The 2016 presidential election cycle is upon us, and, up to now, the political media has devoted its focus to the human wrecking ball that is Donald Trump. The near myopic fixation of the press is understandable; they are in the eyeballs business, and Trump gets them – 24 million pairs of them, in fact, tuned into the last Republican presidential debate. But the race for the GOP nomination isn’t the only exciting presidential primary. The Democratic primary race that was once a sleepy coronation with a predetermined outcome has suddenly become not only competitive but also interesting and substantive. It is curious that the many in media have declined to give the contentious contest due notice. 

Just to establish a baseline level of wonderment, it seemed likely Hillary Clinton’s strongest challenger for the Democratic nomination would be former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley as recently as March. The former secretary of state was a juggernaut who enjoyed astronomical levels of support from a committed base of Democratic voters. Those who challenged her were seen as engaged in an endeavor that could most charitably be described as quixotic. If you were inclined toward sympathy, you might have characterized a challenge to Clinton’s dominance as a kamikaze mission. And suicidal is exactly what socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ frontal assault on the frontrunner initially looked like.

Flash forward six months, and that assessment of a leftwing populist candidate’s ability to exploit progressive frustration seems downright naïve. Sanders has achieved the impossible in that at least one survey of a critical early primary state, New Hampshire, now shows him leading Clinton by a considerable margin. While Sanders’ surge is certainly due in part to the candidate’s unique brand of far-left politics, his rise is almost certainly also attributable to Clinton’s self-inflicted wounds. Her candidacy has been hamstrung by the slow and constant drip of scandalous revelations regarding her mishandling of classified information on a secret and unauthorized email system while she served as secretary of state. Clinton has also been hurt by the implication that her family foundation solicited high-dollar donations from foreign patrons and governments with the implication that America’s chief diplomat would happily provide quid pro quo. When asked about these matters in the press, Clinton routinely fudges the truth, and her trust ratings in the polls have correspondingly plummeted.

But Sanders’ rise in the polls has not gone unchecked. Those who expected to see pushback against the self-identified socialist from centrist Democrats will be disappointed. Those Democrats who have begun to mobilize in opposition to Sanders are to his left, at least on the single issues to which they are devoted.

Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig, a campaign finance reform advocate, revealed his intention to run as a Democrat for the White House this week, but only if he successfully raises $1 million from grassroots donors by September. His platform is simple: pass one package of campaign finance reforms, after which he would resign the presidency and hand the office over to his vice president. Don’t think too hard about the fact that the Lessig candidacy is really a stalking-horse for whoever becomes his second, or the ridiculousness of his campaign’s premise and the mockery it makes of presidential politics. As of this writing, with 25 days to go in his fundraising drive, Lessig has raised almost $195,000. His message has takers.

Another group of activists have also begun to vent their frustrations with the Democratic Party and have used Sanders as a convenient foil: the Black Lives Matter movement. “We aren’t reasonable!” shouted the protesters who stormed the stage at a recent Sanders rally in Seattle. “If you do not listen to [us], your event will be shut down.”

“In case anyone missed the memo after Ferguson, Baltimore and Charleston, here it is: the Obama era of black silence on issues that matter to us is over,” wrote former White House advisor Van Jones. “And the entire Democratic Party needs to sit up and take notice.”

The progressive left is involved in as potentially a self-defeating demonstration of angst and frustration with the Democratic Party establishment as anything Donald Trump has whipped up on the right. “For Sanders, all issues come back to economic inequality,” wrote Politico Magazine’s Bill Scher. “For Black Lives Matter, that approach fails to fully confront the centuries-old scourge of institutional racism. For Lessig, only by prioritizing election reform can anything else be solved.” In the press, the coverage the Sanders campaign has generated is largely centered on the mammoth size of the crowds who attend his rallies. What is said at those rallies is, however, of far more objective interest to American voters. Many in the press dismiss Sander’s revolutionary rhetoric as his “standard stump speech,” as though the resurrection of Eugene V. Debs’ platform is of only tertiary interest to the electorate.

All this action on the left is not, however, limited to the progressive movement’s fringes. The press might find the friction inside the more establishmentarian wing of the Democratic Party as compelling. While few Democratic strategists are willing to say as much on the record just yet, liberals are beginning to fret openly in conversations with reporters about Clinton’s declining viability as a candidate. “Coupled with new polls that suggest Clinton is vulnerable, Democrats are nearing full-on panic mode,” The Hill revealed.

Fortunately for panicking Democrats, a savior is waiting in the wings: Vice President Joe Biden.

“From his vacation spot on Kiawah Island, [South Carolina,] Mr. Biden is giving the strongest signal yet that he is actively considering making a third run at the presidency,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. “He is asking political allies for advice and gauging the strength of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign as he weighs his options, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Biden is expected to announce his decision next month.”

If Biden does run, he has a compelling narrative propelling him into the race. He is the clear successor to Barack Obama’s legacy; he is most likely to maintain the integrity of the president’s winning coalition of voters; he is fulfilling the final wish of his beloved son who left this world too soon; and, finally, he is rescuing the party from the corruption of the Clintons. The prospect of a Biden run has clearly spooked the Democrats’ erstwhile inevitable nominee.

“The problem is that Joe Biden is a very good guy, and probably has no appeal whatsoever to people under 35,” former Vermont Governor Howard Dean told Today host Matt Lauer on Thursday. “People under 35 elected Barack Obama the President of the United States. That is a key part of the Democratic coalition, along with Latinos and African Americans and Asian Americans.” Dean said he thought it was just “too late” for a Biden candidacy.

That’s desperation you smell. YouGov/Economist opinion survey data since the spring has shown that Biden and Clinton share relatively strong favorability ratings among young voters, African-Americans, and women. In fact, Clinton’s favorability rating with voters age 18-29 in the last YouGov survey collapsed from 52 to just 40 percent. Only 7 percent of younger voters said they held a “very favorable” opinion of the grandmotherly Clinton.

And if the bill wasn’t full enough, Buzzfeed reported on Thursday that former Vice President Al Gore’s advisors are starting to wonder if he needs to step into the race to play messianic liberal redeemer. “They’re figuring out if there’s a path financially and politically,” a Democrat with knowledge of Gore’s thinking told Buzzfeed reporters. “It feels more real than it has in the past months.”

It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Gore’s appeal to the core Democratic constituencies as well as his ability to unite Sanders voters behind his brand of apocalyptic environmentalism would probably catapult him into a competitive place in the race in record time.

If the Democratic primary race is exciting now, it’s likely only to become more thrilling in the autumn. Columnists and television reporters would do well to lay the groundwork today to cover what may soon become as dramatic a contest as the one in which Republicans are currently involved.