How Iowa's Chaos Affected Each of the Top 4 Democrats -- and Why N.H. Is Bigger Than Ever

[brooklynite]

New York Magazine

Bernie Sanders wasn’t planning to declare his “strong” Iowa victory in a Manchester, New Hampshire, strip-mall storefront on a snowy Thursday afternoon, sandwiched between a Supertan salon and the Happy Garden Chinese restaurant. Sure, he wanted to do it at a Holiday Inn across the street from an airport on Monday night, but at least that was in Des Moines — just after Iowans caucused, when his backers around the country would be primed to pump a new, triumphant jolt of energy and cash into his campaign.

Pete Buttigieg wasn’t expecting to be on Day Two of his own victory lap on Wednesday when he touched down in New Jersey for a trio of private fundraisers and a New York media swing, suddenly gone from the state up north where he was the big story after declaring victory in the midwest. Internally, his team had been framing the plan more cautiously: He’d use a mad sprint through New Hampshire on Tuesday to announce himself there before briefly leaving the trail to refill campaign coffers that would likely need replenishing after an Iowa slog, and with an expensive, forbidding road ahead.

For Elizabeth Warren, ceding national media attention after Iowa to her fellow senator, the former mayor, and the suddenly flailing Joe Biden was never part of the meticulously laid roadmap, and neither was facing the imperative of shifting ad money out of Nevada and South Carolina to make sure her New Hampshire strategy was adequately funded — or having her campaign manager dramatically call out Buttigieg’s team for apparently instructing a super PAC on how best to boost him. Her best case scenario, after all, didn’t position New Hampshire, her next-door state, as being quite so make-or-break as it now looks.

And Biden, sitting in Delaware, nearly 400 miles south of Manchester conferring with senior aides after a brutal finish in Iowa, had planned to be prepping for Friday’s debate, and not facing an unrelenting barrage of savage news coverage while confronting what his advisors were describing as a meltdown of his field operation so complete that they were now evaluating his Nevada organization to avoid another costly embarrassment. Moving whatever remaining ad money he had from South Carolina to Nevada wasn’t the plan, either, and neither was letting his Thursday off the trail turn into a glaring hole in his schedule just as news surfaced that some leaders of his Iowa team would no longer have full-time gigs with the campaign — all of it landing so painfully, just after he started showing signs of life with a fiery first two days in New Hampshire.

[bluewater]

1. Clearly Pete Benefitted Most, Joe was Damaged Most.

Pete is now suddenly, at the very least, the co-frontrunner now with Sanders.

Joe is in shambles after months of being the polling frontrunner, he's being haunted by the ghosts of his previous failed Presidential campaigns.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

2. Shambles omg it gets funnier every article

Some people really really need to read up on Iowa caucus history.

[bluewater]

3. Perhaps we should read up on Candidates that finish 4th in Iowa AND New Hampshire.

Right now, Joe is on track to do just that.



Shambles seems both accurate and descriptive to describe the current state of the Biden Campaign that led in the polling by double digits for months on end.

Then actual voting starts and it all goes to pieces. Just like his other failed Presidential campaigns. That is some history well worth re-examining.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

4. I remember one fellow who lost both

Then served two terms.

[bluewater]

5. That guy did NOT finish 4th place in both.

That guy "came back" to get a strong second place in NH.

Finishing 4th in both Iowa and New Hampshire will take the wheels off a struggling Biden Campaign.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

6. Wait new Hampshire is over already?

Ok my bad he should drop out.

[bluewater]

8. For Biden? Seems so... according to the polls.

But lets be honest about this. Warren cannot afford to finish in 4th place either. Biden certainly can't and right now he's on track to finish 4th again like he did in Iowa.

He dropped -7% in yesterday's tracking poll. People said Iowa would not matter much and those people were wrong.

But, Ok, I take your point. Joe has not finished 4th in NH yet.

Time will Tell, but that time is short since the NH primary is days away.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

9. If he doesn't win South Carolina I may regroup

Just a realist then.

[bluewater]

12. The state to watch closely is Nevada.

South Carolina is an atypical state, but for some reason people don't mention that.

66% of Democratic primary voters there are set to be African Americans, that's a much higher % than any other state, even other Southern states. Doing well or poorly in SC is indicative of only one thing, and that is the level of support a candidate has with black voters.

How that translates in states with a more balance demographic this year remains to be seen. Latino voters are set to be a major factor in the primaries this year too, and it's Nevada that will be an indicator for that, not SC. Latino support will be crucial in the big delegate states of California and Texas.

Nevada is more indicative of possible national trends than SC. Nevada is only 67% white and has a 9% African American population itself.

It's do or die time for both Warren and Biden. NH, Nevada and SC are all important contest for them. Doing poorly in a majority of those will probably knock any candidate out of contention.

But one last thing... where will our support go if our candidate does fall out of contention?

I want a candidate that can beat Trump but also shares more of my views. I am not sure who that second choice is at this point. Strangely, it comes down to either Biden or Sanders.

Care to share your second choice of candidates in contention and that could beat Trump?

Thanks for the discussion.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

13. Very informative

Ty

[brooklynite]

10. Biden was off the campaign trail yesterday, meeting with staff in Delaware.

Arguably he may have been prepping for tonight's debate, but everyone else was doing public events.

[brush]

11. Don't count Biden out yet. South Carolina's primary could be a win for him.

The two nearly all-white voter bases of Iowa and NH don't tell the true story of what will happen in SC, NV and Super Tuesday were there is diversity in the voter base.

If South Carolina or Nevada were first the results would be completely different so don't be so quick to write Biden off.

[squirecam]

7. Does Biden even have a field operation in NV?

I get texts from volunteers from the campaigns. Steyer. Bernie. Warren. Amy. For months.

Know what campaign has never texted me....Biden.