Pretender Or Contender: Howard Schultz
This piece is part of an ongoing series looking at the Democrats who are hoping for the chance to take on Trump in 2020 (note: Schultz is running as an independent)
Name: Howard Schultz, former CEO and Chairman of Starbucks
Hometown: Schultz grew up in federal housing projects in Canarsie, Brooklyn, a background which will be highlighted in dozens of digital ads and TV commercials as Schultz embarks on his quest to end federal housing subsidies.
Significant legislative accomplishments: Schultz is responsible for teaching millions of Americans a few basic words of Italian and giving frugal bosses and aunts everywhere a go to gift card to give out around Christmas.
Key constituencies: People who love Michael Bloomberg but are worried he might have too much charisma, Howard Schultz’s immediate family, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.
Why he can win: Make no mistake about it, Schultz is an underdog in this race. As Kamala Harris gains momentum and Donald Trump maintains a stranglehold on his base, Schultz has a narrow path to victory. But if there’s one way an insurgent candidate can win, it’s by eschewing typical politics and gaining a loyal following of their own. Much like Bernie Sanders was able to rally the Bernie Bros in 2016 who were dedicated to ensuring a woman would never be elected to the White House, Schultz has his own natural constituency of suburban moms and upper middle-class professionals who can’t think of anywhere more creative to go for meeting clients. If he can somehow leverage Starbucks’ rabid fanbase into support for his candidacy, he can find a narrow lane of support for his message that Donald Trump is bad but minor tax increases on hedge fund managers are equally bad.
Why he’ll lose: Independent candidates have had a notoriously tough time racking up considerable support because of the electoral college. The last candidate to win a significant amount of electoral votes was George Wallace. Unless Schultz makes Doing Racism a large part of his platform, he will find it difficult to get beyond a couple of percentage points of the popular vote and actually win some electoral votes. Currently, his strategy relies on peeling off votes from people who like everything Trump does except for his tweets and Democrats who think Kamala Harris wasn’t tough enough on the mothers of truant minors. While he can count on big checks from former Jeb Bush donors and earned media from CNN town halls and getting ratioed on Twitter, it is tough to see a scenario in which that translates into broad based electoral support.
Pretender or contender?: While it’s difficult to see any scenario in which Howard Schultz can win the White House, odds are he can achieve his primary goal of getting people to spend a lot of time talking about Howard Schultz. With deep pockets to self-fund his campaign and a masochistic dedication to getting owned online, Schultz can see his candidacy all the way through to the November election if he’d like. By avoiding running under the banner of either major party, his independent candidacy can continue through the primary season as long as people with “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” in their Bumble profiles demand he’s given a podium on the debate stage between Donald Trump and the Democratic nominee.
