Gaffs….
Age….
His son….
None of these things have stopped Joe Biden from leading among others running for the Democratic Presidential nomination and against Donald Trump…
It took more than a year, but the Democratic presidential primary is finally coming to terms with the fact that Joe Biden isn’t going to collapse before the first votes are cast.
If anything, the landscape is tilting more in his favor.
Biden’s fundraising has improved. His polling is steadier, and his opponents barely touched him in the presidential debate on Tuesday — the final debate ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
Two of his top rivals, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have started feuding, raising the prospect of a splintered progressive vote. Pete Buttigieg, a well-funded, well-organized, moderate alternative to Biden, has still not demonstrated that he can appeal to people of color. And three of the five top-polling candidates in Iowa — Sanders, Warren and Sen. Amy Klobuchar — are about to be pulled away from the campaign at the most inopportune time, stuck in Washington for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Until recently, Democrats had operated on a seemingly universal consensus that Biden — an aging moderate with a record of losing presidential races — would wither in a competitive field. Many of his rivals stitched that thinking into their own plans.
Yet, less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the opposite is turning out to be true. Even critics of Biden’s campaign here have been surprised at his resilience.
“I thought he would be in trouble by now,” said Tom Courtney, a former Iowa state senator and now co-chairman of the Des Moines County Democrats in Iowa.
Courtney, who is neutral in the contest, described Biden’s field operation as “terrible,” with a far lighter footprint in the state than some of his competitors.
Still, Courtney said, “I can read the polls, too. … There’s every chance that he’ll win Iowa.”….
image…HuffPost.Com