🎉 📊 Do or Die Time for Bernie Sanders
And then there were two. Plus Tulsi.
Hello! And welcome to another Democratic primary preview edition of Inside The Newsroom where we’ll dissect the crazy events over the past week, as well as what’s in store for Bernie and Biden as another six states — Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington — vote today. The big prize is Michigan, which Sanders won in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and which will be a key swing state in November. But a recent poll by Mitchell Research & Communications has Biden leading in Michigan with 54 percent compared to Bernie’s 33, which would likely be the end of a Bernie nomination. And we also have Tulsi Gabbard, who is somehow the last woman standing, with just two more old white guys on her hit list. Right, let’s get to some numbers… Enjoy 🤓
Photo credit: France 24
Biden’s Comeback Moment
Talk about the comeback kid. Joe Biden’s turnaround is nothing short of remarkable. The day of the South Carolina primary, Biden polled nationally at just 17 percent with his campaign going nowhere and many pundits declaring his chances of winning the nomination next to zero. But then came the endorsement of the House Majority Whip and South Carolina icon Jim Clyburn, whose standing among the African American community may have literally saved Biden’s campaign. Biden went onto trounce the competition in The Palmetto State, securing 48.5 percent of the vote, 28.5 points better than Bernie in second.
And then came the Great Consolidation on the eve of Super Tuesday. The first came from the establishment’s favorite son Pete Buttigieg, then came stapler guru Amy Klobuchar, who was followed by… Beto O’Rourke? The former presidential primary candidate came out of a four-month nap to endorse Biden in his home state of Texas after dropping out in November. All three lined up on a Dallas stage beside Biden, but even then, nobody could have predicted Biden would win 10 of the 14 states. Biden predictably won in the south, chalking up wins by 46 points Alabama and 19 in Arkansas, and not so predictably in Texas, the second largest prize of the night.
But then came the real shockwaves. After Klobuchar’s withdrawal, her home state of Minnesota was expected to be Bernie’s, who held a slim lead over Klobuchar before her departure from the race, and who won almost two thirds of the vote in The North Star State in 2016, beating Hillary Clinton by 23 points. But support from his large base of white blue collar voters vanished, and Biden took the state by a handsome nine points. And the lead should have been even larger, but more than five percent of the electorate still voted for their home senator.
As for Massachusetts, Biden trailed Bernie by about eight points heading into Tuesday, but ended up winning by about the same margin. Again, and you could say this about most states, almost four percent of the vote went to Amy and Pete.
The positive news for Biden continued. Endorsements by another three former candidates, Michael Bloomberg, Kamala Harris and Corey Booker, give his campaign another boost, but more importantly, Biden accepted the endorsement of Bloomberg, who won more than 10 percent of the votes in 11 of the 14 states on Super Tuesday, and who crucially won American Samoa... But the dropping out of Bloomberg could be the final nail in the coffin for a Bernie Sanders presidency, with most of his support almost certain to now support Biden.
You wonder how people can rip into Biden’s awful record on criminal justice, just as Harris and Booker did, and then turn around and endorse Biden just a few months later. Especially so when their preferred candidate has clear signs of mental decline and fatigue issues — it’s been reported that the Biden campaign want the candidates at the next debate on March 15 to sit down. But that’s the state of our politics and it might spell the end if Biden can pull off another upset by winning either Michigan or Washington.
Biden’s Numbers
Michigan: 55.3% (1st)
Washington: 39.8% (1st)
Missouri: 60.3% (1st)
Mississippi: 70.7% (1st)
Idaho: 52% (1st)
North Dakota: 65% (1st)
Do or Die Time For Bernie
So we know that Super Tuesday couldn’t have gone much worse for Bernie Sanders. His appeal among white working class voters that won him all those states in 2016 seems to have split to Biden more than it did for Hillary. And while young voters still love Bernie far more than any other candidate, actual turnout among voters aged 18-29 just hasn’t been there, and has even declined in several states. Meanwhile, just look at the changes in voters aged 65 and over, who appear to be turning out for Biden in droves.
The one saving grace for Bernie was his sizeable win in California, the largest prize of the night with 415 delegates, of which he lost to Clinton in 2016. But with the other states falling as they did, Bernie’s seven percent lead (they’re still bloody counting) in the Golden State won’t be enough to absorb the damage and he’s currently around 90 delegates behind.
Endorsements have never been Bernie’s M.O. — Bernie prefers to be popular among the people as opposed to elected officials — but we’re beginning to see the impact of being on the outside of the party looking in. In contrast, Biden has racked up an insane amount of endorsements from all over the country, not just from his home state as is the case for Bernie, shown in the below graphic from our friends at FiveThirtyEight.
Which is where Elizabeth Warren enters the fray, or rather, doesn’t enter anything. The lack of an endorsement by Warren is surprising, yet entirely predictable from a candidate who stayed quiet on the sidelines in 2016 before eventually endorsing Clinton after Bernie’s chances were effectively over. This time around, Warren has gone less quietly, going after a group of online Bernie trolls that said mean things to her and her staffers, even though we have no idea if these accounts are even real people — more than 50 percent of the internet is fake. While it’s unfair to force one candidate to endorse another, you have to believe the door to the progressive movement has been shut once and for all for Warren, especially as she found the time to dance like a goof on SNL. If you’re a progressive, you want to love Warren, but she makes it impossible for you to.
So how does Bernie still win?
By two ways, excellently pointed out by Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk. First, Bernie must change the narrative that he’s the radical candidate and paint the picture that Biden is. The data shows that the majority of Americans support all of Bernie’s main policies: Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, actual regulation of Wall Street etc. Which means, secondly, Bernie has to dispel the notion (sorry Marco, I couldn’t help it) that he is the most electable, not Biden. And some polls back him up: Latest polls in Michigan and Wisconsin for example, show Bernie’s lead over Trump is greater than Biden’s. Unfortunately for Bernie, the next debate will be held on Sunday March 15, which by then, the hole Bernie finds himself in could be too deep to climb out of. A loss in Michigan could be that final nail for a potential Bernie presidency.
Bernie’s Numbers
Michigan: 31.9% (2nd)
Washington: 37.1% (2nd)
Missouri: 32.5% (2nd)
Mississippi: 23.4% (2nd)
Idaho: 37% (2nd)
North Dakota: 31% (2nd)
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Next primaries…
March 14: Northern Mariana (caucus — 11 delegates)
March 17: Arizona (67), Florida (219), Illinois (155) and Ohio (136)
March 24: Georgia (105)
March 29: Puerto Rico (51)
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