Category: Politics

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.

With an unexpected 19%, “He came in second place in the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. Bernie Sanders came in first with 31% support nationally and Joe Biden was in third place with 15%.”

He’s running 4th in Nevada with 14%, far behind Bernie’s 35%

Thus ending hopes for the nomination of a non-white person or a stock photo.

Bennet

Patrick

Yang

Biden is probably out as well, but he doesn’t seem to know it yet.

As in Iowa, Pete and Bernie finished neck-and-neck. This time it was Bernie with the slight edge. They will each get nine delegates of New Hampshire’s 24.

The big surprise of the evening was Amy Klobuchar. The momentum showed by the polls was totally real. A week ago she was polling at 6% in NH and she finished around 20%, thus making a good run at a win and claiming the Granite State’s six remaining delegates.

Warren and Biden finished in single figures and earned no delegates at all. Biden’s fifth-place finish has erased the frontrunner facade and has left him gasping for breath, hopeful of moving south for better health, like any other crotchety old geezer.

The Boston Globe takes polls every day, then creates a two-day rolling average.

Mayor Pete had some serious momentum going, but fell after the debate. Klobuchar emerged as the winner of that debate, with a surprisingly large surge of her own, as she vaulted from nowhere into third place.

Bernie, meanwhile, re-emerged as the clear favorite.

Things don’t look great for Warren and Biden. No candidate on the New Hampshire ballot has ever won the nomination after finishing lower than second in that primary. Barring a sudden shift in the wind, Biden and Warren seem to be headed for 4th and 5th place.

Here’s the trend:

They give Bernie a 49% chance of winning a simple majority of the delegates, and establish a 24% chance that no candidate will come to the convention with enough delegates. Biden is considered to have a 19% chance. If you’re scoring at home, that only leaves 8% for all other candidates added together. (Basically 4% each for Warren and Buttigieg, and zero for the others.)

Bernie is also the betting favorite at this point, with Bloomberg now closest.

The Bookmakers now consider Trump a favorite in the 2020 general election, and his odds have been improving steadily in the past two months, starting the day the House voted to impeach. His betting line rose to +140 during the investigation phase, but dropped to -125 after the impeachment vote. The line now stands at -150. The overseas bookmakers show even shorter odds (typically about -162), and they are still shortening. They could shorten far more if and when Bernie’s nomination gets more certain.

(I don’t think there have been any “Trump vs Sanders” polls since the Iowa debacle and the Senate acquittal.)

Overall, despite some stops and starts, Trump’s likelihood of re-election has been increasing for a year now, as the Democrats have produced no clear, powerhouse contender.

Iowa results are getting there – 97% in as I type.

To me the only star to emerge from the Iowa mess was a little-known polling firm called dbr. Unlike the established pollsters, dbr totally kicked ass in predicting the final results. In the table below, the first column of numbers represents the % of polled voters who were certain about their choice of the listed candidate. Those “certain” percentages do not add to 100 because 33% were either undecided, uncertain (lean), or preferred another candidate. The next column takes that 33% and reapportions it to the Big Six in the same ratio as their “certain” supporters. The final columns represent the final (well, almost final) results of the caucuses.

As far as I can see, no other polling organization even came close to getting those proportions right. On the popular vote, they got Buttigieg, Warren and Klobuchar on the money. Biden did slightly worse than they expected, Bernie slightly better.

On to New Hampshire, where Bernie is now a prohibitive favorite.

Well, I guess we’ve always known that, but more specifically, the results of the caucuses are fucked up.

While we wait, here are the results of the entrance polling.

Some observations

The age of voters:

Bernie’s popularity is inversely proportionate to age, and the difference is one of the most dramatic I have ever seen in demographic studies.

He is preferred by:

age 17-28: 48%
age 30-44: 33%
age 45-64: 11%
old geezers: 4%

Biden and Klobuchar’s support is exactly opposite to Bernie’s. The older the voters, the more they like those two.

Buttigieg and Warren show consistent support among all ages.

Education:

Bernie’s support resembles Trump’s in one way – he is overwhelmingly more popular with the less educated. He pulls 16% with college graduates, 30% with the non-degreed.

Issues:

• The people who care most about foreign policy prefer Biden by a landslide, and basically ignore Bernie and Warren.
• Those whose major concern is “who can beat Trump” surprisingly (to me) prefer Mayor Pete! Biden is a close second.

The Sanders surge seems to have upset the applecart

The two most recent polls (1, 2) indicate that Bernie is the most likely winner, possibly by a substantial margin

The average of those two:
Crazy Bernie 28
Sleepy Joe 18
Pocahontas 17.5
Alfred E Neuman 15

Well, I think the most likely winner of that competition is actually Donald Trump.

Which raises an important question: Do any foreign powers have any good dirt on Bernie? “Russia, if you’re listening …”

Let me digress in tone for a second to present a serious point. Trump may change his mind about Russian interference if Bernie gets the nomination. I think there’s a good chance the Russkies may prefer Bernie, on the assumption that he will hurt the American economy. Man, will the Donald be singin’ a different tune if that happens.

He’s on the rise, and now leading, in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

Both states are now lining up as follows: (1) Crazy Bernie, (2) Sleepy Joe, (3) Alfred E Neuman, (4) Pocahontas, (5) Amy “Too Boring For a Nickname” Klobuchar

Nationally, Biden is still the frontrunner, but Bernie is gaining and has opened up a massive lead over Warren. Mayor Pete has dropped to fifth, behind Bloomberg; Klobuchar is way down in seventh, behind Yang. (Yang is trending upward.)

Damn, I miss Loopy!

Lev and/or Igor taped Trump going ballistic over the ambassador to Ukraine and ordering his minions to “take her out.”

“Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.”

By the way, this excerpt is a one-one-one exchange between Trump and Parnas, the guy Trump says he doesn’t know and never had a conversation with.

Tapes are Trump’s greatest enemy. Every time independent evidence has emerged, we have seen that whenever there is a dispute between Trump and somebody else about a private conversation, Trump’s version is always a lie, but so far only Omarosa knew Trump well enough to be able to document it. (She had been working with him for years and knew exactly what to expect, so she taped everything.) I’m hoping that Lev and Igor have more!