Today, South Carolina polling gives those of us who are passionately supporting Vice President Biden hope that in politics there truly is life after death.
Monmouth poll Clemson University Palmetto poll
Joe 36 35
Bernie 16 13
Steyer 15 17
Elizabeth 8
Pete 6
Amy 4
BOTH polls were conducted BEFORE Representative James Clyburn’s endorsement of Joe Biden yesterday. Among black voters, Joe’s advantage is even more pronounced:
Joe 45
Steyer 17
Bernie 13
Timing is everything in politics. Joe’s fight for the heart of our party and the soul of our country will never die.
He certainly needs a huge win and very favorable press because . . . he’s only booked a few hundred thousand dollars of airtime across all Super Tuesday states.
Bloomberg – $183M
Steyer – $35M
Sanders – $13.5M
Klobuchar – $3.5M
Pete – $1.6M
Warren – $916K
Money isn’t everything, but the news is that Biden has little ground game in any of these states.
But, years of goodwill go a long way. He’s likely going to romp with older voters. There’s little indication that he can excite the parts of the coalition that propelled Obama to a win in 2008 but stayed home for Hillary in 2016. If he ends up pulling this out, he’ll need to build a true campaign. Unfortunately that probably means Bloomberg bankrolls everything.
Warren is now also getting support from a SuperPAC called Persist PAC. They made smaller spends in a couple earlier states but are now adding $12M (!!!) from today through Super Tuesday.
Rumors are that billionaire Steven Rales (a known Warren donor) is the sole source behind the PAC.
Rales runs Danaher corporation, a conglomerate that owns companies in biotech and various other industries.
Great!
Joe is hoping for a ‘slingshot strategy’ of a big South Carolina win tomorrow in double digits to get him free/earned media coverage. He’s booked to do Sunday interviews on all four major network TV shows including Fox. This should give him a boost heading into Super Tuesday.
Yes, I know. He is hoping that a win will generate a media narrative that will improve polling, and so on.
He is not building any kind of movement or campaign infrastructure. He does not have a strategy of outreach. He does not have a strategy of actually doing the work.
He needs his win to be really big tomorrow because he will have three days to Super Tuesday where he has a ground game in ZERO states.
I know what the strategy is. It’s also called “getting lucky.”
All the great, successful Democratic leaders of my generation have had more than their fair share of “Irish luck” in them including : JFK, Clinton, “O’Bama” and now Joe Biden! 🙂
Obama didn’t have luck, he had outrageous talent and the best campaign machine we’ve maybe ever seen.
Clinton had incredible skill, a very talented campaign, and the luck of Ross Perot running.
JFK had talent, looks, and some friends in Chicago.
Joe Biden better hope that luck comes through in a big way tomorrow and the press goes all in on hailing him the comeback kid.
Fred is rooting for a zombie apocalypse.
What the hell is that?
South Carolina has polled historically low vis-à-vis actual primary day results. Both ’08 Obama and ’16 Clinton polled 10 to 20 % lower than they ended up winning on primary election day.
Anybody can root for a good candidate. It takes a pro to push a truly hopeless one.
It goes beyond that. Biden has also surged ahead of Bloomberg in Florida.
High black turnout is critical to Democrats’ victory in November.
After South Carolina tomorrow and heavily black populated Southern states like Virginia voting on Super Tuesday, Joe Biden will be the only Democrat left standing with the chops to increase black turnout to the levels necessary to beat Trump.
AA turnout dropped from 65% in’12 to 59% in ’16 contributing to the loss of three battleground states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. We can’t win without flipping those toss ups from red to blue and I am convinced we can’t flip them without Biden as our standard bearer.
Maybe I am wrong, but Biden strikes me as someone who will have similar results with black voters as Hillary. He will perform very well in the primaries and overwhelmingly win older black voters. He will do poorly with younger voters of all kinds. In a general, turnout will lag like it did in 2016 because he does not motivate the voters, especially among less reliable groups like young voters, the way Obama was able to in 2008.
From what I have seen from Biden, he has an expectation that black voters will back him. He is not aggressively organizing or offering policies that will energize certain communities. His is a message of getting back to some state of normal, not offering a vision for the future.
I think a win in SC will reflect years of goodwill, not necessarily a strong campaign. Biden’s path to a general election is the same as Hillary’s but being a bit smarter on three states. It’s a campaign built to get back a few % here and there. That may be enough but it is a gamble.
I don’t know if anyone can bring the turnout numbers needed, but Biden’s performance to date, his overall message, and his campaign infrastructure don’t give me a lot of hope in his ability to do so.
Ultimately, winning a large share of the most reliable voters, the ones who will vote blue no matter who, but making few inroads with other groups is not a great recipe for general election success.
Let’s look for a nominee who can win some people who didn’t vote in 2016.
Also, maybe, and I know that this may sound wild, but maybe a nominee who has some capacity to attract volunteers would be good.
Biden will say to young voters what Obama said to young voters : “Don’t boo. Vote.”
let me start by eating my hat. I thought Biden was dead. Clearly he is not. A big win tomorrow will likely catapult him to a strong second on Tuesday. The best thing about that is that he may elbow out Bloomberg. And, like it or not, he probably becomes the nominee. The bad news is that he will fail to motivate turnout. We are left to hope that it doesn’t matter – democratic constituencies (minorities, women, youth) turnout anyway. Most Sanders voters will support him, but some will not. Let’s hope not too many.
That leaves the corona-virus. Too early to tell if the market panic, generated by the corona-virus, will trigger a recession. With income inequality at such a high level, I’ve wondered where demand continues to come from to drive our economy? We are overdue for a downturn. But the Trump economy has steamed forward anyway. However, at least for the moment, it seems the corona-virus is causing shutdowns in the real economy. Half the longshoremen in California have been laid off because of the slowdown in shipping due to the virus. This and other stories indicate to me that the stock market is reacting to the real economy. If the virus kicks off a real recession, Trump likely pays the price. It is a much needed gift to any democratic nominee. If it’s just a dip, and the economy quickly rebounds, much tougher for democrats.
Biden was dead, Jack. But as Terry wrote, you must die before you are resurrected.
As the son of a Golden Gloves boxer who — like Joe’s Dad– taught me to stand up after getting knocked down…
What I respect most about Joe Biden is that he fights every day for us, for his beliefs and for his country.
I believe in second chances and I believe in life after death.