I'd like to see Klobuchar win .... but that's like a 99-1 long shot at this point. As for what I think happens .... no one gets the delegates to win it outright with Warren , Steyer & Bloomberg staying in the race longer than they should , we end up with a brokered convention and Biden gets the nod from the establishment - Bernie Bro's as mad as a hatter ....
Iowa (Feb 3): Pete, Bernie New Hampshire (Feb 9): Bernie, Pete Nevada (Feb 22): Bernie, Biden South Carolina (Feb 29): Biden (big), Bernie
We don't know much, but I think it's pretty clear Pete/Bernie were really close at the top, Warren was probably a close third, and Biden seems a distant 4th. Biden: This is a trainwreck for him. NH is not his strength either, and a 4th place finish is looking more likely there. Hard to see him recover from that. Bernie: Whether he finishes 1st or 2nd, did what he needed to do. Biden being 4th is a huge help as well. Warren: Remains viable and probably overperformed expectations in Iowa, but needs a strong showing in NH at this point because progressive momentum is with Bernie. Pete: Not sure if he won or not, but if he did, it really hurts not getting the big headline that could have given him a NH boost. He needs to pull Biden votes in NH and finish 1st or 2nd there. Then he has a couple of weeks to figure out his minority issues going into NV/SC, but still seems like a huge longshot. If he didn't win Iowa by one of the 3 measures, he's going to look like a fool. Bloomberg: Biden finishing 4th is his dream scenario. If Pete sucks in NV/SC, Bloomberg might get to Super Tuesday as the "save us all from Bernie" candidate. Amy: She got the 4th place Biden she needed, but her being in 5th (presumably) doesn't really help anything. Mayor Pete takes all the moderates for now, and by the time he fades, it's probably too late for her. Steyer: weirdly surging in NV/SC, but not sure where that takes him. Yang/Gabbard: irrelevant at this point.
Don't agree that this is terrible for Biden, these 2 states are his worse demographics especially the way the caucus is set up in Iowa. I agree he can't come in 4th again in NH but if he makes until super Tuesday he will be in the thick of it. Will be interestesting to see the final results from Iowa there was some inkling he was doing better than exspected.
I agree this wasn't Biden's strength, but I think he needed to finish 2nd or 3rd - and certainly lead the "moderate" lane. Getting his butt kicked by Pete is a problem. It's hard to see him finishing better than 4th next week - Pete/Sanders/Warren are are strong there. And two 4th place finishes ruins his whole "I'm the strongest candidate" argument. Honestly, with Pete's weakness with minorities, I think there's now a huge opening for Bloomberg - this is his perfect result.
I pick we will not know who won a single state after each of the primaries even after days/weeks/months and it will be the July convention where the candidate will be picked.
NH - up in the air, fluid https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...ys-many-voters-could-still-switch-candidates/ Fresh off a strong performance in Iowa, Sen. Bernie Sanders is ahead by 9 percentage points in our New Hampshire polling average and has a 74 percent chance of winning Tuesday’s primary, according to our forecast.All numbers as of 7 p.m. Thursday. That may sound like Sanders is an overwhelming favorite in the Granite State, but the race is still wide open. If the primary were held multiple times, Sanders would lose New Hampshire about 1 in 4 times, according to the forecast — about as likely as flipping a coin twice and getting heads both times. Why is there so much uncertainty about the New Hampshire outcome, given Sanders’s lead in the polls? First of all, it’s a primary, and polling primaries is notoriously difficult: A larger share of voters in primaries are open to switching between candidates. And there will be several opportunities for New Hampshire voters to do between now and Tuesday. For one, the mess in Iowa is still sorting itself out. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who our forecast thinks has a 20 percent chance of winning the state, could potentially benefit from the victory he claimed in Iowa. Friday’s Democratic debate could also sway voters, so we’re waiting for more polling. Just how big is this group of people that could still change their mind? Polls have found that about two-fifths of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire say they might change their mind before next Tuesday’s primary, though voters’ commitment varied by candidate.
Revising based on how much Pete has surged (and Biden has fallen) - New Hampshire (Feb 9): Pete, Bernie, Warren, Biden Nevada (Feb 22): Bernie, Pete, Biden, Warren South Carolina (Feb 29): Pete, Bernie
Biden failed his "what he needs" criteria. Pete and Bernie passed with flying colors and Bloomberg got part of what he needed. I suspect the race is now realistically down to those three barring an upset in New Hampshire. The beauty of making predictions and analysis is they can be tested and see what you got right or wrong.
Yeah but you went all in on Biden and he looks like he could be out of the race by South Carolina and never reach Super Tuesday. Your entire tournament bracket went up in flames, but I do applaud your willingness to own up to it, which not a lot of people on this board are able to do. So you have my respect. Now, I'm curious to hear what you think will happen from here on. I don't see a path forward for Buttigieg. He is not a nationally viable candidate. Polling has him around 10-15% even after the self-proclaimed major victory in Iowa. Also, once Warren comes to terms with her sputtering campaign she will put her support behind Bernie regardless of their recent beef in the media. They are still close friends and ideologically aligned. Bernie thinks of her as VP, Treasury Secretary material. They will get along just fine. That leaves Bloomberg and his millions as the only thing standing in Bernie's path to the nomination. This is where I think it will get tricky. If Biden, Buttigieg, Warren stay in the race, Bloomberg's chance get worse because they are all sharing the same traditional moderate and/or liberal lane. Bernie is the only one carving out his own electorate and reaching out to a new block of voters. I see Bernie just sprinting along with his momentum, keep picking up more victories, and collecting enough delegates until he's the winner by default because everyone else is getting nowhere. That's pretty much inline with recent FiveThirtyEight projections and NYT modeling. Bernie has a 50% chance to win outright and 60% to win a plurality of delegates.
Yeah, my premise was that Biden needed to not finish 4th anywhere and that would probably be good enough to make it to NV/SC/SuperTuesday. Once that part failed, the whole thing blew up. I'm surprised he failed that badly, but the argument that his support was a mile wide and an inch deep turned out to be true. Maybe he can have a comeback in NV/SC, but that seems less likely now with a month of "loser" label. In terms of who I'd like to see as President, I'm Pete then Amy then Bloomberg then Biden then everyone else then Bernie. So one hand, I'm happy that Pete/Bloomberg are more likely now; but on the downside, it also substantially increased Bernie's chances of winning or causing chaos (see below). This is basically what I see too. To me, Amy/Steyer/Yang are irrelevant. Warren is probably out - unless she pulls off some kind of NH miracle. But let's assume a no there. That leaves Bernie, Pete, and Bloomberg. Bernie is in it for the long haul. The question is really just the alternative. I'm with you on Pete - I can definitely see him winning NH. That leaves him 2 weeks to figure out how to appeal to Latinos in NV, and another week to appeal to AA voters in SC. And then 3 days to translate that to national appeal. All of that seems really unlikely. If he DOES do that, I have no idea what happens on Super Tuesday, because he and Bloomberg will split the non-Bernie vote. Assuming Pete is not viable, then I think Bloomberg emerges as the anti-Bernie option, and he's positioned himself well for when the campaign gets expensive. Personally, I think Bernie has a ceiling somewhere around 40%, so I think whoever the non-Bernie option is (Bloomberg, Pete, or even Biden if he salvages things somehow) will end up winning in the end. But it does assume these other people drop out at some point and coalesce around one person. If they keep splitting votes, then it probably becomes a convention fight. The worst case is something like this: Bernie: 40% of delegates Anti-Bernie (Bloomberg, for example): 30% of delegates All the other Anti-Bernies (Pete + Biden + Amy): 25% of delegates Warren: 5% of delegates Bernie will have the most votes, but may not be the nominee because he may not be able to get to 50% with any coalition. That scenario rips the party apart.
NH - Bernie NV - Bernie/Biden/Pete (in that order, very tight) SC - Biden I still believe Joe rights the ship. What kills me is that I still believe Amy is BY FAR the candidate most likely to massacre Trump in the general, but she’s overshadowed by the bigger names. The establishment will coalesce around Biden on Super Tuesday.
