He’s the “favorite” after results of one race and polling of a border adjacent state. Both states are among the least representative of the Democratic Party. FiveThirtyEights primary model is Highly flawed trying to run fluid predictions based off past events.
Bernie is a quintessential left wing bureaucrat. He hasn’t demonstrated ability to win in unfavorable terrain (Vermont is as white and liberal a state out there). or win tough races. Klobuchar is not my favorite candidate but wins in Minnesota by margins significantly past the states partisan index. Warren is a strong one on one debater and ousted a Republican incumbent to win her seat.
I’m curious, who do you think has the biggest chance then? Biden is currently going down after a fourth-place finish in Iowa, likely third or fourth place in New Hampshire, and is currently going down in every recent National and state-specific poll right now. His campaign even had to pull ads from South Carolina, which might not sound that bad until you see the most recent South Carolina poll, that has him only 5 points up. Plus there’s the fact that no democrat has ever won the nomination after coming in fourth in Iowa, if you want to talk about historical precedent which I assume is why you don’t think Bernie can win the nom.
Buttigeg outperformed the Iowa polls and is surging in New Hampshire. However, those are both really white states and he is still really struggling with minority support. That’s not going to bode well for him in Nevada, South Carolina, or many of the Super Tuesday states. I just don’t think there’s a path to the nomination winning only white states.
Warren just isn’t doing well in the polls right now. According to pretty much every recent poll, she’s not in a strong position to win NH, Nevada, SC, or most Super Tuesday states. Unless she really outperforms the polls, I don’t know if she has a path to the nomination.
Bloomberg’s Super Tuesday strategy is really unprecedented but idk how well it’ll work since you kinda want momentum going into Super Tuesday not coming out. He could surprise on Super Tuesday I guess, (as a side note, fuck I hope he’s not the nominee) but I don’t know where his path is from there if he doesn’t have a really strong showing.
Everyone else just doesn’t seem to be polling well enough to have any path. Klobuchar and Steyer maybe but that’s a big maybe.
So out of all these choices, who do you think is likely to be the nominee?
I mean, Bernie beat a Republican incumbent in 1990 and he also seems to be a good debater. If that’s all you need he seems to be at least as strong as Warren.