Turns out, voters don’t mind ‘two old white guys’

And then there were two — unless you count Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who has about the same chance of winning the Democratic Party’s nomination for president as does Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

The last (serious) woman candidate in the race — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — has dropped out. The only openly gay man in the race dropped out a few days earlier.  All the candidates of color are gone — again, unless you count Tulsi. And, now, all that’s left are two white men, both closer to 80 than 70. 

How un-woke can you get?

Right from the jump, Democrats bragged about their diversity, about how — unlike the Republicans — their candidates were a reflection of the “real America.” 

But a funny thing happened on the way to this summer’s convention in Milwaukee. The voters had their say. And they weren’t as fixated on skin color and gender and sexual orientation and age as were the coastal elites of the party, or their pals in the liberal media. 

It’s only a matter of time before we hear howls from the left about how, despite all their efforts, Democrats wound up with — as the dismissive saying goes — “two old white guys.”

But the woke crowd can rest easy. There’s no way the Democrats will run two white men against the Republicans’ two white men. No way!

Whichever “old white guy” gets the Democrats’ nomination, his running mate almost certainly will be a person of color. Most likely, a progressive woman of color.

And while the Trump campaign says it doesn’t care who wins the Democratic nomination, that they’ll gladly take on anybody, they’d rather run against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — “Crazy Bernie,” as the president likes to say — figuring that America isn’t ready for a socialist president whose policies, if somehow enacted, likely would bankrupt the country.  

But if Joe Biden gets the nomination, Donald Trump is going to have his hands full. Biden, more than Bernie, can win college-educated moderate voters, especially women, who live in the suburbs. These are the people who helped Democrats win the House of Representatives in 2018. 

Biden says he wants to bring the country together. Trump doesn’t seem especially concerned about anyone beyond his hard-core base. Swing voters, exhausted with the president, might be drawn to the former vice president. 

Biden also can win older Democratic voters, a group that had little interest in Bernie Sanders on Super Tuesday.

The great big question is: What does Bernie’s army do if he doesn’t win the nomination? Do his passionate supporters hop on the Biden bandwagon, or do they sit home on Election Day, convinced their guy got robbed?

Consider this: Bernie’s young, passionate, die-hard base didn’t show up in big numbers on Super Tuesday. And if they won’t show up for Bernie, should we expect them to turn out for Joe?

As for President Trump, he was planning on a strong economy to help him win reelection. But the coronavirus may get in the way. It’s already turned the stock market into a roller coaster — up a thousand points one day, down a thousand the next.  

And if the virus continues to slow down the economy, as many experts say it will, then Americans will lose their jobs. A recession is not out of the question. 

Only two presidents in the modern era failed to win a second term — Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican George H.W. Bush. And both were brought down by a weak economy.

The virus will take a toll on many Americans before it’s brought under control. The president’s political health also will hang in the balance.

Bernard Goldberg, an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist, is a correspondent with HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.” He previously worked as a reporter for CBS News and an analyst for Fox News. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Patreon page. Follow him on Twitter @BernardGoldberg.