When it comes to these early primaries, the winner isn’t necessarily the person who won. It’s the margins vs expectations that matter.
With that in mind, let’s consider the final polls.
Final New Hampshire Polls
Performance vs Polls
- Sanders: – 2.8
- Buttigieg: +3.1
- Warren: -1.7
- Biden: -2.6
- Klobuchar: +8.1
I see one clear winner and one runner-up winner.
Neither is Bernie Sanders.
New Hampshire Delegate Count
If those estimates hold up, Buttigieg will have won the most delegates in Iowa and tied in New Hampshire.
Few if any expected Klobuchar to win 25% of the New Hampshire delegates.
Dropping Out
The field narrowed tonight.
Michael Bennet and Andrew Yang dropped out this evening.
Tom Steyer denies rumors that he is dropping out.
The point is moot. Everyone to the right of Biden in the above image is toast.
Warren Crippled
Senator Elizabeth Warren is crippled.
However, unlike Amy Klobuchar, she has a good national organization. Warren can stay in as long as she wants.
If she does, it will likely take votes away from Sanders. That matters.
And if you watched the speeches tonight, it almost seemed like Warren was rooting for Klobuchar. In regards to women, Warren again referenced her claim that Bernie Sanders said a woman could not win. That’s an allegation that Sanders denies.
During one of the debates, Warren stated “Only two people on this stage have never lost an election”. The Two people were herself and Klobuchar.
Warren may be crippled, but she is out for Bernie.
Increased Odds of No Winner
The New Hampshire Primary increases the odds of a contested convention.
A lot can happen, but the odds of no winner are now about 30% in my estimation.
That is up from 25% in my previous forecast. For details please see Bloomberg Soars to 15% in Latest Quinnipiac Poll
Here is the key point: Nearly any setup in which 3 candidates can maintain 15% or more of the vote until the end leads to a negotiated convention. And it does not have to be the same three in each state.
Tonight did nothing to resolve the key issue.
Bernie has die hard supporters and a huge national organization, but the exit polls show all the late deciders went to Butrigieg or Klobuchar.
Back-Handed Compliment
Nice reference to age.
Spotlight Nevada
Nevada Debate, February 19
Anyone who thinks they know what’s going on in Nevada based those polls is more than a bit mistaken. The polls are too stale.
Yang dropped out. Steyer has not qualified for the February 19 debate and is highly unlikely to.
So, take Steyer’s 10% and Yang’s 4% and allocate them elsewhere? But where?
Spotlight South Carolina
If Klobuchar polls at 2.0% in the next poll, I will eat my hat. Yang is gone.
Allegedly, Tom Steyer has close to 19% of the vote but he will not be on the stage in the Nevada primary based on new DNC debate requirements. So take his 18% and allocate them elsewhere.
But who do they switch to? Biden or Klobuchar would be my first two guesses.
The one total that makes sense to me is Warren at 10% or so.
We need a flurry of polls, and to be meaningful, they all have to be after tonight.
Easy Wins Gone
The easy winds for Bernie Sanders are now behind him. And arguably, he did not even win. Buttigieg is in the delegate count lead.
Who expected that?
Bloomberg is a Wildcard
Michael Bloomberg is an enormous wildcard. It’s a case of 3 Down 1 to Go: Bloomberg Hits 3rd Qualifier for NV Debate
If Bloomberg qualifies and accepts an invite, expect howls.
The DNC modified the rules for the Nevada Debate and that rule changed opened the door for Bloomberg.
Rigged System
Bernie Supporters Scream “Rigged System” in response to the rule change.
Assume Bloomberg Makes the Stage
If Michael Bloomberg makes the stage, what then?
The answer depends on my previous key point: Nearly any setup in which 3 candidates can maintain 15% or more of the vote until the end leads to a negotiated convention. And it does not have to be the same three in each state.
We could easily see three candidates topping 15% in the Nevada caucus. Four is not out of the question.
Nevada has 36 pledged delegates. But that count is not meaningful. For comparison purposes, California has 415 pledged delegates.
Momentum Matters
Momentum is what matters at this point.
Sanders, Klobuchar, Bloomberg, and Buttigieg all have a good shot at momentum. Biden needs to recover either in Nevada or South Carolina.
It’s amazing how otherwise nearly meaningless Electoral College states have changed the focus. Had the first primary been in South Carolina, Biden would likely be hugely in the lead.
Regardless the key issue remains. No one is on a clear path to a majority of delegates and Tuesday night proved it.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Sanders, Butty and Kobuchar are lightweights who, even if they were to win, would be PINO’s, begging the question: who would they actually be answering to? Seems to me the answer, most likely is: Bloomberg, who is buying himself a political Party right now (he’s not just funding his own run, but many others on many levels).
‘They’ have to re-establish some sort of semblance of order with a complacent, docile press giving the country the sense of everything being back to normal again whilst corruption-as-usual returns as the norm.
So the only thing that matters now is:
can they take House and Senate (at least) and ideally also the WH or not?
It’s going to be a battle. But none of the current candidates except Bloomberg has a chance of being a true national leader except as a Manchurian.
What will Bernie Bros do if Bloomberg is the nominee? Will socialists vote for a billionaire? How many will walk away?
That is the key question. If Bloomberg is the nominee you have a billionaire and 2004 Republican convention speaker pitted against the “new” Republicans represented by Trump. What happened to the Democrats? Weren’t they the party of the people? I guess they sold their soul in 1992 and this is the result.
That’s Bloomberg’s biggest problem.
I’m sure he’ll do well with nominal Republicans fed up with Trump. And just the fact that he can afford to be in every media outlet all the time, will normalize and legitimize him as a “serious” candidate.
But he’s likely toxic to the big base of Sanders voters. Doubly so, if they convince themselves the DNC rigged the process to aid him in unseating Sanders.
This will be a walk in the park for Trump if Bernie is the nominee. It will be easy to portray him as out of step with the majority of the country. The United States was not created as a socialist county. You will hear the word socialism a million times so much so that even upper/middle working class people will choose Trump.
If Sanders is the nominee, I suspect you are right.
If he is not, enough of his voters will sit out the general, so that Trump still wins.
The trick for the dems, is arriving at a more “moderate” ticket, which still excites enough Sandersites to bother turning out against Trump.
Biden obviously counts on being seen as the “oppressed minority” candidate, proving sufficiently exciting to self styled “progressives” to fit the bill.
I suspect Klobuchar/Buttigieg would give Trump a hard time. Neither of them are ideological enough for there to be anything immediately offensive about them. And Woman/gay/non-(or at least not-yet)-Washington-establishment, may be enough of an improvement over Trump, For Sandersites, that a decent share of them will vote.
Bloomberg needs someone with serious “non-white-Wall-Street-guy” credentials. If the Sandersites convince themselves he “bought the nomination” with “Wall Street funding,” there’s just not enough “swing voters” up for grabs, to make up for the loss of base turnout.
Representing the pervy old men with dementia?
He did work subordinate to a black guy, for awhile…..
The real winner this week is the Trump administration. They are challenging sanctuary cities and states in court, stating they are blocking federal immigration law. Evidently the Clinton administration got a ruling previously that state and local governments had to comply with the federal government on immigration law. Trump will once again pit legal immigrants against illegal immigrants in the 2020 election. Citizens will make the decision in the election but it will be easy for Trump to portray the entire Democratic party as aiding and abetting illegal immigration, extreme, out of step with the country and that the party has moved away from the tough immigration laws passed by the Clinton administration in the mid 1990s.
“Rigged System”
It is obviously a rigged system. One person yesterday said he voted for Sanders because of all the attacks on Bernie by MicrosoftNBC.
The DNC has been talking about allowing Super Delegates to vote in the first round, just to stop Sanders. This, after the DNC promised not to rig the nomination again. Heads i win, tails you lose, is not democracy. Your vote doesn’t count. In 2016, Goldman Sachs said Hillary or JEB were acceptable to them. It is Goldman Sachs that counts.
I don’t see a single one that I like better than Trump, and he sets a pretty low bar.
How come Bernie can stomach calling himself a “Democrat” long enough to run for President, but he immediately resigns his Democratic party affiliation afterwards?
There is a Socialist Party. He should exhibit the principles of his supposed convictions and run on the Socialist Party ticket.
But of course he has no principles, other than freeloading, so riding the Democratic Party’s tail-coats (and its political name recognition) is precisely what you’d expect from an unprincipled, con-artist Socialist……
(Same with AOC….) another unprincipled freeloaders…. She would never have been elected had she run on the Socialist Party ticket.
I’ve always said the same thing; Sanders hates the GOP but he hates the democrats even more because he is more disappointed in them as the party of the left for just not getting his message. And that is the problem really, we do get his message and reject it by huge numbers.
Sanders is the one candidate the party could nominate that would get me to vote for Trump, or maybe I will just drop my lifelong commitment to voting every time even though I see it as a duty, because I see Trump doing extreme damage to the nation I love, but I see Sanders message as at least honest, he says he wants to rip up our nation and start over from scratch with a socialist economic system. This would destroy the nation not just harm it irreparably. So, maybe I will just do to Sanders and his hate filled borg what they did to us in 2016, either stay home or vote for the opposition no matter who that is, the way they screwed HRC over.
Sanders version of economics cannot be done without ever increasing coercion and totalitarianism, he has a lot more in common with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro than he does with any democrat I ever met, and I am sick of my party allowing him to run as a democrat because all he ever did or will do is play spoiler for us. Yes, his form of coercion and totalitarianism and economics might be softer than the bullets used in Russia or Cuba when they had revolutions, but, it would use propaganda that would at least match Nazi Germany and be just as effective at ending your freedoms.
Well let’s look at the silver lining to NH, at least that dipshit Yang finally gave up and dropped out. Next, hope that DINO Gabbard drops out, and swallows a cockroach at the press conference where she quits, I hate that bitch more than I can say.
And I see a few comments below about Buttigieg being a commie, and I would like to address that. First by saying such you lose any possibility of credibility you might have had. Second if you believe it is right and proper to slander your opponents with extremist exaggerations then what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; your party has not produced a single decent politician in years, all of them are outright fascists. See how that works, and in fact the statement is true. Trump supporters are no better than the “good Germans” that supported Hitler and all your opposition asks is that you own it rather than hide from the fact that you are at least proto Nazis.
Mayor Pete won’t sell in the South. Communists don’t work there, either. That’s where Biden mounts his comeback.
California.
There are some states that democrats cannot win unless you have a Roy Moore as the republican, and even then the child rapist would do well if not win. I cannot think of any better way to describe republicans. That they would vote for a child rapist before a democrat.
These are racist southern states that see democrats as the party of black people, so a democrat running is utterly radioactive. They vote their hate above anything else. And their hate for gay people is nearly as bad as for blacks.
The battle is for the states that can be won. Most especially Florida and Ohio. They are the two largest swing states in population. So, the fact that Mayor Pete is a gay man is yep going to prevent him from winning in SC but SC is a zero for the democrats no matter who wins the primary there. In fact, any state where that factor would matter is a red state that will not go for him in the general election anyway.
So, I propose the democrats just not hold primaries in those states. Why? Why should a red state have any say in our nominating process? The GOP has pretty much cancelled primaries in blue states. And even a lot of the red states that might field a GOP candidate to challenge Trump.
Its a dog and pony show. The super delegates will pick. Votes mean nothing. Bernie is out. It’s amazing how folks think we are a democracy. Go ahead and vote.
The United States is a federal republic, not a pure democracy, in order to prevent the tyranny of the majority and other such problems. Read the Constitution.
Sorry, I do not buy the “tyranny of the majority” crap, as far as I am concerned that would be WAY better than the tyranny of the MINORITY; especially when that minority is so busy finding new ways to separate citizens from their rights to life, liberty, and justice, under the spectacularly stupid claim that their religious beliefs supersede my rights to decide my life for myself. I have to laugh at the right when they label everything they do not like as tyranny, guess what fools, your so called conservative values impose strictures on others that really are tyrannical.
“as far as I am concerned that would be WAY better than the tyranny of the MINORITY”
Completely, 100%, misguided.
The quality of governance, is directly proportional to how LITTLE legitimacy a government has, in the eyes of those it governs. Any little sliver of legitimacy, will immediately be exploited for overreach. Only as long as governments have none at all, will the governed stay vigilant enough to ensure government is properly limited.
Bernie will benefit from Warren becoming less viable as many of her voters will defect back to Bernie. Meanwhile, Bloomberg will make the moderate lane much more competitive for Amy, Pete and Joe. Bloomberg’s Super Tuesday entry makes Bernie the only candidate with a shot to make it to Milwaukee with a majority (and the favorite for a plurality by far). The 15% minimum may have a counterintuitive impact in a crowded field by concentrating delegates among three or four different candidates per state, one of whom will always be Bernie (with the most solid +15% support in all states). Bernie, Biden and Bloomberg in Texas. Then Bernie, Pete and Bloomberg in California. Bernie may get a majority this way. If the field narrows soon (so that three or four candidates can all reach 15% in all states), then Bernie may have plurality but not majority.
Looking forward to Clinton or Obama standing up in front of a plurality of Bernie delegates in Milwaukee telling them to take another bullet for the team so that Bloomberg can “unite the party” against Trump.
“Looking forward to Clinton or Obama standing up in front of a plurality of Bernie delegates in Milwaukee telling them to take another bullet for the team so that Bloomberg can “unite the party” against Trump.”
… Followed by a string of $1 million a pop “speaking engagements” and “charity donations,” at and from every Fed Welfare shop looking for a deal on their Bloomberg Terminal subscription…….
Bernie’s followers will not be easily calmed and convinced to vote for Bloomberg or Amy. Even without the Berners, I still think that these two could beat Trump. But no matter what happens…..Bloomberg will NEVER discount the egregious price of its terminal subscriptions.
The whole crime thing with Bloomberg is overstated because he was likely free referring to NYC. America isnt NYC. Every candidate is flawed so the one that gives free stuff away is ahead. He doesn’t know how it will be paid for but it doesn’t matter. If people think Bernie will be president many states will flip their vote for the senate or house to limit his power. Gridlock isnt all bad.
The votes to the bottom candidates matter as they took votes away from the top candidates and others who could have crossed the 15% threshold in NH for delegates.
I’m not sure why you’re taking Steyer’s votes away…if you don’t qualify for the debate do they take your name off the ballot now?
If you don’t make the Nevada Debate that will be the end of you IMO.
With Steyer’s ad spend, he’s still getting more airtime than anyone in the debate other than the evil Bloomberg…
Bloomberg is right about crime. It will be interesting to see how his words on this topic will bite him in the ass.