Three new polls on the Democratic presidential race, considered together, show Joe Biden anemic before he announced, and surging afterward.
They also show Elizabeth Warren gaining a bit of distant traction and Democrats ominously split down the middle about how to proceed to the general election next year.
In a poll taken mostly before Biden's campaign became official, The Washington Post and ABC asked Democratic respondents an open-ended question about preference. Open-ended means a question lacking the prompting of a list of candidates, thus requiring respondents to volunteer preferences. The results were pitiable.
Biden led with a mere 13 percent that bumped to 17 percent when leaners to him were added. Bernie Sanders was at 9, bumping to 11 when leaners were added.
Pete Buttigieg was third, sort of, at 5 percent, a point ahead of Warren and Kamala Harris, two points ahead of Beto O'Rourke, and four points ahead of Amy Klobuchar.
Buttigieg was five points ahead of the other 13 pretenders, none of whom even scratched and thus trailed among Democratic respondents even President Trump, who, by the unprompted no-list method, got 1 percent among identifying Democrats.
That was before. This is now.
Two brand-new polls released Tuesday--and doing respondents the favor of providing a list of choices--showed Biden, announced and accepting a firefighters' union endorsement in Pennsylvania, pretty much on fire.
A Quinnipiac poll put him at 39, far ahead of second-place Warren at 12, who had pulled a millimeter ahead of Sanders at 11. Buttigieg was at 10, Kamala Harris at 8 and Beto O'Rourke at 5. The rest were nowhere.
A CNN poll also showed Biden skyrocketing to 39, well ahead of Sanders at 15, Warren at 8, Buttigieg at 7, O'Rourke at 6 and Harris at 5.
Obviously, Biden had an effective launch and does better when pollsters supply his familiar name rather than require respondents to come up with it.
Suffice to say we have clear front-runner. Suffice to say, secondarily, that Warren is moving a bit, at Sanders' expense.
Otherwise, the poll of greater interest to me was that earlier one by The Washington Post and ABC, which suggested a scenario of possible dysfunction and despair for Democrats.
That poll's key question wasn't the horse race, but this one, for respondents identified as Democrats: For your presidential nominee, do you prefer someone who can appeal to independents, or someone who can energize the party's base?
The most promising result on that question would be an overwhelming number favoring appealing to independents in November, thus with a chance to win key swing states.
The second-best result would be for either preference to be overwhelming, showing a unified, focused party.
The worst result would be the one the poll produced: Forty-four percent of respondents favored appealing to independents, and 48 percent favored energizing the base.
That means no broad coalescence for Biden, currently the best in terms of appeal to independents. It means no coalescence for Buttigieg, who also might have centrist appeal, or conceivably Klobuchar.
It also means no coalescence for Sanders or Warren, who would most energize the liberal base.
The opposite of coalescence is squabbling. And squabbling means disappointment either way for about half of Democratic voters--those who would resent Biden as the nominee as the face of yesterday and not liberal enough, and those who would resent Sanders as an unelectable socialist and Warren as not a lot better.
Biden couldn't win the general election without enthusiasm in the base to underpin whatever he might be able to do with swing voters such as working-class whites in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Sanders and Warren couldn't win without support from those very swing voters in those states, the kinds of people who elected Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.
It's premature to say this is tailor-made to go entirely undecided to the convention where the 44 percent wanting to appeal to independents and the 48 percent wanting to energize the base would engage in open televised warfare while Trump tweeted his glee.
Something wholly unforeseen could, and usually does, happen. I can't imagine what it would be, which is what makes it wholly unforeseen.
Conventionality says Biden, Sanders and one other candidate--likely Buttigieg or Warren--would settle out into a long-term race. But absent super-delegates rushing to push Biden across the finish line as they pushed Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, it's hard to say how that ends.
The never-Trump resisters have much in these numbers to concern themselves with.
They might also ponder other numbers, such as those showing 3.2 percent economic growth in the first quarter.
And there was March, the nation's biggest shopping month since August 2009, when Obama was busy fashioning a rescued economy to bequeath to the preposterous Trump.
A weak Democratic candidate emerging from a bloody primary to take on a president with a good economy but a dearth of decency--that could be quite a race.
Only Trump could mess up 3.2 percent quarterly economic growth and consumer confidence.
Only Democrats could mess up running against a person more than half the country disapproves of.
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
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