Super Tuesday is the Ballgame … Maybe
It’s coming down to Bernie v. Biden, and if Bernie scores big on Super Tuesday as expected, Biden’s establishment friends are going to have to take it away from Bernie.
There’s no question that his South Carolina Democratic presidential primary win was a massive moment for Joe Biden’s campaign. He stated in early February that South Carolina was his “real firewall,” and thanks in part to the endorsement of House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) last week, the state’s voters delivered for him in a big way.
Here’s the delegate count as it stands now:
The latest Democratic delegate counts, per the AP. pic.twitter.com/PkIs7ZhW0g
— Sister Toldjah Le Pew ? (@sistertoldjah) March 2, 2020
Will Biden’s Saturday victory be enough to steer momentum in his direction and away from Sen. Bernie Sanders come Super Tuesday and beyond?
Mike LaChance argued a few days ago that it might not be because time is not on the Biden campaign’s side. I’m inclined to agree with him based on several factors.
CALIFORNIA, TEXAS, AND NORTH CAROLINA
On March 3rd, these three states will be the biggest Super Tuesday prizes.
California has 416 delegates up for grabs, and all February polls show Sen. Bernie Sanders with comfortable leads heading into Tuesday’s contest, with Warren coming in a distant second place. Biden has not really been competitive there since mid to late January.
In Texas, which has 228 delegates, Biden has proven to be somewhat more competitive, but the state is still Sanders’ to lose.
Biden should fare a little better in North Carolina (110 delegates), where he currently has the edge, but it’s only a slight edge. Even if he wins the state, should Sanders’ come in at a close second, they could end up with roughly the same number of delegates. This scenario would not help Biden catch up should Bernie have the expected resounding victories in Texas and California.
Keep in mind that while South Carolina polls were erratic in the final two weeks before the primary and in some cases showed Sanders closing in on Biden, the polls for Texas, California, and North Carolina have been a lot more consistent.
Pete Buttigieg dropping out could help Biden in North Carolina more so than in Texas and California. But if several recent national polls are reliable indicators, Buttigieg’s supporters are split on who their second choice would be. This could mean that his base of support will cause a divide between all remaining candidates instead of primarily benefiting one.
More later on that.
MIKE BLOOMBERG LOOMS LARGE
It is in Texas, in particular, where Mike Bloomberg’s candidacy looms unusually large for Biden. Bloomberg has not been on the ballot thus far but will be on Super Tuesday, and he has pulled even with Biden in Texas.
The same is true for Virginia, which has 99 delegates. Sanders leads there, but Bloomberg has pulled ahead of Biden. This could prove especially problematic for Biden as there is a 15% qualifying threshold for delegates in each state, and breaking even at 15% for Biden won’t get him the number of delegates he needs to surge ahead of Bernie.
THE AMY KLOBUCHAR FACTOR
Not surprisingly, Sen. Amy Klobuchar should win her home state of Minnesota on Super Tuesday. The state has 75 delegates, and it’s entirely possible that Biden won’t win a single one. If Klobuchar runs away with it, look for her to stay in the race.
BEYOND SUPER TUESDAY
There are a couple of delegate-rich states in March that Biden might do well in post-Super Tuesday, but Bloomberg could complicate matters for him in at least one of them.
With 219 delegates, Florida holds its primary on March 17th. Sanders’ praise of Fidel Castro will likely sink him there, and he may not win any delegates at all. Assuming Bloomberg finishes a strong second to Biden, he will pull away much-needed delegates from him.
On March 24th, Georgia holds its primary, and its 105 delegates are up for grabs. There’s not a lot of polling data to go on for the state. But being next to South Carolina and with the most recent poll showing Biden leading by double digits, Georgia may be one of only a handful of delegate-rich states Biden can lay claim to going into April.
None of this means that Biden’s campaign will be over by the end of March. On the contrary, this data points to the strong possibility that Democrats could be facing their worst fear come convention time in July: No clear winner and a brokered convention at which their superdelegates would decide the Democrat nominee.
As if to confirm this, Bloomberg said in an interview last week that he planned on staying in the race for the long haul:
In an interview with NBC News’ Kasie Hunt, Bloomberg said “as long as you have a chance of winning,” he would “absolutely” stay in the race.
“Why would I spend all of this money, all of this time out of my life, and wear and tear, you know, which I love — incidentally, (it) reminds me of my three campaigns in New York for mayor, which I did like,” he told Hunt, the host of “KasieDC.” “The difference here is I’ve got to fly from event to event where there I used to drive from event to event. But yeah sure, I love it, I am going to stay right to the bitter end, as long as I have a chance.”
Bloomberg said that if Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., hit the delegate threshold to secure a majority ahead of the Democratic National Convention this summer, then he would not continue his presidential bid. If Sanders had amassed only a plurality, however, Bloomberg says he will keep pressing forward.
“I mean, if it was one vote away from a majority, then you’d have to start thinking about (getting out),” Bloomberg said. “But yeah, if it’s just a plurality, you got to be in it to win it. Anybody that goes in, yeah, I’m running a race, and I’m behind with one lap to go. What, am I going to quit? No, you run harder.”
Warren’s campaign manager has also signaled she is taking this to the convention:
Here’s the full Warren campaign memo on fighting for the nomination at the convention. It’s a long shot, and lots can change along the way, but it’s her best (only?) play right now to keep supporters engaged and carry on. The new cash windfall helps. https://t.co/r41aqegAhd
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 1, 2020
To add to the speculation, 538 polling guru Nate Silver believes that Buttigieg dropping out increases the likelihood of a brokered convention happening:
OK, so our forecast has been updated with Buttigieg dropping out. The major effect is to help "no majority" at the expense of Sanders for the reason I explained above. ^^https://t.co/JDz2dZ8bqR
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 2, 2020
While South Carolina was a beautiful feather in Biden’s cap, Super Tuesday will tell us much more about the state of the Democratic race going forward.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
There’s a good chance that it is all just a scam, like “drain the swamp” was, but wouldn’t it be great to get Bernie in there if its not. He would be the “anti-elite-establishment” president that we all hoped Trump would have been. Biden is no better than Hillary…
Just curious what a president can do to drain the swamp, that isn’t being done.
One could very simply start by removing the major corporations spending billions to write and re-write laws that only put money in their pockets and the lobbyists that donate money to buy the politicians. Or the politicians themselves two kowtow to greed over representing the wants of the people who elected them. I mean, use your imagination. Trick is finding someone who want to do all that for the right reason, not just to make room for his buddies.
You really don’t understand Marxist ideology, do you?
There is nobody more PRO “elite establishment” than a Marxist. Sure, they’re ANTI the CURRENT “elite establishment” and they’ll unleash their useful-idiot anarchist goons in order to burn it down.
But make no mistake, they fully intend to create a NEW establishment… a totalitarian one with themselves sitting at the top.
Don’t be fooled.
History of ‘marxist’ movements would prove you correct. However, the fault does not lie in the ideology, but in the people who have used it to gain power. Truth is, there are not any modern examples of a socialist or ‘marxist’ system of governance. Spain came close, but got shut down.
Rome wasn’t built in a day or even a few years.
Same with Draining a Swamp.
It took much effort over years to “drain” the famous Red River Raft swamp.
http://www.arkansasheritage.com/blog/the-great-red-river-raft
https://artblart.com/2018/09/21/photographs-r-b-talfor-photographic-views-of-the-red-river-raft-1873/
Rome wasn’t built on hubris either… lol.
Operation Chaos should maybe support Booty wherever he’s still on the ballot.
No, I think we need to go with Biden (Bloomberg lately looks like long shot for a spoiler) at least on Super Tuesday (not sure little Mike can pull the Black vote). Sanders need to be ahead but not so far that he wins the convention. It needs to be a brokered convention with Sanders ahead and a globalist DNC darling (Biden/Bloomberg) in reasonably close Second place. Close enough that the DNC elites think they can screw Bernie again and get by with it.
Voting for Butty just helps Sanders and while I am not adverse to helping Sanders later on to tweak the situation – Super Tuesday needs to be for setting up the spoiler.
I think anybody out there who’s going to support Sanders for the nomination is already supporting him.
I’m not comfortable with Operation Chaos, the plan to have Republicans in open primary states vote in the democrat primary for Bernie, on the idea that he’d be the easiest for Trump to beat.
(1) it’s a Democrat tactic, so by definition dishonest and perverting the democratic process.
(2) In 2016 the Dems has the exact same idea, trying to put Trump on the ticket as the easiest for Hillary to best. Remember how that worked out for them?
This was originally an Independent plan. Sort of an off shoot of the 2016 scare the pant suit off Hillary with Bernie so she does something stupidly evil and exposes herself to Bernie supporters plan.
The Democrats are cheating PO$ and they have been doing it for a long time. The country reached a dangerous situation with Obama where Democrats were trying to use illegals/fake asylum seekers (both for votes/census), weaponize IRS/CIA/FBI, pen/phone, DNC-MSM, common core, and free stuff to destroy US. The Globalist GOP RINOs were doing nothing but help the DNC or roll over and show the DNC their belly (McCain/Romney).
Independents were fed up with both parties but the Democrats were the biggest danger in their plans for US and still are. Unfortunately we don’t have an Independent candidate for POTUS with no hope to get one anytime soon (Bernie doesn’t count). So exposing the DNC for what they are is the best option possible.
I am not suggesting anything illegal as we are not Democraps but legally if we have an opportunity to put the DNC in a bad position where it exposes their BS, I say take it no matter if it is not the pristine keep hands clean way nonDNC have tried in past and failed against corrupt DNC.
Clyburn was an idiot to support ol’ dementia Joe, ol’ corrupt Joe, and his chocolate-based followers are equally stupid to listen! Lemmings following blindly. Idiots, the entire lot of them.
It’s a sad commentary on the SC electorate that they have that fool Clyburn as their rep… what an absolute dullard.
Lots of GOP cross over voters were commenting last week that their votes were going to Biden.
Hope is eternal but the numbers show Bidfen me winning only Al nad FL Bernie sweeps the rest.
OrJustThink wrote; “There’s a good chance that it is all just a scam, like “drain the swamp” was, but wouldn’t it be great to get Bernie in there if its not. He would be the “anti-elite-establishment” president that we all hoped Trump would have been.”
No, it wouldn’t be great. Consider that Sanders was the Mayor of Burlington from ’81 – ’89. Sanders was then a House Representative from ’91 – ’07 and has been a US Senator since ’07. Bernie has said in the past he was worth less than 75,000.00 when he was elected to the House. Today the great “fighter of the people” is worth over 2.8 million dollars and owns three homes! Bernie has 700,000 in Government Pensions (City of Burlington and Federal Government). In his 29 years in Congress he has not offered a single, serious, “altering” bill that has passed and done anything significant for the US Taxpayer. But as you can see Bernie has been enriched the very system (capitalism) that he speaks out against.
Personally I’m fascinated by young Bernie supporters who think he’s “fighting the man” and telling “truth to power”! Dude, please, Sanders has been in elected office for 37 of his 78 years on this earth, he is the power!
Thing is outside of the four horsewomen of the apocalypse (Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley and Talib), Bernie has little motivated support in either house and there is no possible way he’ll get even 5% of his platform passed into law. His foreign policy will weaken the military and his trade policies would devastate our standing in the world. Bernie, I’m sure, is a “true believer” but he’s done nothing in life that demonstrates he’s up to the task of revolutionary change. Sanders speaks well and motivates class hate but when the rubber hits the road he’s an aging hippy still trying to sell how “the man” is holding us down! Odd sell for a millionaire with no real legislative accomplishments, IMO.
On this one, I’m with the ragin’ cajun Carville: “It’s Bernie or Brokered.” Take it to the bank.