Skip to main content

Trending

  • Fox/Dominion Lawsuit
  • Meta
  • Twitter

Social Media Menu

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Utility Navigation

  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate

Media Matters for America

Main navigation

  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives

Media Matters for America

  • Nav
  • Search

Main navigation

  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives

Trending

  • Fox/Dominion Lawsuit
  • Meta
  • Twitter

Utility Navigation

  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate

Social Media Menu

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
joe-scarborough-mika-klobuchar-warren-should-drop-out-02-24-2020.jpg

Democrats shouldn't listen to Joe Scarborough's calls for candidates to drop out of the presidential primary

Written by Eric Kleefeld

Published 02/24/20 1:26 PM EST

Share

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print

Comment

  • Comments

On the Monday edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Joe Scarborough and his panelists were adamant that a whole lot of Democratic candidates — among them, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg — ought to drop out of the race quickly in order to stop Bernie Sanders.

Scarborough is a former Republican congressman who changed his registration to independent status in 2017. Meanwhile, only three states have voted in the Democratic presidential primary so far, allowing for both plenty more time to narrow the wide-open field plus the small-d democratic principle of letting more people actually have a say. (And for what it’s worth, Warren is currently running second-place in a recent national poll of Democratic primary voters, so things could keep on changing.)

A major preoccupation of the panelists was a mathematical quirk of the Democratic primary system: While it is based on proportional representation, the threshold for viability at the state and district levels is set at a fairly high 15%. This would mean that votes cast for candidates who can’t reach the threshold would yield no delegates at all, and thus further inflate the totals for Sanders and the remaining contenders.

Scarborough then discussed a recent column in The New York Times by conservative writer Ross Douthat, comparing the other Democratic candidates competing against Sanders to the field of contenders against Donald Trump in the Republican primary race back in 2016.

“Amy Klobuchar finished a really disappointing, I think she was at 4%, in fifth place, sixth place. People are talking about how as well as she's done, as good of a campaign she's run, it is time for her to get out of the race,” Scarborough said of the Nevada result, and then extended this argument to Warren. “Is it time for Elizabeth Warren, if she keeps finishing in fourth, fifth place, is it time for her to get out of the race to help consolidate efforts against Bernie Sanders? That’s what a lot of buzz on Twitter [is] suggesting that’s the case.”

Video file

Citation From the February 24, 2020, edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe

Co-host Mika Brzezinski seconded the sentiment: “And some Democrats I was talking to are frustrated, thinking it's really time for some of these candidates to step out and let the field narrow and focus.”

Later in the program, NBC News contributor Dave Wasserman from the Cook Political Report used the term “zombie candidates” for those remaining contenders who can’t reach the 15% thresholds and are thus shut out from delegates. Scarborough then suggested that Warren was such a candidate, as well as Buttigieg and Klobuchar.

Video file

Citation From the February 24, 2020, edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe

“She finished in fourth place here, after everybody said that her performance in Nevada’s debate was going to propel her to first place — and if you disagreed with that, you were a misogynist,” Scarborough said, soon adding more names to the count: “Is she a zombie candidate, just like Buttigieg, just like, who else did you say, Amy [Klobuchar]?”

The better question: Do we really need cable TV hosts, without even a tenuous connection to Democratic politics, issuing such declarations to candidates and the voting public?

The Latest

  1. Fox News guest calls indictment of Donald Trump “spiritual warfare”

    Video & Audio 03/31/23 10:09 PM EDT

  2. Right-wing Spanish media spuriously attack Trump indictment as “political persecution”

    Article 03/31/23 6:17 PM EDT

  3. Sean Hannity on the sealed indictment of Donald Trump: “If the law is followed, this case is thrown out”

    Video & Audio 03/31/23 5:17 PM EDT

  4. “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander: “I agree. We need a good authoritarian leader for like 10 years.”

    Video & Audio 03/31/23 5:00 PM EDT

  5. Judge rules that Fox News pushed lies about Dominion in 2020 election fraud case

    Article 03/31/23 4:58 PM EDT

Pagination

  • Current page 1
  • …
  • Next page ››

In This Article

  • Joe Scarborough

    joescarborough_mmfa_tag
  • Mika Brzezinski

    Mika-Brzezinski-MMFA-Tag.png
  • Morning Joe

    Morning-Joe-MMFA-Tag.png
Comments
0 Comments
Share Count
0 Shares

Related

  1. Exit polls and ballot measures prove mainstream pundits wrong and show abortion is a winning issue

    Article 11/10/22 5:13 PM EST

  2. After lowering the bar for Walker in first debate, mainstream media ignores his absence from the second

    Article 10/17/22 1:51 PM EDT

  3. MSNBC's Morning Joe echoes right-wing talking points ahead of the midterms

    Article 10/11/22 4:29 PM EDT

Media Matters for America

Sign up for email updates

Footer menu

  • About
  • Contact
  • Corrections
  • Submissions
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

Social Media Menu

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

© 2023 Media Matters for America