On February 22, I wrote that Sanders was on the cusp of securing the nomination, and I followed that up on February 26, with a piece saying that the Biden-Sanders showdown I had long predicted was taking shape. Those weren’t contradictory things, even though they may have appeared so on their face. In fact, both were true and the distinction hinged on the outcome of the South Carolina primary.
Now that Biden has secured his first primary victory in convincing fashion, FiveThirtyEight provides the following odds: there’s a 27 percent chance that Bernie Sanders will win the nomination outright, a 14 percent chance that Biden will do so, and a 59 percent chance that the nomination will be decided on a second ballot. They give Michael Bloomberg 0.5 percent chance of winning the nomination, and no one else has any odds at all.
These numbers will probably change a lot after we get the results from Super Tuesday, but it will be surprising if the brokered convention doesn’t remain they most likely outcome.
If you’re a supporter of Bernie Sanders, this should make you nervous. He has one huge thing going for him, which is that he’s favored to arrive in Milwaukee with the most delegates. That would give him a good starting position and a powerful argument in his favor. At the moment, Biden actually leads in the popular vote, although it’s uncertain if he can maintain that lead. If Sanders can claim the most votes and the most delegates, he will have a fighting chance. If he has won the most states, his case will be stronger still.
But, as I wrote on February 20, plurality winners have no automatic claim on the nomination. The way the process is set up is for the entire delegation to decide the nominee if no one has an initial majority, and that includes the superdelegates. Similar to the reason many states allow independents and Republicans to vote in the primaries, the idea is that the most partisan members do not necessarily pick an electable candidate. If someone can’t even secure a majority of Democratic delegates, there’s no particular reason to believe they’re in a good position to win the most votes in the Electoral College.
Unfortunately, for Sanders, most people who consider him a viable candidate are going to vote for him. Most of the people who don’t vote for him are worried about his viability and aren’t going to be easily convinced that he’s a safe bet.
It won’t be an easy choice to oppose him because the party will still need his support and can’t afford for his coalition to sit the election out in protest. This is why he could win a brokered convention even if he needs the votes of people who have serious misgivings. I can’t predict how it would shake out but I can say a couple of things even at this early date.
First, Sanders has plenty of time to work on reassuring the delegates, and anything that makes Trump look weaker will make him look like less of a risk. So, there are factors both within and outside of Sanders’ control that could help him. Second, every delegate is going to matter because it could wind up being a real nail-biter of a vote. Obviously, the closer Sanders gets to a majority, the better his odds. But this is not just because it gives him a better argument. It’s also because he’s going to have a tough sell on convincing superdelegates and delegates for the other candidates to take his side. Non-Sanders delegates are more firmly against him than Non-Biden delegates are against Biden, and that’s not going to change in terms of ideology or sentiment. He needs to get near the finish line on the first vote if he wants to cross it on the second one.
Biden is in the same position. If he arrives in second place, there is only so much of a deficit he can hope to make up. If he’s too weak, the delegates might start looking for a third alternative. Someone who is acceptable to both Sanders and Biden supporters could emerge, perhaps on a third or fourth ballot. That’s how Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg are trying to position themselves, but they honestly should drop out if they don’t win any states on Super Tuesday.
Bloomberg is still a wildcard in all of this. After Tuesday we’ll know if the hundreds of millions he’s spent has changed anything. Most likely, it will help Sanders build a bigger delegate lead over Biden and also put a nail in the coffin for the other also-ran candidates who won’t reach 15 percent viability in most states. This will hurt Biden initially, but help him in the long run. Of course, if Bloomberg has a huge night and wins a bunch of states, then I’ll have to do a complete reexamination of the race.
I think you’ve got it.
Will Bloomberg matter? We have to wait and see. One effect of his participation might be to make left-leaning people like me more accepting of eventual compromise. I have nothing good to say about Joe Biden, but when the other moderate alternative is a biliionaire trying to buy the presidency, Joe starts looking pretty good.
>>every delegate is going to matter because it could wind up being a real nail-biter of a vote.
Thompson has a fun segment in Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail on the courting of those last few uncommitted delegates.
Sounds right, although Buttigieg has dropped out in the few hours since you posted this, and there are rumors that Biden’s campaign asked Klobuchar to stay in through Tuesday so as to limit Sanders’ delegates in Minnesota.
If she drops out later this week, that leaves Bloomberg as the X factor although it seems there will likely be enormous pressure from party leaders for him to drop out if Biden does reasonably well on Tuesday (and vice versa).
That leaves Warren hanging around (if she has enough money, and can regularly hit 15% in states and districts) as a potential “unity” candidate if Biden and Sanders end up with similar numbers of delegates.
Good analysis.
There’s something else that is going to help Sanders, and that is the unhinged rhetoric that is now coming at him from (parts of) the Democratic establishment and the establishment media. Preferring somebody else is one thing, but the kind of stuff we’ve been seeing since Nevada and South Carolina is unreal, and it is definitely not good for party unity. Bernie Sanders is popular because a lot of people like him. That is a simple tautology, I know, but it’s something they ignore at their peril. The more they attack him, the more popular he gets.
The results in South Carolina were expected and baked into the political forecasts. Everybody expected Biden to win, and the only surprise, maybe, was how big, and how everybody else would do. Still I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference to the overall outlook.
“That’s how Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg are trying to position themselves…”
So you’re saying Liz still has a shot!
My big question mark is how the virus will affect some votes. Not regarding turnout but with consideration. Atrios has snarkily made mention to it, but this country really ISN’T in the position to deal with this. Our Healthcare system has been a bit too selfish and market-driven. Every day is more bad news. Half the people in this country couldn’t survive for 2 missed paychecks. The people whose jobs interact with the public the most can’t afford to not show up to work. -Especially- if the illness starts out seeming just like a cold, as they say. I suspect healthcare and the entire PTO system will be on the minds of an increasing number of voters.
I think this is a Katrina situation where a lot of voters do a series of priority reevaluations.