The race for the 2020 Democratic nomination became two candidates lighter following the Thanksgiving break.
Navy veteran and Harvard PhD grad Joe Sestak announced on Sunday that he was ending his 2020 run.
Then just one day later, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock suspended his 2020 campaign.
Neither Sestak nor Bullock had any real shot at winning the Democratic nomination, much less the Presidency next year. The two fringe candidates did not even register with the Democratic betting odds lists available on most online sportsbooks.
For comparison, former Vice President Joe Biden leads the party nomination odds with +280 chances. Marianne Williamson– spiritual advisor and best-selling author– sits at the bottom with +15000 odds.
Sestak and Bullock couldn’t even beat out her longshot numbers.
2020 Democratic nomination odds
Via Bovada
- Joe Biden +280
- Pete Buttigieg +300
- Elizabeth Warren +400
- Bernie Sanders +500
- Michael Bloomberg +900
- Hillary Clinton +1200
- Andrew Yang +1400
- Amy Klobuchar +4000
- Tulsi Gabbard +4500
- Kamala Harris +5000
- Cory Booker +10000
- Tom Steyer +12500
- Julian Castro +12500
- Marianne Williamson +15000
So what does that mean for the Democrats still in the race? In short, not much.
Since Sestak and Bullock provided no real competition to the candidates still in the race, their oustings will not affect the polling numbers or odds of the other Democrats too much.
As was stated above, Biden is leading all Democrats with his +280 odds of winning the party nomination. For a couple of months, up until recently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren led the pack before falling into third with +400 odds.
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg has surged in recent weeks to take the second-best odds at +300. However, Buttigieg is only polling at 6% in South Carolina per a Quinnipiac Poll.
The Palmetto State, the first southern state to hold a Presidential primary, has a substantial black voter population. Sadly for Buttigieg, he is notoriously bad at earning the support of the African-American community.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of the most popular Democrats in the race, has +500 odds of winning the nomination in 2020 after barely losing it to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Known for his support of Medicare for All, Sanders is also paving the way for left-wing foreign policy.
According to Josh Orton, Sanders’s national policy director, “Bernie is the only candidate who has a comprehensive foreign policy vision to stand up to the growing movement of anti-democratic authoritarianism worldwide.”
As the election draws closer, more Democrats will end the Presidential campaigns. However, it is unlikely that any frontrunners mentioned will drop before the very end.