hotair--2020-03-03--Super Tuesday open thread: Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas; <span class='red'>Update: Biden wins

Super Tuesday open thread: Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas; Update: Biden wins AL, OK, AR; Update: And Texas too?

Update : Okay , one more update .
Dave Wasserman of Cook Political Report is studying the Texas map and estimating how many votes are still out — and he ’ s detecting a distinct tinge of Joementum : It ’ ll probably be hours before a major network makes that call , but Wasserman is rarely wrong .
Update : With almost 27 percent reporting in Texas , Biden has begun to cut into Bernie ’ s four- to five-point lead .
It ’ s down to three now , 28.5/25.5 .
I ’ m going to bow out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we have many hours to go before the count is finished .
( Texas has been known not to report final results until the day after the election . )
Looks like a stalemate is shaping up — although , again , Bernie would really like to have this one so that he can say he took the biggest states on the map while the media is buzzing about “ Joementum.
” Update : California was called promptly for Bernie at 11 p.m .
ET , suggesting a comfortable win there .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s delegate gains elsewhere tonight .
But the tight race in Texas means there won ’ t be a significant delegate advantage for one man or the other from the result .
Update : An interesting question at FiveThirtyEight : Does it matter much at this point what happens in Texas and California ?
Bernie would like to win both , by whatever margins , just to have some meaningful victories to point to tonight .
But realistically it looks like we ’ re headed towards a close finish in Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the moment , Mike Bloomberg is also north of the 15 percent threshold for viability , meaning that he ’ ll get some delegates out of Texas too .
That means the delegate haul for the statewide winner should be relatively modest .
Don ’ t get me wrong — every delegate counts .
But Bernie ’ s obviously not going to assert himself as the clear frontrunner in the race tonight as everyone expected a week ago , especially with Biden having notched two momentous upsets in Massachusetts and Minnesota and an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Update : Alabama was called more than two hours ago , but with about a third of precincts reporting Bernie is hovering at around 16 percent of the vote .
If he slips below 15 percent , Biden ’ s delegate haul from the state will increase .
Which means Bernie ’ s presumptive victory in California will do even less than expected in padding his national delegate count vis-a-vis Biden .
Update : The count in Texas is slow but Bernie ’ s four- to five-point lead has held up so far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minutes before 10 p.m .
ET , the WSJ projects Arkansas will also go for Joe Biden .
Texas is the last state on the board here .
I hope we get a result before the wee hours .
In the meantime , let ’ s not overlook the raw insanity of not just what Biden ’ s doing tonight but how he ’ s done it : Update : Ah , here ’ s a fun result from Texas while we wait for the presidential results : Cisneros was the most well-known @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by AOC this year , and she ’ s fallen flat here .
I wonder if that result would have been different if not for the surge in Joementum over the past 72 hours .
Biden ’ s strong showing tonight may have brought more Cueller-friendly moderate Texas voters than anyone was expecting .
How much of Bernie ’ s “ revolution ” is/was just anti-Hillary sentiment that ’ s now petered out ?
Update : Here ’ s Joementum captured in a single data set , and why Biden has hope of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Update : Sounds like it ’ ll be tight in Texas : Update : Even if Biden ends up narrowly losing Texas and California , he ’ s having a good night nationally and Bloomberg very much is not .
Which may end up granting him his fondest short-term wish , a total resolution of the “ muddle in the middle.
” Ahem : Update : It took 68 minutes of returns but the AP has now called Oklahoma for Biden .
He ’ s up by 12 points with 75 percent reporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ ll win Arkansas too now , so it ’ s all down to Texas for a clean sweep of these four .
Update : Still very early in Texas but right now Sanders , Biden , and Mike Bloomberg are all north of the 15 percent threshold and Elizabeth Warren is on the cusp .
If all four clear the bar , even a Bernie statewide victory won ’ t produce the sort of delegate windfall for him that it might otherwise have .
Update : Ah , a good note @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , per CNN : 77 percent of Texas voters said they decided on their vote early , before the last few days .
Maybe Joementum will be muted there .
Update : Is the surprisingly tight early vote in Texas less of a good omen for Biden than we think ?
Nate Cohn makes the case : Yep , the AP has Bernie ahead by six points with 21 percent of precincts reporting .
Now we wait to see if the Election Day vote shows up in Texas for Biden as forcefully as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no call in Oklahoma , but with nearly two-thirds of precincts reporting Biden leads Sanders by six points .
He seems headed for a win there too , although not by blowout margins a la Virginia .
On the other hand , OK was a Bernie state in 2016 .
He ’ s losing , not gaining , ground .
Update : Another good omen for Biden from Texas : Sure looks like he ’ s going to sweep all four states I ’ m covering here .
Update : Nate Cohn of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to win the most delegates tonight — a shocking turnabout given the expectations around 120 hours ago that Bernie would run up the score on Super Tuesday .
Update : FiveThirtyEight notes that the electorate in tonight was *not* majority African-American , as it was four years ago .
Whites were 51 percent of voters .
Didn ’ t matter for Joe : He won them by 27 points .
Update : You ’ d expect early voting in Texas , a supposedly tight race , to skew towards Bernie since many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dominating the race .
But that ’ s not what we see : Literally one week ago we were gaming out Super Tuesday as the night Sanders would become the de facto presumptive nominee .
It may turn out to be the night *Biden* becomes the presumptive nominee .
Update : Will Bernie hit the 15 percent mark in Alabama and qualify for delegates there , or will Biden take the whole haul ?
Hmmmm : Update : It ’ s 8 p.m. and the polls are finally closed in Alabama and Oklahoma @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to call but Alabama has been called — a Biden landslide , as expected , thanks to its majority African-American electorate .
This was a foregone conclusion ; the real stunners thus far this evening are North Carolina and Virginia , where Biden is north of 50 percent with more than 70 percent of the vote in .
He ’ s blowing the doors off there , in a state where Bernie competed hard .
Update : Based on the results in Virginia and North Carolina — two states that seemed close-ish just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , very real .
How real ?
His entire argument for nominating him is that he ’ ll unleash the youth vote in November .
He can ’ t even unleash it now !
Update : The only candidate left who ’ s spent less on ads than Joe Biden is Tulsi Gabbard , notes Chris Cillizza .
If Joe cleans up tonight , it ’ ll be a lab-quality experiment that a candidate with very , very high name recognition doesn ’ t need much advertising to parlay one big win into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ start with a few paragraphs on the state of Joementum , but you know all about that already if you read this post .
And even if you didn ’ t , this new national poll from Morning Consult should tell you all you need to know .
Two days ago Bernie led 29/26 .
Today ?
In almost 15 years of blogging elections I don ’ t know if I ’ ve ever seen a momentum shift like that .
It ’ s anyone ’ s guess how big the break towards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now that Buttigieg and Klobuchar have endorsed him .
That ’ s not to suggest he ’ ll win everywhere ; he ’ s all but certain to finish behind Bernie in the most delegate-rich state on the map , in fact .
But no one should be surprised if Biden outperforms his polling this evening the same way he did in South Carolina a few days ago .
In particular , he may blow the doors off in more than one of the states I ’ m covering .
The deep south @ @ @ @ @ @ @ share of black voters in the primaries there .
The southwest is less predictable , but Biden is now favored in FiveThirtyEight ’ s model to finish first there too .
You can think of these four contests as being on a spectrum of certainty , in fact : 1 .
Alabama ’ s electorate was 54 percent African-American in the 2016 primary .
That ’ s a Biden landslide in the making .
2 .
Arkansas ’ s electorate tilts towards whites but more than a quarter of voters there in 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ semi-native daughter , handled Bernie easily in 2016 because of it .
Biden should have little difficulty too , especially at a moment when he ’ s surging nationally .
FiveThirtyEight gives him a 69 percent chance of winning with Mike Bloomberg , not Bernie , the biggest threat to defeat him .
The new Data for Progress poll that I wrote about this morning found Biden ahead by 13 points .
3 .
Oklahoma was a Bernie state in the 2016 primary , with Sanders defeating Clinton by a comfortable 10-point margin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the primary electorate four years ago , making this a heavier lift for Joe .
Even so , Data for Progress found him up seven points there over the weekend .
FiveThirtyEight actually gives him better odds of winning here , 78 percent , than in Arkansas .
4 .
Texas is the real prize tonight and the outcome that ’ s most in doubt .
Sift through the polling over the last few months and you ’ ll find that the state has been bouncy .
Right up until the eve of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , sometimes by blowout margins .
Then Bernie won Iowa and New Hampshire and things took a turn : Sanders led eight straight polls of Texas between mid-February and the start of March .
An Emerson poll taken on Saturday and Sunday found him still ahead by five — but today ’ s Data for Progress survey shows Biden surging back into a narrow two-point lead .
It ’ s anyone ’ s ballgame , although FiveThirtyEight narrowly favors Biden ( 55 percent chance to win ) over Sanders ( 43 percent ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hillary won this state handily in 2016 .
Last night ’ s party unity rally in Dallas featuring Buttigieg , Klobuchar , and Texas ’ s own Beto O ’ Rourke may help too .
It may be , in fact , that the outcome in Texas drives the national media narrative on the race tomorrow .
The state would be closely watched tonight regardless since it ’ s the second-biggest delegate haul at stake and famously trended purple in the 2018 midterms , but because California takes so long to count its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no clarity from the west coast when reporters sit down to weigh the overall state of play late tonight .
If Biden stuns Bernie with an easy win in Texas — or vice versa — that ’ ll be taken as a leading indicator of who ’ s likely to end up as the nominee .
Especially since Texas is racially diverse and the two key minority groups there are expected to go different ways .
Will Bernie ’ s Latino base prevail or will Joe ’ s base of black voters ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 19 percent black four years ago .
Watch those numbers tonight .
If you ’ re following returns , don ’ t get completely caught up in the Biden vs. Bernie showdown .
Remember that each of them has an also-ran candidate crowding their “ lane ” of the primary who may reach the magic number of 15 percent viability statewide and in individual districts , which means that that candidate will get a cut of the state ’ s total pool of delegates .
In the four I ’ m covering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has to worry about an also-ran more so than Bernie : Mike Bloomberg is the X factor , having spent a combined $ 66 million in these states — including $ 52 million in Texas alone — to try to get a piece of the delegate pie .
Some of the biggest suspense this evening is whether Bloomberg ’ s support will hang in there at levels of 15 percent or better , which will reduce the delegate haul that the winner will get from a particular state , or whether Joementum will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s voters into Biden ’ s column .
The best-case scenario for Joe tonight is a clean sweep of all four with Bloomy missing the 15 percent threshold in each .
Not only will that mean a delegate bonanza for Joe but it might convince Bloomberg to quit immediately .
And of course the same goes for Bernie and Elizabeth Warren elsewhere .
Any place where Sanders wins but Warren clears the 15 percent bar — in California , possibly — means a lighter haul of delegates for Bernie .
And given the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden , every delegate counts .
Thanks to California , it may be weeks before we know how all of the delegates at stake nationally tonight were awarded among the candidates .
But here ’ s a rule of thumb from Cory Booker ’ s former campaign manager about how to judge if it was a good or bad showing by Bernie : As I write this on Tuesday afternoon , Nate Silver ’ s model suddenly has Biden ’ s odds of winning a plurality ( not a majority ) of delegates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Expectations for Joementum are sky high — maybe unreasonably so .
The polls close in Alabama and Oklahoma at 8 p.m .
ET , in Arkansas at 8:30 ET , and in Texas at 8 and 9 p.m ET .
Updates will be posted at the top of this thread .
One question to bear in mind as this gets going : Will coronavirus jitters affect turnout ?
I ask because , in reading up on Texas today , I ran across this story about some poll workers not showing up to work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leading to delays at some polling places .
If turnout is lower than expected nationally , that might explain why .
And that might bode well for Sanders , whose cultish followers are more likely to show up to serve The Cause than the “ meh , fine , I ’ ll vote for Joe ” moderate contingent .

Update: Okay, one more update. Dave Wasserman of Cook Political Report is studying the Texas map and estimating how many votes are still out — and he’s detecting a distinct tinge of Joementum:
I've seen enough. Projection: Joe Biden wins the Texas primary. — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 4, 2020
It’ll probably be hours before a major network makes that call, but Wasserman is rarely wrong.
Update: With almost 27 percent reporting in Texas, Biden has begun to cut into Bernie’s four- to five-point lead. It’s down to three now, 28.5/25.5. I’m going to bow out on that note, in the expectation that we have many hours to go before the count is finished. (Texas has been known not to report final results until the day after the election.) Looks like a stalemate is shaping up — although, again, Bernie would really like to have this one so that he can say he took the biggest states on the map while the media is buzzing about “Joementum.”
Update: California was called promptly for Bernie at 11 p.m. ET, suggesting a comfortable win there. That’ll offset a chunk of Biden’s delegate gains elsewhere tonight. But the tight race in Texas means there won’t be a significant delegate advantage for one man or the other from the result.
Update: An interesting question at FiveThirtyEight: Does it matter much at this point what happens in Texas and California?
In light of Biden’s big upset in Minnesota and the fact that this is now his seventh win of the evening — he’s also leading in Massachusetts (which would be another big upset) and Maine — how much do California and Texas matter at this point for Sanders, especially if the result in Texas is super close? In other words, as we near 11 p.m. on the East Coast, how much of this “Biden surges” narrative is intractable?
Bernie would like to win both, by whatever margins, just to have some meaningful victories to point to tonight. But realistically it looks like we’re headed towards a close finish in Texas regardless of which candidate wins; at the moment, Mike Bloomberg is also north of the 15 percent threshold for viability, meaning that he’ll get some delegates out of Texas too. That means the delegate haul for the statewide winner should be relatively modest. Don’t get me wrong — every delegate counts. But Bernie’s obviously not going to assert himself as the clear frontrunner in the race tonight as everyone expected a week ago, especially with Biden having notched two momentous upsets in Massachusetts and Minnesota and an impressive victory in Virginia. I mean…
Kornacki predicts that Biden will have an 80-90 delegate lead over Bernie when all the non-California ballots are counted. "Biden can get out tonight ahead in delegates." — Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) March 4, 2020
Update: Alabama was called more than two hours ago, but with about a third of precincts reporting Bernie is hovering at around 16 percent of the vote. If he slips below 15 percent, Biden’s delegate haul from the state will increase. Which means Bernie’s presumptive victory in California will do even less than expected in padding his national delegate count vis-a-vis Biden.
Update: The count in Texas is slow but Bernie’s four- to five-point lead has held up so far.
Update: And at a few minutes before 10 p.m. ET, the WSJ projects Arkansas will also go for Joe Biden. Texas is the last state on the board here. I hope we get a result before the wee hours. In the meantime, let’s not overlook the raw insanity of not just what Biden’s doing tonight but how he’s done it:
Joe Biden is mopping the floor in states that he never visited, where he opened zero field offices, and where he spent next to nothing on TV. — Matt Viser (@mviser) March 4, 2020
Update: Ah, here’s a fun result from Texas while we wait for the presidential results:
https://twitter.com/brent_peabody/status/1235033222548987904
Cisneros was the most well-known primary challenger to a Democratic incumbent backed by AOC this year, and she’s fallen flat here. I wonder if that result would have been different if not for the surge in Joementum over the past 72 hours. Biden’s strong showing tonight may have brought more Cueller-friendly moderate Texas voters than anyone was expecting.
Update: An excellent point:
Oklahoma is the cleanest test tonight of how much of Sanders’s 2016 vote was simply anti-Clinton. In 2016 exit poll, Sanders won OK independents by 48 points, and only lost moderates by 1 point. Tonight he’s up just 14 with independents, losing moderates by 36. #SuperTuesday — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 4, 2020
How much of Bernie’s “revolution” is/was just anti-Hillary sentiment that’s now petered out?
Update: Here’s Joementum captured in a single data set, and why Biden has hope of pulling it out in Texas tonight.
Decided in the last few days via @CNN exit polls: AL: 62% Biden, 13% Sanders
TN: 61% Biden, 16% Sanders
VA: 60% Biden, 17% Sanders
MN: 55% Biden, 21% Sanders
TX: 49% Biden, 21% Sanders
OK: 45% Biden, 17% Sanders
NC: 43% Biden, 22% Sanders
ME: 42% Biden, 19% Sanders — Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) March 4, 2020
Update: Sounds like it’ll be tight in Texas:
The Texas exit poll confirms what we're seeing in the results: a very tight race here between Biden & Sanders. A reason why: a third of the electorate is Hispanic, & Sanders won 45-24 among them. — Taniel (@Taniel) March 4, 2020
Update: Even if Biden ends up narrowly losing Texas and California, he’s having a good night nationally and Bloomberg very much is not. Which may end up granting him his fondest short-term wish, a total resolution of the “muddle in the middle.” Ahem:
NBC News: Mike Bloomberg to reasses his campaign tomorrow — Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) March 4, 2020
Update: It took 68 minutes of returns but the AP has now called Oklahoma for Biden. He’s up by 12 points with 75 percent reporting. It seems all but certain that he’ll win Arkansas too now, so it’s all down to Texas for a clean sweep of these four.
Update: Still very early in Texas but right now Sanders, Biden, and Mike Bloomberg are all north of the 15 percent threshold and Elizabeth Warren is on the cusp. If all four clear the bar, even a Bernie statewide victory won’t produce the sort of delegate windfall for him that it might otherwise have.
Update: Ah, a good note for Bernie in the Texas exit poll, per CNN: 77 percent of Texas voters said they decided on their vote early, before the last few days. Maybe Joementum will be muted there.
Update: Is the surprisingly tight early vote in Texas less of a good omen for Biden than we think? Nate Cohn makes the case:
It's tough to game this out.
On the one hand, this is a good result for Biden compared to our expectations
OTOH, early voters are old and so maybe the election day vote won't be as great as you think if it's disproportionately young https://t.co/TkLZLk3r2E — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) March 4, 2020
More context from Henry Olsen:
For people following the TX early vote, it's almost all from Dallas and Harris (Houston) counties. This is the black vote's base. Latino San Antonio (Bexar) and El Paso counties not in, and Austin (Travis) not in either. Expect Bernie to lead the early vote once they drop. — Henry Olsen (@henryolsenEPPC) March 4, 2020
Yep, the AP has Bernie ahead by six points with 21 percent of precincts reporting. Now we wait to see if the Election Day vote shows up in Texas for Biden as forcefully as it has elsewhere.
Update: Still no call in Oklahoma, but with nearly two-thirds of precincts reporting Biden leads Sanders by six points. He seems headed for a win there too, although not by blowout margins a la Virginia. On the other hand, OK was a Bernie state in 2016. He’s losing, not gaining, ground.
Sanders's pledge to bring new voters into his movement seems fairly empty in the results we're seeing so far. His coalition has shrunk since 2016, not grown. — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 4, 2020
Update: Another good omen for Biden from Texas:
Dallas County, TX (early vote): Biden 27%
Sanders 25%
Bloomberg 20%
Warren 11%
Buttigieg 9% If Biden won the early vote there, it's a good omen for his prospects statewide. — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 4, 2020
Sure looks like he’s going to sweep all four states I’m covering here.
Update: Nate Cohn of the NYT says Biden is now favored to win the most delegates tonight — a shocking turnabout given the expectations around 120 hours ago that Bernie would run up the score on Super Tuesday.
Update: FiveThirtyEight notes that the electorate in tonight was *not* majority African-American, as it was four years ago. Whites were 51 percent of voters. Didn’t matter for Joe: He won them by 27 points.
Update: You’d expect early voting in Texas, a supposedly tight race, to skew towards Bernie since many of those ballots were cast when Sanders was dominating the race. But that’s not what we see:
Batch of TX early votes (Buttigieg at 9%, Klob at 4%) show Biden nearly tied, so he's probably won there too. pic.twitter.com/OTvJhQGTdH — Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) March 4, 2020
Literally one week ago we were gaming out Super Tuesday as the night Sanders would become the de facto presumptive nominee. It may turn out to be the night *Biden* becomes the presumptive nominee.
Update: Will Bernie hit the 15 percent mark in Alabama and qualify for delegates there, or will Biden take the whole haul? Hmmmm:
Biden leading exit polls in AL roughly 60% to 20% over Sanders. The key question is whether Sanders hits 15% in #AL07, the only African-American majority district in the state. If not, it's a four-delegate swing for Biden. — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 4, 2020
Update: It’s 8 p.m. and the polls are finally closed in Alabama and Oklahoma. The latter is momentarily too close to call but Alabama has been called — a Biden landslide, as expected, thanks to its majority African-American electorate. This was a foregone conclusion; the real stunners thus far this evening are North Carolina and Virginia, where Biden is north of 50 percent with more than 70 percent of the vote in. He’s blowing the doors off there, in a state where Bernie competed hard.
Update: Based on the results in Virginia and North Carolina — two states that seemed close-ish just a week ago — Joementum is very, very real. How real?
If Biden can win TX and keep CA within single digits, he'll likely exit Super Tuesday with a delegate lead that's close to insurmountable. — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 4, 2020
Update: A good early omen for Bernie?
Update: A poor early omen for Bernie:
Breaking news: young people still don't vote. In NBC News exit poll, 13 percent of voters were between 18-29 — Shannon Pettypiece (@spettypi) March 3, 2020
His entire argument for nominating him is that he’ll unleash the youth vote in November. He can’t even unleash it now!
Update: The only candidate left who’s spent less on ads than Joe Biden is Tulsi Gabbard, notes Chris Cillizza. If Joe cleans up tonight, it’ll be a lab-quality experiment that a candidate with very, very high name recognition doesn’t need much advertising to parlay one big win into a national electoral force.
***
We could start with a few paragraphs on the state of Joementum, but you know all about that already if you read this post. And even if you didn’t, this new national poll from Morning Consult should tell you all you need to know. Two days ago Bernie led 29/26. Today?
Bro.
In almost 15 years of blogging elections I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a momentum shift like that. It’s anyone’s guess how big the break towards Biden might be tonight coast to coast now that Buttigieg and Klobuchar have endorsed him. That’s not to suggest he’ll win everywhere; he’s all but certain to finish behind Bernie in the most delegate-rich state on the map, in fact. But no one should be surprised if Biden outperforms his polling this evening the same way he did in South Carolina a few days ago.
In particular, he may blow the doors off in more than one of the states I’m covering. The deep south is Biden country thanks to the large share of black voters in the primaries there. The southwest is less predictable, but Biden is now favored in FiveThirtyEight’s model to finish first there too. You can think of these four contests as being on a spectrum of certainty, in fact:
1. Alabama’s electorate was 54 percent African-American in the 2016 primary. That’s a Biden landslide in the making.
2. Arkansas’s electorate tilts towards whites but more than a quarter of voters there in 2016 were black. Hillary Clinton, a semi-native daughter, handled Bernie easily in 2016 because of it. Biden should have little difficulty too, especially at a moment when he’s surging nationally. FiveThirtyEight gives him a 69 percent chance of winning with Mike Bloomberg, not Bernie, the biggest threat to defeat him. The new Data for Progress poll that I wrote about this morning found Biden ahead by 13 points.
3. Oklahoma was a Bernie state in the 2016 primary, with Sanders defeating Clinton by a comfortable 10-point margin. African-Americans were just 14 percent of the primary electorate four years ago, making this a heavier lift for Joe. Even so, Data for Progress found him up seven points there over the weekend. FiveThirtyEight actually gives him better odds of winning here, 78 percent, than in Arkansas.
4. Texas is the real prize tonight and the outcome that’s most in doubt. Sift through the polling over the last few months and you’ll find that the state has been bouncy. Right up until the eve of the Iowa caucus Biden was leading steadily, sometimes by blowout margins. Then Bernie won Iowa and New Hampshire and things took a turn: Sanders led eight straight polls of Texas between mid-February and the start of March. An Emerson poll taken on Saturday and Sunday found him still ahead by five — but today’s Data for Progress survey shows Biden surging back into a narrow two-point lead. It’s anyone’s ballgame, although FiveThirtyEight narrowly favors Biden (55 percent chance to win) over Sanders (43 percent) partly because of Joementum and partly because Hillary won this state handily in 2016. Last night’s party unity rally in Dallas featuring Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Texas’s own Beto O’Rourke may help too.
It may be, in fact, that the outcome in Texas drives the national media narrative on the race tomorrow. The state would be closely watched tonight regardless since it’s the second-biggest delegate haul at stake and famously trended purple in the 2018 midterms, but because California takes so long to count its votes there’s apt to be no clarity from the west coast when reporters sit down to weigh the overall state of play late tonight. If Biden stuns Bernie with an easy win in Texas — or vice versa — that’ll be taken as a leading indicator of who’s likely to end up as the nominee. Especially since Texas is racially diverse and the two key minority groups there are expected to go different ways. Will Bernie’s Latino base prevail or will Joe’s base of black voters? The Texas electorate was 32 percent Latino and 19 percent black four years ago. Watch those numbers tonight.
If you’re following returns, don’t get completely caught up in the Biden vs. Bernie showdown. Remember that each of them has an also-ran candidate crowding their “lane” of the primary who may reach the magic number of 15 percent viability statewide and in individual districts, which means that that candidate will get a cut of the state’s total pool of delegates. In the four I’m covering here, it’s Biden who has to worry about an also-ran more so than Bernie: Mike Bloomberg is the X factor, having spent a combined $66 million in these states — including $52 million in Texas alone — to try to get a piece of the delegate pie. Some of the biggest suspense this evening is whether Bloomberg’s support will hang in there at levels of 15 percent or better, which will reduce the delegate haul that the winner will get from a particular state, or whether Joementum will carry some critical mass of Bloomberg’s voters into Biden’s column. The best-case scenario for Joe tonight is a clean sweep of all four with Bloomy missing the 15 percent threshold in each. Not only will that mean a delegate bonanza for Joe but it might convince Bloomberg to quit immediately.
And of course the same goes for Bernie and Elizabeth Warren elsewhere. Any place where Sanders wins but Warren clears the 15 percent bar — in California, possibly — means a lighter haul of delegates for Bernie. And given the way things are going between him and Biden, every delegate counts.
Thanks to California, it may be weeks before we know how all of the delegates at stake nationally tonight were awarded among the candidates. But here’s a rule of thumb from Cory Booker’s former campaign manager about how to judge if it was a good or bad showing by Bernie:
Agree with Mark that this is the likely spread once all is said and done – Sanders by somewhere between 50-250 delegates. Four days ago I would have said 150-350 so that is a pretty dramatic shift. https://t.co/2DF1axYLYa — Addisu Demissie (@ASDem) March 3, 2020
As I write this on Tuesday afternoon, Nate Silver’s model suddenly has Biden’s odds of winning a plurality (not a majority) of delegates before the convention at 65 percent. Expectations for Joementum are sky high — maybe unreasonably so. The polls close in Alabama and Oklahoma at 8 p.m. ET, in Arkansas at 8:30 ET, and in Texas at 8 and 9 p.m ET. Updates will be posted at the top of this thread. One question to bear in mind as this gets going: Will coronavirus jitters affect turnout? I ask because, in reading up on Texas today, I ran across this story about some poll workers not showing up to work for fear of catching the disease, leading to delays at some polling places. If turnout is lower than expected nationally, that might explain why. And that might bode well for Sanders, whose cultish followers are more likely to show up to serve The Cause than the “meh, fine, I’ll vote for Joe” moderate contingent.


hotair--2020-03-03--Super Tuesday open thread: California, Colorado, Utah <span class='red'>Update: Sanders wins Califor

Super Tuesday open thread: California, Colorado, Utah Update: Sanders wins California, Colorado and Utah

Update 12:08 am ET : Just 24 % of the California vote is counted at this point .
Current results from the NY Times .
Update 11:01 pm ET : Fox News calls California for Sanders and here ’ s the call from the AP as well .
With 62 % of the vote in , NBC has Sanders at 31.5 % followed by Bloomberg ( 19 % ) , Warren ( 15.3 % ) , Buttigieg ( 13.9 % ) , and Joe Biden in 5th place at 12.8 percent .
With 77 % of the vote in , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Bloomberg is 2nd with 23.5 % , and Biden is 3rd with 20.5 % .
Why wasn ’ t there a Biden surge in Colorado ?
Probably because of early voting : California is the big prize today with 415 delegates .
It ’ s also the state that , as of last week , was expected to be a blowout for Bernie Sanders .
Last Friday the LA Times reported he held a 2-1 lead in the state .
Joe Biden ’ s numbers were down into single digits in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t the only poll showing Sanders with a commanding lead in the state .
Glenn Greenwald highlighted this USA Today poll : But a lot has happened since both of those polls were taken .
Joe Biden had a big win in South Carolina and Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar both dropped out and endorsed Biden .
Suddenly , it looks like Biden could pull out a reasonably strong second place in California instead of 3rd or 4th place : The RCP average shows Sanders winning over Biden by 12 points .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might be a bad night for him and if he does better than that he ’ s having a pretty good night .
This Decision Desk widget will automatically update with results once the polls close .
Because a lot of Californians vote by mail we won ’ t have final results tonight or even this week .
Still we should get an idea of how things are going once polls close at 11 pm ET .
Colorado polling looks a lot like polling in California .
As of last week , Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ competitor ( Elizabeth Warren ) somewhere between 11-20 points behind .
But once again , those polls were taken before South Carolina so there ’ s no telling what impact that might have .
Also , early voting has been open in Colorado since last Monday so some of the people who might have been impacted by the late Buttigieg/Klobuchar endorsements of Biden have already cast their votes .
The last polling published today showed Biden surging into a statistical tie with Warren .
There are 67 delegates at stake .
Polls close @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Utah has just 29 delegates and there hasn ’ t been a lot of polling in the state .
RCP shows just three polls but they do , perhaps , indicate a late surge for Biden .
Last month Sanders was in the high 20s with Biden 15 points behind .
But a Data for Progress poll completed Monday shows Biden surging to within 6 points of Sanders .
And even that poll started before South Carolina ’ s results , so it ’ s possible we ’ re still not seeing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the last few days .
Polls close in Utah at 10 pm ET .
I ’ ll update this post throughout the night .

Update 12:08 am ET: Just 24% of the California vote is counted at this point. Current results from the NY Times.
Sanders 28.4%
Bloomberg 19%
Biden 16.8%
Update 11:01 pm ET: Fox News calls California for Sanders and here’s the call from the AP as well.
BREAKING: Bernie Sanders wins Democratic presidential primary in California, claiming biggest prize on Super Tuesday. https://t.co/FZHkka7C1w — The Associated Press (@AP) March 4, 2020
Update 10:30 pm ET: Sanders wins Utah.
BREAKING: Sen. Bernie Sanders wins Utah Democratic Primary, NBC News projects. https://t.co/zt8BBZiDiF pic.twitter.com/F50HO2VbTr — NBC News (@NBCNews) March 4, 2020
With 62% of the vote in, NBC has Sanders at 31.5% followed by Bloomberg (19%), Warren (15.3%), Buttigieg (13.9%), and Joe Biden in 5th place at 12.8 percent.
Update 9:43 pm ET: Sanders has won Colorado.
Bernie Sanders wins the Colorado Democratic presidential primary, his second victory on a Super Tuesday that has seen Joe Biden win a trio of Southern states. https://t.co/f3y6VnAzO8 — The Associated Press (@AP) March 4, 2020
With 77% of the vote in, NBC News reports Sanders has 36.3%, Bloomberg is 2nd with 23.5%, and Biden is 3rd with 20.5%.
Why wasn’t there a Biden surge in Colorado? Probably because of early voting:
No surprise that the Biden surge came to a halt in Colorado: it's the state where advance vote made up the largest share of the likely electorate–60 percent returned by SC, by our estimates — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) March 4, 2020
[End updates]
California is the big prize today with 415 delegates. It’s also the state that, as of last week, was expected to be a blowout for Bernie Sanders. Last Friday the LA Times reported he held a 2-1 lead in the state. Joe Biden’s numbers were down into single digits in the same poll. And that wasn’t the only poll showing Sanders with a commanding lead in the state. Glenn Greenwald highlighted this USA Today poll:
“Sanders holds a commanding double-digit lead on the cusp of California's Dem primary, a new Suffolk University/USA TODAY statewide poll finds”: likely to win most if not all of delegates, making "it much more difficult for other candidates to catch up” https://t.co/FPnrChfQiS pic.twitter.com/xj6sd5ccwK — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 2, 2020
But a lot has happened since both of those polls were taken. Joe Biden had a big win in South Carolina and Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar both dropped out and endorsed Biden. Suddenly, it looks like Biden could pull out a reasonably strong second place in California instead of 3rd or 4th place:
The RCP average shows Sanders winning over Biden by 12 points. So if Biden does worse than that it might be a bad night for him and if he does better than that he’s having a pretty good night.
This Decision Desk widget will automatically update with results once the polls close. Because a lot of Californians vote by mail we won’t have final results tonight or even this week. Still we should get an idea of how things are going once polls close at 11 pm ET.
Colorado polling looks a lot like polling in California. As of last week, Sanders was in the mid-thirties with his closest competitor (Elizabeth Warren) somewhere between 11-20 points behind. But once again, those polls were taken before South Carolina so there’s no telling what impact that might have. Also, early voting has been open in Colorado since last Monday so some of the people who might have been impacted by the late Buttigieg/Klobuchar endorsements of Biden have already cast their votes. The last polling published today showed Biden surging into a statistical tie with Warren. There are 67 delegates at stake. Polls close in Colorado at 9 pm ET.
Utah has just 29 delegates and there hasn’t been a lot of polling in the state. RCP shows just three polls but they do, perhaps, indicate a late surge for Biden. Last month Sanders was in the high 20s with Biden 15 points behind. But a Data for Progress poll completed Monday shows Biden surging to within 6 points of Sanders. And even that poll started before South Carolina’s results, so it’s possible we’re still not seeing the full extent of the swing toward Biden in the last few days. Polls close in Utah at 10 pm ET.
I’ll update this post throughout the night.


hotair--2020-03-03--Super Tuesday open thread: Minnesota, Massachusetts, Vermont; <span class='red'>Updates: Bernie wins

Super Tuesday open thread: Minnesota, Massachusetts, Vermont; Updates: Bernie wins VT; Bloomberg wins! (American Samoa); Biden surge hits MA; Whoa -- AP calls MN for Biden; Boom: AP, Fox call MA for Biden

10:53 — This is the biggest surprise of the night .
Not only did Warren fail to win her home state , Sanders also lost his neighboring state — to a guy who barely campaigned there : Fox called it for Biden a few minutes earlier .
Bernie ’ s still insisting that he ’ ll march to Milwaukee and win the nomination , but even if he gets a delegate windfall out of California , he ’ s going to be essentially tied with no path to a first-ballot majority for either candidate .
10:47 — 74.5 % of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and environs ) , and it ’ s now less than a point separating Sanders and Biden .
Whatever else happens in Suffolk , there ’ s not enough votes left there to overcome Biden ’ s 42,000-vote lead with 56 % of all precincts reporting .
10:38 — Still no call in MA , but we ’ re at 49 % of precincts reporting and Biden ’ s still up by almost six points , 33.22/27.56 , with Warren in third at 21.65 % .
Got ta think a call will come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earlier point , what does Ilhan Omar ’ s inability to deliver Hennepin County for Bernie mean for her own political future ?
She endorsed Bernie and campaigned for him , but it either had no effect in her home district or perhaps even backfired .
The primary for congressional races comes on August 11 , and Omar already has three Democrats challenging her .
More might jump in after this , or perhaps the money will line up behind one in particular .
10:19 — Here ’ s a fun fact of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Suffolk County precincts reporting , Sanders only edges Biden by less than two points .
In Boston .
10:13 — I ’ m inclined to go with Dave Wasserman ’ s call here : Nobody ’ s calling this yet , but I ’ m wondering how much longer that will be .
9:59 — Looking back to Massachusetts , Biden ’ s still up by five-plus points ( 33.59/28.18 ) with 30 % of precincts reporting .
Warren still way off the pace at 20.8 % .
This might be the biggest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hold on to win it .
Omar ’ s district is mostly Hennepin County , just to be clear .
What a # fail .
This raises a question as to whether Omar herself might be vulnerable in the later congressional primary .
9:51 — I am a little surprised on that call .
Sanders might still have some strength in Ramsey , but I suspect — and the AP must as well — that any strength would be limited to Ramsey .
Dakota County will likely go with Biden , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Amy Klobuchar ’ s endorsement carried a significant amount of weight , it seems .
Four years ago , there were a lot of Bernie yard signs in Hennepin and Ramsey .
9:48 — Looks like the AP saw what I saw in the exits and the early returns : 9:35 — Our polls have only been closed 35 minutes and already we have the same percentage of precincts reporting as Massachusetts .
Surprisingly , Biden ’ s ahead in both states with ~17 % reporting , 36/28 in MA and 35/32 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Paul ) hasn ’ t come in at all , but Biden ’ s edging Sanders in Hennepin 35/33 with 88 % of precincts reporting .
That ’ s a shock , given Hennepin ’ s academic identity .
9:15 — More from the exit polls in MN : Biden wins among college graduates of all types 34/26 over Sanders and those without college degrees , 39/34 .
Biden lost big among younger voters , 17/50 with voters under 45 , which comprised 40 % of the electorate .
However , it reversed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and that was 60 % of the voters .
9:01 — Polls close in Minnesota .
And surprise , surprise — Biden looks strong here , too .
CNN ’ s exit poll shows Biden leading Sanders 40/27 among Democrats , who made up 69 % of the voters , while trailing 32/43 among independents , who made up 25 % of the electorate .
Biden wins women 38/25 over Sanders ( 58 % of voters ) , and only barely gets edged out among men ( 35/37 , 42 % of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strong candidate for a win here , too .
Warren trails in all categories .
Not much hope in this state for her .
8:57 — I have to admit , this does have its charm : 8:47 — Still tracking the vote counts in VT and MA , but so far no big changes .
One broader aspect of tonight ’ s results is just how much better Biden ’ s faring in voter turnout .
Remember when Sanders claimed he had the ability to generate massive turnout ?
Don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In fact , with 35 % of precincts reporting in VT , turnout looks significantly lower this year than in 2016 .
Either Bernie ’ s home-state voters got complacent , or they ’ re just not as enthused this year .
8:31 — Vermont still counting slowly , but with 27 % of precincts reporting , it ’ s still 52/23 Sanders/Biden .
That would give Biden handful of delegates .
MA has only 4 % of its precincts reporting so the results are unreliable , but let ’ s just say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the exit polls .
8:11 — Holy cow , could Warren come in third in MA ?
CNN ’ s exit poll there indicates Warren might finish in the bronze slot .
Look closely at the Party ID demos to figure out where it comes out .
She beat Biden by four points among Dems , and Sanders beat Biden by eight points among independents , while Warren cratered with unaffiliated voters .
That should leave Biden in a strong second-place finish to Sanders , and Warren without much reason to keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vermont , where vote reporting is going slowly , it looks like Sanders is seriously underperforming against his 2016 results .
With 10 % of precincts reporting , he ’ s got 51 % of the vote , where he got 86 % against Clinton four years ago .
Biden has 23 % and might end up with a few VT delegates if this trend continues .
8:01 — Polls just closed in Massachusetts , and it looks like a tight race there — with Biden a factor after all , according to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it ’ s a real win , and it puts Bloomberg on the scoreboard for tonight — and Tulsi Gabbard , who ’ s still in the race : If that ’ s the only delegates Bloomberg wins tonight , he ’ ll have blown $ 500 million on four delegates .
So far he ’ s out of the money in Virginia and in Vermont , but could still pick up enough in both states to win a delegate .
7:42 — Massachusetts ’ polls don ’ t close for another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plans to keep going after tonight : Either she has polling showing a win in MA , or she just figures to stick around as long as the money holds out .
If she can ’ t win in MA , she ’ s not going anywhere in the primaries , and she certainly won ’ t be a brokered-convention option .
Winning your home state has to be a prerequisite , no ?
7:31 — Did Biden manage to pick off a delegate in Vermont ?
The reporting numbers are too small @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but that might be a real surprise .
7:19 — Ah , what might have been … 7:12 — NBC says Joementum looks pretty real , at least from the exit polling : All of the news agencies made an early call for Biden in Virginia , which unlike Vermont was supposed to be competitive .
In fact , a couple of weeks ago , Biden was running third in polling there .
His South Carolina win has breathed new life into his campaign , but he probably won ’ t be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ m covering in this thread .
7:03 — No big surprise here , but they waited a whole two minutes for this call : CBS and NBC also called it for Bernie , who should win this one in a rout .
We haven ’ t yet seen any numbers posted .
It ’ ll be another hour before we get to the more competitive battle in Massachusetts .
Update , 6:53 pm ET : Still a couple of hours to go before polls close here in MN , but this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see here : Welcome to Super Tuesday , the Bernie Sanders Proving Ground Edition .
The race ’ s Great Socialist Hope has to score well in all three states not just to boost his delegate haul , but also to push another of his competitors out of the race .
Sanders should win his home state of Vermont easily , but Elizabeth Warren will fight like hell to hold onto her home state of Massachusetts , and might have some draw in Minnesota now that Amy Klobuchar has pulled out .
Massachusetts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moment , with 91 delegates up for grabs .
The latest poll from Democratic pollster Data for Progress shows Warren up two over both Sanders and Joe Biden , 28/26/26 , which is a big step up … for Biden .
It ’ s the first time Biden shows up over 20 % in any poll tracked by RCP since last September , when Warren began her short-lived polling surge .
If Biden can score 25 or more delegates out of Massachusetts , that will be a surprisingly good rebound for him .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ either Biden or Warren in his neighboring state — if in fact Warren beats him in MA — then it ’ s tough to see how Warren feels compelled to get out of the race at this time .
The same firm sees the same three-way split in Minnesota , too , only with Sanders on top .
In this case , Klobuchar ’ s exit seems to have benefited all three candidates nearly equally ; it now stands 32 % for Sanders , 27 % for Biden , and 21 % for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this poll , a result which would earn him a share of the state ’ s 75 delegates .
A four-way split wouldn ’ t help Sanders much , although it could help slightly in keeping Biden from winning more than he ’ d normally get .
This state was pretty Bernie-crazy in 2016 , however , and I wonder if 32 % isn ’ t just a tad low in 2020 too .
Speaking of Klobuchar ’ s exit , I found it surprising that she didn ’ t stick around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black Lives Matter protest would have been uncomfortable , but it would have been manageable , and Klobuchar is still very much well-liked here .
There wouldn ’ t have been any other path to the nomination for her , as I wrote last week in the Washington Examiner Magazine , but at least she would have gone down fighting .
Polls close in these three states at different times ; Vermont at 7 pm ET , Massachusetts at 8 , and Minnesota at 9 , which is about the functional limit of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with live blogs , updates will come at the top in reverse chronological order , with the latest updates on top .
Our friends at Decision Desk HQ do not have live-results widgets for these states , so be sure to keep an eye on all the other widgets in our live-results post .
Meanwhile , I ’ ll post the delegate tracker , which started off in a very close split between Sanders and Biden , 60/53 , with 3,825 delegates left to win .
If it ’ s this close on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s going to be a long slog to the convention .
Just for fun , too , here are a couple of points about Minnesota in the ABC News exit polls .
Maybe Klobuchar was heading for a beating here after all .
These make Minnesota look like Bernie Country , at least in the primary .

10:53 — This is the biggest surprise of the night. Not only did Warren fail to win her home state, Sanders also lost his neighboring state — to a guy who barely campaigned there:
Joe Biden wins the Massachusetts Democratic presidential primary, upsetting Elizabeth Warren in her home state. https://t.co/OF0wkw58xX — The Associated Press (@AP) March 4, 2020
Fox called it for Biden a few minutes earlier. Bernie’s still insisting that he’ll march to Milwaukee and win the nomination, but even if he gets a delegate windfall out of California, he’s going to be essentially tied with no path to a first-ballot majority for either candidate.
10:47 — 74.5% of precincts reporting in Suffolk Co (Boston and environs), and it’s now less than a point separating Sanders and Biden. Whatever else happens in Suffolk, there’s not enough votes left there to overcome Biden’s 42,000-vote lead with 56% of all precincts reporting.
10:38 — Still no call in MA, but we’re at 49% of precincts reporting and Biden’s still up by almost six points, 33.22/27.56, with Warren in third at 21.65%. Gotta think a call will come soon…
10:29 — Just to revisit an earlier point, what does Ilhan Omar’s inability to deliver Hennepin County for Bernie mean for her own political future? She endorsed Bernie and campaigned for him, but it either had no effect in her home district or perhaps even backfired. The primary for congressional races comes on August 11, and Omar already has three Democrats challenging her. More might jump in after this, or perhaps the money will line up behind one in particular.
10:28 — Forget it, he’s rolling.
Video: HERE is Biden confusing his wife for his SISTER #SuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/RYzUBkuAtd — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 4, 2020
10:19 — Here’s a fun fact of the moment — with 44% of Suffolk County precincts reporting, Sanders only edges Biden by less than two points. In Boston.
10:13 — I’m inclined to go with Dave Wasserman’s call here:
Projection: Joe Biden wins the Massachusetts primary. Elizabeth Warren in serious danger of finishing third. — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 4, 2020
Nobody’s calling this yet, but I’m wondering how much longer that will be.
9:59 — Looking back to Massachusetts, Biden’s still up by five-plus points (33.59/28.18) with 30% of precincts reporting. Warren still way off the pace at 20.8%. This might be the biggest surprise of the night if Biden can hold on to win it.
9:55 — Heh.
Damn, Ilham Omar couldn’t lock it down for Bernie in Minnesota. — Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) March 4, 2020
Omar’s district is mostly Hennepin County, just to be clear. What a #fail. This raises a question as to whether Omar herself might be vulnerable in the later congressional primary.
9:51 — I am a little surprised on that call. Sanders might still have some strength in Ramsey, but I suspect — and the AP must as well — that any strength would be limited to Ramsey. Dakota County will likely go with Biden, and the rest of the metro counties as well. Amy Klobuchar’s endorsement carried a significant amount of weight, it seems. Four years ago, there were a lot of Bernie yard signs in Hennepin and Ramsey.
9:48 — Looks like the AP saw what I saw in the exits and the early returns:
BREAKING: Joe Biden is projected to win the Minnesota primary, according to the AP. #SuperTuesdayResults https://t.co/AW9viBtmYZ pic.twitter.com/Bolk0D98CK — NPR (@NPR) March 4, 2020
9:35 — Our polls have only been closed 35 minutes and already we have the same percentage of precincts reporting as Massachusetts. Surprisingly, Biden’s ahead in both states with ~17% reporting, 36/28 in MA and 35/32 in MN. Ramsey County (St. Paul) hasn’t come in at all, but Biden’s edging Sanders in Hennepin 35/33 with 88% of precincts reporting. That’s a shock, given Hennepin’s academic identity.
9:15 — More from the exit polls in MN: Biden wins among college graduates of all types 34/26 over Sanders and those without college degrees, 39/34. Biden lost big among younger voters, 17/50 with voters under 45, which comprised 40% of the electorate. However, it reversed itself 50/17 among voters 45 and above, and that was 60% of the voters.
9:01 — Polls close in Minnesota. And surprise, surprise — Biden looks strong here, too. CNN’s exit poll shows Biden leading Sanders 40/27 among Democrats, who made up 69% of the voters, while trailing 32/43 among independents, who made up 25% of the electorate. Biden wins women 38/25 over Sanders (58% of voters), and only barely gets edged out among men (35/37, 42% of voters). Biden looks like a strong candidate for a win here, too.
Warren trails in all categories. Not much hope in this state for her.
8:57 — I have to admit, this does have its charm:
.@jonkarl on Biden: "[He] has basically spent nothing…we are seeing him winning and doing very well in states that he did not spend a dime in…that is a new phenomenon." https://t.co/BxTduNCjxv #SuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/MBdKh0qtzg — ABC News (@ABC) March 4, 2020
8:47 — Still tracking the vote counts in VT and MA, but so far no big changes. One broader aspect of tonight’s results is just how much better Biden’s faring in voter turnout. Remember when Sanders claimed he had the ability to generate massive turnout? Don’t see much evidence of that tonight.
In fact, with 35% of precincts reporting in VT, turnout looks significantly lower this year than in 2016. Either Bernie’s home-state voters got complacent, or they’re just not as enthused this year.
8:31 — Vermont still counting slowly, but with 27% of precincts reporting, it’s still 52/23 Sanders/Biden. That would give Biden handful of delegates. MA has only 4% of its precincts reporting so the results are unreliable, but let’s just say that it’s tracking pretty well with the exit polls.
8:11 — Holy cow, could Warren come in third in MA? CNN’s exit poll there indicates Warren might finish in the bronze slot. Look closely at the Party ID demos to figure out where it comes out. She beat Biden by four points among Dems, and Sanders beat Biden by eight points among independents, while Warren cratered with unaffiliated voters. That should leave Biden in a strong second-place finish to Sanders, and Warren without much reason to keep on going.
8:05 — Back to Vermont, where vote reporting is going slowly, it looks like Sanders is seriously underperforming against his 2016 results. With 10% of precincts reporting, he’s got 51% of the vote, where he got 86% against Clinton four years ago. Biden has 23% and might end up with a few VT delegates if this trend continues.
8:01 — Polls just closed in Massachusetts, and it looks like a tight race there — with Biden a factor after all, according to the exit polling:
NEW: Massachusetts is looking like a three-person race between Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, based on analysis of exit polls. https://t.co/oiH87hhkML #SuperTuesday — ABC News (@ABC) March 4, 2020
7:57 — Hey, it’s a real win, and it puts Bloomberg on the scoreboard for tonight — and Tulsi Gabbard, who’s still in the race:
American Samoa has reported its delegates, putting Mike Bloomberg and Tulsi Gabbard on the board for the first time in the primary. Bloomberg has four delegates and Gabbard has one so far out of American Samoa. https://t.co/dejxP1aVYS — CBS News (@CBSNews) March 4, 2020
If that’s the only delegates Bloomberg wins tonight, he’ll have blown $500 million on four delegates. So far he’s out of the money in Virginia and in Vermont, but could still pick up enough in both states to win a delegate.
7:42 — Massachusetts’ polls don’t close for another 18 minutes, but Warren says she plans to keep going after tonight:
Warren indicates that she is not dropping out Tuesday night https://t.co/ANJSIpSJhm pic.twitter.com/lnTkCuIkcA — CBS News (@CBSNews) March 4, 2020
Either she has polling showing a win in MA, or she just figures to stick around as long as the money holds out. If she can’t win in MA, she’s not going anywhere in the primaries, and she certainly won’t be a brokered-convention option. Winning your home state has to be a prerequisite, no?
7:31 — Did Biden manage to pick off a delegate in Vermont?
It'll be interesting to see if Biden squeezes a delegate out of Vermont, says @ec_schneider Sanders won it by 86% in 2016, shutting Clinton out from getting any there. If exit polling holds, then Biden might get one. Super Tuesday live analysis:https://t.co/qk7m1nyJxq — POLITICO (@politico) March 4, 2020
The reporting numbers are too small to guess the answer so far, but that might be a real surprise.
7:19 — Ah, what might have been …
The suspension of Klobuchar’s campaign seems to have had an effect on voters in Minnesota, where almost 6 in 10 said they picked their candidate within the last few days — by far the highest proportion of voters across the nation on Super Tuesday, according to early exit polls. — Matt Viser (@mviser) March 3, 2020
7:12 — NBC says Joementum looks pretty real, at least from the exit polling:
LIVE ON NBC NEWS NOW: Exit polls signal that Biden's momentum may be real. #SuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/OcuM0YuX56 — NBC News NOW (@NBCNewsNow) March 4, 2020
All of the news agencies made an early call for Biden in Virginia, which unlike Vermont was supposed to be competitive. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, Biden was running third in polling there. His South Carolina win has breathed new life into his campaign, but he probably won’t be a major figure in the other two states I’m covering in this thread.
7:03 — No big surprise here, but they waited a whole two minutes for this call:
BREAKING: Bernie Sanders will win the Vermont primary, @ABC News projects based on analysis of the exit poll. https://t.co/GucOJfKCSK #SuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/KjUSY8V4Jc — ABC News (@ABC) March 4, 2020
CBS and NBC also called it for Bernie, who should win this one in a rout. We haven’t yet seen any numbers posted. It’ll be another hour before we get to the more competitive battle in Massachusetts.
Update, 6:53 pm ET: Still a couple of hours to go before polls close here in MN, but this is probably not what Democrats hoped to see here:
At St. Paul’s Eastside Community Center, head election judge Alice Smith says turnout is hovering around 10% — quite low for this precinct. “Normally there’s a line out the door at or before 7 am [when polls open],” she said. “But there was only one today.” — Liz Sawyer (@ByLizSawyer) March 3, 2020
Original post follows …
Welcome to Super Tuesday, the Bernie Sanders Proving Ground Edition. The race’s Great Socialist Hope has to score well in all three states not just to boost his delegate haul, but also to push another of his competitors out of the race. Sanders should win his home state of Vermont easily, but Elizabeth Warren will fight like hell to hold onto her home state of Massachusetts, and might have some draw in Minnesota now that Amy Klobuchar has pulled out.
Massachusetts looks like a real battleground at the moment, with 91 delegates up for grabs. The latest poll from Democratic pollster Data for Progress shows Warren up two over both Sanders and Joe Biden, 28/26/26, which is a big step up … for Biden. It’s the first time Biden shows up over 20% in any poll tracked by RCP since last September, when Warren began her short-lived polling surge. If Biden can score 25 or more delegates out of Massachusetts, that will be a surprisingly good rebound for him. If Bernie can’t shut out either Biden or Warren in his neighboring state — if in fact Warren beats him in MA — then it’s tough to see how Warren feels compelled to get out of the race at this time.
The same firm sees the same three-way split in Minnesota, too, only with Sanders on top. In this case, Klobuchar’s exit seems to have benefited all three candidates nearly equally; it now stands 32% for Sanders, 27% for Biden, and 21% for Warren. Mike Bloomberg gets 16% in this poll, a result which would earn him a share of the state’s 75 delegates. A four-way split wouldn’t help Sanders much, although it could help slightly in keeping Biden from winning more than he’d normally get. This state was pretty Bernie-crazy in 2016, however, and I wonder if 32% isn’t just a tad low in 2020 too.
Speaking of Klobuchar’s exit, I found it surprising that she didn’t stick around through Super Tuesday. Yes, the Black Lives Matter protest would have been uncomfortable, but it would have been manageable, and Klobuchar is still very much well-liked here. There wouldn’t have been any other path to the nomination for her, as I wrote last week in the Washington Examiner Magazine, but at least she would have gone down fighting.
Polls close in these three states at different times; Vermont at 7 pm ET, Massachusetts at 8, and Minnesota at 9, which is about the functional limit of our social lives anyway. As usual with live blogs, updates will come at the top in reverse chronological order, with the latest updates on top. Our friends at Decision Desk HQ do not have live-results widgets for these states, so be sure to keep an eye on all the other widgets in our live-results post. Meanwhile, I’ll post the delegate tracker, which started off in a very close split between Sanders and Biden, 60/53, with 3,825 delegates left to win. If it’s this close on the other side of tonight, it’s going to be a long slog to the convention.
Just for fun, too, here are a couple of points about Minnesota in the ABC News exit polls. Maybe Klobuchar was heading for a beating here after all. These make Minnesota look like Bernie Country, at least in the primary.


hotair--2020-03-04--CNN: Sorry Bernie Bros but Super Tuesday wasn't 'rigged' against Sanders

Earlier today I noted that the hashtag # RiggedElection was trending on Twitter .
The trend was significant enough that CNN ’ s Chris Cillizza wrote a piece about it .
His conclusion ?
There wasn ’ t any rigging of anything .
After digging through the tweets to find the alleged substance behind the hashtags , Cillizza basically boiled it down to three things : Confusing ballots , endorsements by candidates exiting the race , and long lines to vote .
He pointed to this tweet as an example of some of these claims : Here ’ s the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evidence are proof of the process being rigged for Biden .
Not even close .
Ballot order is determined differently in each state .
Some states use alphabetical order .
Others , like Texas , randomize it .
So for there to be some sort of broad-scale , multi-state ( remember that 14 states voted on Super Tuesday ) conspiracy to hurt Sanders and help Biden is , um , far-fetched .
Citing long lines at a particular polling place as proof of some sort of conspiracy is a classic example of mistaking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of votes were cast at thousands of polling places all over America on Tuesday .
The fact that there was a big line — or it took a long time to vote — at one particular polling place simply doesn ’ t prove anything other than it took a long time to vote at that particular polling place… And then finally is the idea that the endorsements of Buttigieg and Klobuchar ( and , to a lesser extent , Beto O ’ Rourke ) are somehow shining examples of how the process is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shining examples — but not of rigged-ness .
Rather , they are shining examples of Politics 101 .
Cillizza concludes : “ There is ZERO credible evidence that there was any rigging on Super Tuesday to help Biden and hurt Sanders.
” On the contrary , he says what happened yesterday is “ called democracy and party politics.
” He pronounces the complaining about it not a “ good look.
” One thing I notice is that Cillizza has skipped over one of the complaints made in that tweet above .
He doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the media is “ curating a very specific & biased narrative.
” That ’ s odd to me because that thread of the complaint is pretty clearly coming from the top .
Earlier today , Sanders tore into the media : A day after Joe Biden ’ s Super Tuesday victory , Sanders told reporters that his own campaign has had to face “ venom by some in corporate media ” – and he used the Matthews gaffe as an example .
Although not mentioning the now-retired Hardball host by name , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not been a campaign that has been having to deal with the venom by some in the corporate media .
This campaign has been compared to the coronavirus on television .
We have been described as the Nazi army marching across France.
” He went on to dismiss the last debate as a “ food fight ” which was “ about who could yell the loudest.
” Even if you think his criticism of Chris Matthews is fair , this is hardly the first time that Sanders has complained the media was against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he wasn ’ t getting positive coverage from the Washington Post because owner Jeff Bezos was worried about Sanders raising corporate taxes .
Sanders backed away from that but as NBC News pointed out , his complaints about the corporate media go back to at least the 1980s .
Given how often the media hits Trump for his own media criticism ( in particular of CNN ) it ’ s odd that CNN didn ’ t notice this might be part of what is driving the Bernie Bros outrage about yesterday ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will have several more opportunities to call Sanders out on this before the primary is over .

Earlier today I noted that the hashtag #RiggedElection was trending on Twitter. The trend was significant enough that CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote a piece about it. His conclusion? There wasn’t any rigging of anything. After digging through the tweets to find the alleged substance behind the hashtags, Cillizza basically boiled it down to three things: Confusing ballots, endorsements by candidates exiting the race, and long lines to vote. He pointed to this tweet as an example of some of these claims:
https://twitter.com/intersectionalx/status/1235227997126291459
Here’s the thing: None of those pieces of evidence are proof of the process being rigged for Biden. Not even close. Ballot order is determined differently in each state. Some states use alphabetical order. Others, like Texas, randomize it. So for there to be some sort of broad-scale, multi-state (remember that 14 states voted on Super Tuesday) conspiracy to hurt Sanders and help Biden is, um, far-fetched. Citing long lines at a particular polling place as proof of some sort of conspiracy is a classic example of mistaking anecdotal evidence as statistically significant. Millions of votes were cast at thousands of polling places all over America on Tuesday. The fact that there was a big line — or it took a long time to vote — at one particular polling place simply doesn’t prove anything other than it took a long time to vote at that particular polling place… And then finally is the idea that the endorsements of Buttigieg and Klobuchar (and, to a lesser extent, Beto O’Rourke) are somehow shining examples of how the process is being rigged against Sanders. They are shining examples — but not of rigged-ness. Rather, they are shining examples of Politics 101.
Cillizza concludes: “There is ZERO credible evidence that there was any rigging on Super Tuesday to help Biden and hurt Sanders.” On the contrary, he says what happened yesterday is “called democracy and party politics.” He pronounces the complaining about it not a “good look.”
One thing I notice is that Cillizza has skipped over one of the complaints made in that tweet above. He doesn’t say anything about the complaint that the media is “curating a very specific & biased narrative.” That’s odd to me because that thread of the complaint is pretty clearly coming from the top. Earlier today, Sanders tore into the media:
A day after Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday victory, Sanders told reporters that his own campaign has had to face “venom by some in corporate media” – and he used the Matthews gaffe as an example. Although not mentioning the now-retired Hardball host by name, Sanders said today that “there has not been a campaign that has been having to deal with the venom by some in the corporate media. This campaign has been compared to the coronavirus on television. We have been described as the Nazi army marching across France.”
He went on to dismiss the last debate as a “food fight” which was “about who could yell the loudest.” Even if you think his criticism of Chris Matthews is fair, this is hardly the first time that Sanders has complained the media was against him. Last August Sanders suggested that he wasn’t getting positive coverage from the Washington Post because owner Jeff Bezos was worried about Sanders raising corporate taxes. Sanders backed away from that but as NBC News pointed out, his complaints about the corporate media go back to at least the 1980s.
Given how often the media hits Trump for his own media criticism (in particular of CNN) it’s odd that CNN didn’t notice this might be part of what is driving the Bernie Bros outrage about yesterday’s results. My guess is the media will have several more opportunities to call Sanders out on this before the primary is over.


hotair--2020-03-04--Feeling Berned: New Sanders ad wraps arms firmly around Obama

It looks as though even Bernie Sanders realizes that America has not yearned for a Fidel Castro apologist in the White House .
The morning after their surprising near-wipeout on Super Tuesday , Team Bernie has three new ads hoping to reset the narrative .
Two of them go directly on the attack against Joe Biden , but the third intends to convince voters that Bernie Sanders has not just Barack Obama ’ s endorsement but that he — not Biden — is Obama ’ s natural successor .
“ Feel the Bern , ” Obama says , but it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The third Sanders ad features Obama heaping praise upon the candidate in what could easily be mistaken for an endorsement video — mirroring similar spots produced by other Democratic presidential hopefuls including Biden and Elizabeth Warren .
The ad features tape of Obama describing Sanders as “ somebody who has the virtue of saying exactly what he believes ” and applauding his work on the Senate Veterans ’ Affairs Committee , where Obama says Sanders “ got bills done.
” “ I think people are ready for a call to action , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ draws upon his old remarks .
“ They want honest leadership who cares about them .
They want somebody who ’ s gon na fight for them .
And they will find it in Bernie.
” Ahem .
It takes some chutzpah to use a quote from Obama calling for “ honest leadership ” in an ad designed to convince voters into thinking Obama has endorsed Sanders , when in fact Obama has done no such thing .
It ’ s also a threadbare attempt to pander to more moderate Democrats , one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Nine years ago , Sanders got so fed up with Obama and his establishment-ish policies that he planned a primary challenge against the incumbent .
As Edward-Isaac Dovere reported at The Atlantic last month , Harry Reid had to intervene twice to stop Sanders : It took Reid two conversations over the summer of 2011 to get Sanders to scrap the idea , according to multiple people who remember the incident , which has not been previously reported .
That summer , Sanders privately discussed a potential primary challenge to Obama with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his fellow Vermont senator .
Leahy , alarmed , warned Jim Messina , Obama ’ s presidential reelection-campaign manager .
Obama ’ s campaign team was “ absolutely panicked ” by Leahy ’ s report , Messina told me , since “ every president who has gotten a real primary has lost a general [ election ] .
” David Plouffe , another Obama strategist , confirmed Messina ’ s account , as did another person familiar with what happened .
That wasn ’ t the end of Sanders ’ disgust with Obama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the two men was a 2013 meeting with other Democratic senators .
Obama had just put a chained Consumer Price Index in his budget , a proposal that would cut Social Security benefits by tying them to the rate of inflation .
Many Senate Democrats were angry about it .
But when they arrived for the meeting , it was Sanders who bubbled up , ripping into Obama for giving in to Republicans and not understanding the impact of the cuts .
“ I don ’ t need a lecture , ” Obama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who attended the meeting .
Sanders proceeded to give him one anyway .
A number of the senators there were struck by what they told me seemed like a lack of respect .
“ Obama fairly forcefully pushed back and said , ‘ That ’ s just not right—that ’ s not a vision that ’ s enactable or possible , ’ ” one senator in the room recalled , asking for anonymity to discuss the private meeting .
“ ‘ You ’ re acting like I ’ m the enemy.
’ Obama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hear you that you want this revolution , but explain to me , how ’ s this going to happen ?
Look at the current makeup of the Senate and the House .
How am I supposed to lead ?
’ ” Obama said , in this senator ’ s memory .
The conversation quickly got testy .
“ It seemed the match of someone who prided himself on his cool intellect and removed analysis versus someone who was convinced with absolute ferocity with the rightness of his worldview and is not given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t agree with it.
” The two men have since become less hostile to each other , but their relationship is a loooooong way off from what this ad depicts .
It ’ s Team Bernie ’ s attempt to put out the fires their candidate fanned with his Fidel apologetics , but it ’ s so obviously pandering that it might just undermine his claim to sincerity over politics .
If voters want a glad-handing Obama successor , they already have that choice in the primaries .

It looks as though even Bernie Sanders realizes that America has not yearned for a Fidel Castro apologist in the White House. The morning after their surprising near-wipeout on Super Tuesday, Team Bernie has three new ads hoping to reset the narrative. Two of them go directly on the attack against Joe Biden, but the third intends to convince voters that Bernie Sanders has not just Barack Obama’s endorsement but that he — not Biden — is Obama’s natural successor.
“Feel the Bern,” Obama says, but it’s not exactly in context:
The third Sanders ad features Obama heaping praise upon the candidate in what could easily be mistaken for an endorsement video — mirroring similar spots produced by other Democratic presidential hopefuls including Biden and Elizabeth Warren. The ad features tape of Obama describing Sanders as “somebody who has the virtue of saying exactly what he believes” and applauding his work on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, where Obama says Sanders “got bills done.” “I think people are ready for a call to action,” Obama says in the spot, which draws upon his old remarks. “They want honest leadership who cares about them. They want somebody who’s gonna fight for them. And they will find it in Bernie.”
Ahem. It takes some chutzpah to use a quote from Obama calling for “honest leadership” in an ad designed to convince voters into thinking Obama has endorsed Sanders, when in fact Obama has done no such thing.
It’s also a threadbare attempt to pander to more moderate Democrats, one that undercuts his supposed strength of authenticity. Nine years ago, Sanders got so fed up with Obama and his establishment-ish policies that he planned a primary challenge against the incumbent. As Edward-Isaac Dovere reported at The Atlantic last month, Harry Reid had to intervene twice to stop Sanders:
It took Reid two conversations over the summer of 2011 to get Sanders to scrap the idea, according to multiple people who remember the incident, which has not been previously reported. That summer, Sanders privately discussed a potential primary challenge to Obama with several people, including Patrick Leahy, his fellow Vermont senator. Leahy, alarmed, warned Jim Messina, Obama’s presidential reelection-campaign manager. Obama’s campaign team was “absolutely panicked” by Leahy’s report, Messina told me, since “every president who has gotten a real primary has lost a general [election].” David Plouffe, another Obama strategist, confirmed Messina’s account, as did another person familiar with what happened.
That wasn’t the end of Sanders’ disgust with Obama, either:
The low point between the two men was a 2013 meeting with other Democratic senators. Obama had just put a chained Consumer Price Index in his budget, a proposal that would cut Social Security benefits by tying them to the rate of inflation. Many Senate Democrats were angry about it. But when they arrived for the meeting, it was Sanders who bubbled up, ripping into Obama for giving in to Republicans and not understanding the impact of the cuts. “I don’t need a lecture,” Obama told him, according to several senators who attended the meeting. Sanders proceeded to give him one anyway. A number of the senators there were struck by what they told me seemed like a lack of respect. “Obama fairly forcefully pushed back and said, ‘That’s just not right—that’s not a vision that’s enactable or possible,’” one senator in the room recalled, asking for anonymity to discuss the private meeting. “‘You’re acting like I’m the enemy.’ Obama was trying to say, ‘I hear you that you want this revolution, but explain to me, how’s this going to happen? Look at the current makeup of the Senate and the House. How am I supposed to lead?’” Obama said, in this senator’s memory. The conversation quickly got testy. “It seemed the match of someone who prided himself on his cool intellect and removed analysis versus someone who was convinced with absolute ferocity with the rightness of his worldview and is not given to accepting anything from those who don’t agree with it.”
The two men have since become less hostile to each other, but their relationship is a loooooong way off from what this ad depicts. It’s Team Bernie’s attempt to put out the fires their candidate fanned with his Fidel apologetics, but it’s so obviously pandering that it might just undermine his claim to sincerity over politics. If voters want a glad-handing Obama successor, they already have that choice in the primaries.


hotair--2020-03-04--Bernie: Biden's running a campaign that's heavily supported by the "corporate establishment"

True , I guess , but then everyone in a one-on-one race with an avowed socialist is going to be heavily supported by the “ corporate establishment.
” Whom do you suppose big business , corporate media , and Wall Street would support in a race between , say , Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders ?
Beto O ’ Rourke and Bernie Sanders ?
Julian Castro and Bernie Sanders ?
Fine , insofar as Bernie thinks corporate America prefers Biden — or literally anyone else — to him , he ’ s correct .
But this spiel is weirdly tone-deaf @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was so remarkable about Biden ’ s win last night .
The man won state after state after state even though he hardly competed anywhere .
He was broke !
The corporate establishment didn ’ t hand him an arsenal .
Biden ran hardly any ads anywhere before Super Tuesday .
Bernie is the fundraising juggernaut in the race thanks to his army of small-dollar donors , not Joe .
Just like Bernie is the one with a formidable campaign apparatus stretched across the country , not Joe .
Biden had no meaningful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategy for Super Tuesday was to run up the score in South Carolina with heavy African-American support , hope that Buttigieg and Klobuchar would immediately quit , watch the media go crazy over Joementum for 72 hours , then cross his fingers and pray that name recognition plus the revival of his “ Mr .
Electability ” brand in SC would make him competitive nationally overnight .
It was insane .
It was irresponsible .
And it succeeded beyond his wildest dreams .
Bernie ’ s “ corporate establishment ” shtick here feels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in case Bloomberg had a big night yesterday and which he reworked on the fly to use against Biden .
It doesn ’ t have the same punch against a guy who was relatively underfunded and unorganized and who , unlike Hillary , is well-liked by working-class voters .
Worse , it risks irritating black voters by diminishing a moment of real electoral glory for them by treating it as some sort of corporate plot : Black Democrats in South Carolina may have just effectively decided the party ’ s nominee , rescuing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death and propelling it to a juggernaut overnight , and here ’ s Sanders — who continues to struggle with black voters — framing Biden ’ s victory as a triumph of the billionaires .
I remember reading this piece last weekend about how some black Biden voters in SC aimed to send a message with their vote for Joe that they can ’ t be taken for granted by the party .
Iowa , New Hampshire , Nevada , all of that is nice , but if you want to be the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your corner .
They sent that message even more loudly and clearly than they could have imagined .
And yet here ’ s Bernie , taking them for granted anyway .
Sanders is he is who he is , though .
He doesn ’ t adjust to changed circumstances .
That was the point of the earlier post .
What else is a left-wing populist supposed to say about a moderate who ’ s backed by most of the party but that he ’ s a tool of corporate America , even if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shoestring campaign fueled by working-class and black support ?
Ideologically , when all you have is a hammer , everything looks like a nail .
Which leads to cringey soundbites like this : More than half of American households own stock .
Even the minority who don ’ t would suffer greatly from knock-on effects due to a market downturn .
Bernie ’ s trying to make the point here that Biden ’ s plutocratic masters are thrilled to see a candidate rise who ’ ll continue to let them exploit the working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — especially those suburban swing voters who have been trending blue — watch this clip and think , “ Does this dude think a market surge is a bad thing ?
” Here ’ s your exit quotation , in which Sanders ends up identifying the real reason he underperformed on Super Tuesday .
The “ corporate establishment ” didn ’ t make progressives under age 30 take the night off .

True, I guess, but then everyone in a one-on-one race with an avowed socialist is going to be heavily supported by the “corporate establishment.” Whom do you suppose big business, corporate media, and Wall Street would support in a race between, say, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders? Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders? Julian Castro and Bernie Sanders?
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders?
Watch, then read on:
Bernie Sanders on Joe Biden: "Does anyone seriously believe that a president backed by the corporate world is going to bring about the changes in this country that working families and the middle class and lower-income people desperately need?" pic.twitter.com/2W8Z74Yb9D — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 4, 2020
Fine, insofar as Bernie thinks corporate America prefers Biden — or literally anyone else — to him, he’s correct. But this spiel is weirdly tone-deaf because of how it glosses over what was so remarkable about Biden’s win last night. The man won state after state after state even though he hardly competed anywhere. He was broke! The corporate establishment didn’t hand him an arsenal. Biden ran hardly any ads anywhere before Super Tuesday. Bernie is the fundraising juggernaut in the race thanks to his army of small-dollar donors, not Joe. Just like Bernie is the one with a formidable campaign apparatus stretched across the country, not Joe. Biden had no meaningful organization on the ground.
One potential loser tonight is campaigns. Like, in general. Joe Biden had ONE field office in Virginia. Was outspent 7-to-1 by Sanders and almost 100-to-1 by Bloomberg in all super Tuesday States. Had barely campaigned in any states. And yet… — Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) March 4, 2020
His wing-and-a-prayer strategy for Super Tuesday was to run up the score in South Carolina with heavy African-American support, hope that Buttigieg and Klobuchar would immediately quit, watch the media go crazy over Joementum for 72 hours, then cross his fingers and pray that name recognition plus the revival of his “Mr. Electability” brand in SC would make him competitive nationally overnight. It was insane. It was irresponsible. And it succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Bernie’s “corporate establishment” shtick here feels like a speech he’d written in case Bloomberg had a big night yesterday and which he reworked on the fly to use against Biden. It doesn’t have the same punch against a guy who was relatively underfunded and unorganized and who, unlike Hillary, is well-liked by working-class voters. Worse, it risks irritating black voters by diminishing a moment of real electoral glory for them by treating it as some sort of corporate plot:
And I said all that minutes before I Sanders today dismissed Biden as backed by the “corporate establishment,” even after black voters swung the tide of this primary. He keeps carelessly tossing these terms around, not realizing (or perhaps caring) whom he is branding with them. https://t.co/5I9EoNfIgg — Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) March 4, 2020
Black Democrats in South Carolina may have just effectively decided the party’s nominee, rescuing a failing candidacy from the brink of death and propelling it to a juggernaut overnight, and here’s Sanders — who continues to struggle with black voters — framing Biden’s victory as a triumph of the billionaires. I remember reading this piece last weekend about how some black Biden voters in SC aimed to send a message with their vote for Joe that they can’t be taken for granted by the party. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, all of that is nice, but if you want to be the Democratic nominee you need black Democrats in your corner. They sent that message even more loudly and clearly than they could have imagined.
And yet here’s Bernie, taking them for granted anyway.
Sanders is he is who he is, though. He doesn’t adjust to changed circumstances. That was the point of the earlier post. What else is a left-wing populist supposed to say about a moderate who’s backed by most of the party but that he’s a tool of corporate America, even if that tool prevailed last night with a shoestring campaign fueled by working-class and black support? Ideologically, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Which leads to cringey soundbites like this:
https://twitter.com/evoshua/status/1235292884112486401
More than half of American households own stock. Even the minority who don’t would suffer greatly from knock-on effects due to a market downturn. Bernie’s trying to make the point here that Biden’s plutocratic masters are thrilled to see a candidate rise who’ll continue to let them exploit the working class, but I think most people — especially those suburban swing voters who have been trending blue — watch this clip and think, “Does this dude think a market surge is a bad thing?”
Here’s your exit quotation, in which Sanders ends up identifying the real reason he underperformed on Super Tuesday. The “corporate establishment” didn’t make progressives under age 30 take the night off.


hotair--2020-03-04--Former Sanders staffer: 'Biden can finish Bernie off in Michigan'

After his better than expected results on Super Tuesday , Biden ’ s campaign is looking forward to the next set of primary contests on March 10th .
The big prize for that day will be Michigan , with 125 delegates at stake .
Today Politico spoke to a few Democrats who think a loss in Michigan would be the beginning of the end for Sanders : “ This thing could be over for all intents and purposes in three weeks , ” said Paul Maslin , a top Democratic pollster who worked on the presidential campaigns of Jimmy Carter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s done unless Joe makes some horrible mistake .
He will win blacks 75-25 minimum from here on in .
He doesn ’ t have Hillary ’ s negatives .
And people want to beat Trump big time .
This race is over.
” … The electoral map on Tuesday was expected to favor Sanders .
But with the exception of California , he underperformed .
Next week ’ s run of primaries represents a far smaller delegate haul , but Michigan — with 125 delegates — is a critical general election state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate ’ s broader appeal .
A loss there could significantly undermine his electability argument .
“ Biden can finish Bernie off in Michigan , ” said Michael Ceraso , who worked for Sanders in 2016 and was Pete Buttigieg ’ s New Hampshire director before leaving his campaign last year… “ Everybody wants to get on the bandwagon now , ” Goodman said .
“ I think if Joe wins [ Michigan ] by 10 , Bernie may not leave yet .
But the following weeks , when he loses by 10 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think it ’ s done.
” Real Clear Politics only has two polls of Michigan Democrats from the past month .
One shows Sanders up nine and the other shows Biden up six .
But the poll favorable to Biden is the more recent one and was mostly conducted after his win in South Carolina .
Given the results last night , there ’ s good reason to think the surge toward Biden is real .
With Bloomberg out of the race and Warren probably out before next Tuesday , the race @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between the two wings of the party .
But even if Sanders comes up short in Michigan , he could do better in Washington state where the electorate is made up of a far smaller percentage of black voters .
Plus Sanders could do something dramatic to win over more voters , like hint that Warren will be his VP .
Looking at the reaction of Sanders supporters to last night ’ s disappointment , I don ’ t think Michigan will be the end for him no matter how badly he loses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people are going to drive him forward for at least two more weeks regardless of the outcome .
And as he continues to fade , they ’ ll get angrier and angrier at the establishment they are certain has cheated them somehow .
Time to stock up on popcorn .

After his better than expected results on Super Tuesday, Biden’s campaign is looking forward to the next set of primary contests on March 10th. The big prize for that day will be Michigan, with 125 delegates at stake. Today Politico spoke to a few Democrats who think a loss in Michigan would be the beginning of the end for Sanders:
“This thing could be over for all intents and purposes in three weeks,” said Paul Maslin, a top Democratic pollster who worked on the presidential campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean. “It’s done unless Joe makes some horrible mistake. He will win blacks 75-25 minimum from here on in. He doesn’t have Hillary’s negatives. And people want to beat Trump big time. This race is over.”… The electoral map on Tuesday was expected to favor Sanders. But with the exception of California, he underperformed. Next week’s run of primaries represents a far smaller delegate haul, but Michigan — with 125 delegates — is a critical general election state and an indicator to Democrats of a candidate’s broader appeal. A loss there could significantly undermine his electability argument. “Biden can finish Bernie off in Michigan,” said Michael Ceraso, who worked for Sanders in 2016 and was Pete Buttigieg’s New Hampshire director before leaving his campaign last year… “Everybody wants to get on the bandwagon now,” Goodman said. “I think if Joe wins [Michigan] by 10, Bernie may not leave yet. But the following weeks, when he loses by 10 in Florida, Mississippi and Georgia, I think it’s done.”
Real Clear Politics only has two polls of Michigan Democrats from the past month. One shows Sanders up nine and the other shows Biden up six. But the poll favorable to Biden is the more recent one and was mostly conducted after his win in South Carolina. Given the results last night, there’s good reason to think the surge toward Biden is real.
With Bloomberg out of the race and Warren probably out before next Tuesday, the race will be a real head on battle between the two wings of the party. But even if Sanders comes up short in Michigan, he could do better in Washington state where the electorate is made up of a far smaller percentage of black voters. Plus Sanders could do something dramatic to win over more voters, like hint that Warren will be his VP.
Looking at the reaction of Sanders supporters to last night’s disappointment, I don’t think Michigan will be the end for him no matter how badly he loses. In fact, I think his people are going to drive him forward for at least two more weeks regardless of the outcome. And as he continues to fade, they’ll get angrier and angrier at the establishment they are certain has cheated them somehow. Time to stock up on popcorn.