This really could be over by next Tuesday
Bernie is either tied for first, or has a slim lead in all the big states of Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia. Which puts Bernie in a very good place.
However, it's in California where a good night could turn into a tidal wave that would effectively end the primaries.
Under the terms set by the national party, candidates can only win delegates — the partisan electors sent to the Democratic National Convention to secure the Democratic nomination — if they nab at least 15% of the popular vote. Those with vote totals under that all-important threshold get a grand total of zilch.
As candidates scramble to rack up support in the lead-up to the California primary on March 3, the latest polls here are likely to send all candidates not named “Bernie Sanders” scrambling especially hard.A Public Policy Institute of California survey last week gave the Vermont senator at 32% of the likely Democratic vote statewide. No other candidate reached the 15% threshold — though it was within the margin of error for Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg. And that was before Sander’s decisive victory in Nevada.
The good news for Sanders (and bad news for everyone else in the field) is reflected in the California current polling average from FiveThirtyEight. Sanders hovers near 30%, while Bloomberg, Biden, Warren and Buttigieg come in just under 15%.
If current trends hold, Sanders stands to win a huge share — if not an outright majority — of California’s 415 delegates (that doesn’t include “superdelegates” who aren’t elected and whose influence over the nomination process is more limited).
Theoretically, Sanders is positioned to win ALL of California's 415 delegates.
ALL. OF. THEM.
Of course it's extremely unlikely that this would happen.
But if trends hold California is looking to end this race.
Comments
We'll know more after
tonight and Saturday.
Everyone got their popcorn?
Are you fired up and ready to go? (suck it Obummer)
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Are all of the state delegates in fact allocated statewide,
or are some allocated according to Congressional districts? If the latter, a candidate might poll less than 15% statewide, but still pick up a few delegates with pluralities in a some of the Congressional districts.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Not in IA, NH, and NV
viable candidates in each precinct end up with an allocation out of the county delegates that precinct has to award. Except these can only be whole delegates because they're actual people. In a tiny precinct that would only be one delegate which probably means the candidate with the highest number gets it, but I'm guessing on this point. In the event of a tie -- say 50/50 after realignment and the precinct has only three delegates to award -- each would get one, and the third one is decided by a coin flip in IA and a card draw in NV.
Not according to wikipedia, re Nevada:
I will note that I can't actually understand this "explanation", or at least, it seems to be missing some details.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
That's clear as mud.
State and Local Democratic Parties use the presidential caucuses as a marketing effort to increase formal participation and membership in the party. At each stage: precinct caucus to county/CD convention to state convention to national party convention, the number of human participants is reduced, but the proportional representation from the precinct caucuses is preserved at each stage, as much as possible, and these delegates are pledged. IOW, can't change the candidate they represent. (Assuming no interim catastrophe.)
A ticket to the DNC convention is considered a prize by party officials and ordinary citizens that worked for a candidate. So, they concocted a system that allows some of those ordinary citizens to get the prize, but preserves some slots as rewards for local and state officials.
The explanation by the party tells us how many from each of those two categories -23 from the caucuses and 13 party officials - but doesn't include a description of the process for the selections. There probably isn't any impediment to a local/state official to rise up from a precinct caucus to the national convention and they may even dominate in the citizen category.
As delegates are always whole number, one candidate gains and another loses at each step in the process. For example, the percentage of CCDs in 2016 were 52.6% to Sanders 47.3%, but by at the national convention, Hillary had 57% of the delegates and Bernie had 43%. Have no idea when and where she gained and Bernie lost.
Unfortunately, doubt it.
They're a fairly stubborn and unrealistically optimistic lot of candidates. However, empty checkbook accounts will make the decision for at least one. (Biden has ignored that fact until now and will probably continue to do so unless or until it's crystal clear that he's out of it, and perhaps not even then because there are precedents for that.)
Having all of them out but himself is Bloomberg's strategy. He then gets all the white neoliberalcons. Like a big FU to women from the DP. But maybe it will get them to wake up and return the FU.
It would be so very wonderful to watch establishment heads
explode when Bernie gets all the delegates from California.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020
But with California
If I recall in 2016, it took forever to tabulate that absentees and mail-ins. So while I hope for the sentiment put forth in the essay, I think we won't know it's all over next Tue. We will know if the weakest links will finally drop out.
One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--Tennyson
In fact, did they ever actually finish counting
the votes in the 2016 California Dem primary?
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
That question
could solicit a scary answer!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Sanders could really win the first 4 contests.
More power to him!
Sanders is the candidate farthest to the Left and everyone should appreciate him for it.
"The enemy is anybody who is going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." Yossarian
With Al and Jesse
now in SC and praising Sanders, you could be right. Until today, I didn't think that was possible; so, you may have been ahead of the curve on this.
This, of course, presupposes that votes still matter
After watching the Democratic party deploy their caucus "app" I've abandoned that idea entirely.
Bernie will not win the Democratic nomination. That's my prediction and it makes no difference how popular he is or how he does in the polls or even what we vote. Bernie won't be allowed to win.
We'll see if I'm right in a few more months.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
A few months?
It's likely that you'll be proven wrong by this time next week
It depends on how much of a dick Bloomberg will be
I'm still afraid of that POS. For all we know, he might even run third party if Bernie gets the nomination. I was saying ever since I wandered into C99% that I thought we'd know what's what come Super Tuesday. Now, I'm not so sure. It's like there's no choice but to scrape and struggle come hell or highwater.