Biden IS expected to get his first Democratic primary win this Saturday in the South Carolina primary and should do well in the Southern Super Tuesday states that have majority Black voters…
Going into Super Tuesday with 3 day after a South Carolina win could propel Biden into second place in the primary race and a strong showing in Texas and the Southern states could offset a possible strong California showing for Bernie Sanders…
PPP’s newest poll of Democratic primary voters in South Carolina finds it looking like a two person race, with only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders reaching double digits in their support. Biden gets 36% to 21% for Sanders, with Elizabeth Warren at 8%, Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer at 7%, Tulsi Gabbard at 6%, and Amy Klobuchar at 3% rounding out the field.
Other recent polls have found Steyer’s support in the 15-20% range. If he has indeed collapsed, as our poll seems to suggest, it appears his former supporters are making their way to Biden and helping him to open a bigger lead in the state. The key to Biden’s success continues to be strong support from African Americans- he gets 50% to 21% for Sanders, with no one else polling above 6%.
The South Carolina numbers show the difficulty Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and even Elizabeth Warren are going to face as the Democratic contest moves to more diverse states. The race is actually pretty close among white voters with Sanders getting 22%, Biden 20%, and Warren and Buttigieg each 15%. But Warren and Buttigieg are each at 2% with black voters, dropping their overall support into single digits. Klobuchar gets just 1% with African Americans.
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PPP’s newest North Carolina poll finds a close three way race in the state with Joe Biden at 23%, Bernie Sanders at 20%, and Michael Bloomberg at 17% all clustered close together. Elizabeth Warren at 11%, Pete Buttigieg at 9%, Amy Klobuchar at 4%, Tom Steyer at 3%, and Tulsi Gabbard at 1% round out the field. Compared to PPP’s last poll of North Carolina, conducted for a private client two weeks ago, Biden has gained 4 points, Sanders has gained 2 points, and Bloomberg has dropped a point. This is the first time in PPP’s polling that Bloomberg has stopped going up and Biden has stopped going down after an extended run where Bloomberg made further gains at Biden’s expense in every new poll….
Note….
RCP has Biden with an average lead in SC and Sanders in NC….The Sanders lead in NC is with the MOE…Biden HAS VERY LARGE RCP average leads in Ga, Fla, Vir…
Sanders has large lead in Ca, with the largest among of delegates and is only 1.6% ahead of Biden in Tex….
image…nytimes.com
I still do not think james understands the concept of Democrats allocating delegates on a proportional basis. He seems to think it is “winner take all.”
Biden *might* win SC on Saturday. That would seem to be a strategic anti-Sanders choice right now more than anything. On Super Tuesday, perhaps Biden could win Alabama with similar demographics, but it tough to see a first place finish in any state beyond that.
Biden is tied for first in Texas and leading by a couple of points in North Carolina.
I know how much CG likes sticking it to james for his cheerleading, but a this point he is cheerleading himself for Sanders to win so he can continue his claim of being “rarely wrong”–(of course it’s easy to make that claim when you simply say that previous predictions were somehow not predictions) and also so he has a better excuse to say “pox on both houses” and vote for no one like a child in November.
Again, I don’t want Sanders to be nominated.
But also, reality is reality. Sanders is set to win the lion’s share of delegates on Super Tuesday as compared to Biden. The former VP has underperformed polls in every state thus far. What will be most important to see is how Bloomberg does.
I would think Bloomberg will have a solid chance to win the Florida primary.
As for the latter part, that is of course a lot of chutzpah coming from the unrepentant Nader/Perot voter.
“but times have changed and the stakes are so much higher now…”
Yeah, stopping Sanders from the White House is pretty high stakes compared to what we faeed before. I suppose that means I need to vote for Trump in order to stop Sanders. I still won’t do it.
I stand by my Perot vote
I have admitted voting for Nader was the biggest mistake I’ve made at the ballot box.
I can own up
Other than Nevada Sanders has underperformed the polls as well.
Yes, and he changed that narrative after Nevada. He won their huge. Winning begets winning. People like the idea of voting for a “winner.”
Thanks Scott….
Yes….
No….
CG?
I list in the side bar and have said repeatedly that its proportional ABOVE the threshold….
I don’t think that Biden is finished. I assume that Sanders and Bloomberg will get beat up tonight, and how they respond will tell us a lot about who will win the nomination. As of today, I would wager that Biden wins SC by 6 points. His problem is that Bloomberg is about to start getting a large chunk of votes – and Bloomberg will get his votes disproportionately from Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar.
I didn’t think the race was over before Iowa – and I don’t think it is over now. If Sanders can somehow win SC, then I don’t think he will be stopped. But I don’t think that will happen.