2020 Elections

He is seeking to mark his entrance into the 2020 race with a rush of union support, early-state endorsements and fundraising figures.

Joe Biden has led nearly every Democratic primary poll without doing anything. Now, the former vice president’s team is planning to solidify his frontrunner status with a wave of high-profile organizing, fundraising and endorsement news when he enters the race.

Biden’s campaign in waiting has ramped up over the last several weeks — calling donors across the country and tapping decades-old friendships to line up support from major Democratic Party figures, organized labor, members of Congress and elected officials from early presidential states, according to people with direct knowledge of Biden’s campaign strategy. POLITICO also spoke to donors who’ve received calls from Biden’s team, potential campaign aides who have been interviewed for jobs and stakeholders in early primary and caucus states who were asked to pitch in their support.

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As Biden seeks on-the-ground labor support in early primary and caucus states, he has all but locked in the endorsement of the International Association of Firefighters, the union that helped boost John Kerry to the Democratic nomination in 2004. This year, union president Harold Schaitberger said, the 315,000-member union plans to quickly deploy an organized effort to boost Biden in the early-voting states.

“I have been in touch on a consistent basis with the campaign and the vice president,” Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters told POLITICO on Monday. Once Biden’s announcement goes live, Schaitberger continued, “our executive board will be prepared to immediately meet and formally take a position on the primary and we’ll likely be prepared to make that announcement on the 29th.”

The early activity is fueled by Biden’s long relationships within the Democratic Party and the bonds he built as Barack Obama’s vice president, which vaulted him to the top of the primary pack this year without rushing into the race early. He still faces a treacherous path to the nomination, including questions about his past positions and his appeal to the base of a changing party, which other candidates are sure to stoke. But Biden’s team sees an opportunity to generate something he hasn’t yet had this year with a strong entrance: forward momentum, created by showing Biden has what it takes to compete in a historically large primary field before going toe-to-toe with President Donald Trump.

As Biden’s team works to lock down national labor support, it is also chasing union backing in early states like Iowa, where his aides have already interviewed staff.

“I talked to his staff quite a bit,” said Betty Brim-Hunter, who was the state political director to Iowa’s AFL-CIO for 13 years. Asked if she will be with Biden: “100 percent. And I told his staff whatever I can do to help them — I just retired, they have my commitment.”

Former Nevada Democratic chairman Sam Lieberman said Biden has already won his endorsement and he expects “labor could be easily persuaded to support Joe Biden if he was in the mix.”

“I have always supported him in the past and I would definitely support him now,” Lieberman said. “I’m just concerned that it needs to happen fast because we in Nevada are getting inundated by all the candidates.”

The long-awaited campaign is finally in the works: Biden’s team has planned for a video announcement this week. Several sources close to the campaign said previous media reports about timing and location of rallies were not accurate, though the campaign would not comment to clarify. Three people who talked to Biden or his team told POLITICO the announcement could come on Thursday, though the timing remained in flux as of late Monday.

Biden’s formal announcement is to be followed by related launch events, including a fundraiser in Philadelphia. An announcement on early state presidential staffing would soon follow, and the campaign would then roll into a series of early-state visits.

“They’re going to launch strategically all over the country,” an operative with knowledge of Biden’s strategy said. “They’ll have people in place in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and roll out endorsements from elected officials all over the country, so when they come out they can have this show of force.”

In recent weeks, Biden’s team or Biden himself have reached out to donors around the country asking for commitments for a launch this week.

In Philadelphia, a group of donors were asking supporters to write checks even before the fundraiser slated to be held later this week, once Biden is officially in the race.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who is helping organize the fundraiser, said he’s been in contact with Biden’s team and is still awaiting final word on timing for the event, which would follow Biden’s announcement. Rendell said the fundraiser was planned for Thursday as of that moment, but he also said it could be moved to next week.

“We’re doing it on the day they tell us,” Rendell told POLITICO. “They have told us tentatively Thursday but there’s nothing in stone about that.”

Stephen Cozen, an attorney and longtime Biden ally, said the fundraising effort aims “to demonstrate to others that he’s got this very broad band of support at the lowest level, not necessarily even at the highest level, where I’m sure — I know for a fact — there are people with a lot of money sitting out there waiting for Joe to get in. That’s not what we’re concentrating on. We’re concentrating on building the bottom.”

Biden’s call for donors comes as he’s expected to be outpaced on small-donor fundraising by others in the field, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who so far has the most consistent, highest polling aside from Biden. Small-dollar donations have been a point of emphasis for most candidates, who have sought to portray themselves as outsiders not entangled with special interests.

“It’s not an emergency but it’s a need. He’s got a list. But it’s not a Bernie list,” said a Biden campaign surrogate. “We need to push checks up as early as possible.”

Holly Otterbein and Alex Thompson contributed to this report.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s opening shot on a higher education plan raises the bar for 2020 candidates, moving far beyond free college and calling for sweeping loan forgiveness for millions of Americans likely to vote in the Democratic primaries.

Warren’s proposal to cancel a large swath of the $1.5 trillion in outstanding student debt catapults an idea percolating on the edges of progressive politics since at least the Occupy Wall Street movement squarely into the mainstream of a Democratic presidential primary. The $640 billion student debt cancellation plan is the most ambitious higher education proposal yet from a 2020 presidential candidate.

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The proposal, which was announced on Monday, injects a new idea into a Democratic primary field already debating progressive ideas on the Green New Deal and “Medicare for All.” But Warren’s plan is also prompting charges from the right, and even some corners of the left, of a massive and unfair giveaway that would benefit students who racked up debt to attend expensive schools instead of those who saved for college or picked less pricey options.

The plan would provide direct relief to some 42 million student loan borrowers, most of whom would have their debt wiped away completely, according to Warren’s campaign. The one-time cancellation program would forgive $50,000 of debt for all borrowers earning less than $100,000, with proportionally less debt relief for those earning up to $250,000.

Warren told CNN on Monday that her plan “goes further” and is “certainly bigger” than Sen. Bernie Sanders’ bill to eliminate tuition at public colleges and universities, of which she is a cosponsor.

“It certainly is an ambitious proposal,” said James Kvaal, a former Obama White House education adviser, who now runs The Institute for College Access and Success, a non-profit. He said the debt cancellation idea is a proposal for “redistribution of wealth more than it is a higher ed policy.”

“You’re going to see a group of candidates who are competing to articulate the most ambitious proposals on college affordability” during the Democratic primary, Kvaal said. “This plan is a strong opening bid in that auction, and I think there will be a second set of candidates trying to articulate a middle ground course.”

Several other 2020 contenders have already sought to distance themselves from calls for free college as a way to burnish their more moderate credentials. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, for instance, has said she’s opposed to making four-year colleges free. And South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg has also been critical of such plans.

Warren’s plan would aim debt cancellation at families making under $250,000, a move designed to blunt some of the criticism that widespread debt cancellation would disproportionately help relatively higher-income borrowers — those who take out large amounts of debt to enroll in graduate program programs in medicine, law and business, for instance, who go on to have high salaries.

But some critics weren’t impressed by those efforts to target the benefits.

“This is as radical as it sounds,” said Jason Delisle, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Aside from the “extremely expensive” price tag, Delisle said, the benefits would be distributed unfairly and arbitrarily.

The proposal would, for instance, reward students who took out large amounts of debt to attend expensive schools while providing less or no benefit to families who “scrimped and saved” for college and choose to attend a less expensive school to avoid debt, Delisle said. The benefits would be similarly uneven among students who took out the same amount of debt based on how far along they are in paying it back.

“I think the plan will engender a lot of anger and frustration, and rightfully so,” he said. “It’s treating similarly situated people very differently.”

Warren’s plan for debt cancellation was paired with a separate proposal to eliminate tuition at public colleges and universities, increase funding for Pell Grants for low-income students, and create a new dedicated stream of funding for historically black colleges and universities.

Warren’s campaign framed the sweeping debt cancellation proposal as targeted at income inequality and racial disparities among student loan debtors. Warren’s campaign said the plan “substantially increases both Black and Latinx wealth, closes the racial wealth gap and boosts the economy.”

“If we are going to tackle income inequality, then we need to fundamentally rethink student debt. We need a solution that can right the wrongs of the last decade — wrongs that drove a trillion dollars of debt-fueled higher education,” said Seth Frotman, a Warren ally who was the top student loan official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “Student debt is like kerosene on a fire — driving the racial disparity and inequality that is tearing communities apart.”

energy

Some lawmakers want to take on OPEC. Now they’re itching for Trump to get on board with an idea he backed before becoming president.

Taking a cue from President Donald Trump, U.S. lawmakers could soon have a new message to foreign oil producers: NO COLLUSION!



Trump regularly deploys his Twitter account to fight oil-price upticks, trying to browbeat the world’s oil-producing bloc — the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries — into boosting production so prices will fall. His administration’s Monday announcement on ending sanctions waivers for buying Iranian oil risks pushing prices higher and could rev up congressional calls to push OPEC harder.

Now Trump’s saber-rattling on OPEC has oil producers and traders unnerved by the prospect he could back cartel-busting legislation that sends prices into a tailspin.

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The No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, a bipartisan bill known as NOPEC, would allow the attorney general to bring an antitrust suit against the bloc — removing the sovereign immunity that currently protects OPEC countries. Lawmakers have been trying and failing to turn it into law for two decades.

Trump’s badgering of OPEC has breathed new life into the effort and renewed attention on it from Wall Street to Texas shale fields to OPEC’s Vienna headquarters.

“We are hostage to other countries’ decisions based on their national interests, not on ours,” retired Adm. Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence under Obama and a NOPEC proponent, said recently.

Long before he became president, Trump openly endorsed the idea in his 2011 book “Time to Get Tough.” Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, who heads the Justice Department’s antitrust division, backed NOPEC in a 2008 op-ed. The DOJ, which would have the ultimate power to bring a suit, hasn’t taken a position on the bill and declined to comment.

Trump closely tracks oil prices — which are featured regularly on cable TV business programs — and has tweeted frustrations with OPEC nine times over the past year, usually whenever price spikes push the threat back into headlines. He’s tweeted another seven times about oil prices and production more broadly.

His oil fixation appears to come from a recognition of oil’s pivotal role in the economy: Rising gasoline prices, which can quickly burn through consumer pocketbooks, have been associated with most U.S. recessions since World War II. Yet two nations Trump has engaged with most — Russia and Saudi Arabia — are pivotal in pushing prices higher.

The Trump tweets are turning heads around the world. They’re often moving markets, at least for a day or two. And Trump has helped reanimate the OPEC bloc as one of American politicians’ favorite international boogeymen — in part a holdover from dynamics of the 1970s and ’80s that still underlie many of the president’s political instincts.

Oil experts are split over what happens next. They’re waiting to see if Trump will finally weigh in on NOPEC from the White House — particularly if prices rise much more over a short time period. Those two changes are “the matches that could set the thing afire,” said Bob McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group.

Heading into Trump’s re-election campaign, the national average price of gas currently sits under $3 per gallon. It’s been rising gradually through most of 2019, though oil prices are still below their most recent peak in early October. Crucial Midwestern swing states have seen some of the biggest hikes this year.

Some analysts predict that if it breaches the $3 threshold, pain at the pump will surge into political salience. Trump’s political team has been focused on touting the country’s extended economic expansion, on track to become the longest in history this summer, as a central reelection messaging plank.

Politicians have been happy to cast OPEC as the central culprit behind high gas prices for decades. Many still do.

But that might not reflect reality as cleanly as it once did. U.S. oil production has been surging during the Obama and Trump administrations, consistently breaking old records.

As the energy landscape has swung toward U.S. shale production, what’s best for American businesses and consumers isn’t as clear as it was during the 20th-century OPEC battles.

“The ideal oil price for the U.S. now may be a Goldilocks scenario of not too high, not too low,” said Jason Bordoff, director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

Enter NOPEC. It’s a debate that scrambles the usual partisan battle lines and dances across nearly every foreign policy flashpoint.

Supporters view the bill as a fundamental free-market measure, applying the principle of fighting anti-competitive corporate collusion to countries that are acting like businesses. They say oil markets should be left to supply and demand — not manipulated by a group that has wielded significant control over prices for decades.

Even momentum toward passage could already be giving the U.S. leverage. “I think oil prices would be $10 higher but for the fact that this bill is threatening,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, director of the program for energy security and climate change at the Council on Foreign Relations.

An array of NOPEC opponents — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, domestic oil interests and OPEC member nations — warn that the legislation would plunge the oil world into chaos, unsettling markets where OPEC has recently acted as a stabilizing force. Price spikes might follow, but so could a crash in prices not seen in decades.

That would ravage the growing U.S. oil industry, which last year leapt ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the largest producer of crude oil in the world and supports millions of jobs.

Opponents also worry that NOPEC would upend fragile diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and other states in the bloc.

OPEC is signaling concern. The bloc reportedly has been considering its first-ever major influence campaign in the U.S. to try to improve its public image. OPEC officials have warned Wall Street about risks from NOPEC. Russia in December even cited the bill as one reason it didn’t want to pursue more formal integration with OPEC.

NOPEC has appeared to divide the Trump administration, which has been mulling it internally through an interagency review process for months.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry warned in February that the bill could have ramifications “way past its intended consequences.”

Many experts expect the ultimate decision could emerge in a Trump tweet. “That would be a pretty straightforward catalyst,” said Kevin Book, managing director for research at ClearView Energy. “This is a bill that’s going to be difficult for the Congress to stop.”

NOPEC sailed out of the House Judiciary Committee without objection in February — a rare occasion for bipartisan bonhomie, as Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) called it “a tool to speak softly and carry a big stick.”

“Ultimately this legislation allows us to fight back,” said Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), the bill’s House sponsor.

But the bill has yet to come up for a vote on the House floor or in Senate committee. The office of Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) declined to comment.

Several experts told POLITICO that vocal support from bands of Judiciary Committee members hasn’t historically extended up the ranks. And Trump’s predecessors consistently threatened vetoes. Even when NOPEC has progressed — it passed both chambers in 2007 — the bill never had presidential support.

“House and Senate leadership are not enthusiastic about this thing,” McNally said. But if Trump backed it, “is Mitch McConnell going to die on NOPEC Hill? I don’t think so.”

Some lawmakers who favor NOPEC view it as a way to punish Saudi Arabia if Trump won’t otherwise take on Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who is seen as a Trump administration ally.

But a tangled web of foreign policy considerations is at play. Dangling over the debate are two impending deadlines and several geopolitical crises, such as chaos in Libya.

The Trump administration’s sanctions on Iranian oil have tightened oil supplies, helping drive prices up. The announcement this week — ahead of an early May deadline — that the U.S. will end waivers for several countries that are still buying Iranian oil could nudge prices even higher. Iranian officials in return threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is crucial for moving oil.

Already, oil prices rose Monday on the news, though Trump tweeted a rare message of cooperation with OPEC to try to tamp down concerns: “Saudi Arabia and others in OPEC will more than make up the Oil Flow difference in our now Full Sanctions on Iranian Oil.” That coordination, if it pans out and tames prices, could spell bad news for boosters of the NOPEC legislation.

In June, OPEC and allies like Russia will convene in Vienna. There they’ll debate whether to continue supply cuts that reduced output by more than 1 million barrels a day.

Then there’s the crisis in Venezuela. The ongoing political tumult and massive humanitarian disaster under Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian government had already shrunk oil output — and then the Trump administration’s sanctions, aimed at forcing Maduro out, hit.

Even as new foreign policy developments alter the NOPEC calculus daily, there’s plenty of skepticism that Trump will actually go out on a limb and endorse it — without which it might be difficult for backers to muscle the bill past congressional leaders.

In the administration, “the reticence is because of just how big of a market impact this [could] have,” said Varsha Koduvayur, a senior research analyst on the Gulf states at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. It would be “unprecedented to strip the sovereign immunity that has guarded OPEC members” for six decades, she added.

And lawmakers might prefer other avenues to punish Saudi Arabia for its perpetuation of Yemen’s humanitarian disaster and the murder last year of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Both chambers recently tried to force Trump’s hand on support for the Yemen war.

But with ties to so many volatile countries and mercurial political actors, the NOPEC debate could bubble above the surface at any moment.

“In today’s world,” Jaffe said, “it’s very hard to predict what could blow up.”

White House

Despite the slide to 39 percent, there is little support for using impeachment to remove the president.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped 5 points, equaling his presidency’s low-water mark, since last week’s release of the special counsel report into the 2016 election, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

Despite his sinking poll numbers, however, there is little support for removing Trump through the impeachment process, the poll shows.

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Only 39 percent of voters surveyed in the new poll, which was conducted Friday through Sunday, approve of the job Trump is doing as president. That is down from 44 percent last week and ties Trump’s lowest-ever approval rating in POLITICO/Morning Consult polling — a 39 percent rating in mid-August 2017, in the wake of violence in Charlottesville, Va.

Nearly 6 in 10 voters, 57 percent, disapprove of the job Trump is doing.

But while views of Trump have tumbled since the publication of Robert Muller’s redacted report, so has support for impeaching him. Only 34 percent of voters believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings to remove the president from office, down from 39 percent in January. Nearly half, 48 percent, say Congress should not begin impeachment proceedings.

The split decision in public opinion — a decline in views of Trump’s job performance but fewer voters wanting Congress to pursue impeachment — mirrors the report itself, which clears Trump and his campaign of criminally conspiring with the Russian government to boost his election but which documents numerous, examples of Trump’s efforts to stymie the investigation.

“President Trump’s approval rating has dipped to its lowest point of his term in the immediate aftermath of the redacted Mueller report release,” said Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult’s vice president. “This week, 57 percent of voters disapprove, and 39 percent approve of the president’s performance — a net approval rating of –18 percentage points, compared with 55 percent who disapproved and 42 percent who approved — a net approval rating of –13 percentage points — one month ago in the aftermath of Attorney General [William] Barr’s summary of the Mueller report to Congress.”

While the report is damaging to Trump in the short term — other post-report polls also show decreases in Trump’s approval rating — it could also paint Democrats into a corner on impeachment. Mueller seemingly kicks the obstruction of justice case on Trump to Congress, and the Democratic-led House is squeezed between a majority of Democratic voters who want impeachment, 59 percent, and slightly more than a third of the electorate that agrees.

For now, most Democrats are treading lightly. In a letter to her Democratic colleagues on Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that her conference’s positions “range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment.” And most of the party’s presidential hopefuls have steered clear of impeachment, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) being the highest-profile candidate to take the impeachment plunge thus far.

While Democrats in Congress are split on impeachment, most party leaders, including Pelosi, are calling for the House to pull on some of the investigative threads in the Mueller report. Voters are split on whether Congress should continue to investigate whether Trump or his campaign associates and staffers obstructed the investigation: Forty-three percent say Congress should continue to investigate, while 41 percent say it should not.

Nearly three in four Democrats, 73 percent, want Congress to keep investigating, more than the 59 percent who want Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. Most notably, independents are split, 39 percent to 37 percent, on whether Congress should keep investigating — but just 31 percent of independents support beginning impeachment proceedings, compared with 44 percent who oppose impeachment.

As for the report itself, roughly a third of voters, 32 percent, say they have seen, read or heard “a lot about it,” while another third, 34 percent, have seen, read or heard “some” about it. The remaining 34 percent haven’t seen much about it or anything at all.

Among those voters who have seen, read or heard at least something about the release of the Mueller report, only 28 percent say they actually read any of the redacted report. Most of them, 73 percent, say they followed news coverage about it.

A plurality of voters, 46 percent, think the investigation into Russia’s influence on the 2016 presidential election was handled fairly, while 29 percent think it was handled unfairly. There is rare partisan agreement on this question: Forty-eight percent of Democratic voters, 46 percent of Republicans and 43 percent of independents say they think the investigation was handled fairly.

Despite positive grades for the Justice Department, Barr earns lower marks for his handling of the release of information from the Mueller-led investigation. Only three in 10 voters, 30 percent, approve of the way Barr handled the case — less than the 37 percent who disapprove.

Voters were also unsure whether Barr accurately described the contents of Mueller’s report before its release, with 32 percent saying Barr described it very or somewhat accurately, 32 percent saying he didn’t describe it accurately and 35 percent undecided.

Despite Mueller’s report, which “did not establish that the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” voters are still split on the question. More than 4 in 10, 41 percent, say they think Trump’s campaign worked with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The same percentage, 41 percent, say they don’t think Trump’s campaign worked with Russia. The remaining 18 percent have no opinion.

The results on this question are little changed over the past six weeks. In mid-March, before Barr’s letter to Congress after he received the report, 43 percent thought Trump worked with Russia, while 37 percent did not. Three weeks ago, between Barr’s letter and the release of the report, the percentage of voters who thought Trump’s campaign worked with Russia had ticked down to 40 percent, while 43 percent did not think his campaign worked with Russia.

While voters are divided on whether Trump’s campaign worked with Russia, only 28 percent say they think Mueller found evidence that Trump or his campaign conspired with Russia — though just a 43 percent plurality say Mueller found no evidence of coordination. Three in 10 voters are unsure.

There is greater agreement on whether Trump tried to impede or obstruct the investigation. A plurality, 47 percent, say he did, while just 34 percent say he didn’t. Nearly 2 in 10 voters, 18 percent, have no opinion.

But many voters appear confused about what Mueller found in his report. Two in 10, 20 percent, say Mueller found that Trump obstructed the investigation, while 16 percent say Mueller found that he didn’t. A plurality, 37 percent, say correctly that Mueller did not make a determination on whether Trump obstructed the investigation, but 27 percent are unsure.

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll surveyed 1,992 voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents — Toplines: https://politi.co/2Prrf5R | Crosstabs: https://politi.co/2vgx8cK