CNN editor-at-large Chris Cillizza might be the last person in America to see it. He's shocked that the failed senatorial candidate with nothing but a dopey grin and a DWI has tanked in the polls.

Yes, really.



Andrew Yang has triple the support of Beto O'Rourke in this poll.



Who could have imagined THAT at the start of this year???? https://t.co/t6TT2MFMDg — Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) August 28, 2019



Interesting. You mean to say that the self-made millionaire entrepreneur running on a concise, relevant economic platform is beating the trust fund son-in-law who sounds uncannily like Butthead from the old MTV cartoon? Could not have seen that one coming, Chris.

Beto's always been an empty suit, but in 2018, he was an empty suit running solely against a polarizing incumbent Republican in an election characterized by groundbreaking Democratic turnout. Now he's running against a bevy of candidates more experienced, more charismatic, more diligent, more intelligent, and unquestionably better looking, who all have fewer DWIs in their history. (The whole discount RFK schtick pales in comparison to the telegenic visages of Tulsi Gabbard or Kamala Harris.)

By contrast, Yang has differentiated himself from the field by putting forward an affirmative and cogent agenda focused on the economy and automation. You don't have to agree with his solution to understand its appeal.

Yang understands that a Democrat can't get back the 80,000 voters in the Rust Belt that won the Electoral College, or the millions who flipped to vote GOP in 2016, by simply disparaging as racists people who are motivated by job losses and diminished economic opportunities. Even the most ardent libertarians opposed to Yang's universal basic income proposal at least have to appreciate that it's a solution to our current economic shifts more thoughtful than punishing job creators with $15-per-hour minimum wages or exorbitantly taxing the rich for free gender-studies degrees.

If voters want an ideologically undefined Democrat who hits the right intersectional notes, they have no reason to pick Beto. They already have the far more qualified Harris or Cory Booker. Outside of the Beltway bubble, Beto was always just a privileged sad boy, waxing poetic in the pages of Vanity Fair and the New York Times about the trials and tribulations of slumming it in a Williamsburg walk-up like every other 20-something in Brooklyn. Why choose the mediocre white dude going through a public midlife crisis when you have senators who earned their place?

In contrast, Yang has carved out an intellectually interesting and unoccupied space in the primary. His campaign is as self-made as his career. He deserves every poll increasingly demonstrating that.