Brown/Bloomberg Not Running - Biden Leads The Declared

 There are already 14 declared candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but it may not grow as large as some of us thought. Two possible candidates have decided they will not run. They are Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg (New York). In the last couple of days, both announced they will not enter the already crowded field.

Another possibility -- Beto O'Rourke (Texas) -- is expected to make his decision on whether to run or not in the next week.

But the most popular candidate remains someone who has not announced yet. It is Joe Biden. Those close to Biden say he is going to run, and it is reported that he is hiring campaign aides. But we might have to wait until April to find out. He can afford to wait a little while longer. That's because, in spite of the fact that he has not announced an intention to run, he still leads all the the candidates who have declared.

Part of that is because he was an integral part of the Obama administration, which most Democrats are proud of and want to see repeated. Second is the feeling among many Democrats that Biden would be the person who could most easily beat Trump -- and beating Trump is the primary concern of Democrats.

The charts below are from a recent Gallup Poll -- done between February 12th and 28th of a national sample of 1,932 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

It shows that 80% of Democrats have a favorable opinion of Joe Biden -- about 4 points more than the leading declared candidate, Bernie Sanders. But Sanders has a higher unfavorable rating. Biden has a net favorable rating of 71 points, while Sanders has a net favorable rating of 61 points.

The second chart shows the felling among all adults. It has a similar pattern -- with Biden holding a same lead over Sanders in favorability, and a larger lead in net favorability.