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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he departs for travel to North Carolina from Washington, D.C. February 7, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)If the election is a choice between mean and crazy, the odds favor mean.

This past week many Democrats began saying publicly what they have been agonizing about privately: Its entirely possible Donald Trump could win reelection.

The odds are increasing that his opponent will end up being viewed as more extreme than Trump. If its a race between mean and crazy, I fear mean wins hands down, one former Democratic congressman told me. As a young voter, I saw Tricky Dick Nixon demolish a George McGovern who was tagged as being in favor of acid, amnesty, and abortion.

Thats not all that Democrats have to worry about. Trumps outr behavior has led many Democrats to obsess about him, overreact to every perceived outrage, and distract them to the point that theyve allowed socialists and woke progressives to capture much of the partys policy agenda.

We spend too much time chasing whatever foolishness Trump throws out there, and hes masterful at it, Cornell Belcher, a veteran Democratic pollster, told the Washington Post. For example, Trump couldnt have asked for a better overreaction to his State of the Union message than Speaker Nancy Pelosis dramatically tearing up the speech on national TV, standing on the podium right after he finished speaking.

Former Obama aide Van Jones told CNN that Trumps reality-show-style State of the Union speech was effective and a big wake-up call for Democrats. Trump highlighted key issues that would resonate among blacks, Van Jones noted, including record-low unemployment, signing criminal-justice reform into law, and providing more federal backing for historically black colleges and universities.

During the Super Bowl, the presidents campaign committee paid for an ad featuring Alice Marie Johnson, a 64-year-old black woman who was freed after Trump commuted her prison sentence for a nonviolent drug offense. In the ad, she hugs her family, thanks Trump, and shouts Hallelujah!

Jones and other Democrats point out that while Trump remains deeply unpopular with most minority voters, even a small decrease in Democratic margins in minority communities can have large political ripples. Trump won only 8 percent of black voters in 2016 and only 31 percent of Latino voters. But both showings improved on Mitt Romneys numbers and helped Trump carry key states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, where enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket in inner-city neighborhoods declined.

According to Oval Office visitors, Trump privately chortles at the extent to which he lives rent-free in the heads of his opponents, thus discombobulating them. A new book entitled A Very Stable Genius recounts that former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, now a fierce Trump critic, once witnessed a classic over-the-top Trump riff in the Oval Office. Scaramucci then reportedly asked the president, Are you an act? Scaramucci says that Trump replied, Im a total act, and I dont understand why people dont get it.

Those Democrats who cant resist falling for Trumps trolling are reacting to him exactly as he would wish. Trump sends liberals over the edge in rage, and while theyre not looking, the socialists like Bernie Sanders are stealing their party out from under them, former GOP congressman Dana Rohrabacher told me.

Liberal satirist Bill Maher, who hosts a comedy show on HBO, says that Trumps behavior is increasingly viewed as acceptable. Every time hes just this horrible jerk people say, Yeah, but thats part and parcel of being a strong leader and getting things done.

Maher, a donor to Democratic causes, says his party is in danger of ceding the election to Trump if it drifts too far to the left on economics and politically correct social policies.

Trump Derangement Syndrome may be so deeply imbedded in the Democratic Party that it cant be successfully treated. But the first step would be for Democrats to take Trump at his word. He is not evil he is more of a total act who tramples social norms and sacred cows with equal abandon. Opposing him is fine, but acting as if hes a dictator tilts the rhetorical playing field toward him.

Instead, Democrats might compete with Trump by recognizing that hes the P. T. Barnum of American politics. In short, Trump is a brilliant self-promoter who often knows exactly what hes doing and changes course constantly to match what he thinks audiences want to hear much as Barnum used to switch out circus acts between towns on his tour.

The way to beat a master showman isnt by running a crazy candidate against him. It may involve running someone who can at least compete with him in the showman department.

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Democrats Lose If They Let Trump Live Rent-Free in Their Heads - National Review

House Democrats say even though President TrumpDonald John TrumpBrad Pitt quips he has more time to give Oscars speech than John Bolton had to testify Trump under pressure to renew last nuke treaty with Russia Trump to request 6 percent domestic cuts in .8 trillion budget MORE was acquitted in the Senate, that doesnt mean they are going to ease off their investigations into his administration.

Democrats are weighing whether to pursue new leads of possible wrongdoing or press forward with probes that were already underway when an anonymous whistleblower's allegations last year sparked the impeachment inquiry.

But no matter which route they take, Democrats are confident there is more wrongdoing to be uncovered its just a matter of when and how grave.

Donald Trump, I still believe, is a one-man crime wave, and we cant let him get away with all of his other offenses against the Constitution and the people, said Rep. Jamie RaskinJamin (Jamie) Ben RaskinDemocrats to plow ahead with Trump probes post-acquittal Biden leads 2020 pack in congressional endorsements House Oversight committee asks DHS for information on family separation MORE (D-Md.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

The House impeached Trump on two charges in December, alleging he withheld nearly $391 million in U.S. aid to Ukraine as leverage to press Kyiv to open investigations to benefit his 2020 reelection, including into former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenTrump under pressure to renew last nuke treaty with Russia In New Hampshire, high anxiety about beating Trump Moderates battle for edge in crowded lane ahead of New Hampshire MORE, one of his main political rivals. Democrats say Trump then sought to cover up his actions.

The GOP-controlled Senate acquitted Trump on Wednesday, with all but one Republican arguing his conduct was not an impeachable offense.

But Democrats, pointing to Trumps recent remarks maintaining that his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was perfect, have expressed concern that Trump will feel even more untouchable after his acquittal, despite being impeached in the House and admonished by moderate Republican senators.

One day after Trumps acquittal, Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiOutgoing lawmaker laments 'way more hate in this business' Sunday shows - 2020 Democrats make closing arguments in New Hampshire America's bitter divide is the true existential threat MORE (D-Calif.) said the House was awaiting the outcome of several lawsuits previously filed by Democrats, including those targeting Trumps financial records at Deutsche Bank and former White House counsel Don McGahn.

"We will continue to do our oversight, to protect and defend the Constitution," she said during a press conference Thursday, vowing to continue to investigate allegations of administrative wrongdoing, wherever it arises.

The McGahn case goes to the heart of a crucial question for House Democrats: Do they subpoena former national security adviser John BoltonJohn BoltonBrad Pitt quips he has more time to give Oscars speech than John Bolton had to testify New Qatari prime minister means new opportunities Democrats to plow ahead with Trump probes post-acquittal MORE and other witnesses related to the Ukraine saga? Pelosi declined to say if they would.

"Those cases still exist. If there are others that we see as an opportunity, we'll make a judgment at that time," she said. "But we have no plans right now."

Still, other Democrats have eagerly promoted the idea. Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold NadlerJerrold (Jerry) Lewis NadlerAmerica's bitter divide is the true existential threat The betrayal of Democratic voters: Many 'liberals' need Trump to win Nadler says it's 'likely' House will subpoena Bolton MORE (D-N.Y.) said this week thathe would likely pursue Boltons testimony.

House Democrats relentlessly pushed for the Senate to allow witness testimony during Trumps trial, arguing that the White House obstructed their impeachment inquiry at unprecedented levels by not allowing officials both current and former to testify.

Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, argued that doing so would set a dangerous precedent of letting the House rush through its impeachment process and then pass off its responsibilities to the Senate, rather than first battling for key evidence in the courts.

But now that acquittal is in the rearview mirror, the decision about whether to pursue Boltons testimony has been punted back to the House.

If the House decides to pursue Bolton, some Democrats believe they need to be ready for a legal battle and attacks from Republicans, who will characterize the effort as another partisan attempt to go after Trump through congressional investigations instead of at the ballot box.

Some Democrats,such as Rep. Ted LieuTed W. LieuDemocrats to plow ahead with Trump probes post-acquittal Trump Jr. dismisses 'likelihood' of Pelosi praying for Trump with Satan comparison Ted Lieu says he's praying for Trump after National Prayer Breakfast comments MORE (Calif.), said they would support going to court for Boltons testimony, which they say is key.

The Bolton deliberations come just weeks ahead of hisbook release in mid-March.

The New York Times made waves during the Senate trial by reporting that Bolton planned to dish damaging details about not only Trumps contacts with Ukraine but also his contacts with other foreign leaders.

Democrats have noted that they are particularly interested in hearing from the former Trump official after the Times report said Bolton had similarlyvoiced concerns about Trump's contacts with China and Turkey, alleging that his former boss has granted personal favors to the leaders of the two countries.

If you believe the Bolton leaks that this was not the only country that he was acting shady with, then I do think we should learn more about what's going on with Russia. What's going on with Turkey? What's going on with Saudi, North Korea, etc.? said Rep. Eric SwalwellEric Michael SwalwellHouse intelligence briefing on worldwide threat assessment delayed Democrats to plow ahead with Trump probes post-acquittal Swalwell to release book giving 'inside account' of Trump's impeachment MORE (D-Calif.), a member of both the Judiciary and Intelligence panels.

One example in the Times report said Boltons book will detail how Turkish PresidentRecep Tayyip Erdoan asked Trump who ultimately agreed to step in and ask members of his Cabinet to thwart a criminal probe into one of the countrys largest state-owned banks, known as Halkbank.

Democrats say they are going to discuss early next week how to move forward on the Trump probes.

Those are all discussions for next week, said Rep. Mike QuigleyMichael (Mike) Bruce QuigleyDemocrats to plow ahead with Trump probes post-acquittal Transgender detainees need protection a letter from lawmakers doesn't provide it Lawmakers to call on ICE to release all transgender detainees MORE (D-Ill.), a member of the Intelligence panel. Obviously, it's an area of interest.

Democrats aren't the only ones talking about pursuing impeachment-related investigations post-acquittal.

Senate Republicans are vowing to move forward with their investigations into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Rudy GiulianiRudy GiulianiGraham vows to approach Hunter Biden probe with caution: 'I'm not going to be the Republican Christopher Steele' Sunday shows preview: Top tier 2020 Democrats make their case before New Hampshire primary Democrats to plow ahead with Trump probes post-acquittal MORE, the presidents personal attorney, also said he intends to keep digging up dirt on the presidents political opponents in an effort to uncover corruption in Ukraine, and he encouraged Trump to do the same.

"I would have no problem with him doing it. In fact, I'd have a problem with him not doing it. I think he would be saying that Joe Biden can get away with selling out the United States, making us a fool in the Ukraine, Giulianitold NPR's Steve Inskeepon Tuesday.

Democrats argued that the administrations insistence on going after the Bidens is further reason to keep conducting oversight.

It's pretty rich to hear these complaints from Republicans when they're still demanding Hunter Biden's travel records and Giuliani is still scouring the gutters of Eastern Europe for dirt on Trump's opponents, said freshman Rep. Tom MalinowskiThomas (Tom) MalinowskiDemocrats to plow ahead with Trump probes post-acquittal Sanders, Warren battle for progressive endorsements NJ lawmaker flips endorsement to Biden after Booker drops out MORE (D-N.J.). As far as I'm concerned, the House should keep doing what we've been doing legislating and conducting oversight.

While House Democrats have already used the strongest weapon in their arsenal to check a presidents conduct, they say there is nothing in the Constitution to stop them from impeaching again if the presidents behavior is serious enough to warrant such a response.

Any future prospects for impeachment will depend on a mixture of the gravity of the offense and then the imminent danger to democracy and the election, Raskin said. If the president insists upon violating the Constitution to try to fix this election, he is going to find his met his match in the House of Representatives. We're not gonna put up with that.

Embarking on a second impeachment effort would not only be unprecedented; it also would undoubtedly invite fierce political blowback.

Such a move is also considered unlikely, with Democrats noting that Pelosi was initially reluctant to take on impeachment in the first place.

For now, Democrats are bracing to see what the president does next.

I'm a big believer ... that we didn't just happen to stumble upon one time in his presidency that he happened to act corruptly, Swalwell told The Hill. A leopard doesn't change its spots.

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Democrats to plow ahead with Trump probes post-acquittal | TheHill - The Hill

CONCORD, N.H. Though an impeachment trial, a Russia investigation, an Iran crisis and other daily turmoil, President Trump has repeatedly been able to point to one consistent success that has united Republicans moving conservative justices onto all levels of the federal judiciary.

The count now stands at more than 180 judges many of whom are endorsed by the conservative legal group, the Federalist Society. About 50 of the judges sit on the nations appeals courts. (By comparison, President Barack Obama appointed about that many circuit court judges during his entire eight-year term.)

Mr. Trumps ability to push through judges has been possible in large part because of the success that Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has had in holding open seats during the Obama administration and pushing nominees through after Mr. Trump took office.

On Saturday, eight of the presidential candidates still in the Democratic primary race took turns outlining their views on the federal judiciary; they argued about how and whether they would work with Republicans, if elected, and how they would protect reproductive rights and other Democratic priorities.

But for all of the focus on the critical importance of the courts, the candidates recognized the limits of what even a Democratic president could do, if Republicans and Mr. McConnell remained in control of the Senate.

The best solution to the Senate is to make sure that in 2021, Mitch McConnell is no longer in the majority, or preferably not in the Senate at all, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., told the gathering on Saturday. He added, This is our chance, this is our only chance.

We are going to be, I think, just about No. 1 by the time we finish No. 1 of any president, any administration, Mr. Trump bragged in November, releasing a fact sheet about his success in confirming judicial nominees.

As a result, Democrats fear reversals on a wide array of labor law, civil rights and environmental cases as the courts move steadily to the right. Perhaps no issue has garnered more attention than reproductive rights, in which Democrats fear a conservative-leaning Supreme Court can significantly restrict or even remove the constitutional right to abortion.

We have courts that are completely out of balance that have been taken over by activist judges who certainly, absolutely want to end Roe and criminalize abortion, said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which co-sponsored the forum on Saturday. But abortion is always the tip of the spear on human rights.

At the event Saturday, Democratic candidates largely were unified in their pledge to try to balance Mr. Trumps judicial appointments with ones of their own. Several candidates, including Senators Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, and Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, said they would be in favor of creating their own lists of qualified justices who they would be ready to push forward on the first day of their administrations.

Lets give Trump and Mitch McConnell some credit, Mr. Sanders said. They were well organized; they knew what they were doing. As a member of the Senate, I can tell you, you know what we do every day? We vote for right-wing, extremist judges.

As Tom Steyer, the former hedge fund executive, put it: Someones got a steamroller. And theyre going right over us.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts attacked the qualifications of the judges appointed by Mr. Trump, calling them beyond unqualified and arguing that they would not have been acceptable in previous presidential administrations.

Asked by a moderator whether she would seek to appoint young progressive justices to the court to balance conservative appointments by Mr. Trump, she said she would.

I want judges who believe in democracy, who believe in justice, who believe in the rights of individuals, she said, because that is the job of a justice.

The Democratic candidates were repeatedly pressed by moderators to explain how they planned to make any changes to the courts or to enshrine threatened civil rights legislation into law if the Senate remained controlled by Republicans.

The most common answer involved winning elections. If we dont change Congress, were screwed. Mr. Buttigieg said.

Power is the only language the Senate G.O.P. responds to right now, he said. Our partys sense of fair play has come back to bite us.

Ms. Klobuchar argued that her experience in the Senate had given her insight into how to work the levers of Congress and, if necessary, to conduct a pressure campaign to get judicial openings filled with candidates of her choosing.

Its a game thats been going on, Ms. Klobuchar said. Youve got to be creative.

All of the candidates staunchly backed a womans right to choose, and most pledged to do whatever they could to codify Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that established theconstitutional right to abortion.

Ms. Warren said that over the years, the rights afforded by the case had become narrower and narrower, like were standing on a ledge, and every couple of months another rock sort of breaks loose and falls off. And she argued that simply seeking to protect the reproductive rights through the courts was no longer sufficient.

When youve got a tilted Supreme Court and a tilted court system, weve got to start putting a lot more emphasis on what we can do through Congress, she said. In a democracy, when three out of four people want to see something be the law, then its time for us to mobilize and make it the law.

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Trump Has Reshaped the Judiciary. Heres How the 2020 Democrats Would Address That. - The New York Times

According to Rudge, a brusque high-school senior in Alan Bennetts play The History Boys, history is one fucking thing after another. In the past few days, Democrats have been reminded of what Rudge meant. On Monday, the failure of a data-sharing app plunged the Iowa Democratic caucus into a state of paralysis. On Tuesday, a Gallup poll showed Donald Trumps approval rate rising to forty-nine per cent, the highest mark of his Presidency. Later that day, Trump delivered a State of the Union address packed with falsehoods and demagoguery. On Wednesday, his impeachment trial came to an end, with the G.O.P.-controlled Senate voting to acquit, and only one Republican dissenting. Trump reacted by tweeting out a meme of his Presidency going on forever.

With nine months to go until the Presidential election, Trumps celebratory gesture was premature, to say the least. But anyone who wants to deny him a second term needs to be clear-eyed about the challenge ahead. Most Presidents who run for relection win. Given his incumbency and an economy that is still growing steadily, Trump has two key advantages on his side. Defeating him is going to take a mighty effort from the Democrats and their supportersone that combines energy, cleverness, and discipline, rather than the disorganization and dysfunction displayed in Iowa.

Since the Second World War, only three sitting Presidents have run for relection and been defeated: Gerald Ford, in 1976; Jimmy Carter, in 1980; and George H. W. Bush, in 1992. Nine of the twelve incumbents who sought relection won. In two of the three races where incumbents were defeated, the economy wasor was perceived to bein serious trouble. With policymakers at the Federal Reserve expecting G.D.P. growth to continue at a rate of around two per cent this year, what about this November? Ray Fair, an economist at Yale, built a statistical model that seeks to forecast elections on the basis of incumbency and G.D.P. growth. Over the years, the Fair model has had a mixed record, reflecting the fact that these factors arent the only ones which impact elections. But the model does provide a handy way of summarizing some key factors, and it is now predicting that Trump will win the popular vote comfortably. If that happened, he would win an even bigger victory in the electoral college.

This forecast shouldnt be taken literally. In an era of intense polarization, there is evidence that economics doesnt play as big a role as it used to in driving voting patterns. On his Web site, Fair stresses that his model also doesnt take into account the personality of individual candidates, which is obviously a key factor in the case of Trump. Throughout his Presidency, his job-approval rating has lagged far behind his approval rating on economic issues. Thats still true. In the aforementioned Gallup survey, sixty-three per cent of respondents said that they approved of Trumps handling of the economyfourteen points above his job-approval rating.

It should also be noted that the Gallup job-approval rating is an outlier. A new Reuters poll puts Trumps rating at forty-two per cent, and an Economist/YouGov poll puts it at forty-four per cent. On Thursday afternoon, the Real Clear Politics poll average, which combines the findings from many individual surveys findings, had Trump at 45.2 per cent, with a disapproval rating of 51.8 per cent. Four months ago, his approval rating was 43.6 per cent, and his disapproval rating was 53.7 per cent. These numbers tell us that Trump is still unpopular, but that he has become a bit less so recently. Whether that shift reflects positive economic news or the impeachment trial, or both, isnt clear.

The key point is that Trump is now sufficiently popular, and the economic environment is sufficiently benign, to make his relection a real and live danger. (In the online betting markets, for what they are worth, he is already a strong favorite to win.) This year, again, the result will most likely come down to ten battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and, of course, the three Rust Belt states that Trump flipped in 2016: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. According to the data-research firm Morning Consult, Trumps disapproval rating currently exceeds his approval rating in all of these states apart from Florida. But the gap has narrowed in a number of places, including Arizona, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.

The identity of the Democratic candidate will obviously be vitally important, but so will the manner in which the campaign is conducted. Everyone associated with the Democratic Partyfrom grassroots activists to elected officials and Party operativeswill need to unite behind the winner of the primary, whoever it is, and avoid scoring any own goals. During a hard-fought primary election, it is difficult, if not impossible, for the various candidates and their supporters to project this sort of unity and discipline. But other Democrats are showing how it can be done.

During the impeachment trial, the House managers, and particularly Adam Schiff, laid out their arguments with such professionalism and care that even some Republican senators conceded that they had made the case persuasively. (Except in the case of Mitt Romney, of course, this wasnt enough to persuade them to find Trump guilty.) And, after Trumps State of the Union address, Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, delivered a Democratic response that deserved much more attention than it got.

Rather than engaging with Trump directly, Whitmer highlighted Democratic efforts to reduce gun violence, invest in infrastructure, lower prescription-drug prices, and expand access to health care. She also contrasted these initiatives with the Trump Administrations record of showering tax cuts on the wealthy and trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, including the protections it afforded people with prexisting conditions. Its pretty simple, she said. Democrats are trying to make your health care better; Republicans in Washington are trying to take it away.

You can argue about whether the sorts of policies that Whitmer lauded are sufficient to rebalance a society that has been so grossly distorted by political corruption, record corporate profits, and rising inequalitythis debate lies at the heart of the divide between the Bernie SandersElizabeth Warren and Joe BidenPete Buttigieg wings of the Democratic Party. In terms of campaign strategy, however, keeping the focus on everyday issues and on the mendaciousness of Trump and the Republicans offers the best prospect of defeating them in November. Despite it all, they are still beatable. Democrats need to get their act together and concentrate on the common enemy.

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The Challenge Facing Democrats in the 2020 Election - The New Yorker

If the Democratic primaries were a sporting event, they would look something like an ultra-marathon followed by a series of punishing wind sprints. Campaign staff spend a full year door-knocking, phone-banking and organizing in Iowa and New Hampshire before setting off on a mad dash through the parts of the country where 98% of Americans actually live.

Staying competitive in this feat of endurance requires fueling your foot soldiers. So what are the campaigns feeding their staff and what, if anything, does it tell us about them?

Campaigns are required to submit detailed records of their spending to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) each quarter, showing how much money they raised from donors and what they spent it on. We used those filings to analyze the remaining candidates expenditures on all things edible from Starbucks coffee runs and airplane snacks to and steakhouse dinners and pizza pies. This analysis covers spending from each campaigns launch through 31 December 2019.

A caveat: each campaign uses slightly different categorizations in its FEC filings. We excluded expenditures if they included event space rentals or appeared to refer to catering for fundraising events. This decision primarily affected the analyses for the Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and Andrew Yang campaigns, since Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg are not holding high-dollar fundraisers.

Overall, we examined $1.9m in spending on food and beverages by these eight campaigns. Heres what we found.

About $1m of that spending went to catering companies or restaurants that we characterized as generally American. Of the other $900,000, Mexican food was the top choice. Democratic campaigns spent $92,120 at Mexican restaurants throughout 2019, led by the Warren campaign, which accounted for more than a third of that total.

Soul food and barbecue were popular choices in South Carolina, another state with an early primary. Andrew Yang, whose parents emigrated to the US from Taiwan, spent the most on Chinese food, followed by Tom Steyer, Warren, Biden and Sanders. Yangs campaign was also the only one to show expenditures from Korean and Creole restaurants.

The Warren and Sanders campaigns also demonstrated notable diversity in their choices. Sanders staffers shelled out for Thai, Jamaican and Middle Eastern food. Warren workers dined on Filipino, vegan, Thai, and Indian food.

Meanwhile, Bloombergs campaign dominated the spending on Japanese food, shelling out $16,877 at a single sushi restaurant in the six weeks after he launched his run in late November. That restaurant, Hanabi Japanese Cuisine, is just a few blocks away from the Bloomberg Philanthropies offices, which are housed in a 19th century Italianate mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. (The Bloomberg campaign is paying rent to the Bloomberg Philanthropies building, according to the filings.)

Lest you think the campaign blew all that money in one sitting, Hanabi is no Nobu. The storefront restaurant offers specialty rolls at prices ranging from just $7 to $13.

Bloomberg staffers might have a taste for mid-range sushi, but his campaign is not exactly pinching pennies when it comes to meals. Despite only having launched in late November, the campaign has already spent about $310,000 on food. Most of that went to office catering services, but one notable line item was more than $10,000 to Air Culinaire, an in-flight catering service for private jets. Options for travelers out of New York range from a seared wagyu steak with foie gras, morels and potato hash to sous-vide black chicken thighs with green onion salad, beetroot puree, jasmine tea-infused rice and sesame dressing. Each menu also features extensive options from Petrossian Caviar, Air Culinaires caviar partner.

The other self-funding billionaire in the race, Steyer, spent more than half a million dollars on food and beverages. Much of that spending went to catering and restaurants, but there were also some notable expenditures:

$14,474 on fruit delivery

$23,562 on a premium third wave office coffee service, and

$31,428 on delivery apps, including $20,731 just on the grocery delivery service Instacart

For those campaign workers who dont work for billionaires, however, meals of pizza, sandwiches, and bar food were much more common.

The Sanders campaign spent the most on pizza about $30,000 while Dominos racked up the most orders of any pizzeria.

Americas most disappointing sandwich chain,Panera Bread, meanwhile, accounted for $50,450 in spending across all the campaigns.

Campaign staff typically work exceptionally long hours, and you cant make it through the day without a strong breakfast. The most popular breakfast choice was Dunkin Donuts, followed by a number of bagel shops, and Starbucks.

The Buttigieg campaign also spent $2,160 at a specialty croissant bakery in morthern California.

As for afters, two campaigns dominated the dessert menu Klobuchars and Sanders. The Minnesota senator spent more than $10,000 at the Cookie Cart, a Minneapolis not-for-profit bakery that provides job training for teenagers.

Meanwhile, Sanders campaign has spent $13,837 on Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream. He is from Vermont, after all.

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Pizza, sushi, Ben & Jerry's: what 2020 Democrats are feeding their staffers - The Guardian