Independent News and Politics

Despite a strong start for Bernie Sanders and his revolution, the establishment forces have convincingly coalesced around Joe Biden.

Facing non-viability on the eve of Super Tuesday, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg both suddenly ceded their campaigns to endose Joe Biden. Rumors circulated that Obama had nudged some reluctant competitors toward accepting their fate.

Regardless of who called the shots and who pulled the strings, the sudden alignment of such seemingly bitter rivals helped to propel Biden toward a significant lead over both Bloomberg and Bernie. While Sanders managed to hold an edge in California, his margins were ultimately slim, and Joe carried the night in most of the other contests.

Tonight wasn’t much different. Bernie seems to have small leads on the west coast, but the prospect of a united Democratic front has won over swing voters and the once-mythical “Never-Trump Republican.” These oft-discussed but rarely seen conservatives believe in right wing values like limited government and economic non-intervention, but they draw the line at the crass and brutal methods that a populist like Trump carries them out with. Unsurprisingly, these voters are just fine with Biden while fears of Bernie keep them up late at night.

Biden seems immune to criticisms on policy, competency, or even basic awareness of his surroundings. It has been suggested that we wouldn’t see much of him during his administration, while various factions of the old Obama coalition wage a sort of civil war for influence behind the scenes.

Voters seem to hope that he is a figurehead – a blank slate and symbol of, well, decency? Joe might not be the smartest guy in the room, or the hippest, or the most connected, or the coolest… but dangit, he’s probably a good guy and he’s been through some shit.

That might be exactly where the median voter is right now, so if this race is anybody’s, it’s Joe Biden’s to lose.

The final state-wide polls for the Nevada primary caucus have shown a huge surge for Bernie: from 25% to 30% in just the last week. Individual polls have shown numbers as high as 35%, but there aren’t enough samples to know if these are outliers or indicators of a strong upward trend.

Entrance and exit polls – although notoriously unreliable – are also showing a strong Bernie performance:

Beyond early guesses at who will win tonight, and with what margins, there are some other interesting data points we can clean from the flurry of polls aimed at primary participants:

Conservative Democrats have long cited the large number of Democrats who identify as conservative and moderate in their opposition to Bernie (ie: strong liberals do not have a majority).

But what this really shows (and it can also be derived from support for M4A) is that a lot of Democrats who call themselves moderate also favor progressive values and politicians. The reality of 2020 is that moderate Democrats are, for the most part, progressives. Of course, I’m talking about voters & not representatives, because we’ve still got a bit of a gap there.

It’s been a wild few days for those of us who are wondering who won Iowa – and we still don’t have a final, official count.

While Pete Buttigieg appeared to take an early lead, Bernie continued to surge as more results trickled in.

In the last few hours, results have started coming in from satellite caucuses – eligible Iowa voters who weren’t able to participate in the regularly scheduled events. Some of these included Iowans abroad, as well as those who work non-standard shifts. An anecdote from the field helps explain why Bernie did so well with these voters:

For several nights, they canvassed outside the factory from 10 PM to 3 AM, engaging workers in conversation as their shifts ended. The campaign organizers spoke to workers in multiple languages about their lives, their work, and Sanders’s platform and campaign.

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/02/bernie-iowa-caucus-immigrant-factory-workers-organizing

Pete Buttigieg also declared an early victory in Iowa – the night of the election, even. He’s been riding a big wave of momentum since then, but it turns out he may not have won after all.

So after about two and a half days, the status in Iowa is as follows:

• Buttigieg – declared victory with 2% of votes released
• Sanders – declared victory with 97% of votes released
• Warren – mostly quiet, although she has canceled some ad spend
• Biden – mostly in disarray

But who knows? Tom Perez suddenly wants a recount just as soon as it became clear that Bernie would win: