of the threshold requirements to qualify for the third round of debates in september. so let s stop right there really quick. we can go to people sharing the views, who is best to defeat trump, but let s go back to the overall list of the candidates. and willie, boy, i ll tell you what. as we get to the early states we ll show south carolina in a minute. it becomes so clear that this race there may be 21 people who say they re in the race. but it s down to five if you believe any of these polls and for people that have been saying that the polls make no difference, well, they re wrong because good money doesn t chase bad polls and the top five candidates also happen to be the top five candidates with the most money and biden is doing pretty well. you ll start to wither if
it. i think this is where a lot of what we said earlier in terms of retail politics or early working debates there s a difference between sitting on your laptop and walking the stoops up and down the block and getting your older voters out. that may not be on your laptop. you need both. you need your young voters. you need your laptop crowd that was in the brooklyn headquarters of clinton but you need that guy that can walk down the block and talk to ms. may on the stoop and say, we have to get everybody in the building out to vote. that s the difference in those states. i feel that s what happened to mrs. clinton. boy tell you what, you re so right, rev. they were already looking for their homes to buy in washington. they re already planning their victory lap. i know the last three weeks of the campaign we on this show were saying and i know you have said it too, don t go to sleep on donald trump. he can still win the race. you seriously you would have
race. you know, it s interesting, obviously if you go on twitter a lot of life long democrats don t want to hear from the likes of you and me. talking about the party darting too far left and, i mean, why should they hear from us, they did so well in 2016 against trump. but you look at the first debate and it doesn t look like biden was damaged too much. it looks like as the polls keep rolling out the clear winner seems to be elizabeth warren as far as making a break. what to the front of the pack. what does that mean? what do you see in the poll results? not only who s at the top, but also the 15 or so who are buried below 2%? one of the things i think is really interesting is to think about how these polls would have shaken out if there had been only seven or eight candidates instead of this, you know,
great race she has run so far. that even when she was down in the polls she was doing everything right. she was doing the blocking and tackling right and unless she figures out how to make a more personal connection, a more emotional connection to black voters not only in south carolina, but also across america, her road to the white house becomes much more difficult so those are the two numbers out of all of these polls to look at. and we have seen what mayor pete tried to do yesterday. we ll see if that closes if that helps him out. elizabeth warren needs to do the same thing. yeah. the two candidates, joe biden needs to worry about are elizabeth warren and kamala harris both women. but they re steady and strong and constantly gaining. still ahead on morning joe, president trump backs away from his plan to include a controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census. but he says the government will get the information another way. plus, former house speaker
breakdown by race, guys. alex, i want to show that again. because there have been two candidates that have done well in the national polls. who continue to lag behind for support among black voters who obviously, rev, as you and i say once you get out of iowa and new hampshire that s the ball game. you re going to see if a candidate can t get support among black voters, then they re going to lose south carolina pretty badly and there are two candidates that stand out right now who still have a lot of work to do, mayor pete who actually put out a program yesterday and talked about how to improve the lives of african-americans. and elizabeth warren sitting at 8%. not surprisingly in the south carolina poll we ll show you in a minute those two lag far behind the rest of the field. you know, it s something you and i talk about all the time,