Biden has made a big resurgence in South Carolina

Just six days ago, RCP was showing that Biden’s lead over Bernie had narrowed to two points, 23-21, with Steyer also in contention at 16.

That has changed dramatically this week. The current RCP average is showing Biden with a dramatic 36-24 edge, while Steyer and Buttigieg are in a dead heat for third. Some say Biden’s margin over Bernie is as much as 16 to 21 points.

What happened? Biden got some key endorsements, while some voters who flirted with Steyer are moving back to their reliable fallback guy, Biden.

By the way, it appears that Warren may finish as low as sixth.

Despite these polls, I would not count Bernie out. Here’s why:

The pollsters only survey Democratic voters, and the polls may well be right about Biden’s edge there, but there’s more to consider. Because Trump’s nomination is a foregone conclusion, the Republican primaries are meaningless this year, so some conservatives have been encouraging their supporters across the country to register Dem or Ind this year so that they can vote for Bernie in the Democratic primaries – because they believe that Bernie would get crushed in the general. Conservatives don’t even need to make that much effort in South Carolina, which doesn’t register voters by political parties and holds open primaries, so Trump supporters can just show up and vote for Bernie.

The conservative pro-Bernie effort is called Operation Chaos, and mirrors the Russian efforts to support Bernie in the primaries.

At this moment it is not possible to predict the impact of this movement on the South Carolina results. It may be utterly insignificant, or it may produce a tidal wave of Bernie support.

8 thoughts on “Biden has made a big resurgence in South Carolina

  1. From afar, all I can say is your electoral system is fubar!

    You elect people to represent you to make decisions on your behalf, and then don’t give them the ability to pick the right person to lead the party, you go through this nightmare of voting before the actual election to see who is the least odious choice to represent the party you want to vote for.

    Except, the person who generally wins is the one with the deepest pockets. I know a couple of billionaires will not be the dems leader, but they don’t have an actual plan, as witnessed by the pathetic performance so far.

    The one selected is usually beholden to the large donors that give the most millions… Want an ambassadorship? How much you gonna donate? You’re son wants a pardon? How much you want to donate? You want all the environmental regulations removed so we can rape, pillage and just behave in a douchbagery fashion, hope you have plenty o millions to donate!

    And then there is the complete woftam that is the electoral college.

    Unfortunately for the rest of the world, we are caught in your problems, and we are stuck with whatever “leader of the free world” you foist upon us.

    Whatever you do, don’t fuck it up for the rest of us.

      1. Never mind, I Googled it like I should have in the first place. WOFTAM = Waste Of Freaking Time And Money.

  2. Did Democrats cross over and vote for Trump in Republican primaries in 2016, on the assumption that Hilary was a shoo-in and Trump could not possibly win the election? If so, that backfired badly. I wonder if “Operation Chaos” will too?

  3. Another thing to consider is that South Carolina has an open primary, so it doesn’t matter how you are registered, you can vote in the Democratic primary.

    1. It’s even more ambiguous than that. Their primaries are not just open. They are completely unmonitored. South Carolina doesn’t even register voters by party, so there is absolutely no red tape involved for anyone to vote in any primary. You can say, “Hi, I’m a Trump supporter here to vote for Bernie to make sure that Trump has a weak opponent,” and the Democrats running their primary have to say to you, “Step right up and screw up our choices!”

  4. Jim Clyburn has stated that Biden needs to win by a substantial margin in South Carolina to get any real momentum for Super Tuesday.

    So if Biden wins narrowly, that will probably not be enough for his candidacy to be viable. On the other hand, who else is there? Bloomberg has been a disaster, Warren is sinking, and Buttigieg and Klobuchar don’t appeal to minority voters.

    I’m a Biden supporter, so I hope he wins by double digits — otherwise we end up with a Bernie v. Trump race, which is a moderate’s nightmare.

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