The Real Clear Politics average of South Carolina polls shows Joe Biden with a comfortable lead (31.4. percent) over Bernie Sanders (20.6 percent). Billionaire Tom Steyer clocks in just above the minimum threshold for delegates at 15.4 percent, and everyone else falls below.
If this is close to the actual result in the Palmetto State, it will shake things up a bit. There isn’t much time for the impact to be felt, however, as the Super Tuesday voting comes a mere three days after the polls open in South Carolina. Still, in the last contest before Bloomberg makes his presence known, it will be disastrous for anyone not to reach the 15 percent viability level. Elizabeth Warren cannot afford to do as poorly as predicted (8.8 percent), and nether can Pete Buttigieg (8 percent) or Amy Klobuchar (3.6 percent).
Biden has been patiently waiting for a victory, and watching his initial advantage slip away steadily with every loss. The erosion has been so substantial that it has put his campaign in grave peril, and it’s not clear that even a strong win on Saturday can save him. But he never really expected to win before Nevada at the earliest, and he’s premised his strategy all along on getting a bounce out of South Carolina going into Super Tuesday. If he gets a win, even a narrow one, he’ll be at least somewhat close to wear he expected to be.
His problem is that Bernie Sanders is looking stronger than he hoped. FiveThirtyEight projects Sanders as an overwhelming favorite to carry several Super Tuesday states, including California, Utah, Colorado and Vermont. He’s also listed as a better than 50 percent bet to win Texas and Massachusetts. Biden’s projected haul is more tentative and has many fewer delegates. He only has better than even odds of winning Alabama, and he and Sanders each lead the field with a 39 percent chance of winning Tennessee. He’s within striking distance of Sanders in Oklahoma and North Carolina and has at least an outside shot of catching him in Texas, Arkansas and Virginia. The latest poll out of Texas has Sanders and Biden tied at 24 percent, so perhaps he’s building some momentum there.
Needless to say, Biden better hope so because it’s not going to do him much good to carry a couple of southern states while Sanders carries delegate-heavy states like Texas, California, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. Things will look a lot better if he can carry Texas and sweep the southern states. A strong win in South Carolina accompanied by poor performances by Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar will give him a shot, but it’s not clear if there will be enough time for opinions to change.
And Bloomberg is the most likely reason why Biden will fail. The Texas poll I just mentioned shows Biden beating Sanders 31 to 25 percent if Bloomberg isn’t option, yet he’s in a dead heat (24 percent to 24 percent) when Bloomberg is included. In other words, Bloomberg is pulling almost no voters away from Sanders. This makes it even more critical for Biden that the other challengers collapse as expected in South Carolina.
Unfortunately, the data out of the Nevada caucuses is anything but encouraging for Biden. Sanders was far more likely to be people’s second pick in the ranked choice voting there, meaning that there’s no empirical reason to believe Biden will be the beneficiary if people move away from their support of other candidates.
I predicted way back in April 2019 that it was most likely going to come down to a Biden-Sanders race. Bloomberg has thrown a wrench into my early analysis, but if Biden gets his win in South Carolina I still think my projections will be seen as very prescient.
It was my analysis on this point that drove pretty much everything I’ve had to say on this race. It’s why I privately told people that my top choices were Warren and Biden, in that order. My progressive friends often found this confusing, but it came down to my first preference followed by the person I believed would be the last standing against Sanders.
As for my opposition to Sanders, that has been explained over and over again with reference to my analysis of the Democrats’ reliance on a suburban strategy. I spent the run-up to the 2018 midterms begging the Democrats to expand the ambitions beyond the suburbs or risk becoming a white collar party. Having ignored this advice and reaped their electoral reward and House majority, it’s too late for them to unify around a more populist approach. I’m not willingly rolling the dice on Bernie’s revolution primarily because there is too much risk of failure.
If I’m wrong and it works and Sanders is elected president, in some ways I’ll see it as a tremendous thing. I’ll be enormously relieved. And I don’t think this is impossible. I also don’t think any of the other candidates are necessarily favorites against Trump. I do think the other candidates would have a better chance of governing the country effectively, however, because they’d have more support from their own party.
I’m progressive, perhaps even a Democratic-Socialist, but I’m practical. As for seeing the future, you be the judge.
As usual, good analysis; thanks.
It did, however, make me want to take a moment to mourn the opportunities lost by Biden, Bloomberg, and Sanders not being able to put aside their egos/fear of impending mortality/or whatever else, so that they could *not* run, thereby leaving the field open for candidates like Booker, Castro, Gillibrand, Harris, Klobuchar, et al. It seems like this might have been a good year to pass the torch to a new generation of Democrats.
So Bloomberg ultimately may end up handing the nomination to Sanders? Isn’t that exactly the opposite of why he is running? Once he figures that out won’t he drop out?
It’s not just Bloomberg, it’s also Warren who is helping Bernie in some ways. That’s because she might be viable in a lot of Super Tuesday spots, which is preventing Klobuchar and Pete from being viable. If she gets out, she gives her votes mostly to Bernie, but it could push others above thresholds. And then the others are stopping Biden from consolidating.
On the other hand, at this point, a one vs one (Bernie vs. Biden) could be in Bernie’s favor. Really, depends what SC brings, and when the others drop out.
I understand what you’re saying about Bernie and yet I can’t help but get excited about the transformational possibilities, even though the data suggests things aren’t shaping up that way and he’ll be lucky to win for the reasons you’ve cited.
As for Biden, I’ve seen him collapse too many times dating back to 1988 and the Neal Kinnock plagiarizing scandal. Back then, he was the guy I supported. Today I’d of course support him if he were the nominee but I have little confidence he’s got what it takes. Even if Bloomberg were not in the race, I don’t trust him not to collapse in South Carolina.
I find it ironic that Bloomberg, who claims he entered the race to prevent Sanders from becoming the nominee, may be the guy who cock-blocks Biden and gets him nominated. But then that presumes Biden wouldn’t go limp on his own.