- unhelpful, top ticket, down ticket - |
Unhelpful, in particular within a scenario of "any candidate who can fog a mirror could beat Trump" (if differentiated in persona and messaging from Clinton).
Rephrased, the question is why risk an expected sure thing because of a candidate facing attention to an offspring situation akin to DR Trump -to- Jarad-Ivanka/Trump Jr/Trump-and-Kushner empire intangibles and opportunities.
Besides "electable" on her or his own, who'd energize and best carry a ballot down ticket? That cannot avoid being a nominee consideration as January 2020 looms, and after that as each party's ticket is final. We face over a half year and a primary before that final ticket impact question ripens. Yet it is always there, ultimately being who can win and carry the party along in November -and- who can best govern having once won top and bottom.
The press seems to focus largely upon comparative funding strength in early days, because such "news" is easier to package rather than issue honing, crowd enthusiasms, etc. Later the news focus is shifted but again to a counting, quantitative comparison: electoral vote reporting. There is uncertainty over what top ticket and down ticket correlation might evolve, hence, the pundits leave that question hanging.