Page 48 - Electability Argument News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Correspondent mike memoli who's covering the 2020 campaign for us and tom bevin, cofounder and president of real clear politics. gentlemen, welcome. mike, i want to take you back to the beginning of summer when you first went out on the road. the last time your suitcase had that new suitcase smell. how has the democratic field changed as you've watched them? >> well, brian, it's a little bit smaller now. we talk about 19 candidates going to be on stage here in manchester for the convention tomorrow. you know, that's down 20% from the bigger field that we started with just months ago. but i thi...

Media. back with us tonight, nbc news correspondent mike memoli who's covering the 2020 campaign for us and tom bevin, cofounder and president of real clear politics. gentlemen, welcome. mike, i want to take you back to the beginning of summer when you first went out on the road. the last time your suitcase had that new suitcase smell. how has the democratic field changed as you've watched them? >> well, brian, it's a little bit smaller now. we talk about 19 candidates going to be on stage here in manchester for the convention tomorrow. you know, that's down 20% from the bigger field that we s...

>> no. it means that the debate about electability may be shifting a little bit here. >> what do you mean? >> well, electability is the number one question when you talk to the average democrat showing up to these town hall meetings or just on the street. they want someone who can defeat donald trump and as you mentioned before the polling says they are more willing to compromise on pretty much every position as long as that person can defeat trump. where it may be shifting, what i mean by that is, joe biden is not the only one who can claim he is the only one who can win. clearly we had a pol...

They want somebody who can defeat donald trump. the campaign is now concerned what if we don't win iowa, we don't want to be written off as not being able to win. we can go through super tuesday states. they started making the argument to the press, don't write joe biden off if he loses iowa or new hampshire. he can go deep into this race. they're trying to somehow now calibrate that electability argument. so that's what they're concerned about. losing a contest. then all of a sudden being concerned that he is not seen as the most electable. >> thank you so much for sharing with us. so what wo...

Lire performing and win the nomination? >> most of voters know his character. that's why he's steady in the polls. but if elizabeth warren or bernie sanders take him on in iowa and new hampshire we have a fight on our hands. we know he may misspeak. but right now it's an electability argument saying he's the one who can beat trump. until we can find other candidates who can beat trump. >> there are four or five. but joe biden's steady support is because people know him. he was obama's guy. but they see him as the champion to feet donald trump. >> i want to turn to another subject which appears...