I'm going to defend the Democrats today, and you're going to hate it, and I'm going to be right.

A New York Times/Siena poll of likely 2028 Democratic primary voters, conducted Oct. 12 to 19, asked who they'd most likely vote for. Kamala Harris led with 12%. Gavin Newsom had 9%. Pete Buttigieg had 7%. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had 6%. Sen. Jon Ossoff had 4%, Sen. Mark Kelly 3%, and 15% named someone else.

And 45% said they didn't know.

The Times headlined its graphic "Harris, Newsom, or … no Clue." Mediaite pointed out that "don't know" beat the top four candidates combined. Conservatives are laughing. Republican primary voters, by comparison, gave Vice President JD Vance 33%, Marco Rubio 23%, and only 26% were undecided. Clean. Decisive. Boring.

So here's my defense, and you should sit with it before you argue. "No Clue" is the strongest candidate the Democrats have.

Think about it. No Clue has never lost a general election. No Clue has never been asked about a word salad. No Clue has no gas tax, no billionaire tax, no podcast, and no book tour. No Clue has never said anything on camera that a campaign ad could play back. Every other name on that list has a record. No Clue has a clean slate and 45% of the base. Harris has to compete with her own clips. No Clue just has to show up and say nothing, which, frankly, the party has been practicing.

You're going to say, "Crow, the question was open-ended, people had to volunteer a name." Yes. The Times noted that. It's two years out, and naming a candidate cold is hard. I accept the point, and it makes things worse. Republicans managed to come up with a name 74% of the time under identical rules. Democrats were handed a blank line and nearly half of them left it blank.

And some of the people who did fill it in got creative. The Times reported respondents named more than 20 Democrats, including Barack Obama and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, neither of whom is eligible. When your voters' write-in strategy includes a man term-limited out in 2017 and a mayor the Constitution already ruled out, the bench isn't deep. The bench is imaginary.

Then there's the direction question. About 48% of Democrats in the poll want the party to move toward the center, 27% want it to move left, and 21% want it to stay put. So the party doesn't know who's driving, and it doesn't know which way to turn. That isn't a primary. That's a minivan in a roundabout with the hazards on.

Now argue with me. You think 12% is a frontrunner? In what sport? A 12% free-throw shooter gets benched in a church league. You think it's early? It's always early until it's late, and then it's Harris again.

So I'll say it plainly, because someone has to. Democrats should stop pretending they have a nominee problem. They have a nominee. Forty-five percent of their voters picked it.

No Clue 2028. It's polling better than anyone they've got.

This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.

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