With the caveat that I’m a soft Warren supporter, here are the dynamics I see happening post-Iowa.
1) Sanders is not Trump
A lot of people have made this comparison, that since Sanders has a hard core floor of support and his rivals are divided 4-6 ways, he could creep into a win. This falls short since the GOP is largely winner take all primaries while ours are proportional. This leads to the second dynamic.
2) IA and N.H. won’t be gatekeepers
IA self immolated it’s gatekeeper status, but even N.H. will not act as a gatekeeper. There are still 4-6 tickets out of there. If Warren gets third as she did in IA, Biden gets 4th, and Klobuchar is close behind with a double digit 5th place-all have reason to continue into South Carolina.
3) SC won’t be a gatekeeper
Unless Biden loses and Sanders wins, SC will just act as a lifeboat for the Biden candidacy keeping him afloat and stalling Buttigiegs momentum from winning IA and possibly NH as he severely underperforms in SC (barring a massive shift in his polling)
4) NV and CA will be critical
I could see NV ending Warren and Klobuchar’s campaigns if neither breaks into the top 3. It could revive Biden’s if he can win. Otherwise, I see it going to Sanders, which after Buttigieg wins in IA and NH makes it a divided race going into CA.
If Bernie wins CA, I see that giving him a lot of momentum going into Super Tuesday. If Biden collapses and Buttigieg stalls out after more diverse states vote, the stop Bernie effort will come down to Bloomberg making his firewall strategy all the more relevant to the final outcome.
Buttigieg did not win Iowa.
He and Bernie could credibly claim they won. Either way, it helped him moving onto N.H.
Nobody won in Iowa, and the entire Democratic party lost in Iowa.
Officially he did, 14-12.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see that change as recanvassing has been requested after discrepancies have been reported publicly and not fixed by the Iowa Democratic Party. The Party has announced that they must keep the known errors in the final results to preserve the process. Literally said “The incorrect math on the Caucus Math Worksheets must not be changed to ensure the integrity of the process.” None of the campaigns or party are disputing that Sanders won the first alignment (by about 6000 votes) and the second alignment. Those results translating into a 0.1% loss in State Delegate Equivalents is where the dispute lies given the known errors. Nothing should have been announced as official with this outstanding. And, of course, it’s serving to reopen all sorts of 2016 wounds. Many folks should be out of jobs in Iowa party positions very soon.
The good thing is that this disaster should hopefully spell the end of the Iowa caucus as a dominant force in our politics.
We can agree on your last sentence. There is some irony that Team Sanders demanded the popular vote counts that lead to the reporting confusion in the first place while Team Pete had a supporter who designed the app and arguably won the equivalent of the electoral college for the caucuses (which he still opposes). What a mess. I wish Sanders had called for a fully democratic primary process throughout. No small white states going first and no caucuses.
And now a paid Pete staffer (until Feb 2020, according to LinkedIn) is going to be in charge of election security for the Nevada caucus.
Very cool stuff.
Caucuses have always sucked. Bernie should have called to abolish them, but he won more of them than Hillary in 2016 and decided to put his campaign interests ahead of small d democracy. Now he is complaining they aren’t a popular vote. He’s right, but he’s a little late in my book.
Always the cynic:(
Um, California itself votes on Super Tuesday. Early voting has started there I believe, but the results will not be reported until polls close.
I suspect early voting will give the edge to Sanders.
As I see it, NV and SC will be important, but neither critical. Unfortunately, I expect Super Tuesday to become the “who can beat Sanders?” primary. My guess is that the question remains unresolved even after Super Tuesday. And in fact, it may be that none of the candidates can beat Sanders. I only hope it does not degenerate to Bloomberg vs Sanders. I doubt that it will be Biden. Could be Buttigieg. I prefer Klobuchar, though concede she is a long shot.