Election 2020

[Sour Masher]

Andrew Yang dropping out of the race

Wow, I did not see him doing that this early.

[revo]

Michael Bennett dropping out as well

[Sour Masher]

Michael Bennett dropping out as well

I am surprised it took him this long.

[revo]

None of the NH polls, even from the last couple of days, had Klobuchar anywhere near the 19.7% she’s getting.

[The Feral Slasher]

None of the NH polls, even from the last couple of days, had Klobuchar anywhere near the 19.7% she’s getting.

She has more votes than biden and warren combined. Just crazy

[Sour Masher]

None of the NH polls, even from the last couple of days, had Klobuchar anywhere near the 19.7% she’s getting.

It's Klob-bering time? None of the poor word play out there is doing it for me, but this one is better than the rest. I know you said Biden would never drop out before Super Tuesday, and I agree he won't. Buuut, if he doesn't walk away with SC, and he really cares about a centrist winning over Sanders, then he should clear the lane for Klobuchar, I think. I must say, I clearly put too much stock in polling, cuz I didn't think she was viable at all. Maybe she is.

[heyelander]

None of the NH polls, even from the last couple of days, had Klobuchar anywhere near the 19.7% she’s getting.

Yet another example of DNC shenanigans

[madducks]

We should probably hold an election since these polls are so unreliable.

[revo]

Takeaways:
- Biden is on the ropes with 2 terrible performances. But he still has the minority vote factor going for him, so he needs a rebound in SC to prove he’s still viable.

- Warren is a goner. NH borders on MA so presumably they have seen her ads for years and years.....and they didn’t resonate. At all. This was the worst performance by a MA politician in the NH primary ever. If she can’t win in her backyard, it’s game over.

- Bernie, despite his win, underwhelmed. He crushed Hillary like Thanos in 2016 but tonight, on his own turf, he just eked out a 1.6% win over a small town mayor. Independents looked elsewhere, much different than in ‘16. Nevertheless, he vanquished his progressive opponent and could open up a huge lead if Warren were to drop out. He’s now the DNC frontrunner and in command.

- big winners tonight were Mayo Pete, Klobuchar and Bloomberg.

[B-Fly]

Here's my take. Unlike many others here, I still feel positively about almost every one of the candidates still in this race. Every one of them has strong positives and a strategy to attract the voters they'll need to defeat Trump. That said, we leave New Hampshire with too many candidates still in the race and still, at least as of today, planning to stay in through Super Tuesday. If the Super Tuesday delegates are distributed among four, five or even six contenders (e.g., Sanders, Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Warren), then the chances of a contested convention become really high. And if there's a contested convention it will deny the Democrats the chance they need to coalesce around the candidate and the message they will need to maximize their chances of defeating Trump on Election Day.

I hope that somehow we can get ourselves down to two or at most three viable candidates on Super Tuesday, but the chance of a contested convention is in part what is likely to keep several candidates with no realistic chance at winning the nomination outright from dropping out. Because several of them think they could make a strong case for themselves at a contested convention.

Despite that Elizabeth Warren is the candidate I would probably appoint if I were somehow charged with appointing the President, I think she should drop out for the sake of the party and defeating Trump. I think Biden should drop out unless he can win big in South Carolina. I think it's tougher to say that Buttigieg or Klobuchar should drop out given their respective performances in New Hampshire, but I think that each of them should set a target of finishing first or second in either Nevada or South Carolina, and if they can't pull off a first or second place finish in either state, they should bow out before Super Tuesday. If either of them can pull off a top two finish in both states, I think perhaps Bloomberg should consider bowing out.

Ultimately, I'd like to see this primary contest be a fair and clear debate between Sanders's progressive populism and a more moderate Democratic, consensus-building, incremental approach. Whether the latter approach is represented by Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Bloomberg or Biden is less important to me than that we allow the primary voters to make that choice and that everyone embrace that intra-party debate in a positive way with a clear commitment to coalesce against Trump once it's decided. And I want to see either Sanders or the last non-Sanders standing win the nomination outright before the convention.