The national polling aggregate:
We now have a delegate count as well, after the first two white, non-representative states cast their unearned early votes:
Pete Buttigieg: 22
Bernie Sanders: 21
Elizabeth Warren: 8
Amy Klobuchar: 7
Joe Biden: 6
Some people might pretend that Buttigieg is winning, even though Sanders won more votes in both Iowa and New Hampshire, but it’s clear that Sanders is consolidating the left wing of the party behind him (at Elizabeth Warren’s expense). Michael Bloomberg is set to blow up the Center-left lane. And roughly 40% of the delegates will be apportioned in the next two and a half weeks. This thing is really happening!
1. Bernie Sanders ⬆️ (Last week: 1)
With the left consolidating nicely under his wing, Sanders has been able to squeeze out two ultra-narrow wins, in Iowa and New Hampshire, even if he’s slightly behind on the delegate count. Furthermore, he leads the national polling picture, leads in Nevada caucus polling, and at least one poll has shown him leading in South Carolina, where Joe Biden had held strong leads based on his support with black Democrats.
Thats the good news.
The bad news is that his national “lead” is at less than a quarter of Democrats. And while he’s grown to the low 20s, that’s still a long way away from building a winning coalition—this race won’t stay this fragmented for long. Furthermore, his operating theory prior to Iowa was that his strong support among youth voters would reshape the electorate, bringing out new people to the polls. The reality has been … that he’s a conventional politician, who is winning the typically weak youth vote. And in both contests, he received half the votes this year than he did in 2016. His coalition is shrinking.
But he has, for now, vanquished his primary foe for the left lane in the primary, with Elizabeth Warren fading. And that center-left lane is fragmented and kinda broken. It does mean that he faces a serious new threat from Mike Bloomberg, but at least one poll shows him winning that battle handily:
Best case for Sanders is it whittles down to a two-person race, where he will look far better than a rape-y plutocratic Republican. Now Bloomberg will argue he is more electable, and clearly a significant portion of the party electorate will believe him. So as long as polling continues to show Bernie competitive or ahead of Trump (which it does), that should mitigate the Bloomberg danger.
For now, his more immediate challenge is to survive a tiff with Nevada’s most powerful union. A first or second place finish in South Carolina would be nice, but he doesn't need it. He’s already got a ticket to Super Tuesday.
2. Pete Buttigieg ⬆️ (Last week: 4)
Small liberal college-town mayor Pete Buttigieg gets a promotion to the number two spot this week, given his near-victories in both Iowa and New Hampshire. They are perhaps more impressive than Sanders because 1) he’s a small liberal college-town mayor, and Bernie is a senator, and 2) Bernie has been running for president for five years and most people didn’t know Buttigieg even existed a few months ago.
His immediate challenge is his race problem—his disastrous management of South Bend’s police department (firing the black police chief for recording racist beat cops being racist)—and an overall shitty record on race as mayor, has essentially capped his black support at about zero, and there’s no indication that he’s getting anywhere with Latinos. Given the next two states are Nevada and South Carolina, you can see the problem. Bringing up the deep rear with single digit percentages will just cement his inability to compete outside the whitest states, which in a Democratic Party primary electorate, isn’t that many places.
So I suspect Buttigieg won’t be up this high for long, not unless he shocks again by getting black and brown Democrats to cast their ballots for him.
3. Elizabeth Warren ⬇️ (last week: 3)
She’s third in delegates, but suffered two disappointing results in Iowa and New Hampshire. She’s only this high because 1) we actually haven’t seen Bloomberg tested electorally yet, and 2) everyone else is even worse off than her. But that doesn’t make her a contender.
I wrote on Friday one way Warren could get herself back in the race, though I obviously don’t consider it a high-percentage play.
4. Mike Bloomberg ⬆️ (Last week: unranked)
It's often said that no one knows what Democrats stand for—we are a broad coalition of myriad interests and affinity groups, and that diversity makes it impossible to boil things down to just a few words. Republicans never had that problem, having successfully branded themselves as the party of family values, lower taxes, and a strong national defense.
Then Republicans nominated Donald Trump, among the most morally depraved men in this country, paying hush money to porn stars he was dallying with while his wife was at home with a newborn baby. He repeatedly mocks service members he deems disloyal, regardless of their decorated status. He strips the defense budget for funds for his useless border wall. He loves our military only as long as it makes him feel or look good. Oh, and he sold out our country to Russia.
So sure, he delivered on lower taxes, but he has made an utter mockery of the core values Republicans once espoused. And Democrats would be no different if we nominated Mike Bloomberg, thinking the only way to defeat Donald Trump is to have our own morally bankrupt billionaire Republican. If you already think Bloomberg is bad, you don't know just how bad he is. Laura Bassett in GQ runs down the nearly 40 sex discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits that Bloomberg or his company have faced, from 64 women, over the past few decades. That's double the number of accusers that Trump has faced. Meanwhile, Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs has an exhaustive look at how Bloomberg uses money to buy everything and anything he desires, not to mention his abysmal record on criminal justice, housing, LGBTQ rights, diversity, and other key progressive issues.
If we nominate Bloomberg, we are as empty and hypocritical as the conservative movement. And yet there he is, poised to become Bernie’s top competition to the nomination.
5. Biden ⬇️ (Last week: 2)
Joe Biden is the biggest asshole of the race. He jumps in late when no one was clamoring for him. Literally no one. Except maybe his consultants. He proceeds to knock out Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, and undermines Warren’s electability argument by insinuating that we needed a white male to beat Trump.
And then he goes and runs the most godawful, pointless, disjointed, and ridiculous campaign in recent memory.
He took out good candidates out of vanity, and then just shit the bed. What a fucking disaster.
(Yeah I’m pissed about it.)
6. Amy Klobuchar ⬇️ (Last week: unranked)
Klobuchar has the same problem with voters of color that Buttigieg has, but with less money, less field organization, lower poll numbers, and a campaign that seems to have devolved into an embrace of anti-abortion Democrats.
It’s a wonder she got this far, really, but her ultimate legacy will have been syphoning votes from Warren in New Hampshire because she was seen as “more electable.” And that was that.
Above, I wrote that we’ll have selected 40% of the delegates in two and a half week, and I’m still marveling at how fast things are suddenly moving. So enjoy this little bit of calm before the storm. It’s going to be a big one.