Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: BIDEN 4 BERNIE 2020 [View all]thesquanderer
(12,946 posts)1. As mentioned above, Buttigieg's voters better overlap with Biden's. But more specifically, while someone who starts thinking less of Buttigieg has a strong likelihood of reconsidering Biden. someone who starts thinking less of Sanders has a stronger chance of moving to Warren, which doesn't help Biden as much. So with limited resources, Biden gets more bang-for-buck knocking Buttigieg than Sanders.
2. Biden is not aiming to come in first, he's aiming to come in third, or second at best. If he's going to try to knock SOMEONE out of the top two, Buttigieg--who already trails Sanders in most polls and doesn't have the firmly dedicated supporters and historically strong NH base that Sanders has--would be the one to go for. Biden has no chance of knocking Sanders down enough to beat him. But there is at least a small chance he could come in ahead of Buttigieg, or (more likely the goal) at least peel off enough Buttigieg votes that he could come at least come in third.
Simply, with limited time and money, aiming at Buttigieg rather than Sanders is simply the smarter political strategy.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden