Most incumbent governments and leaders in Europe have seen their approval ratings increase since the outbreak of coronavirus disease. Read more “Europeans Trust Incumbent Governments in Pandemic”
Europeans Trust Incumbent Governments in Pandemic
Support for Quarantine Weakens in Spain
Support for maintaining the coronavirus quarantine is weakening in Spain. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has partly lifted a two-month lockdown, allowing small stores to reopen and restaurants to serve takeaway, but the opposition is calling for a quicker return to normalcy.
Deaths from coronavirus disease have stabilized at under 200 per day. The infection rate is also slowing.
But Spain still has more known cases of COVID-19 than any country except the United States.
The government fears that without strict controls, the virus might rebound in the next six to eight weeks. Read more “Support for Quarantine Weakens in Spain”
Democratic Primary News
- Joe Biden has become the presumptive Democratic nominee.
- Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard, his last two opponents, have ended their campaigns and endorsed the former vice president.
- So have Barack Obama, the former president, and Elizabeth Warren, another former rival. Read more “Democratic Primary News”
Starmer Wins Labour Leadership Election
- Keir Starmer has been elected leader of the British Labour Party with 56 percent support.
- Rebecca Long-Bailey, who represented continuity from outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn, placed second with 28 percent.
- Lisa Nandy placed third with 16 percent.
- Over 490,000 out of 784,151 eligible Labour Party members and supporters voted in the contest.
- Corbyn stepped down after losing last year’s election to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives by a margin of 11.5 points. Read more “Starmer Wins Labour Leadership Election”
Lockdown in Barcelona
I haven’t blogged much recently. What little news there is other than the coronavirus outbreak seems rather less important. Since I’m by no means an expert on pandemics, I don’t have a lot to write.
I can tell you what’s happening here in Barcelona. Read more “Lockdown in Barcelona”
Democratic Primary News
Joe Biden is now the clear frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in the United States.
- Delegates: Biden has won 642 pledged delegates against 566 for Bernie Sanders so far. 1,991 are needed to win the nomination outright.
- States: Biden won ten of the fourteen states that held primaries on “Super Tuesday” and he is polling in first place in Michigan, Mississippi and Missouri, which vote next Tuesday. Sanders is ahead in Washington state.
- Popular support: Biden’s national support has shot up from under 20 percent to an average of 34 percent since he won the South Carolina primary a week ago.
- Party support: Sixty more prominent Democrats have endorsed Biden in the wake of his South Carolina victory.
- Competitors: All other major candidates have quit, most recently Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren. Read more “Democratic Primary News”
Democratic Primary News
- Joe Biden has risen in the South Carolina polls seemingly at the expense of the other center-left candidates.
- Biden has also taken a commanding lead in the endorsement primary, most recently winning the support of South Carolina’s most prominent Democrat: Congressman James Clyburn.
- Bernie Sanders has far less support from party officials, but he has won the endorsement of New York mayor Bill de Blasio, himself briefly a 2020 hopeful.
- Biden needs a win in South Carolina, where one in six Democratic voters are black, to breathe new life into his campaign.
- Sanders is wildly popular in California, the largest state to vote on Super Tuesday, March 3, but Biden leads in the few polls that have been conducted in Florida and Georgia. In North Carolina, Texas and Virginia, Biden, Michael Bloomberg and Sanders are neck and neck.
- Bloomberg won’t be on the ballot in South Carolina. Read more “Democratic Primary News”
Three Middle-Aged Catholic Men Vie to Succeed Merkel
Three middle-aged Catholic men from North-Rhine Westphalia are running to succeed Angela Merkel, postwar Germany’s first female and Eastern-born chancellor and the ruling Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) first Lutheran leader.
The CDU, which has governed Germany for fifty of the last seventy years, is holding a leadership election in April, triggered by the resignation of Merkel’s handpicked successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
Kramp-Karrenbauer, a former premier of Saarland, failed to match Merkel’s authority in the party. She stepped down after the CDU in Thuringia defied her instructions and made common cause with the far right. Read more “Three Middle-Aged Catholic Men Vie to Succeed Merkel”
Democratic Primary News
- Bernie Sanders is now faraway the frontrunner with recent polls giving him 27 to 32 percent support nationally. Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg are vying for second place with an average of 16-18 percent support each.
- Sanders also leads in the few polls that have been taken in Nevada, where Democrats caucus on Saturday.
- Biden is still ahead in the endorsement primary, winning nine more endorsements from prominent Democrats this month, but Bloomberg is catching up fast, with twenty endorsements in February.
- Bloomberg is also making inroads with black voters. He has been endorsed by three members of the Congressional Black Caucus. A Quinnipiac University poll (PDF) gives the former New York mayor 22 percent support from African Americans, trailing only Biden, who has 27 percent.
- Bloomberg is spending more money on television commercials than all the other candidates combined.
- Michael Bennet, Deval Patrick and Andrew Yang have ended their presidential bids after failing to qualify for delegates in New Hampshire. Read more “Democratic Primary News”
Labour Leadership Election News
- Lisa Nandy has won the endorsement of the Jewish Labour Movement, one of the party’s largest affiliated socialist societies.
- Keir Starmer has been endorsed by most affiliated groups and trade unions, most recently the TSSA transport union.
- Rebecca Long-Bailey, the most left-wing candidate who is seen as outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn’s ideological successor, has also qualified for the third and final voting round by members.
- Emily Thornberry fell short. Read more “Labour Leadership Election News”