Probably the most surprising thing so far is that Bernie does not have as much of a lock on the youth vote as I thought. Also the early voting is not going for Bernie as much as I thought.
What's a moderate anymore? If you took Biden's policy positions today and compared them to Obama's in 2008, we'd be calling Biden a radical. The candidate pool as a whole is to the left of Obama when he ran in 2008. With that said, I didn't vote for Bernie. I have issues with many of his policy positions (although I understand and in many cases agree with the need for many of them) but more importantly I don't like the tenor of his campaign. He uses some very Trump like language in attacking "the establishment" or "corporate democrats" which sounds nice on paper but rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Politics is about relationship building and Bernie isn't very good at that part. You have to get along with other people and make friends to pass an agenda. Bernie manages to attack so many of the people who are his natural allies that he ends up hurting his own cause. Campaigning for purity in politics means that you end up excluding so many people that you run out of friends to help you succeed. Elizabeth Warren at least comes across as a technocrat. I have confidence that there's a lot of nuance and thoughtfulness behind her ideas. I just think that she has other issues to deal with. But Bernie's ideas just sound hollow. And I say this as someone who agrees that student loan debt is crushing my generation and that we need a lot more health care reform. But Sanders comes across as very holier than thou while having very little substance behind what he actually says.
Yeah, it seems that Bernie will get some wins tonight as will Biden. But as many folks have pointed out Biden is not just winning but winning big. Bernie is winning the youth vote but not by the same margins as earlier victories. Bloomberg and Warren should dropout of the race after tonight.
My thoughts exactly. As far as the bold, I think when we look back this will be the reason he did not win.
So far a staggering night. Biden way overperforming expectations, dominating the black vote, kicking ass in a lot of states. As for the argument that Bernie needed to be the nominee because he would build a bigger coalition, all evidence to the contrary. His vote share hasn't blown up. Virginia turnout is DOUBLE the last time and it looks like it was Biden who turned it out. Just really shocking.
So far night going as expected - outside of Maine and Mas, did not expect Biden to be leading in these two. Bernie going need a hail mary California blowout to reverse the momentum and makeup catch up in delegates.
Bernie's electability thesis is being disproven in real time. He's not activating enough on his side to overcome the negative activation he is also causing. Listen I love AOC and think she's got a brighter future than Abigail Spanberger, I even agree with her policy positions more on most issues. But Abigail Spanberger has a point about winning toss up elections that AOC hasn't had to grapple with. Also ****ing caucuses, lol. Never have one again please.
WTH - What a shocking result so far. Good play by the establishment, but I think they backed the wrong horse. Joe "someone remind me where I am" Biden?!?? They should've backed Bloomberg. As much as I don't like money in politics, I would've voted for the evil leprechaun. He's from the business world where sh$%t gets done, and he seems like someone who would get sh**t done. Bloomberg or Sanders I can only see beating Trump. Biden will not be president if the Dems nominate him. It's going to be worse than 2016.
Bernie won Oklahoma against Clinton in 2016 and has lost it tonight to Biden. It is very possible that if there was no early voting that Biden would have a clean sweep tonight.
Has there EVER been an election where the same day voting has been so dramatically different from the early vote?
Skimming to through exit polls. Bernie doe not do well amongst voters over 40, moderate Democrats, older black voters. Bernie does well with voters under 40, progressives, independents, Latinos of all ages, younger black voters.
