It isn’t over. We have had 40% of the delegates assigned. Right now, Biden is at 664 and Bernie is at 573. That is a lead of 91 pledged delegates. That might not sound like a huge lead and it isn’t. The problem from the perspective of the Bernie Sanders campaign is that California is basically off the table and so is Texas. So, states that have a lot of delegates which were thought to favor Bernie are off the table. To make up a decent sized delegate lead, he needs to win by 20 to 30 percent at least and it has to be a big state with a lot of delegates.
Looking at the Democratic Primary Calendar, I don’t see big states with lots of delegates where Bernie will win by 20 to 30 percent. What is worse is that there are a number of big states with a lot of delegates up for grabs that are very likely to go for Biden.
Democrats abroad is next and they have 13 pledged delegates. Next we come to March 10 which has Michigan with 125 pledged delegates , Missouri with 68 pledged delegates, Mississippi with 36 pledged delegates, Washington with 89 pledged delegates, Idaho with 20 pledged delegates, and North Dakota with 14 pledged delegates. Then, March 14 we have Northern Marianas with 6 pledged delegates, then we have March 17 and Arizona has 67 pledged delegates, Florida has 219 pledged delegates, Illinois 155 pledged delegates, and Ohio with 136 pledged delegates. On March 24, we have Georgia with 105 pledged delegates. Then, we have Puerto Rico on March 29 with 51 pledged delegates.
The most recent poll has Joe Biden up 7 in Michigan. Biden doesn’t have to win it. He won the endorsement of the governor of Michigan. He just can’t have Bernie win Michigan by 30 points. That clearly isn’t going to happen. So, Bernie won’t make up much ground if any there. Biden is favored to win Missouri. Again, Biden doesn’t have to win. He simply needs to prevent Bernie from winning Missouri by 40 points and there is no danger of that occurring. The most recent SUSA poll of Washington has Biden up 1. Again, it doesn’t matter if he wins. He simply can’t get blown out by 30 points and that is not going to happen. Idaho and North Dakota don’t have enough delegates to alter the race unless Biden is not viable or he is completely blown out and even if that happened, the total delegates won would be 34 and Biden could make that up elsewhere on the same day. He isn’t likely to lose everywhere and he has all of the momentum. Biden is going to win Mississippi big and that will add to his delegate lead. Florida has 219 pledged delegates and the last poll had Biden at 61, Bloomberg at 14 and Bernie at 12. For obvious reasons, this is not favorable territory for Bernie. Bernie may not even be viable. It is a large state. Bloomberg’s voters are not going to Bernie. Biden might end up with all of the delegates and there are 219 of them up for grabs. From there, we have Illinois where Biden was endorsed by Mayor Lightfoot and Senator Durbin and he has to be considered a favorite there. Biden will be competitive with Bernie in Ohio. Biden is likely to win big in Georgia which has a large African American population. Later on, we will have New York which houses Wall Street and many financial companies and a large African American population and Biden will do well there. We will also have Pennsylvania where Biden was born and he is likely to win Pennsylvania. Demographics not debates are likely to be decisive here now that sides have been chosen. It is very likely that Biden will gain another 200 pledged delegates over the course of the rest of the month. It is difficult to conceive of him losing ground when we look at the states which will be voting and consider the two candidates.
This is why Biden is viewed as having an 88% probability of winning a majority of the pledged delegates and nobody wins a majority is only viewed as having a 10% probability of occurring and Bernie wins a majority of pledged delegates is seen as having a 2% probability of occurring.
Is it over it ? No, it is not. However, we have already had 40% of pledged delegates assigned, Biden has almost a 100 pledged delegate lead and based upon the calendar, Biden is likely to add 200 pledged delegates to his current delegate lead. It is difficult to envision Biden not adding to his pledged delegate lead looking at Florida and Mississippi and Georgia. It is almost impossible to conceive of Bernie making up the 100 pledged delegate deficit he has.
For this reason, the candidates need to be careful in their characterizations of each other. We, in all probability, know who the nominee will be: Joe Biden. We all know he has his defects and he has cast bad votes, wrote a bad bill, voted wrongly to authorize the use of military force in Iraq and isn’t a perfect candidate. None of our candidates were perfect. The other candidate remaining in the primary is not perfect either. There is no such thing as a perfect candidate. Even President Obama made mistakes as a campaigner and he was the best that there has ever been. He is a moderate. We all understand that. However, he is a good Democrat who is moving forward as the country advances. He is a good man with good character. He is almost certain to be our nominee. Attacking his character and going negative on him now when he is all but certain to be our nominee would only help Donald Trump. This doesn’t mean the other candidate can’t make contrasts, but they need to do so with perspective and carefully and with balance.
There were many factors in the loss of Hillary Clinton. The politicization by James Comey of the FBI investigation and his political remarks 10 days before the election were one reason. Secretary Clinton was demonized by her opponent and her opponent did not concede and endorse her until months after his path had been mathematically eliminated. The attacks by her opponent during the primary likely discouraged some Democratic leaning voters from voting. That very likely helped them win. That can’t happen this time. There was a difference between Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump last time. There is a difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden this time. Bernie needs to keep his surrogates in check instead of making and promoting medical diagnosis that they are not qualified to make like TYT did against Joe Biden. Bernie is responsible for his campaign and for his surrogates. The most active users on this website are mostly those of us who call ourselves progressives. Most of us didn’t suddenly become moderates whose first choice is / was Joe Biden. We saw his defects and the overwhelming majority of us favored another candidate before him. However, after our candidates had to leave the race (many of us favored Warren or Harris first and then Warren ) , then we weighed the alternatives, saw division being sown by one campaign, made our conclusions about who we felt was most likely to be in the best position to defeat Trump and also help our down ballot candidates. Despite Biden’s imperfections, we didn’t like what we saw in the division sown by the other candidate and so this is why so many of us have spoken up to call for a more positive campaign. Now that we see that Biden is likely to be the nominee, we will have little use for a huge negative campaign by Bernie’s team against Biden. We know his imperfections, but we already considered them before we stepped into this position. It won’t help him win over us or win over other voters because whatever Biden’s weaknesses (and they are legion), we see that he is likely to be the nominee and the other candidate’s weaknesses appear to be worse. We believe, despite his mistakes, that he is a good and loyal Democrat and that he is a good man with good character and he will defeat Trump.
Furthermore, Congress will determine what domestic legislative agenda is passed. We have 47 senators who caucus with us. Doug Jones will lose. That puts us at 46. Suppose Captain Mark Kelly wins AZ, we defeat Cory Gardner in Colorado, and we defeat Susan Collins in Maine with Sara Gideon. That puts us at 49. None of those wins are given. Each is uncertain. However, we might get to 49. After that, it gets really tough : KY McConnell is unpopular in KY but it is very red ? TX — Beto didn’t beat the more controversial Ted Cruz so can Cornyn be beaten ? Can we beat Tillis in NC a normally red state ? Iowa farmers are still backing Trump even though his trade war bankrupted many of them. Can Ernst be beaten there ? We aren’t favorites to win any of these. We probably won’t get to 50. Suppose we do.
That 50 will include Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Senator Manchin said, “If we cannot afford Medicare for some , then how can we afford Medicare for All?” He opposes it. West Virginia is a big coal state. He won’t support The Green New Deal either. He won’t support eliminating student debt. So, Congress won’t pass Medicare for All, The Green New Deal, nor will it approve eliminating student debt. It doesn’t, therefore, seem likely no matter who the president is, that Congress will approve these items. I doubt that Joe Biden would veto progressive legislation if it did manage to pass the Congress. Attacking Biden on these policy grounds when there aren’t the votes for it now and there won’t be the votes for it after the November elections, doesn’t make sense to me. It is my hope that the advocacy on behalf of the other candidate will be positive and when it is not that other supporters of the candidate will call out their fellow supporters if it crosses the line. If that happens, I don’t foresee retaliation and the folks supporting Biden, in that case, will have no reason to attack. In such a situation, then, neither side will attack the other. Instead, both sides will advocate positively for their respective candidates. I would say that after Florida, if it delivers the death blow that it looks poised to do, we will have a candidate who is overwhelmingly probable to be the nominee, mathematically all but guaranteed. When that happens, it is imperative that the negative against the likely nominee ceases.
Right now, we mainly need to remove Trump and Biden can do that. He will be a placeholder and he, in my view, is overwhelmingly likely to only serve one term. He will pick a female, probably a black woman, to be his running mate. Whoever serves as his running mate is likely to be the nominee in 2024. We can work on trying to get a more progressive senate over the next several years and match that more progressive senate with a more progressive president. Joe Biden is a good man and will restore respect for the rule of law and decency and empathy. He will be a good president, especially after Donald Trump. And then in 2024, we should get a progressive woman to be our nominee. Hopefully, in 2024, neither Biden nor Sanders will be running and the progressive female veep will be very likely to be the nominee.