Who will lead the outparty 2020 prez nomination polls in 9 months?

[Mr. Morden]

18 months from now—April 2017, who’ll be leading the early national polls for the 2020 party nomination for president…of whichever party is not in the White House at the time?  That is, if you think a Democrat will win the presidency next year, then who’ll be leading the early polls for the 2020 Republican nomination?  And if you think a Republican will be in the White House, then who’ll lead the early polls for the 2020 Democratic nomination?

[Mr. Morden]

Warren looks like the obvious choice on the Dem. side.  Though I wonder will the pollsters include Sanders?  And how will he fair relative to Warren?  Gillibrand/Klobuchar might be realistic contenders for the nomination, but I don’t see how they get enough name recognition to be doing anything in the polls as early as 2017.

Rubio’s an obvious choice on the GOP side, but what if he’s the 2016 nominee?  The pollsters will count on him to pull an Adlai Stevenson, and run again?

I’m actually really not sure who would be listed in the GOP polls.  Like I said in the other 2020 thread, I think folks like Cotton, Haley, Pence, and Snyder might have a chance, but they all start with low name rec., so they’re not going to be leading any polls as early as 2017.

So who then?  I’m assuming that people will assume that Bush won’t try again?  What about Trump, Carson, etc.?

Paul Ryan is an interesting possibility.  Especially if he does become Speaker of the House in the interim.  He’d get his name out there again, and it’d surely fuel 2020 presidential buzz.

Also, yes, the losing VP nominee, whoever that may be, is another possibility.

[Mr. Morden]

Since it looks like Ryan will become House Speaker, I'm going to say that this makes it more likely that he'll be leading early polls for the 2020 GOP nomination taken just over a year from now.  It's just a function of the fact that his name will be in the news more often, and early polls are largely a function of name recognition + media attention.

But it also conceivably makes it less likely that he'll actually run, since House Speakers usually don't stay popular for very long.  By 2019, he'll be damaged goods.

[Mr. Morden]

*bump*

OK, what about 9 months from now, meaning March 2017?  Who'll be leading the early 2020 primary polls of whichever party isn't in the White House?

[Mr. Morden]

Democratic: Warren, Cuomo
Republican: Cruz, Walker, Rubio, Cotton

Cotton will presumably be in low/mid-single digits in the polls next year, since no one knows who he is.  (Unless Trump picks him for VP.)

[Mr. Morden]

Now that we're getting close to the veep announcements....is there any chance that a Chris Christie or a Mike Pence, if one of them was picked to be Trump's running mate, could ride that experience to a strong showing in the early 2020 primary polls?  Or is running as Trump's VP a recipe for disaster that'll mire Christie or Pence or whoever in single digits, while Ryan and Cruz (or someone else) takes the early '20 GOP nomination polling lead?