Originally Posted by
Skroe
They've all had ample time to make an impact.
It's going to come down to Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. Everyone else is already irrelevant.
Bernie has not built a new foundation of support in nearly two years. He has a minority and a women problem. His support base is smaller this time around because the others, Warren particularly, are offering what he is but with more specifics, which Democratic voters love (but is useless in the General Election).
We have to look at just 2012 and 2016 to see how it will go and extrapolate for two progressive candidates.
->The winner of the Iowa caucuses will walk away with <30%. Only the very bottom rung will drop out. But it will be indecisive enough there is no real "winner" this time, kind of like the 2012 Republican Caucuses (which Rick Santorum won) won't matter. Remember, even Ron Paul won these. In 2016, Hillary won it by 0.3% or something, and it sustain Berniemania. Let's say Warren wins this.
->Then shortly after there is New Hampshire. This will be Elizabeth Warren versus Bernie. Biden will come in 3rd or 4th. In 2016 Bernie blew Hillary out of the water here, thus sustaining the momentum. The question is: do NH voters decide to go with Bernie again, or go with Warren who can say the same kinds of things, but is a newer face. Chances are the winner of Iowa will not be the winner of NH, thus splitting the difference. Let's say Bernie wins this.
At this point the media, which loves the Horse race, will start talking about Biden's viability. You can hear Wolf Blitzer already. Pretty much the script he ran during Hillary in 2016. The insurgent progressive campaigns will talk of momentum.
On February 22nd is the Nevada Democratic caucuses. This one will very likely be Biden's first clear win owing to its large Hispanic population and more centrist Democratic electorate.
A week later on February 29th is the South Carolina primary. The Biden campaign is lining this up to be their second win. It's very unlikely it would go to anyone but him.
Then comes Super Tuesday, March 3rd 2020 when 40% of delegates are up. On that day American Samoa, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Democrats Abroad, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia. Biden will win most of those. Probably:
Alabama
Arkansas
California
North Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Bernie will take Vermont, Minnesota, maybe Colorado, Oklahoma and Democrats Abroad. Warren will take Massachusetts. If she splits any off, it'll be off Bernie in places like Oklahoma and Colorado (which has VERY blue parts), that work to the benefit of Biden.
This will give Biden a significant and nearly insurmountable lead, and largely contract it to a two person race (Biden and Bernie) depending if Warren peels off an extra state or two from Bernie. If she does, it'll be a 3 man race. But like in 2016, the person who walks away with California, Texas, North Carolina and Virgina - all of which should go to Biden - will be hard to catch up to _IF_ they keep winning everything else they should and have few surprises.
There will then be the Mid-March contests of Louisiana, Maine, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Washington.
Biden will likely win all of these except Maine and Nebraska. Michigan will be close and will largely depend on if Warren stays in. If she does, it's an easy Biden. If she does not, it'll be very close like it was in 2016, and maybe a Bernie pickup.
The late March contests of Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Wyoming are four more that should readily go to Biden as well.
We then enter April. The progressives have some pick up opportunities here. While Biden will likely win Alaska and Delaware, Bernie or Warren will likely take Hawaii, Wisconsin, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maryland. The real fight will be in Pennsylvania. It won't be enough to tip the scales if Bernie wins it, but it would be a kind of moral victory if he does. I'll call this a primary toss-up.
At this point, it's pretty much a formality. Biden will have captured it. What's left?
May: Kansas, Guam, Indiana, Nebraska, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon.
June: Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Washington DC.
Over half of these always go to the more centrist Democrat. Winning all of them mathematically doesn't change the equation.
Which means that the situation in 2020 is going to be very much like it was on 2016: if Biden (like Hillary) walks away with an overall victory on Super Tuesday - March 3rd 2020 - it would take a complete collapse of the campaign and getting wiped out everywhere after Super Tuesday in order to not win the nomination. There will be the illusion of competitiveness by whoever comes in 2nd, but like in 2016, they'll always be 4 steps behind.
How did I come to these projections:
(1) For early races when there is a lot of candidates, I looked at the 2016, 2012 and 2008 Republican primary to see how a large number of ideologically similar candidates split the vote. For Iowa, I accepted the Bernie 2020 campaign's projection that there will be nobody who gets above 50% in Iowa.
(2) Starting with Super Tuesday, I looked at the 2004, 2008 and 2016 primary numbers and compared them Biden's standing now, to project if they vote "centrist" or "progressive" and like to surprise. There is no methodology behind this other than eyeballing it, let's be clear. This is not scientific at all.
The BIG takeaway is that the non-Biden face, whoever that is (I said it's Bernie in the above post) has to win Super Tuesday, and win in places progressives normally don't win in the Primary. Any candidate - Clinton, Biden, Candidate X, who wins Super Tuesday and then wins a steady pace the rest of the time, will be the candidate.
In fact, I'll go two steps further:
- Because it's unlikely Texas and Florida go to the progressive candidates, California (Super Tuesday) is must win for any progressive. A progressive who wins California + New York + Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan has a good chance of winning the nomination. The unlikely win of Virginia and North Carolina weighs very heavily on them, but wining California + a few more big states should counter the losses of Texas and Florida to some degree in terms of delegate math.
-Because of this, if the "progressive vote" doesn't coalesce around one candidate by Super Tuesday, stopping Biden is almost impossible. And this is the real problem for Democrats because it's very likely Warren or somebody unexpected could eek out a win in Iowa, Bernie wins New Hampshire, then Biden could pick up Nevada and South Carolina. Which means that Super Tuesday aka California decides the nomination day, comes around, and Bernie and Warren BOTH are in, split the vote, and make Biden's win in California easy.
Moral of the story: Bernie Bros won't be able to blame it on Super Delegates this time. They're facing what Republicans faced in in 2008 and 2012 specifically in their primary. If they want the progressive to be the nominee, they have to get it down to one progressive before Super Tuesday. If there are two on super Tuesday, you can blame the other progressives for spoiling the vote far more than Joe Biden and the centrist Democrats.