Paul Ryan says Biden likely won’t get Democratic nomination

Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Tuesday that former Vice President Joe Biden is the one Democrat capable of beating President Trump in the 2020 election, but he doesn’t think Biden will win the nomination. Instead, he says it will likely go to one of the progressive candidates on the roster.

“I’d say he’s probably the most likely one to have a chance at beating Donald Trump, but I don’t see Joe getting the nomination, I just don’t see him getting there,” Ryan told CNBC at the annual Milken Conference in Abu Dhabi.

The former Wisconsin congressman mentioned Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as crucial states that the parties will need to win over in the 2020 election. 

“I think Joe is probably the hardest to beat because it’s going to come down to the suburban [voter], it’s going to be the suburbanite that’ll basically be the difference-maker,” Ryan said.

He said that if Biden were to be the Democratic Party’s nominee, he would be slated to win over undecided moderates, whom he described as “a first-generation Republican” who likes “Trump the idea” but they don’t necessarily like “the personality and the noise and the tweets that come with it.”

“I think Joe Biden, it’s all relative, will fall into that category,” Ryan said, “and is the likeliest to be able to win that voter.”

However, Ryan said he sees the number of progressive candidates still in the race and the outcome of the Iowa caucuses as an early sign that Biden’s nomination may not be unanimous or even possible at this point.

“If Bernie keeps racking up wins and is seen to be going toward the nomination, then you can probably make the case that Bloomberg will get enough proportional delegates, because he’ll play in enough states, to go into the convention with a claim,” Ryan said, referring to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “And then you’ll have one whale of a mess of a convention … and then we’ll see what happens there.”  

Biden’s campaign announced earlier today that he is moving on from New Hampshire to South Carolina in preparation for the next primary, and will address his New Hampshire supporters via livestream after the votes come in later tonight.