National Horserace And Looking Ahead
In terms of the national horserace (for whatever such a metric may even be worth, at this point!), Soviet Union-honeymooning socialist loon bag Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has officially overtaken the rest of the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary field. Sanders currently stands 4.4% above second-place former Vice President Joe Biden in the average of recent national polling. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who will not actually be in a primary race until Super Tuesday in a few weeks), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg round out the top five in most recent national polling.
Officially, Bernie Sanders is the clear and unequivocal frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Unofficially, Bloomberg seems to be gambling that, with his carpet-bombing the airwaves and with his general war chest, he will be able to outlast a rapidly languishing Biden and prove to be the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) last man standing in the way of a polarizing Sanders nomination. Of course, query whether the DNC would even be interested in lining up behind Bloomberg, who ran for New York City mayor as a Republican and had a rather controversial video resurface yesterday, if it were to ultimately come down to a Bloomberg versus Sanders long march to next summer’s nominating convention.
The obvious question, at this point, is whether anyone in the Democratic field (or perhaps not even presently in the field) can ultimately overtake Sanders. Large swaths of the Democratic Party’s institutional apparatus have been publicly fretting over the prospect of a Sanders nomination, as some within the more moderate older guard (not unreasonably) fear nominating someone with a decades-long track record of praising actual communist regimes, calling for the nationalization of entire industries, and so forth. But for the time being, it seems like Bernie Sanders is on cruise control. Polling in the upcoming caucus state of Nevada is very sparse, but Sanders should certainly be considered the favorite there, at this juncture.
State-By-State Results Since Last Week
Last night marked the first-in-the-nation Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire. Bernie Sanders was the night’s big winner, as The Daily Wire reported. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang also ended his long shot bid earlier in the evening; I’d expect Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) to become the next candidate to follow Yang’s lead and drop out.
Here are the full New Hampshire results, as reported by The New York Times:
- Sanders 26%
- Buttigieg 24%
- Klobuchar 20%
- Warren 9%
- Biden 8%
- Steyer 4%
- Yang 3%
There are hardly any words to describe the simply calamitous nature of erstwhile national front runner Joe Biden’s start to this 2020 Democratic Party presidential nominating contest. He has now severely underperformed in both Iowa and New Hampshire, leaving his campaign’s future looking exceedingly grim. I’d expect him to bow out by the time South Carolina is over.
Latest National Polling Data
The RealClearPolitics polling average for 2/04 – 2/11 shows Sanders with an average national polling lead of 4.4%. Here is the latest in national polling, via RealClearPolitics:
- Economist/YouGov (2/09 – 2/11): Sanders 22%, Biden 18%, Warren 15%, Bloomberg 12%, Buttigieg 10%
- The Hill/HarrisX (2/07 – 2/10): Biden 23%, Sanders 20%, Bloomberg 16%, Warren 9%, Buttigieg 9%
- Monmouth (2/06 – 2/09): Sanders 26%, Biden 16%, Warren 13%, Buttigieg 13%, Bloomberg 11%
- Quinnipiac (2/05 – 2/09): Sanders 25%, Biden 17%, Bloomberg 15%, Warren 14%, Buttigieg 10%
- Morning Consult (2/04 – 2/09): Sanders 25%, Biden 22%, Bloomberg 17%, Warren 11%, Buttigieg 11%
Latest Upcoming State-By-State Polling Data
Nevada: Biden 21.0%, Sanders 17.5%, Warren 11.5%, Steyer 10.0%, Buttigieg 7.0%
South Carolina: Biden 31%, Steyer 18.5%, Sanders 17.0%, Warren 9.5%, Buttigieg 5.5%
This article has been updated to reflect the most recent survey data.