February 29, 2020

Biden wins South Carolina by a lot.

I'm reading the results at FiveThirty Eight, here.

ADDED: Finally, somebody got a majority somewhere.

UPDATE: In the end, Biden didn't cross the 50% line. He got 48.4%. The Real Clear Politics average of the polls had him at 39.7%, so he was way ahead of expectations.

126 comments:

Achilles said...

This couldn’t be going better.

Either they nominate Sanders and get crushed.

Or they nominate a globalist and get crushed.

Unknown said...

Wait a minute... I thought "Weekend at Bernie's" was about *Bernie*... not Biden.

rehajm said...

So more clarity...and more confusion.

Good for Hillary!

Limited blogger said...

Congrats, Joe. Very impressive.

alanc709 said...

Just wait until Doomberg is on the ballot, you'll see a majority like never before.....Mike can get it done!

Bill, Republic of Texas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Wow the Dems sure are a bunch of good little boys and girls. Just last week Sanders was leading in SC. Then word came down from the Dems powers that be they must support a senile old corporate globalist and the Dems said "yes sir!"

How proud they must be of their party (my old party). I guess you could say I was an LLD.

rehajm said...

Did Biden garner a majority? I'm seeing less than 10% reporting on two networks...

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Where is Althouse finding the results that Biden will take a majority. 538 dies say that. They just say Biden got 58% in some early voting rural districts.

Lucien said...

Won’t this be old news by Wednesday morning? Who’s going to drop out between now and Tuesday?

rehajm said...

I didn't vote. Too chicken. What if they win? I saw l few I voted stickers...mostly women

Tom T. said...

Brokered convention, here we come!

chuck said...

Then word came down from the Dems powers

Jim Clyburn's endorsement made a difference.

rehajm said...

MICAH COHEN7:56 PM
How about this from the exit polls: Bloomberg’s net favorability among voters tonight is … -40 points!!!

rehajm said...

No One was a little better than a coin flip before the Biden win. Bernie was a 1 in 3. They will be farther apart tomorrow...

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Just a reminder, Sanders got 47% and Biden got 20% in Nevada.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Warren has her orders to stay in until after Super Tuesday. She has to siphon off Sanders supporters if the DNC has any hope of stopping him.

Zach said...

Steyer in third place.

Anyone below Steyer should be asking some tough questions about what they're hoping to accomplish by staying in the race. If you're losing to a guy who's got nothing going for him but money, it's not your year.

Bay Area Guy said...

Biden is back, Baby! The "No Malarkey" bus tour shifts into overdrive!

I Callahan said...

Biden winning South Carolina isn’t going to help him. I think he’ll win most of the southern states, which are ones in the general he has no chance of beating Trump. Sanders will win most of the northern and lefty states.

It’s Sanders. All over ‘cept the crying.

Two-eyed Jack said...

Biden got a majority because the majority of voters were minorities, but elsewhere only a minority are minorities, so a majority is harder to come by in non-majority minority states, which is to say, in the majority, a minority-driven majority is not gonna happen.

Andrew said...

Isn't this a worst case scenario for the Democrats? With Biden still viable, the "not Bernie" vote remains split.

I'm genuinely surprised that Biden's lie about being arrested while visiting Manfela, and his recent gaffe about running for the Senate, didn't turn more people off. Do they think he's going to be more cogent in the future? Can they not see the mental decline?

Zach said...

GALEN DRUKE7:48 PM
Part of the reason Joe Biden is doing well tonight? Voters under the age of 45 made up a grand total of 29 percent of voters, according to preliminary exit polls. There has not been a surge of young voters at the polls this primary. I spoke with a South Carolina voter earlier this week who said her kids and her friends’ kids were simply not interested in the primary.


Worth noting in context of Sanders supporters' hopes to win by galvanizing new voters.

Sometimes inside straights come through, but you're a fool to bet that way.

stever said...

lets make no mistake iden was going to win and bigly

Andrew said...

I meant Mandela, of course.

MikeD said...

CNBC tells me he won 20 delegates out of 54, if that's a crushing victory I'll have to retake my 1963 statistics class.

bagoh20 said...

After three tries, Biden finally wins a state in a primary. Possibly the premier power politician of our time and always a big winner! I can't wait to be under his steady leadership ...

... at the retirement home.

madAsHell said...

Fuck! Biden doesn't even know where South Carolina is??

It's just another door opening on his Lear Jet.

Big Mike said...

Eight percent of the vote is in, and Biden enjoys a 3:1 lead over Sanders. That margin may change, but it’s hard to see how Sanders pulls in front from this point. As has been noted upthread, Bloomie is not yet on the ballot. We will know a lot more about the race after Tuesday.

Yancey Ward said...

This upends the narrative that Biden has no chance. He has a chance, but I still think Sanders will end up with the most delegates. Biden's main problem, now, is that Bloomberg is in the race- ironic, isn't it?

madAsHell said...

What do we call it when the Senator from Massachusetts is primaried her home state?

Own-goal seems much too kind!!....and really doesn't capture all the incompetence.

Yancey Ward said...

Big Mike,

There is exit polling data, and is why Biden was declared the winner.

Drago said...

Two-eyed Jack: "Biden got a majority because the majority of voters were minorities, but elsewhere only a minority are minorities, so a majority is harder to come by in non-majority minority states, which is to say, in the majority, a minority-driven majority is not gonna happen."

I agree with the majority of what you wrote, but I'm probably in the minority.

stever said...

Biden

madAsHell said...

is primaried her home state?

Give me a break.....I'm sure I've dangled that preposition somewhere, and we can use that dangle-mint here.

rehajm said...

Isn't this a worst case scenario for the Democrats? With Biden still viable, the "not Bernie" vote remains split.

Delegate math is hard...but roughly it's good for Bernie if the not Bernie candidates can't garner 15 percent. Good for brokered convention, polling shows a super Tuesday of multiple candidates garnering delegates in every state. That Sanders ceiling is real...

Andrew said...

Something that has really botheted me the past few days is Biden (and others) basically saying Iowa and New Hamshire don't count because they have too many white people there. I get that the candidates have to take demographics into consideration, but the open contempt for states that "lack diversity" is a bit obnoxious. As if too many white people means this isn't "real America." If I lived in one of those states I'd be offended.

Gk1 said...

This victory by Slow Joe just adds another bucket of kerosene on the dumpster fire the democratic primaries has become. At least they didn't completely fuck up the counting of delegates, so that's something at least.

Yancey Ward said...

For Biden to beat Sanders, I think he has to win Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee on Tuesday. Additionally, he has to not lose California by more than 10%. He does that, Biden has a chance to be the plurality leader at the end.

South Carolina is a different beast than those states, though- in SC, the vast majority of white voters are conservative Republicans. I had thought that Sanders might win pretty much all the white voters in the state and still lose. It looks like he didn't win that demographic by nearly enough to make it close. So, going forward, Biden should expect to win states like NC, VA, TN, MS, LA, and AL just based on a dominating performance with minority voters who are similar to those in SC. His problem, though, is going to be that Bloomberg is going to siphon away a good portion of the white voters in those states who would have otherwise voted for Biden. If Bloomberg really wanted to stop Sanders, the best thing he could do is to drop out of the race tonight- that might be enough to put Biden over the top- in a two way race with Sanders, Biden might well duplicate the Clinton victory from 2016, but by a smaller margin. Of course, having spent a half billion dollars already, Bloomberg isn't going to do that.

clint said...

Re: Biden's recent gaffs....

I think the first official numbers we have are almost all from early voting. Sanders (or others) may gain some as we get the votes from today.

MikeD said...
"CNBC tells me he won 20 delegates out of 54, if that's a crushing victory I'll have to retake my 1963 statistics class."

I'm pretty sure that's a floor -- Biden's got at least 20 and the other 34 are still up in the air. His final numbers will probably be higher.

Checking again... with 26% in, RCP now has it Biden: 25 delegates, Sanders: 6 delegates, Steyer: 0.

Narayanan said...

@Blogger Two-eyed Jack said...
,,,,,

C'mon man:splainer

Rabel said...

The pity vote may put Old Uncle Joe over fifty percent.

I'm beginning to feel sorry for him myself. A little bit.

Lucid-Ideas said...

A large victory the size of a small victory.

It is but a flesh wound, said Burnie.

Yancey Ward said...

If Biden can't beat Sanders in Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia on Tuesday, then he can't beat Sanders period. Just look at the primary map from 2016 to understand why this is- Clinton crushed Sanders, literally crushed him, all through the states containing or south of Interstate 40 except for Oklahoma. Additionally, Clinton won California, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York- with Bloomberg in the race, it is difficult for Biden to win any of these states, but Sanders will have a hard time getting to a first ballot win, too.

robother said...

Joe Biden's been declared a dead man walking by Van Jones. Does that make South Carolina the proverbial dead cat bounce?

Yancey Ward said...

As I have written here before, I think Biden is, by far, the weakest candidate the Democrats could put up against Trump, so tonight I am happy. Biden's senility will only worsen as the year progresses- you see the gaffes now, they will only get worse.

Mark said...

This doesn't reflect well on the black electorate. They voted Joe, not for any reason personal to him, but because he was Obama's VP and because Clyburn told them to. They voted Steyer because of a bunch of TV commercials.

Does not show a whole lot of independent thought or engagement.

I understand, though, that it was mostly the older black folks who voted Joe. The younger crowd were more free thinking.

Big Mike said...

There is exit polling data, and is why Biden was declared the winner.

But exit polls can be unreliable.

Limited blogger said...

Trump's all time greatest sight gag, earlier today at CPAC:

Get me offa this stage!

Mark said...

A lot of the Joe support is also support for the Paper Joe, the Biden of yesterday when he was VP and thus considered important. The support the idea of Joe Biden.

But like with Hillary, who lost support whenever she opened her mouth, when the begin to discover the real Biden, especially the mentally diminished-capacity Biden of today, that support starts to plummet.

Mark said...

If they have any more debates, it will be interesting to see if anyone tries to exploit the weaknesses of poor Grandpa Joe, instead of ignoring things like 150 million killed from guns in the last few years.

Yancey Ward said...

Big Mike:

Biden was the overwhelming choice in the exit polls- exit polls can be wrong, but not this wrong.

Biden won about 55% of the non-white vote vs Sanders 19%, and he fought Sanders to about a draw with the white vote. Anyone would have called this race on this data set.

eric said...

I'm not worried about a Biden presidency. If he happens to win, those under him will run the show and Biden will be Obama 2 point oh.

Biden, like Obama, wants to be president because it's cool. Not because he has something he wants to get done to help the country.

Sadly, Biden won't be the nominee. It'll be Sanders or whoever the super delegates pick, which could be Biden I guess, but more likely, Bloomberg

Steven said...

CNBC tells me he won 20 delegates out of 54, if that's a crushing victory I'll have to retake my 1963 statistics class.

Um, yeah, that was with a fraction of the count in. With 49% of the vote in, Biden's now up to 22. Bernie has 3, and nobody else has any.

Yancey Ward said...

If I remember correctly, the delegate count in primaries isn't just a percentage of your vote that qualifies- some of the delegates are awarded for winning given geographic regions in the state, so what happened is that the exit polling was enough to call a lot of the geographically linked delegates with the percentage counted was only 5%, but it will require the final vote totals to distribute the rest of the pledged delegates.

Ken B said...

My opinion of Biden is very low. But if it came down to President Biden or President Sanders I would take Biden. So, less risk to the country if he beats Sanders.
If you lost to Steyer tonight ... Steyer, then I wonder if you should go on.

rehajm said...

The reason, or one of the reasons, for a brokered convention is because no strong candidate has emerged from the primary process. None of the above starts to make more sense than picking the strongest of the weak options from the primaries...

Steven said...

Specifically, there's both a statewide pool and by-district pools. To win delegates in any given pool, you need 15% of the vote, and the delegates get split proportionately to vote share among each qualifier.

Given the results so far, Biden's going to get a large majority of the delegates, Sanders is going to get a few, and Steyer might manage to get a couple by-district ones.

The only real question right now is whether Biden will get enough delegates here in SC to take the national lead in delegate count. He's in good shape to do so.

Ken B said...

I doubt anyone will drop out before Tuesday. Maybe Warren, if she could make a secret deal with Sanders, but he ain’t that dumb.

Mark said...

Whether it is Sanders or Joe, the VP pick will be nearly as important.

If the Dems win, there is a very good chance that the VP nominee will become president before the next election.

Ken B said...

Think of the great pics of the Milwaukee fire Althouse might get, if Bernie loses. She lives close enough to get there before burns to the ground.

Think of this Yancey: Biden trails Sanders in delegates but gets the nomination and Bernie Bros go on a rampage ...

Mark said...

It's too late to drop out before Super Tuesday in any event.

Drop out this minute, they will still be on the ballot. That means that they will still get votes.

Too late to take them off the ballot.

Steven said...

Pre-SC delegate count was Biden 15, Sanders 45, Pete 26, Warren 8, Klobuchar 7.

If the current SC vote count was final, that would move +42 Biden, +12 Sanders, for 57-57 tie.

Original Mike said...

"If I lived in one of those states I'd be offended."

If you're white, they meant to offend you.

bagoh20 said...

Biden/Sanders 2020

Haters get to vote against Trump without going full socialist, both Biden and Sander get a win and move up politically, Biden brings the establishment voters who don't want President Bernie, while Sanders brings the energy of his base. As flawed as both men are, that ticket gets a lot of people off the hook and lets them vote for something or against Trump without giving up everything they care about.

wildswan said...

Biden now has 40 delegates and Sanders has 50. You have to realize that even voters who read papers or watch the news haven't heard about most of Biden's gaffes. That's social media / blogsite info. And under 40's don't know what Stalin or other totalitarians did. That's history info. But looks like Sanders won't come into the convention with enough for a first ballot win. Then what? The super delegates do know what McGovern did to the party. But, rescued by a billionaire from a Communist? not a good look. Rescued by Clinton From a billionaire rescuing the party from a Communist rescuing the party from senility? And Tomahawk lurking, examining the crowd, appraising her chances of garnering. Klubbie stumping about.

Big Mike said...

Jim Clyburn is certainly a king-maker. Does his influence extend outside of South Carolina?

narciso said...

The older demographic benefited slo jo, as was the african american plurality. Commisar byrd?? Fell down on the job

Mark said...

A. Cooper takes a dig at Tulsi Gabbard, asking if she is running just to position herself to be a Fox contributor.

Marc in Eugene said...

The NYT is reporting that Mr Steyer has exited the race, after 150 million and no delegates.

Mark said...

Steyer drops out.

Mark said...

"Missed it by that much."

rcocean said...

Everyone at MSNBC is full of smiles and chuckles. Bernie Lost. Blacks vote as a bloc so this means big wins for Joe Biden in the rest of the deep South on Super Tuesday. As Mark stated, this doesn't reflect well on black voters. Dopey Tom Steyer got 11%. If Biden gets 50% of the delegates in the South, then where is Bernie going to make up the difference? Looks like we'll have a repeat of 2016, with Biden getting the Hillary votes.

rcocean said...

Hillary got 70% in 2016, but only 44 delegates, so that's close to what Biden will get. I see Biden projected at 36.

rhhardin said...

It's not like there are any good choices for dems.

Sebastian said...

So there's still a chance that Biden gets the nod, as determined by Dems in states where Dems have no chance, as opposed to the candidate a majority of blue-state Dems want to vote for.

Mark said...

After Grandpa Joe went below the belt on him, I don't see Steyer getting on the Biden endorsement train.

rcocean said...

Thank God Steyer dropped out.

What a clown!

Darkisland said...

Blogger bagoh20 said...

After three tries, Biden finally wins a state in a primary.


Actually more than 3 if you count his previous runs. And this is the first time he has managed to snag even a single delegate.

Will he stay above 50%? CNN just now projects him right at 50%. Could he slip more an not get a majority?

I also read that the reason he got the Clyburn endorsement is because he bought it with a $50m check to the Clyburn Campaign kitty. (Read "Clyburn family petty cash box)

John Henry

rcocean said...

"It's not like there are any good choices for dems."

They've said that every time an incumbent D is not running. I've heard that in:

1984, 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2016.

MacMacConnell said...

After running for the Democratic Presidential Nomination a third time Biden finally wins a primary.

Darkisland said...

Biden has 48.5% now.So no majority unless they find a sack of ballots in a car trunk somewhere.

John Henry

rcocean said...

There will be no brokered convention. It will decided before the convention by one or more candidates throwing their support behind the leader or the 2nd place guy.

Gk1 said...

Living in California I have to say what a godsend Steyer is dropping out. His raspy, grating voice was super irritating as I try to stream music or watch Hulu all day. His ads where everywhere!

Lars Porsena said...

Steyer dropped out! Come on, Tom! 40 or 50 million more dollars and you could have made it.

MacMacConnell said...

Big Mike said...
"Jim Clyburn is certainly a king-maker. Does his influence extend outside of South Carolina?"

Jim Clyburn, who?

cubanbob said...

If it comes down to Bernie or Biden the Democrats will have a choice between demented policies or dementia.

Mark said...

You can fool some voters. But let's see if a whole lot of money people rush to give their cash to the befuddled empty attic old man. They pay attention to such things.

The Godfather said...

"Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party." So before Tuesday, all the Democrats running for the Presidential nomination (i.e., all except Bernie, the Socialist) should agree (secretly) that whichever of them has the most delegates after Super Tuesday, all the others will drop out, endorse, and urge their delegates to support.

You think any of them would make that deal to save their party?

rcocean said...

Right now, Warren is out. Biden will be first or second. Amy K is a goner. Bernie will be first or Second. Buttigig is a third place finisher.

Biden rules in the south. Bernie rules the west coast and the northeast. the rest is up for grabs. Warren seems to be tanking. I don't see Amy k picking up support in the south or winning over Biden/Bernie in the rest of the USA. Same with Mayor Pete.

rcocean said...

I'm shocked at how Badly warren has done. Right now, she's losing Massachusetts to bernie.

MacMacConnell said...

Biden actually seems like a nice guy. He would probably be fun to have as a neighbor, except when he is threatening to take you behind the gym and beat you up.

Darkisland said...

Hillary outspent Trump 2 to 1 in 16

Steyer spent 150mm

Bloomberg spent 4-500mm so far and barely a ripple

And people say that money in politics is a problem. That, given enough money, anyone can buy an election.

Even Bloomberg thinks that claiming to have bought the Democrat majority in the house in 2018.

It is looking less and less true.

John Henry

narciso said...

People like to think their willis deterninitive, dont flash your money around so ostentatiously.

rcocean said...

According to NBC, Blacks have an 84% favorable opinion of Joe Biden. With Bernie its more 50-50

Francisco D said...

If Joe wins, it is meaningless. He will never be the nominee.

Check out the demographics of the SC vote. Mostly Black women who do what they are told by the party

Clyde said...

You can fool some of the people all of the time.

gspencer said...

Drats! We have to suffer this fool for another 3 days.

narciso said...

Which fool?

Skeptical Voter said...

First presidential primary win for Joe--ever!! Nice he finally got over the finish line in one state.

Meantime out in California with mail in voting, the Bernie Bros are out harvesting ballot--and voting for Bernie. Will Biden win another state primary this year? I wouldn't count on it.

stephen cooper said...

I guess whoever wins California on Tuesday is going to be the real front-runner.

In California, they are experts on the type of guy Biden is - a phony senior citizen who claims to still be "with it" when we all know the last time he was "with it" was decades and decades ago. If the Californians give him the most votes, well , they are the experts and I am not.

As much as I pity poor Sanders and as much contempt as I fell for the vicious little billionaire Bloomberg, Biden is the guy who I look at and think with the greatest pity "you poor little guy". He has no idea how much of a figure of fun he is, with his phony bravado and his senile sneers against better men than he will ever be. It is so sad!

Still, gotta like the little old guy just a little for making the rest of the pro-choice Democrats, none of whom care at all about the unborn, our little brothers and sisters, feel sad today. Well, people like Warren who supports everything up to and possibly including infanticide, and that poor little "mayor" from a town where almost all the African-Americans despise him, and that nasty billionaire, all ought to feel sad today. I hope they have better, more honest days in the future! Imagine you are a Buttigudge or a Warren or that Starbucks phony bogus guy, and you have just been outvoted by a silly old fool like Biden.

daskol said...

Jim Clyburn, with his endorsement of Biden, demented and otherwise diminished, carries a torch he can’t bring home. Bernie wins on that score. I wonder if Clyburn couldn’t find somebody else or why he would endorse somebody so unsuitable for the office. Chaos agent?

daskol said...

Bernie smiles.

daskol said...

What if Clybrurn endorsed Klobuchar? I guess it doesn’t matter beyond understanding whether Clyburn has power or he is an instrument of power.

Ken B said...

“It's not like there are any good choices for dems”

There’s one.

daskol said...

It’s Bernie. This was it, if you wanted to prop up somebody else in the moderate lane. That’s not going to happen, so it will be painfully obvious that the “people’s choice” is Bernie, while apparatchiks have been suicidlaly instructed to go for Biden. Since Biden is in the middle, not early, stages of dementia, I hope and pray that means the powers that be are conceding 2020 to Trump. I don’t believe they’re that reasonable. The convention is going to be, well, it won’t be boring. And I doubt competence is going to be the takeaway over the next several weeks, even under a cruelly neutral gaze.

Tommy Duncan said...

Has the Klomentum dissipated?

Big Mike said...

Steyer just quit. Kind of a heads up for Bloomie -- money can't buy you love.

Tom said...

So Bad Touch Biden won. Nice.


If Sanders wins the nomination, will the Democratic Convention be renamed Commie-Con?

Jeff Weimer said...

I don't know why people try to push candidates this early like they're inevitable...they're always disappointed. Every four years we see this, with both parties. I suspect pushing opinions towards a desired outcome - Hi Jeb!. Actual voters in actual places *always* bring these political circuits to ground. It's good that those who think they have (outsized) influence are taught they don't matter as much as they think.

Achilles said...

eric said...

I'm not worried about a Biden presidency. If he happens to win, those under him will run the show and Biden will be Obama 2 point oh.

So the president spying on political opponents, selling guns to Mexican gangs, sending the IRS after republican voters and all manufacturing off shored. The secretary of state goes back to a billion dollar a year job if you count graft.

I suppose some people wouldn't be worried about that.

Not particularly bright though.

stephen cooper said...

Please Please please let Bloomberg spend lots lots more money before he loses.

He does not like me, but I want the best for him, and he ought to know that he has a long long way to go before he is a mensch.

Lance said...

“There will be no brokered convention. It will decided before the convention by one or more candidates throwing their support behind the leader or the 2nd place guy.”

I believe most of the delegates already selected are pledged, meaning they can’t change their vote until after the first ballot at the convention.

Also, will any candidate besides Sanders, Biden or Bloomberg win enough delegates to matter?

Achilles said...

Joe Biden
29 48.7% 245,199
Bernie Sanders
9 20% 100,503
Tom Steyer
0 11.4% 57,309
Pete Buttigieg
0 8% 40,406
Elizabeth Warren
0 7% 35,476
Amy Klobuchar
0 3% 15,334
Tulsi Gabbard
0 1.3% 6,369


So Steyer dropped out with 11.4%

Because no 15% and no delegates?

Pete Buttigieg 8%. Elizabeth Warren 7%. Amy Klobuchar 3%.

All big fat losers.

Achilles said...

Bernie got 96,498 votes in 2016.

Hillary got 272,379 votes.

I am not seeing the momentum here.

Yancey Ward said...

Like I wrote earlier- watch the states most like South Carolina on Tuesday. These are Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia. Now as a caveat, those three states have significantly more white Democrat voters as a percentage of the total than does South Carolina, so the minority vote won't be as important, but is still a huge fraction of the total primary vote on Tuesday, approaching 50% in North Carolina and Virginia, and probably over 50% in Alabama.

African-American % population in each state:

South Carolina 27%
North Carolina 20%
Virginia 20%
Alabama 26%
Texas 11%
Arkansas 16%
Tennessee 17%

It isn't clear whether Biden will poll with with Hispanics who are more important, obviously, in Texas and California on Tuesday, and of more importance in Virginia and North Carolina than was the case in South Carolina. Sanders did very well with Hispanics in Nevada, but I don't if that is certain to carry over to other states- Nevada is weird because of Vegas.

Greg the class traitor said...

Yancey Ward said...
If Bloomberg really wanted to stop Sanders, the best thing he could do is to drop out of the race tonight- that might be enough to put Biden over the top- in a two way race with Sanders, Biden might well duplicate the Clinton victory from 2016, but by a smaller margin. Of course, having spent a half billion dollars already, Bloomberg isn't going to do that.

...

As I have written here before, I think Biden is, by far, the weakest candidate the Democrats could put up against Trump, so tonight I am happy. Biden's senility will only worsen as the year progresses- you see the gaffes now, they will only get worse.



The money's a little bit of it, IMHO. But the big bit is from your later post: Biden is too much of a gaffe-o-matic for Bloomberg to drop out and hope Joe will win.

Biden didn't win South Carolina, Clyburn won it for Joe. I think there's real question as to whether or not Biden can win any States on his own. And I think there's more question as to whether or not there will be Clyburn's in every other State Biden needs, ready and willing to carry him across the finish line

Churchy LaFemme: said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nichevo said...

I also read that the reason he got the Clyburn endorsement is because he bought it with a $50m check to the Clyburn Campaign kitty. (Read "Clyburn family petty cash box)

John Henry

2/29/20, 8:57 PM


From you of all people this is confusing, JH. $50,000 seems low and $50,000,000 seems incredibly high.

rehajm said...

After the SC results, Nate has the brokered convention at 60 percent. Bernie is at just under 30 percent...

I'll wait till after Tuesday but at this point it feels like we should start seeing the well written 'a brokered convention is a good thing' think pieces in NYT. You know, the ones they wrote 8 months ago...

daskol said...

Sanders did very well with Hispanics in Nevada, but I don't if that is certain to carry over to other states- Nevada is weird because of Vegas.

In the national polls cross tabs over last couple of months, Bernie is up between 10 and 20% with Hispanics over Biden. Clyburn just helped Biden win his first primary state, while Biden is in no condition to head a campaign throughout the primaries and the general, let alone run the country. The Dem Party is fully fucking broken. At least it's going to be an interesting few months.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Cool. So the Fort Sumter secessionists have spoken.

Have they ever been right in a Democratic primary before... other than with a black candidate? DIdn't they also prefer Hillary in 2016?

I'm Full of Soup said...


Wait I'm confused. Liberal hack media told us NH and IA primaries didn't matter because the state demographics were too white and did not reflect our big, beautiful diverse country. But now, the SC primary is a bellwether even though a large majority of Dem voters are black so our big, beautiful diverse country no longer matter?

Greg the class traitor said...

@ I'm Full of Soup

"9% black" is not a primary electorate that looks like the rest of the Democrat Party's demographics

Neither does "50% black", but it's a lot closer, especially in the South.

If yo average out the 1st four States, I think that's roughly the demographics of the Democrat Primary voting population

So, Bernie's in first, Biden's in Second, we have no clue where Bloomberg is (but will Wed morning), and the rest of the candidates are all toast.

Ken B said...

Are the others toast? If there is a brokered convention, the also rans will have leverage. They might also have a legitimacy to the voting delegates.

Greg the class traitor said...

@ Ken B

IIUC, you need more than 15% of the vote in order to get any delegates

There's going to be roughly 2000 delegates for the first round vote

I don't expect any of the also rans to pick up many delegates post Super Tuesday

I don't believe that anyone with less than 100 delegates to their name will matter in the first round vote.

And I don't expect anyone other than the 3 Bs to have more than 100 delegates