In the run-up to the US presidential election and on election day, YouTube will only place ads on the home page for one candidate: Donald Trump.
The team behind President Trump’s re-election campaign made a deal in early November with the video platform in which they bought all the advertising space for the current American president.
Trump will be prominent on the most important days on which voters across the country are preparing to go to the polls on November 3.
The estimated costs of Trump’s advertisements amount to more than one million dollars per day. The business newspaper Bloomberg writes that Trump can spend 500 million on digital advertisements in his campaign.
YouTube declined to comment on the deal.
But which Democrat can beat Trump?
All Democratic candidates for the US presidency agree on one thing: their main task is to defeat Donald Trump. Opinions vary considerably among Democrats on how to do this, as the course of potential presidential candidates shows. These are the contenders:
Joe Biden (77)
The man who represents the status quo, and thinks this is a force. He sees himself as captain on a ship in the storm, which can immediately take over the helm. “This is not a time for an intern at the White House.” But he is therefore accessible among older and black America.
But experience works both ways. Joe opted for war and free trade and heavy punishment for black Americans. What he is proud of is what others blame him for. His collaboration with Republicans, his years with Obama. He lied a little, he pirated a little, and now the years begin to count. “Sleepy Joe,” as Trump calls him, regularly gets lost in his own stories.
Bernie Sanders (78)
Like Biden, he has a long history in American politics, but far from power but preaches progressive revolution. Uncompromising consistency has made him the idol of the youngest generation, but this frightens Americans who thrive better in the system. The big question: of whom are the most?
As a real populist, Sanders believes he is best able to punctuate Trump’s false populist promises (“He said he was a different kind of Republican, a pillar of the working class – but then you don’t make a tax law that makes 83 percent of the richest proceeds to the richest 1 percent”) With this he hopes to reclaim the Rust Belt, the Northeast, that was lost under Clinton.
But he has persistent sympathies for hard-left regimes in Latin America at other times. That could scare off many moderate Republicans, who could otherwise vote for a Democrat. When the Democrats recaptured the House of Representatives in mid-term elections in 2018, it was thanks to this kind of bourgeois switchers.
Trump can also use a possible loss of Sanders to increase his chances. A repeat of 2016 is quite reasonable when hatred of Sanders voters towards the Democratic establishment in general and Clinton, in particular, cost her ultimately votes.
For that reason, Trump is now also heating the fire. He pointed out an amendment to the debate rules of the Democrats in favor of Michael Bloomberg. “The Democratic Party is again manipulating the elections against Crazy Bernie (…). They retake Bernie, like in 2016.”
Elizabeth Warren (70)
The woman with the plans. She is almost as progressive as Sanders but much more detailed. Sank somewhat in polls, and the most valuable asset is her Republican brothers. She invariably puts them up in her campaign to show that her plans can also appeal to Republicans if she has to fight Trump. Was a Republican herself for a long time, until she discovered during her investigation into bankrupt Americans that a financial catastrophe is in a small corner. Since then, the champion of interests of the little burden, she led the way against Wall Street and made no friends there.
Her first blunder was the DNA research with which she wanted to show that she had Cherokee ancestors. Not much more was found than a few promille, but Warren saw that as proof of her claim of Indian blood, which was checked on Harvard, among other things. Trump has said he is looking forward to competing against ‘Pocahontas’.
The second blunder was the refusal of Sanders, after a mixed well-being discussion about her chances as a female presidential candidate. According to ex-fans, Warren has thus fallen into the role of a female victim.
Pete Buttigieg (37)
Idealistic technocrat. Pete sees both Biden and Sanders as representatives of the old order. “I want to leave the politics of the past in the past,” he said. He draws the fullest halls in Iowa, after Sanders.
Buttigieg sees his mayor of the student town of South Bend in Indiana as the ideal step to the White House. He optimized the sewage system but neglected the black community. He served in Afghanistan, so he has many veterans in his support.
He is the best speaker of all candidates. Twelve years ago, he walked around in Iowa to knock on doors for Barack Obama. He talks about hope, about ‘moral imagination’, about the considerable overlap between Americans of different backgrounds. His overt homosexuality still costs him a few percents of the votes in America in 2020. Buttigieg is the most disturbing of the most essential candidates in one-on-one polls with Trump.
Amy Klobuchar (59)
No nonsense figure who can surprise you. Senator from Minnesota who likes to use her geography as an argument: the great Midwestern United States, where the elections are likely to be decided again, is her backyard. “This is not a fly-over area for me,” she said. ‘I live there, I am the granddaughter of a miner. The people that it is always about? Those are my friends, my neighbors.’
She likes to point out the districts that Trump has won, but that she gained from her Republican opponent. But she also points to her practical approach that goes beyond the party. She enjoys working with Republicans, for example, on a law to make medicines cheaper, without her being blamed on by the progressive faction of her party. Klobuchar was called ‘snowman’ by Trump after she spoke of climate change in a snowstorm before the cameras. She is proud of that.
Michael Bloomberg (77)
This year’s big joker. The man is hoping to buy elections with money. If Democrats panic because of Biden’s underperformance and seek a moderate alternative, Bloomberg could become significant.
He has hated Trump for years. “I’m from New York,” said the former mayor at the Democratic Convention in 2016. “I recognize a scammer when I see one.” He is called ‘mini Mike’ by Trump because of his height. This weekend Trump was accused of playing under one hat with the party bumps of the Democrats. Another weakness: he forbade reporters from his press service to investigate Democratic presidential candidates.
