Supporters of candidates other than Biden:
Love you all, but it’s now time. Please repeat after me 12 times…
“These are the states that matter because it’s not a national election…These are the states that matter because it’s not a national election……”
Now repeat after me: “Yes, polls are still real after 2016….Yes, polls are still real after 2016….”
Now repeat after me: “This could our last election if we do not beat Banana…This could our last election if we do not beat Banana…”
Please share widely!
bob-gardner says
Replacing “reality based commentary” with mindless incantation.
terrymcginty says
I’ll give you some incantations:
https://youtu.be/_tn6y50Ddm4
Christopher says
Even those states it’s still helpful to split out state by state, and I’m not ready to give up on the country even if Trump were re-elected.
doubleman says
Biden’s standing in polls and performance relative to those polls this year is not something I would want to trust.
A popular two-term VP couldn’t get enough people to come out to have him finish better than 4th in two states in which he was polling a strong 1st or 2nd weeks or even days before voting???
Also, this is one set of polls. Most matchup polls show Biden and Sanders (and Bloomberg and others) doing about the same nationally and in many of those states. One exception is Florida, where Sanders does get beat badly by Trump. Is Florida necessary to win? Perhaps, but probably not. Midwest and western states are likely a much better path this year.
fredrichlariccia says
For me, ONLY the key battleground states that flipped from Obama to Trump in 2016 matter. If we win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan it’s game, set, match.
Joe Biden has the BEST chance of beating Banana here and that’s why I’m still “Riding with Biden.”
doubleman says
Yes. He has some favorable polling in these states. Everything else about his campaign to date is indicating he has the best chance of beating no one.
fredrichlariccia says
Everything else doesn’t matter. Only winning matters!
doubleman says
Yes, and he is a three-time presidential candidate and two-term popular VP who has never finished better than 4th in a primary. If only winning matters, it’s not a good case for Joe.
fredrichlariccia says
Maybe not a good case for you. BUT, for the working middle class swing voters in ‘fly over country’ battleground states, Joe IS the best case!
doubleman says
Joe lost working class voters badly to Bernie in both Iowa and NH.
fredrichlariccia says
I do not believe this country will EVER vote for a democratic socialist over a crazy capitalist on November 3.
jconway says
I share that fear-but if that’s the direction the party decides to go than I think Sanders can be competitive for the same reason Trump was competitive in the end. Most Republicans stayed home and didn’t defect. Trump won 90% of Republicans in the general despite losing 60% of them in the primary. Sanders will likely enjoy a similar dynamic, especially since Trump is so loathed and if he and his supporters do what they have yet to do and reach out to the other factions of the party.
Sanders has governed in previous roles by making bipartisan coalitions, he will have to do so again. Even if his most arrogant and delusional supporters believe this is a socialist country, I’m confident Sanders knows it is not and he’ll reach out to moderate voters as the nominee. AOC is already making overtures to the etch a sketch on Medicare for All for a general.
This delusion that suddenly sane Republicans are going to save us from Trump by voting or a Democrat is nonsense. They won’t vote for Bernie or Biden. Trump has captured 9 out of 10 Republican voters. Those 1 in 10 are likely with us with Biden or Bernie regardless. Even the prolific anti-Bernie NeverTrumpers admit time holding their nose for him in the fall. Bernie has a problem with suburban moderate women, but putting Klobuchar or Harris in his ticket solves for that.
SomervilleTom says
Those suddenly-sane Republicans (I think that’s probably an oxymoron) are much more likely to vote for Mike Bloomberg over Donald Trump, for the same reason that some suddenly insane Democrats voted for Donald Trump in 2016.
Even with his post-impeachment surge in polling, Mr. Trump still has sky-high disapproval ratings. I think Mike Bloomberg is (correctly, sadly) viewed as more Republican than any other of the Democratic candidates.
Unless he implodes during events like tonight’s debate (which is a distinct possibility, I’ll be watching tonight), I think Mike Bloomberg is going to out-Biden Joe Biden.
fredrichlariccia says
What good is it if we win the nominating battle, and LOSE the general election?
jconway says
How can your candidate win the nominating battle though? He’s toast if he’s even second place in NV or SC. He has to win to make a comeback. I don’t see him going 2-0 in those contests. He had to knock Pete and Amy out of the race back in IA and NH and not only didn’t he, he performed worse than they did. They now have more delegates and money than he does, but no viability with voters of color. The three of them and Bloomberg will keep splitting the anti-Bernie vote until the convention. If Biden and his supporters sincerely feel Bernie can’t win they should urge Joe to drop out and endorse Bloomberg. He’s exactly where Jeb! was in 2016.
Warren, Amy, Pete, and Biden are like Cruz, Rubio, Kasich and Jeb. They can’t win the nomination or block the more extreme but slightly more widely supported factional candidate in a collective fashion. I see Bernie either as the nominee or a contested convention that kills us in the fall. Barring the moderates putting the interest of the party ahead of their self interest. That would mean backing Bloomberg whom they are about to savage on the debate stage. It’s why Bernie is probably the nominee and we should all support him when he is. Just as the GOP fell in line behind Trump.
fredrichlariccia says
So now you’re back to supporting Bernie over Warren?
I’m getting dizzy.
SomervilleTom says
Can we please remember that thinking a candidate will likely win is different from supporting that candidate?
I support Elizabeth Warren. I think Mike Bloomberg is likely to win the nomination the election.
Those two statements are not contradictory. The first is a statement of preference. The second is a prediction.
Christopher says
For me it’s supporting Biden, but betting on Sanders. I still think all of us should wait until Super Tuesday, however.
fredrichlariccia says
My question was directed to jconway.
SomervilleTom says
@My question was directed at jconway:
Understood, I just think you may have misunderstood what he meant.
jconway says
I think Sanders it the likely nominee. That does not mean I am supporting Sanders. It’s also possible for a voter to support more than one candidate, which is precisely why I support ranked choice. I endorsed Warren in the past and have backed off of it when she killed her campaign with her single payer play that pleased no one. She was on fire last night and accurately said she’s the one who is bolder than the moderates and more realistic than the revolutionary. We will see if enough Nevada voters listen. For our own primary I have been undecided for awhile, a soft or lean Warren if I have to make a choice.
SomervilleTom says
I fear you’re cherry-picking.
In 2008, the key battleground states were:
In 2016, the results from those states were:
Florida: Donald Trump, 49.1/47.8
Indiana: Donald Trump, 57.2/37.9
Missouri: Donald Trump, 57.1/38.0
Montana: Donald Trump, 56.5/36.0
North Carolina: Donald Trump, 50.5/46.7
North Dakota: Donald Trump, 64.1/27.8
Ohio: Donald Trump, 52.1/43.5
There is only limited state-by-state polling data available for the 2020 election. I looked at the above 2008 battleground states in several sources. I saw no Democratic candidates outpolling Donald Trump beyond the margin of error in the 2020 election.
I think most of us agree with you and James Carville that Democrats have a moral imperative to defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 election. It seems to me that the takeaway from that moral imperative is that we spend rather less time blowing trumpets for our candidate of choice and rather more time blowing trumpets for the nominee — whomever that nominee is.
I find these relentlessly repeated and unsupported claims that only Joe Biden can defeat Donald Trump — or even that Joe Biden is most likely to defeat Donald Trump — to be counterproductive.
I despise the notion that as primary voters we are supposed to be political pundits and cast our primary vote based on who we think is best able to beat Donald Trump in November. Of all the criteria available, that is far and away the LEAST reliable. We have notoriously bad and volatile data. We have notoriously bad and volatile theory.
In the absence of either data or theory, we therefore rely on bias and personal opinion — the worst and least reliable source good decision making.
jack says
Here’s the thing about polling. Yes, it is generally an accurate reflection of what people think right now. All things being equal, one would rather be ahead in polls than behind. But has been demonstrated over and over and over again, polling today does not predict what will happen in the future – after a campaign has actually been run. With respect to Biden, as recently as this January polls had him leading in New Hampshire! What has been demonstrated is that Biden is a poor candidate. He has run for president twice before and dropped out early because he ran so poorly. If Biden can turn this thing around, he will have demonstrated he is a master campaigner. My bet it just the opposite. The Biden campaign is all but over. Furthermore, his insistence, and that of his supporters, in his remaining in the race is making it much harder for more viable candidates – Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Warren to get the traction one of them will need to overcome Bloomberg.
fredrichlariccia says
Interesting that you omitted Sanders in your list of “more viable candidates”. Was that just an oversight ?
BTW, who are you supporting, Jack?
fredrichlariccia says
Sorry, Jack. I just read your previous post and didn’t remember that you are supporting Amy Klobuchar. Good luck.
terrymcginty says
Bloomberg has not been vetted in a national presidential campaign which is very, very different from any other vetting process.
Secondly, it remains far from certain that Bloomberg will not badly split the opposition to Trump, with both many Bernie people and also many in the black community simply staying home, resulting in disaster.
By contrast, while everyone in the media seems to be treating Biden like weak tea, actually the fact that he cannot be painted by the Trump disinformation machine because the American have already known him as VP for 8 years should not be underestimated in this critical time.
We simply cannot risk badly splitting the opposition to Trump.
If he proves me wrong over the next months, fine. But I was a Bernie supporter last time; I know these people; and I cannot imagine some of them swallowing Bloomberg.
I lived in the former Soviet Union and I know Putin’s M.O. of painting opponents. The TRUTH about such opponents is utterly irrelevant.
There is a reason Trump is desperately trying to rid himself of Biden: he knows that Biden is a known quantity. This is kryptonite to Trump.
Christopher says
This appears to also be the poll that has been roundly panned for not including Warren at all.
fredrichlariccia says
I don’t know why they excluded Warren. I can only speculate that they appear to be including only those candidates that beat or are tied with Trump. Maybe that’s why Elizabeth didn’t make the cut but I really don’t know.
Just to be clear. If Elizabeth is the nominee, I would support her 100% and believe she would beat the Corrupt Banana like a drum!
SomervilleTom says
Rachel Maddow said, on air last night, that it was simply a mistake.
SomervilleTom says
Last night, MSNBC (Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell) refused to even report the poll because it omitted Ms. Warren.
This poll is useless.
jconway says
Right now polls show Bernie with a double digit lead with nearly all voters in the Democratic Party. Including self described moderates and conservatives and he’s only behind a point with black voters with Biden. Well within the margin of error. I think we have begun to see that Biden was a paper tiger frontrunner. Bernie is the front runner right now and likely nominee if the moderates do not coalesce around an alternative.
Trickle up says
I think they will. The math suggests it.
My fear is they will do so in a bad way, leading to a damaged, and perhaps flawed, nominee.
SomervilleTom says
I’m not sure I grok what you mean by “damaged” and “perhaps flawed”.
It seems to me that the alternatives to Mr. Sanders are, well, everybody else. I don’t think Mr. Biden is likely to be that, because I think Mr. Biden has positioned himself as the diametric opposite to Mr. Sanders.
I think that leaves Ms. Klobuchar, Ms. Warren, Mr. Buttigieg, and Mr. Bloomberg.
I don’t see any of those as “damaged” or “flawed”. I can see the centrists/moderates that Mr. Biden initially targeted as going to any one of the four. I can see the supporters of each of the other three going to whichever is the last candidate standing.
Ms. Warren is an interesting case, because her manner and presentation is moderate and her proposals are radical. It’s harder for me to see her supporters going to Mr. Buttigieg or even Ms. Klobuchar.
I’m not sure the hard-core supporters of Bernie Sanders will support anybody but Mr. Sanders. If that’s what you mean by “damaged” or “flawed”, then I agree.
The reason I think Mr. Bloomberg is likely to be the nominee is that he seems to be explicitly positioning himself in that role. He’s just announced his support for a Wall Street transfer tax — right out of the playbook of Mr. Sanders.
I can also see how the die-hard supporters of Mr. Sanders who will stay home rather than vote for anybody else can be offset and even swamped by voters who used to be centrist/moderate Republicans with nowhere to go in the 2020 GOP ticket. Many of those centrist/moderate Republicans are just as disgusted with Mr. Trump as any of us.
If Mr. Bloomberg does become the nominee, then I think it becomes crucial that the entire party hammer on those GOP crossovers that it does no good to remove Mr. Trump if Mr. McConnell is left as Senate Majority Leader.
Our core message MUST be that the corruption and abuse of power has to stop, and that requires removing the entire criminal organization and not just Mr. Trump.
I know it sounds like I’m talking myself into supporting Mr. Bloomberg, and I really don’t. I do prefer Mr. Bloomberg over Mr. Sanders and Mr. Biden, though.
fredrichlariccia says
So you support Warren but if she drops out you would support Bloomberg over Sanders or Biden?
SomervilleTom says
Yes. Based on the tiny little bit of information we have right now.
And, of course,, I support any of them over the Criminal in Chief.
fredrichlariccia says
Got it. Thank you.
SomervilleTom says
I’m looking forward to tonight’s debate. I expect Mr. Bloomberg to get a baptism by fire.
I’ve got the popcorn and popper ready to go.
doubleman says
Looks like Bloomberg is getting baptized, confirmed, and also getting last rites tonight.
Christopher says
Definitely popcorn-worthy!
johntmay says
Best post debate comment: Bloomberg brought a wallet to a gun fight.
Christopher says
Am I the only one looking at actual numbers? Polling was fine when that’s all we had, and my current prediction is Sanders is our nominee. However, delegates have started to be awarded and Mayor Pete has 23 of those to Bernie’s 21 so that would seem to make HIM the current frontrunner. You would think winning/virtually tying Sanders in the first two contests would give him at least co-frontrunner status, but everyone seems to be treating that as a (double?) fluke and moving on.
jconway says
Nate Silver has been complaining about this. In his view Bernie should be treated as the frontrunner since he basically tied Iowa and won N.H. Or Pete with the delegates. Instead all the post-NH coverage was about Klobuchar and all the pre-debate coverage was centered on Bloomberg.