A big night for Biden
[NOTE: See update below.]
Biden did very very well today, although there are no returns yet from the huge state of California and not all that many from Texas, which awards 228 delegates to California’s 415.
It’s a funny thing how, prior to South Carolina, almost no one gave Biden much of a chance. Now he’s suddenly the likely frontrunner. I think this reflects two things. The first is that a lot of contenders for the so-called “moderate” position have dropped out and thrown their support to Biden. The other is that most Democrats will vote for whichever candidate the party nominates – anyone, anyone other than the hated Trump. Once Biden won South Carolina, got those endorsements, and had fewer rivals still in the race, and once the MSM fully communicated that Bernie was too honest about his radicalism to win the election, it became much easier to say, “Biden? So be it.”
Almost nobody’s favorite, but a tremendous number of people’s safe refuge at this point.
I can’t find the link right now, but it’s pretty clear that the black vote is going overwhelmingly to Biden and the Hispanic vote to Sanders. The first apparently represents nostalgia for the Obama years. The second may represent some sort of yearning for Venezuela North. More moderate white Democrats are going for Biden and more radical white Democrats for Sanders.
Warren is nowhere. Even in Massachusetts, with 61% reporting, she comes in third (20.2%) to Biden (34%) and Sanders (27.3%). But her reluctance to drop out probably hurts Sanders more than it hurts Biden. And Bloomberg – well, suffice to say he gained some delegates but very few, and he’s going to “reassess” tomorrow..
Because the Democrats award delegates proportionately rather than winner-takes-all, tonight’s victories for Biden don’t represent such a lopsided win as it might seem. But tonight, Biden really does have Joementum.
UPDATE 11:45 PM:
Sanders wins California, as expected. It’s probably the Hispanic vote the determined that. But remember, delegates are awarded proportionately, so it’s not as though Bernie gets the whole 415. The important thing is the delegate count:
Who comes out ahead in the delegate race is still being assessed, because they are allocated proportionally and not all votes have been counted. Approximate total delegate counts through Super Tuesday are 640 for Biden, 577 for Sanders, 140 for Bloomberg, and 103 for Warren…
To win the nomination, candidates must receive 1,991 of the total 3,979 pledged delegates at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) this summer in Milwaukee, Wis.
If no candidate receives a majority on the first ballot, hundreds of so-called “superdelegates,” or party insiders, are allowed to cast their ballots. Roughly one-third of the 3,979 total delegates were at stake on Tuesday.
You best believe that if neither Biden nor Sanders wins on the first ballot, those superdelegates will be voting for Biden and will put him over the top, if possible.
If Joe wins the nomination, who will be the VP choice. It’s important since I don’t see Biden surviving a 4 year term due to mental issues.
Also, who would actually be running the country if Biden wins the WH? It seems that he would really be just a figurehead, out there to say a few words and then leaving to let the rest of the team do the negotiations, etc.
Scary thought!
They coordinate well! The entire Dem Party pivoted away from Bernie.
OK, he wins VT,CO, UT and CA but the Joementum is palpable
Liz
Agreed.
I believe it would be the same people who were prominent in the Obama administration, doing the same things only more so because they feel the country is ready for more open leftism. The Deep State will really go to town. Legislation depends on who controls Congress. If it’s the Democrats, the sky’s the limit.
The (overwhelmingly leftist) Hill
The Feb. 14-15 survey found 62 percent of registered voters said they are open to voting for Trump in 2020 while 38 percent said they would never vote for the incumbent. By comparison, when this survey was taken a year ago in March 2019, 54 percent of voters were open to reelecting Trump while 46 percent said they would never vote for the President.
The state of the economy proved to be the main reason voters would re-elect Trump, at 19 percent, up 7 percentage point from when this survey was last taken. Other top reasons were the current field of Democratic Presidential candidates pushing ideas that are too liberal, at 12 percent, and his tough stance on immigration, at 9 percent.
https://nypost.com/2020/02/29/why-these-black-new-yorkers-are-voting-for-trump-in-2020/
but blackpac and other leftist polling says
kind of makes polling useless, doesnt it?
except when you realize that one side uses polling to find out information, and the other side uses polling to change outcomes and so says what it hopes will change people to join the bandwagon..
The liberal Brookings Institution said in a recent report that the five U.S. metropolitan areas with the largest black populations — New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Washington, D.C. — have seen black median household incomes increase from 7% in Washington to 21% in Atlanta. Trump campaign officials say more than 1.4 million new jobs have been created for black workers since Mr. Trump’s inauguration. WaPo
Black unemployment dropped to 5.5%, lowest in history…
Sad to say the my state, CO, went for Bernie again, just like 2016. This use to be a great state, balanced fairly evenly between Rep and Dem. Not now. It will only get worse here.
Ok…now that the field is basically Old Commie & Gropey Joe…
I’m pulling out my Magic 8-ball. Should they name their VP pick?
In 2016 Candidate Trump gave us a list of SCOTUS nominees to set himself apart from the gang of 16.
Should the D leading candidates do the same with their VP?
Not as an “insurance policy” (Look I’m old feeble & could die or get lost on the way to the Oval Office and certainly won’t run in 2024) but as a “difference maker” to any undecided voters or crossovers from one of the other failed candidates.
Oh…and you can take this one to the bank: Mayor Pete is not going to be anyone’s VP choice…But a woman?…I’d think someone will go there.
It should be impossible for an incumbent President to run as an outsider challenging the corrupt establishment but damn if the Democrats aren’t going to let Trump do just that. It’s also funny to think they’re going to give their nomination to a guy because he won primaries in states he’s almost sure to lose in the general election.
Mike
Interesting geographic divide
Biden took all eastern states but Vermont
Bernie took all western states
Imagining a Biden presidency:
Woodrow Wilson Redux (without the intellect): Dr. Jill Biden runs the nation while Joe listens to the record player and remembers the good old days with Corn Pop.
I think what this tells you is that the Democratic electorate is quite volatile (you’ve seen that in previous donnybrooks) and their choices are idle. Recall suddenly Gary Hart was suddenly everywhere in 1984 and recall the preference cascade for John Kerry in 2004.
I have a cousin who is a Warren votary. She was spitting tacks the other day that the options were limited to old white men who have benefited from privilege all their lives, who don’t know or care about struggles of [insert menu of client groups]. That’s not a shizzy paraphrase, by the way. She has used every character string therein at one time on this subject.
Now, you and I both know that advantages are not privileges. ‘Privilege’ means ‘private law’, though it can be used in a fuzzier sense to mean anything that is not a right. The closest thing the vast majority of people come to receipt of privilege is a friend or relation putting in a good word for them for a job, and that can occur in any stratum of the labor force (though seldom between strata). Privilege in excess of that requires you be politically-connected if not to the state than to the superintendents of something of institutional importance. Even moderately wealthy people often don’t know anyone who runs something of institutional importance and would include them in their favor-banking.
I could remind my cousin that the son of an accountant, the son of a salesman, and the son of another salesman were not raised as children of privilege and that any advantages you can readily identify them as having possessed were possessed by about 15 million other youths living in this country in 1953. Of course, If Bernie Sanders knows ‘nothing’ of the ‘struggles’ of [insert client list], neither she nor Elizabeth Warren knows anything either. Well, the client list does include ‘women’. I would really prefer to avoid disagreeable arguments with my relatives, and, in any case, you cannot reason someone out of a position they were not reasoned into. She has issues with her father and issues surrounding her estranged husband. I do wonder how common is her type among Warren and Hillary votaries.
“I think what this tells you is that the Democratic electorate is quite volatile”
I think it tells you that Democrats are nowhere near as angry with or alienated from their own party as Republicans were in 2016, that there’s still a sheep-like willingness to go where their political/media shepherds tell them to go.
Mike
Bloomberg is dropping out. It’s a sign of the good sense of the general public that he couldn’t buy the Democratic nomination. It’s a sign of the degeneracy of our elites that they were perfectly happy to let him try.
Mike
I have said this in relation to transgender issues but it applies here also. Gender is a description, not an identity. I am a woman, but that does not define my identity, any more than does my age, height, hair color, your best guess at my ethnicity should we meet IRL, etc. When my lefty friends implied that as a woman, I was obligated to vote for Hillary because was a woman, I was astonished at their shallowness. Sharing gender puts Hillary and me in company with three and a half billion people, all but a handful of whom have less in common with me than the retired guy next door. My “struggles” were my own, and Hillary most certainly did not share them just because like me, she has girl parts. There are times and places where being a woman limited your life choices, just as race did, just as religion did, but 21st century United States is not one of those places and clinging to identity-based “struggles” as an excuse to rationalize all of one’s own life failures is an infantile cop-out. Sadly, it seems to be spreading rather than dissipating.
It’s a sign of the degeneracy of our elites that they were perfectly happy to let him try.
Bloomberg’s actually quite accomplished in public office. He largely repudiated his accomplishments during the competition. The intramural culture of the Democratic Party is sick sick sick.
I am a woman, but that does not define my identity,
No, but it’s the most important component of your identity. In well-ordered societies, identity should be a weak vector in influencing voting behavior. We’re not well-ordered at this time.
All this is evidence that the fix is in. Biden was all the DNC had left to oppose Bernie. Buttplug and Klobuchar dropped out to help Biden and Warren stayed in to help Biden by splitting the Bernie vote in MA.
The interesting thing about Bloomberg now is how does he keep paying all those employees he hired now that he has “suspended ” his campaign? If he is supporting Biden, as he announced, then the payments are subject to FEC limits.
Ask Dinesh D’Sousa about that.
Scary. The whole Democratic field gives me the willies. No one has any moral courage. Bloomie just endorsed Sleepy Joe, though he could have just sat on the sidelines. Beto popped out of the bushes for a moment of visibility to endorse, as if he mattered.
Dammit, it’s our country and a bunch of sad sacks and commies want to take it from us.
Insty: Bloomberg “came up short”
Internet conspiracy theory
Hillary as vp.
Joe resigns
Hillary gets her turn.
Hunter and Joe are excused from any questions about bribery in Ukraine.
KyndyllG: Very well said. I’m going to use that, with attribution.
Biden’s pick for a running mate is preordained: Stacy Abrams (although she’d have to resign her position as Governor of Georgia).
Bloomberg has only “suspended” his campaign. The odds that Biden will not (completely) collapse before the Convention are not zero.
Sundance has a good observation:
(2) As a result of coalescing within the moderate lane, the withdrawal of Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg helped Joe Biden achieve wins in states he never even campaigned in.
(3) If you align Elizabeth Warren votes with Bernie Sanders (progressives) and Michael Bloomberg votes with Joe Biden (Club “moderates”)… Elizabeth Warren staying in the race cost Bernie Sanders wins in Minnesota, Maine and Massachusetts.
The only reason Bernie may have won California is that they, like Washington where I live, have weeks long voting. Many of those Sanders, Pete and Amy votes were made before Pete and Amy withdrew and Sanders started to be exposed/opposed by the Dem establishment.
Hillary as vp.
The Hillary memes will not die. See Wm. Schneider on VP selections: it’s most important to select someone who does not cause unnecessary distraction (see Thos. Eagleton, Geraldine Ferraro). Your single best guess is that your VP candidate will net you 2% of the ballots in his home state, so a candidate from a purple state (like Virginia or North Carolina or Florida) is optimal. She’s a distraction, none of the states she’s ever lived in or worked in are in play, she’s disabled by an occult illness, and when she’s able-bodied, she’s an aggressive megalomaniac.
Perhaps soon Ol’ Joe will present us with the equivalent of the spectacle of the fairly recent Japanese Emperor who rolled up the text of his speech, and used it as an imaginary telescope that he used to survey his audience.
We are seeing the reason why we are going to need some sort of gateway test for mental fitness for our Presidential candidates.
We are seeing the reason why we are going to need some sort of gateway test for mental fitness for our Presidential candidates.
No we’re not going to ‘need’ that, and the last people you want screening people for public office are the mental health trade.
We need something because it is a dead certainty that the people who’ve been chirping about Donald Trump’s mental fitness for four years are going to completely ignore Biden’s apparent cognitive issues.
I wonder if the London bookies are taking bets yet on Biden just wandering off the stage during a Presidential debate?
It seems that most of the enthusiastic Dems are
clinging to identity-based “struggles” as an excuse to rationalize all of one’s own life failures is an infantile cop-out. Sadly, it seems to be spreading rather than dissipating. KindyllG
If Trump’s economy avoids a Covid-19 recession, he’ll win, because most voters will not be suffering so many of life’s failures.
But the constant, unfair, negative Dem press will keep it close no matter who the Dems choose.
Here’s a question. After the Dems choose an old white guy who picks a VP, what happens on the Nov. ballot if the Pres candidate then dies before Nov.? (coronavirus or otherwise)
Does the VP candidate automatically become the party’s candidate?
I’ m waiting for Biden to start a speech, pick his nose, and closely inspect the results.
MBunge on March 4, 2020 at 10:38 am said:
Bloomberg is dropping out. It’s a sign of the good sense of the general public that he couldn’t buy the Democratic nomination. It’s a sign of the degeneracy of our elites that they were perfectly happy to let him try.
* * *
This should make its way into some kind of maxim book. Well said.
“Does the VP candidate automatically become the party’s candidate?” – Tom Grey
Depends on the composition of SCOTUS when it happens.
Actually, I suspect the Electors can do pretty much what they want at that point.
Technically, IIRC, they can do that now, but a lot of states put restrictions on them because of primaries, pledges, etc., and there is a large element of tradition involved.
Remember that poltical parties do not appear in the Constitution.
Warren’s hanging around at the behest of the establishment to harry Sanders. She’s so fraudulent even amongst this rogue’s gallery of liars.
Joe has “won” the nomination, if “won” is the correct word for being selected for the role of likeable mascot by forces outside one’s own control.
Still, the nomination is his, if he doesn’t collapse or perform a shouted Nazi salute in the middle of a speech.
Even if he does, he still might get it. After all, he can barely remember his name. I can’t remember any 3-day period in the last 3 weeks where he hasn’t had some kind of “senior moment.” But the mainstream press covers for him extraordinarily well, so the only people who’re aware of his constant synaptic failures are those who use alternative news sources…and most of those were either dedicated to Trump, or to Sanders, anyway.
Joe’s veep will likely be Kamala Harris, I think. She ticks the right boxes. Balance the old white guy with the younger barely-detectibly black woman.
(Seriously, I can’t be the only person who was utterly unaware that Harris identifies as “black” until I ran across that particular datum in print. I’m not saying she looks Swedish, but from most of her photos I could’ve easily believed she was a mostly-Anglo person who liked tanning salons a lot. But I digress.)
Shortly after the convention, there’s a low-but-nonzero chance Joe will have a major cerebral health issue of some kind and bow out. Kamala will be the new nominee, and she’ll pick Warren as veep. Bloomberg gets Sec Treas, if he wants it. Buttigieg and Klobuchar may also be offered cabinet positions. After all, the Democratic Establishment owes them big for bowing out when they did. I assure you: Deals were made.
All of these predictions, of course, are worth exactly what you’re paying for them.
But Bernie’s out, at this point. And just like last time, he’ll be the last to know.
JimNorCal on March 4, 2020 at 11:04 am said:
Insty: Bloomberg “came up short”
Internet conspiracy theory
Hillary as vp.
Joe resigns
Hillary gets her turn.
Hunter and Joe are excused from any questions about bribery in Ukraine.
* * *
This would be a realistic (probably not rational) sequence, BUT if Hillary is the VP choice, Trump will run against her the same way he did in 2016.
She isn’t getting any more popular, any healthier, or any younger.
My caveat (worth what the campaign pays me): under no circumstances should Trump make fun of Joe for mental debility; stick with policy and issues.
Americans give a BIG bounce if they think someone is being mocked for a natural, and common, disability (picking on people like Bloomberg et al., Rubio & Cruz & Jeb!, and even Hillary were OK).
I don’t think they’re going to go for Hillary.
She no longer has the clout, and can’t reward supporters like she used to. And there’s only so many people she and Sid Blumenthal can have knocked off. (I’m smiling — slightly — as I say that last bit.)
In re: the process being rigged against Sanders, Jim Hanson has stated the obvious, here:
https://twitter.com/JimHansonDC/status/1235195982486396928
This is why I think Kamala selects Warren as veep. Warren is doing the establishment a big favor by staying in to divide the Bernie vote.
Or maybe Joe chooses Warren after Sanders fails, and then, from his hospital bed, Joe bows out, allowing Warren to select Harris.
Deals were made.
Dave Reaboi, Twitter: “Savor this meltdown”. Heh. Cenk howls “Noooooooooo!”
sdferr…Wow! That was priceless!
Almost as good as the video of them on election night 2016.
Good chart here; refresh the page for updated totals.
https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/super-tuesday/
“My caveat (worth what the campaign pays me): under no circumstances should Trump make fun of Joe for mental debility; stick with policy and issues.”
If the voting public is going to hand the Presidency to a guy who should be in a memory care facility out of pity, we might as well turn out the lights because this experiment in self-government is over.
MIke
This is a good play-by-play up to 2:45 am, if you want to see what happened in real time.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/03/03/super-tuesday-rocks-the-vote/
“My caveat (worth what the campaign pays me): under no circumstances should Trump make fun of Joe for mental debility; stick with policy and issues.”
The time for the high road has passed. Nary a week has gone by when the media or some politician hasn’t questioned Trump’s mental fitness and invoked the 25th amendment.
I have no problem with him pointing out something actually transpiring with Biden that they have projected onto him for the past 4 years.
Ordinarily someone with a cognitive disability should be off-limits, but this guy is running for the highest office in the land. The Democrats have slung every intellectual insult possible at Republicans for over two decades (in most cases, without cause), but Republicans are supposed to stay quiet when there is plenty of cause?
By the way, I’m not the first to notice this but how insane is it that the Democratic Party is probably going to have back-to-back Presidential nominees who voted FOR the Iraq War?
Not to mention you can just see Trump turning to Biden during a debate and saying “You couldn’t get our troops out of Afghanistan in eight years. I did it in four.”
Mike
The Democrats are deliberately nominating a senile old man.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/04/joe-biden-confuses-wife-and-sister-on-super-tuesday-stage/
The Democrats are deliberately nominating a senile old man.
Well sure. Makes perfect sense, since senility is far more compatible with socialism than any other nominally sane state of mind. Lots of forgetting is required. Like, tons of forgetting.
Byron York points out some very important characteristics of Biden supporters vs Bernie Bros:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/calls-for-unity-cannot-hide-stark-cultural-differences-inside-democratic-party
Complementary post here by Matt Vespa:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2020/03/04/bern-out-the-key-to-joe-biden-derailing-the-2020-bernie-sanders-train-n2563055
Reality mugging Bernie but he won’t admit it:
https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/03/04/carville-lets-face-bernie-drop/
arvid on March 4, 2020 at 2:33 pm said:
“My caveat (worth what the campaign pays me): under no circumstances should Trump make fun of Joe for mental debility; stick with policy and issues.”
… but Republicans are supposed to stay quiet when there is plenty of cause?
* * *
Republicans can say all they want; TRUMP should stay off the subject.
He doesn’t have to say anything at all, once Biden makes enough flubs that the MSM can’t paper over them any more. And that’s not “if,” that’s “when.”
Here’s the media trying to cover the latest blooper, and Jazz setting the story straight, after people jump in to point out Biden claimed the two women had switched sides and conclude he just made a natural mistake:
https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/03/04/biden-really-confuse-wife-sister-last-night/
This raised an interesting question: why doesn’t Biden have a private security detail to do this kind of intervention?
https://hotair.com/archives/karen-townsend/2020/03/04/epic-jill-biden-wrestles-protesters-like-boss-joes-victory-rally/
Just for the record…Jill Biden is not a “doctor” doctor.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/whoopi_goldberg_falls_victim_to_jill_biden.html