2020 Election: The Dark Horse Candidate

NBC News

Nathan Holmes, Spear CEO

The 2019 state elections just wrapped up (click here for results), meaning that the 2020 election is not too far away. The Democratic primaries have been in full swing over the past few months, with a field of 26 Democrats being “narrowed” down to 17 (remaining candidates can be seen here). Because there is still so much time left, no one can really determine who will win the candidacy just yet. After all, on November 4, 2015, almost 1 year until the 2016 election, Housing Secretary Ben Carson was projected to beat out the current President, Donald Trump, by .4%. Ben Carson ended up dropping significantly over time and dropped out of the race in March 2016.

With so many candidates to choose from, the news usually focuses on the top 4 or 5, currently former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Senator Kamala Harris. These people are easy to find all over, but there is one candidate that could topple all of them. His name is Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur, lawyer, and philanthropist. The slogan for Yang’s campaign is MATH, or “Make America Think Harder”, similar to incumbent President Donald Trump’s MAGA, or “Make America Great Again” (now referred to as KAG, or “Keep America Great”). He even sells blue hats with the slogan on them, another dig at President Trump’s red hats.

Andrew Yang’s campaign is based around one idea that he wants to implement, Universal Basic Income, called UBI for short. He plans to pay every American adult $1000 per month, no contingencies. If most candidates claimed this to be a great idea, most people would just write it off. Those candidates do not have a thorough plan for how to implement their ideas, causing many Americans to ignore those concepts this early in the race. This is why Andrew Yang is different. Yang has the most detailed policies of all the candidates, with explanations for where the money funding his ideas will be found, how he will disperse the money, and why these policies should benefit the United States as a whole. Andrew Yang separates himself from the other candidates because of the depth of his ideas, and the research behind them.

Speaking as a Republican myself, if the 2020 presidential election comes down to Andrew Yang vs. Donald Trump, I would have to do a lot of research before I vote.

Andrew Yang is truly a unique candidate, and in my opinion, the only one Donald Trump should fear. It is very difficult to take down an incumbent President, and none of the other candidates seem to have strong enough policies to beat Trump. Sanders and Warren are too radical to convince undecided’s to vote for them, Biden keeps slipping in the polls (and there’s the whole Hunter Biden thing), and Harris/Buttigieg have not been astounding enough to take down Trump. I think Andrew Yang can do it. If he wins the nomination, he has the knowledge and the attitude to flip Republican voters and defeat President Trump. Speaking as a Republican myself, if the 2020 presidential election comes down to Andrew Yang vs. Donald Trump, I would have to do a lot of research before I vote.