DU Primaries Report, March 2020: And Then There Were Two

[EarlG]

Welcome to the twelfth monthly DU Primaries Report, based on the ongoing candidate preferences of DU members right here in the Democratic Primaries forum!

How the Candidate Rankings board works:

• Displayed percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number, so a candidate displayed at (for example) 10% will have an actual percentage in the range of 9.50% to 10.49%.


• Candidates below 0.5% are displayed at 0%. Candidates with no supporters at all are marked with a dash.


• For the purposes of the DU Primaries Report, only candidates who have an actual percentage of at least 1% are included.

Previously on the DU Primaries Report

February 2020: Fasten Your Seatbelts! (With Guest Host Steve Kornacki)
January 2020: The End Of The Beginning
December 2019: Farewell To Harris
November 2019: Comings And Goings
October 2019: Ups And Downs
September 2019: So Trump Is Getting Impeached
August 2019: I'll Just Get My Coat
July 2019: Look, a Squirrel!
June 2019: Warren Takes Charge
May 2019: Steady As She Goes
April 2019: Let's Get This Party Started!

Where the candidates stand this month

It's hard to believe that just one month ago it was business as usual and we weren't all locked in our homes waiting out a deadly pandemic, but here we are. In fact it almost seems frivolous to be discussing the primaries when there's a slow-motion global disaster taking place. That said, later this year our nominee will be taking on the all-important task of replacing the worst president in American history and putting out the dumpster fire he created. Unseating Trump is more important now than ever, and so we press on.

This month we say au revoir to all but two of our candidates.



Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren all dropped out in March, leaving just two candidates in the race -- Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders. Based on the numbers for March, it seems clear that most of those ex-candidates' supporters have headed into the Biden camp, giving him a huge boost on DU. How huge? Let's take a look.

Candidates above 1% actual support, excluding Undecided, February/March 2020



Biden's ascendancy began immediately after his victory in the South Carolina primary on February 29, and he was off like a rocket following Super Tuesday on March 3. With 15.62% support on DU just over a month ago on February 28, Biden now sits at 37.64%, a staggering increase of 22.02 percentage points.

A view of the all-time graph really puts that increase in perspective:

Candidates above 1% actual support, excluding Undecided, all-time



Meanwhile, Undecideds were all over the place as supporters of the five ex-candidates were automatically switched to Undecided status.

Candidates above 1% actual support, including Undecided, February/March 2020



Undecided reached its highest point ever after Elizabeth Warren -- previously DU's most popular candidate -- dropped out. Starting the month on 43.38%, Undecided climbed 13.63 percentage points in a week to 57.01% before declining back to 48.19% today -- less than five percentage points higher than the Undecided total at the beginning of March.

And following the wave of drop-outs at the start of the month, Undecideds clearly did not break for Bernie Sanders here on DU. He did gain a little ground -- starting March at 12.87%, Sanders climbed 1.3 percentage points to 14.17% by the end of the month -- although even that is a slight decline from his March peak of 14.4%, recorded on the 16th.

Next month's predictions

Unfortunately it's a fact that the coronavirus crisis will dominate the news for the foreseeable future. While there are still a handful of primaries scheduled for April, many have already been postponed until later in the year. Current conventional wisdom suggests that it's unlikely the race will be over by this time next month, but in these uncertain times, anything could happen. Regardless, the next Primaries Report will take place on Monday, April 27. Whether it will be the final wrap-up or not remains to be seen.

In the meantime: stay home as much as you can, follow social distancing guidelines, and take care of yourselves. If you're looking for ways to help (or get help) during this difficult time, there are plenty of ways to do so. If you're fortunate enough to be able to help, do what you can to support our brave frontline medical workers and first responders, not to mention the truckers, delivery drivers, grocery store workers, and everyone else who is out there putting their lives on the line to keep the rest of us going.

Good luck, everyone, and stay safe.

[The Magistrate]

1. When Will You Gentlemen Invoke The Mercy Rule, Sir?

Particularly since Sanders is not actully running for the Presidential nomination. He campaigns now not to gain the Democratic Party's nomination for President, but to weaken if not wreck the 'Democratic Establishment'. For 'Bernie', ousting Trump and ending the Republican majority in the Senate is barely an afterthought to this long-standing purpose. Once Sanders' supporters face this fact squarely, they may be able to decide honestly what their best course in this election is: voting against 'Bernie' in any future primary, and for Mr. Biden and Democrats all down the ticket to the lowest office on the ballot come November.

It is probably true that Sanders sees destroying the 'Democratic Establishment' as an essential precondition to defeating Trump et al, and so by his own lights he means it when he says he will do all he can to defeat Trump. But that belief is so self-serving and delusional it deserves not just scorn but contempt.

As with Trump, the only real cure is to deprive the man of the oxygen of worshipful attention. The effect would be that of a bucket of water on the wicked witch of Oz....





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[EarlG]

4. I don't believe we have ever had a mercy rule

As usual, we expect the primaries to end on DU when they end in the real world. That means when there is either only one candidate left standing, or when there are no more contests remaining and the delegate math indicates the presumptive nominee. If our opinion on that changes, we'll let you all know.

[The Magistrate]

7. If Recollection Serves, Sir

The 2008 primary was stopped well short of the convention. But that was a while ago, and my memory may be hazy. In any case at present there is only one Democrat remaining in the race.

[BidenBacker]

10. Way off on that one, Mag

The 2008 Democratic Primary Was Far Nastier Than 2016’s

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-2008-democratic-primary-was-far-nastier-than-2016s/

Still, the New York senator suspended her campaign only after the last primary in June that year. She dropped her bid to win over superdelegates—she trailed Obama in pledged delegates by 100, but essentially tied him in the popular vote, and he needed superdelegates to get him over the threshold for the nomination. But there was even a little drama at the Denver convention in August: Team Obama wanted him nominated by acclamation; some of Team Clinton wanted a roll-call vote, to reflect her “18 million cracks” in the glass ceiling of presidential politics. In a compromise, Clinton herself, standing with the New York delegation she’d won, nominated Obama by acclamation. We know how the story ends: The man Clinton once argued was a doomed candidate won two terms as president.

Hillary used the same argument another poster you replied to just insinuated...that she was winning all the big blue states while Obama was "only" winning the red states that Dems can't win in the general election, so therefore she was the better nominee.

But she had it backwards...Dems who lose blue states in primaries will usually win them in the GE. But those Dems who can win primaries in red states stand a much better chance to win the crucial purple swing states. Which is exactly what Obama did.

[The Magistrate]

11. It Was Indeed A Harsh Primary Contest, Sir

I was a moderator here then, and seem to recall the contest was called here somewhat in advance of the convention, even of the final primaries. I acknowledge it was a while back, and my recollection may be too hazy to be worth much. The longer this sort of wrangle goes on, the more embittered both sides become, and the more sweeping the purge that ensues....

[BidenBacker]

14. You were a mod here back then?

Hooboy, I sure don't envy you! I was posting on WaPo back then, and all hell broke loose there as well. We sure kept those moderators busy handing out cooling-off time-outs!

One thing that is striking just glancing at that 2008 Dem primary delegate map I just posted...it makes one wonder just how the hell Obama won the nomination. That just shows you what a political genius Plouffe is.

I remember very early in the Dem primaries, mighta been right after Iowa, a spreadsheet that he kept inadvertently leaked out. Trump can't think 5 minutes ahead of time, but Plouffe had mapped out the entire Dem primary race months ahead of schedule and had projected numbers for every single primary and caucus. I kept it handy and followed it closely as the months passed, and I'll be damned if he didn't nail most of them to a T.

I said it before and I'll say it again...Biden needs to hire this guy for the general election campaign. No ifs, ands or buts.

[The Magistrate]

15. It Was a Slice, Sir....

I would like to see Mr. Biden do that too, Sir, along with hiring any member of Mr. Bloomberg's media team he can get. Those people came up with a new wrinkle for disseminating propaganda that made Facebook change a rule to cope with it, and that impresses the Hell out of me.

[BidenBacker]

17. Here's a quick summary of that infamous spreadsheet I mentioned

How Accurate Was the Obama Delegate Prediction Spreadsheet?

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/06/how-accurate-was-obama-delegate-prediction-spreadsheet/

Turns out Plouffe got 24 outta 27 primaries right...which would make Nerdy Nate Silver turn green with envy. And he was making predictions weeks and months out, no less.

When they missed (mostly the tougher crazy caucuses) they usually were conservative and underestimated their victories...which is exactly what I want Joe's campaign to do during the GE. Don't take a damn thing for granted...plan for the worst and hope for the best.

And then crush Fuhrer Drumpf in November way worse than Obama did McCain back in '08. To be followed with 3 straight days of celebratory drinking. Hell, if Bloomberg doesn't wanna pay the guy I'll make a personal donation to help get Plouffe on board.

[EarlG]

12. Turns out we didn't call it early in 2008 -- I managed to dig this out of our (crappy) old archives

The New York Times reported on June 5, 2008 that Hillary Clinton was dropping out (she officially ended her bid on June 7).

Skinner posted a message on DU on June 5 indicating that we were transitioning to general election season on June 11:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6285770

[The Magistrate]

13. Thank You, Sir

As I have said, I was not certain of my recollection. It was a good time back, and things got very heated. The side that is losing tends to bear the brunt of enforcement in such situations, as it becomes more heated and shrill with the deterioration of their side's prospects.

I appreciate your looking into the records.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Wow, my dear EarlG! Your graphs are amazing!

And dramatic.

I could never do stuff like this. I think you must really enjoy it.

Thank you!

[MythosMaster]

3. SC

Why we celebrating red states deciding Democratic candidates?

[The Magistrate]

5. I Recall A Great Deal Of Celebration, Sir

When in 2016 'Bernie' won any number of 'red states', often with mere caucus votes.

Is it not the continual cry of "Bernie' advocates that every vote is to be cast and counted, or people are disenfranchised? The fact is those states are disadvantaged at the convention in their delegate allotments. What do you want? Do you think it would be better if only the large 'blue states' voted? The bare plurality squeaker 'Bernie' managed in California would avail him not at all, compared to Illinois and the certain result of New York. 'Bernie' would not have won anything but a caucus in Nevada, either.




"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[BidenBacker]

6. Because

it worked in 2008?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#/media/File:2008_Democratic_Primaries_Popular_Vote.svg

[EarlG]

9. You mean the contest in which more than 50% of the voters were African-American?

I don't think that's a big Republican demographic...

[William769]

8. Thank you EarlG

[PatrickforO]

16. Well, I don't know about mercy rules, and it ain't over til it's over. BUT,

I will say that Biden seems like he is well on the way to being the nominee.

And, I've got to admit that, as much as I like Bernie's platform, and I do, I think Biden is our best candidate in the face of the pandemic and economic crash.

Now if it was Warren still standing against Biden and not Sanders, I'd be singing a different tune. But for me, between Biden and Bernie, Biden inspires more trust. I think Biden can juggle the conflicting priorities you have in a crisis like this. I do not think Bernie can. I know Warren could.

[BidenBacker]

18. Food for thought

Joe Biden is the only candidate with a real shot at getting things done

https://www.vox.com/2020/1/29/21078640/joe-biden-beat-trump-win-2020-election-primaries

It's 2 months old but no mold growing on it yet.

[The Magistrate]

19. So Would I, Sir

Professor Warren has what it takes to be a great President. She has shown she can get reforms through Congress, and has the rare ability to explain complex matters simply so that people with little or no background on the subject can readily understand them.