November 2018 and helped gauge Donald Trump’s popularity. Yet they also hinted at who his rivals might be in the 2020 Presidential Election. David Wasserman, House Editor of The Cook Political Report, commented on the results at a new edition of the ESADE Big Challenges cycle of talks. He stressed that women candidates were the big winners in both the Senatorial and Congressional elections.
Wasserman — one of America’s most renowned election analysts — noted that “This really was the year for women in politics”. He went on to summarise the results obtained by many women candidates. “A charismatic young woman with virtually no political experience is the US Democrats’ best option to campaign against Trump in the 2020 Presidential Elections”, he added after extrapolating the mid-term results to the Presidential Election campaign, which begins next year.
Here, he highlighted a woman politician - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – who at just 29 became the youngest Congresswoman ever in the history of The United States. She won in the neighbourhoods of The Bronx and Queens in New York. Another rising star, according to Wasserman, is Beto O’Rouke, the Democratic Senatorial candidate for Texas. She lost by a slender margin to the Republican candidate yet managed to mobilise young people “in a way that recalled Barack Obama”, he stressed.
Change of paradigm
Nevertheless, Trump’s arrival at The White House has changed the rules of politics in the US. “We tend to think of politics as a debate between Left and Right but in America today, it is a debate between elites and those who oppose them and I believe the Democrats have yet to grasp this fact”.
This change of paradigm is happening at the global level. Wasserman cites examples such as Brexit or the rise of the Far Right in many European countries. The problem is partly that society is increasingly polarised, with highly homogeneous communities with a world-view that is diametrically opposed to that of other communities in the same country. “Democracy as we know it in America is threatened”, warns Wasserman, who laments that “We now no longer even agree on the facts”, referring to ‘fake news’ and partisan interpretations of news from certain media sources.
During this workshop in the Big Challenges cycle, Wasserman was accompanied by ESADE professor and Director of ESADEgeo, Ángel Saz, who highlighted Wasserman’s consummate skill in analysing US elections
