The rise of Andrew Yang.

Andrew Yang is rapidly rising to prominence during the Democratic presidential nomination race. A few days ago, I posted specifically about his Universal Basic Income policy and why Yang and his #Yanggang supporters would be a good fit here on STEEM. Today I thought I'd look a bit more broadly at his rise, and the progress of his campaign and his chances of victory.

Yang's closing speech at the last debate.

Dana Brownlee, contributing to Forbes site, described this closing speech as a "mic-drop" moment and looked at the performance in detail:

As a professional speaker, I couldn’t help reflecting on his performance through that lens. Connecting with an audience is a universally critical skill for virtually all leaders, and I’d just watched Andrew Yang give a master class to some of the nation’s best and brightest political veterans.

His speaking is certainly relate-able, and he deliberately glosses over his credentials in order to connect better with the average voters. Many politicians hype up their qualifications for the job, Yang keeps to his message and rarely shares his credentials unprompted.

The common themes of Andrew Yang's campaign revolve around the rapid transformations that society is facing from technological progress, and that current politicians and systems are incapable or unwilling to address these issues. He is a political outsider in a lot of regards, and that puts him in something of a position similar to Trump - he can talk about Washington insiders and politicians as "them". This, in itself is an advantage, as there is a deep mistrust in society of politicians, and Yang is tapping in to that.

Yang's campaign has grown from nowhere basically. Polling at virtually zero everywhere to begin with, a groundswell is forming where Yang has momentum on his side. He is steadily overtaking rivals and gaining ground on the heavyweights in the campaign, with recent polls hovering around 4-5 %. One area of strength is the #yanggang, a social media groundswell that is mobilising support and really propelling Yang into the public's awareness.

Media Bias?

Yang has famously criticised MSNBC during an interview on CNN. He claims that they have omitted him from poling and fundraising info-graphics, and gave him the least amount of airtime during the recent debate. Here is the full interview:

Attacking the media during your campaign worked spectacularly for the current President, and many Yang supporters were delighted to see him drop the Mr Nice Guy for a moment to go on the attack.

So, can Yang win the nomination?

BusinessInsider have produced a ranking of all 17 candidates and it is quite a detail look at each candidates tracking and polling performance. They have Yang currently in 6th position and rising. While certainly not a front-runner yet, his campaign is gaining momentum, and as rivals drop out of the race, he may pick up more support.

He’s steadily rising in the polls, built a grassroots network of over 200,000 unique donors, and hasn’t let Biden’s presence into the race undermine his appeal and policy ideas.

Yang not only did well in the September debate and qualified for the next round of Democratic primary debates in October, but has been able to successfully play the media and outpace many of his rivals.

We bumped Yang up a spot on the week of October 4 because of his outstanding third-quarter fundraising haul in which he brought in $US10 million, an increase of $US7.2 million over his second-quarter fundraising performance.

Historical examples.

The website canandrewyangwin lists a number of examples of candidates coming from nowhere to win the nomination. Examples include Jimmy Carter (76), Bill Clinton (92), John Kerry (04), Barack Obama (08), and Donald Trump (16).

In the 1st half of 1975, Jimmy Carter was in 16th place out of 18 candidates. His polling number? A whopping 0.8%
In the 2nd half of 1975, Jimmy Carter moved up to 13th place.. out of 13 remaining candidates.
Oh, and his polling number had actually dropped to 0.5%
In 1976, Jimmy Carter won the primary with 40% of the vote

History says it is possible, it will be fascinating to watch whether the #yanggang can drive Andrew Yang to victory.

Steem would be a great place for Andrew Yang supporters to create and share their content. Yang is pro-blockchain, and his personal data would not be owned by any centralised business here. Imagine the #yanggang on Steem, with their own tribe producing and monetising content supporting Yang. The funds they earn here on STEEM could be put into the campaign donation kitty. I'm sure if Yang or part of his team joined 3Speak, @theycallmedan would make damn sure their posts earned well.

This article has been shared on twitter . Feel free to share it and hopefully bring Steem to the attention of the YangGang.

Thanks for reading,

JK