The pundits on cable news want to say what Democrats want in a 2020 candidate, and far too many of them say that could not be an older white man. They say the youth and diversity of the party demands that the next candidate from the Democratic Party be either young, a woman, or a minority.
I understand why they think that way, but they are wrong! Democrats are smarter than that. They won't let age, gender, or race keep them from nominating the best candidate. By a 43 point margin, they say age is not a factor in how they'll vote in the primary. By a 72 point margin, they also discount gender as a factor -- and by a 71 point margin, they dismiss race as a factor.
What do Democrats want in a candidate? That is illustrated in the charts below. They want a candidate that can beat Donald Trump, and they want a candidate that agrees with their ideology. When the primaries roll around, they will vote for the candidate they believe can beat Trump and is closest to their own political views (and age, gender, and race will play only a very minor role in that determination).
These charts reflect the results of a recent Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between March 21st and 25th of a national sample of 559 Democrats and Democratically-leaning Independents, with a 5.1 point margin of error.
