I'll admit that even I had resigned myself to believing that Bernie getting the nomination was inevitable, but after Bernie's poor Super Tuesday showing, a lot of people are going to have to reevaluate the possible outcome of the race. Let me stress: the race for the nomination is far from over, and the "I hope Trump wins, that's what you get!!!" meltdowns by Sanders supporters are certainly premature. But yes, there are clear danger signs for Bernie. A lot of talk pre-Super Tuesday revolved around the fact that Bernie had swept the first three contests. If we look closer, however, we see that even with this, Bernie was not exactly blowing away the competition. While Bernie narrowly edged out Pete Buttigieg in Iowa, Pete actually came out of the night with more delegates. Then Bernie took New Hampshire by just 1.3 points despite taking that state by 23 points in 2016. Bernie and Pete got the same number of delegates from the N.H. race, so after two "wins", Bernie was actually trailing in delegates.Next came the Nevada Caucus, which was an unqualified success for Sanders. But then there was South Carolina. While it's not a surprise that Biden took S.C., what is surprising is that, as the news was all about how his campaign was going down the tubes, he outperformed the polls there, winning by 28 points while the polls had him ahead by ~15 points. Now we come to Super Tuesday. For reference, Hillary Clinton went 8-4 on Super Tuesday 2016. Not only did Bernie not improve on this, but he actually did worse: if the current results hold, Biden will have won ten race against Bernie's four. (Bloomberg won one race one Super Tuesday: the American Samoa Caucus.) Some key Super Tuesday races to look at: Minnesota--Bernie took it by 23 pints in 2016, but lost it to Biden despite three recent polls showing Bernie ahead of him (also of note: Biden had no staff on the ground, while Bernie did, and Bernie also held several events there); Texas, where Bernie had a slight lead in polling, but lost by ~3.5 points; Virginia--Bernie outspent Biden 7-to-1 in this state (source: the Young Turks), while Biden only had one office there, and yet Biden vastly outperformed the polls, winning by 30 points when the polls had him up ~17 points. Bernie even underperformed in states he won, such as California, where polling had him up by ~12 points, but he's currently ahead by ~8 points with few votes still outstanding. A couple lessons learned from the night: * Despite talk about Bernie leading among black voters, Biden seems to be strong among that demographic. * Young voters are the most worthless demographic; after a lot of talk about how enthusiastic young voters were to come out and vote for Bernie, in some states less than 15% actually bothered to show up to the polls. In the end, I think it is evident that the gamble that some Sanders supporters took in 2016, i.e. that it wouldn't be so bad if Trump won because his presidency would drive the masses to embrace Bernie, was a poor one. Also, the tactic of using threats threats (whether subtle or not) to "spoil" the election if they don't get their way, and spending the past four years maligning the entire Democratic Party and its loyal supporters as evil corporatist warmongers, was poorly thought out, and only served to drive more centrist Dem voters further away from Bernie.
This is the result of the DNC talking direct action. Biden didn't have money or people to do this alone. It wasn't 'endorsements' it was marching orders to mobilize down to the precinct level. It was also a message to Bloomberg...
After Klobuchar and Bootygig dropped our the day before super Tuesday and endorsing Biden, I found it interesting that Fauxahontas did not do the same and endorse Komrad Bernie. It is becoming increasingly clear that the fix is in.
At the end of the day, declaring war in a party whose nomination your candidate is seeking is a bad way to get that party's loyal supporters to vote for your candidate.
The DNC shouldn't have let him in if they were just going to stab him in the back. No worries we will find the answers in the ashes of Milwaukee...
Riddle me this? Why would Amy and Pete both drop out hours before Super Tuesday? Their ads ran, everything was paid for, why make a decision like that not knowing what could happen or how they could benefit politically. Any rational campaign would have waited until the day following Super Tuesday to continue on or throw in the towel. Even Bloomberg had the brains to wait it out. Did you also notice the sudden flurry of Biden endorsements from all directions at that same time? I think you are being far too naive to think this was not set up by the DNC to stop Komrad Bernie Freeshit Sander's campaign in it's tracks. Personally, I don't care but if I was a Sanders supporter I would be furious.
A supporter of Castro was never going to be President of the US so why is anyone surprised that Bernie failed? Had he run against Trump he would have lost and the donkeys would have lost seats in Congress. If he had a ounce of integrity and really wanted to beat Trump he would jump on Biden's bandwagon. Instead his fantasy goes on.
Bernie has about a 25% ceiling. He gets the ultra left and little else when people have a choice for someone more moderate.
His fantasy is backed by millions of people, plus this is far from over. The coming weeks are Bernie's bread and butter. Time to really campaign and energize his people. Biden sucks on the campaign trail...
This is true. Lets not fool ourselves. The DNC runs the party and Sanders is not a democrat. It is possible the DNC learned from the RNC's failure 4 years ago when they lost control and Trump took the nomination.
Obviously the Dems would rather lose with Biden than Sanders. They probably think Sanders would hurt them on turnout and down ballot races. It's going to be Biden unless his dementia gets worse then look for the Super Delegates to turn to Hillary.
Someone insinuated that the DNC was busing thousands of illegals to the polls and giving them 20 bucks to vote for Biden...
My theory about Warren's refusal to endorse Biden or Sanders is that she is holding out hope that one or the other - whichever one wins the nomination - will ask her to run in the VP slot. But, since she doesn't know which one will win the nomination, she won't endorse either one because she doesn't want to alienate either one. When it becomes clear which one is going to win the nomination, I think she'll endorse that one. My two cents ...
Sanders was always very weak among blacks regardless of what some pundits say. In 2016 Sanders actually edged out Hillary among white Democratic Primary voters, but Hillary won close to 80% of the black vote. Go to Super Tuesday this year, early exit polls shows Biden winning 63% of the black vote to Sanders 11%. Bloomberg received more black support than Sanders, 18%. While Sanders won the progressive, liberal vote, Biden trounced him among moderate Democrats. Showing at least on Super Tuesday, most Democrats aren't willing to go as far left as Sanders is. Since blacks make up approximately a third of all Democratic Primary voters, if Biden can continue to receive 60% plus of their vote, he'll be very hard to beat. But Biden must continue with that. Now that the race is basically down to two, I expect Biden to get closer to 75% of the black vote from here on out than 60%. Sanders couldn't connect with blacks in 2016 and if Super Tuesday is any indication, he still can't. We'll know more once Michigan, Mississippi and Missouri results come in after 10 Mar. In 2016 28% of Michigan's Democratic primary voters were black, in Mississippi 52% and in Missouri 23%.
At least as important as blacks in the Dem primary is young voters, only 13% turnout there which is why Bernie lost.
Bernie was NEVER "Inevitable". Since shortly after the Midterms, everybody knew that SC was Biden's "Firewall". Everybody has also known that Biden would get a "slingshot of momentum" into Super Tuesday. The only thing that was even (remotely) surprising was the vast scope of Biden's Win. Besides, the first 2 States were over 90% White, and NV was only 8% Black. It also is completely OBVIOUS that anybody who voted 3rd Party (or "sat it out") in 2016, effectively voted for Trump. Given that the most important group (in the Dem. Primary) Black Voters were barely represented in the first 3 states, I find unfathomable that anybody would have thought that Bernie had a prayer of getting the Nom. The Whole "Black Voter + SC +Super Tuesday" Biden Scenario was already being Gamed-Out in Nov.2018.
I think they misread the anti Hillary vote as pro Bernie. Also I believe Bernie’s influence has been misread there will be a public option in our healthcare system by 2022.
