neonvincent

Now I come to the candidate who inspired me to track ideologies, Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard's ideology score has held steady at -0.279 since April. Back then, she was more conservative than 77% of Democrats in the 116th House. Oddly enough, that has not allowed her to hold her place relative to the rest of the Democrats currently serving in the House of Representatives, as she is now more conservative than 78% of them. At least one other Representative has moved to her left even as several Representatives have moved to the right past Ryan and Swalwell but stopped short of Moulton.* Still, her current relative move to the right reinforces the reason I started tracking candidates on Voteview, which was to demonstrate that Gabbard is not "objectively further left then the rest of the Dem primary field," but off to its right.
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*I don't know whose voting record has allowed them to pass Gabbard to the left, but I know at least three Representatives that Voteview considers to have moved to the right over the past two months, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib. They used to cluster near Barbara Lee, who has consistently been one of the most liberal members of the House with scores lower than -0.600. Now, they have scores ranging from -0.303 to -0.330, placing them much closer to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose score is -0.213.

That's the story from Senators and Representatives running for the Democratic nomination are drifting to the left as they campaign. On The Issues shows most of the Democratic candidates have moved left during the campaign, too, tells a slightly different story, as it did for Seth Moulton.

Speaking of Gabbard, the candidate who inspired me to perform the analyses of the Democratic candidates' ideological scores in the first place moved to her right economically from 30 to 33, making her three points more moderate. However, my notes listed her social score as 70 (the 75 in last month's entry was apparently a transcription error), so her current social score of 78 shifts her a net five to her left. That written, Gabbard has now fallen to the twenty-third most liberal from the twenty-second, making her the third most moderate candidate in the contest. She retains her designation as a Libertarian-Leaning Progressive.

I'll definitely be finished with the Voteview images by the next set of debates here in Detroit. The ones from On The Issues may take a bit longer.