This isn't the diary I intended to be writing next, and in any case I am under the weather with a cold. But I was just going to note that today’s primary’s went exactly how I projected after Super Tuesday. Like I don’t really understand the breathless surprise of Sanders supporters about Sanders winning Nebraska and Kansas; that was always in the calculations. Kansas in particular, regardless of what one ridiculous poll that had the race at 33-23 in Clinton’s favor (hey, it did get her vote total right). Polling caucus states is almost impossible, so in those cases, barring some other really strong indicator or other information (like demographics and how the race is shaping out this time around, hene why MA was one of Sanders’ top targets), it’s best to just look at how the state voted in 2008. Kansas gave Obama 75% of the vote, and Nebraska 67%. Sanders looks set to miss those benchmarks by 8 and 9 percent respectively.
So no, I’m not shocked that a state where Hillary got less than 25% of the vote in 2008 and has a very small minority population, didn’t vote for her this time. Like I’m seriously grumpy-catting comments about [“socialist” Bernie Sanders winning huge in dark red states like Kansas and Nebraska]. Like, how red a state is has nothing to do with its Democratic voters, and because those are caucus states those Democrats that attend are even more active in the party and more liberal on average than they would be in a primary. Massachusetts Republicans tend to be fairly moderate, but Trump won their primary with almost 50% because the people who vote in Republican primaries there tend to be very conservative, not because Trump has so much appeal to well-educated New Englanders. Likewise, in both Nebraska and Kansas the socialist party has a storied tradition and they were in times past among the top states for socialist candidates. The Democratic base in those states is small, but very, very liberal, and also overwhelmingly white, so demographically speaking, they are states you expect Sanders to do well in unless something is going really wrong with his campaign. I said as much a few days ago: a loss in either state would be disastrous for Sanders in terms of presenting his viability (and elsewhere also, that Nebraska would probably be Hillary’s better chance at keeping it close).
I’m glad turnout was great in those two states. I think that’s great for the party, organizing, and helping contest races there. Rep. Brad Ashford, one of the few bright spots of 2014, could definitely use help in his contest against whatever Teaparty extremist gets nominated, and in Kansas, Democrats badly need motivation and organization to send a message to Sam Brownback and the dysfunctional anti-tax zealots who have crippled Kansas’s economy and state finances and gutted its education system to pay for huge tax cuts no one wanted. Turnout was also really good in Louisiana too. And Hillary alone got almost more votes than Cruz and Trump combined.
But the results shouldn’t surprise anyone. With good data, and a decent understanding of predictive models, politics really isn’t that surprising (except for Iowa, Iowa was amusingly disruptive of any narrative model you could try to put on the campaign). The delegate results tonight are as follows:
Sanders Clinton
23 10 Kansas
14 10 Nebraska
10 35 Louisiana
Total for the day was 55 for Clinton, 47 for Sanders. To be fair, Maine should be an extremely favorable caucus for him too, and he will likely make up that -8 delegate count to win overall in the weekend. But these are also our last caucus states (which have favored him and Obama mostly) for a while, and on March 8 and March 15, all the states up will be considerably more diverse and urban than those two states (save Mississippi). But this weekend kind of highlights my point about margins and huge margins racking up a lot more delegates than even middling margins. Compare Kansas to Nebraska; Clinton getting 42% versus 33% makes a huge difference. Now look at this weekend as a whole; it's not about how many states you win, Sanders will have to win 3 out of 4 states to make up the delegate margin in the one state that he lost.
Looking back to 2008, some of the fundamentals remain fairly similar in many states. Except Sanders lacks the southern states where the black vote is most important. These states were the backbone of Obama’s primary coalition. But he's also consistently underperforming Obama in other Obama states by 5-9 percentage points. He’s only done better than Obama in 3 states: Vermont, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma. They are the difference between a 48-47 win, and a 58-42 loss. I’m happy to see Sanders keep campaigning. But I’m also happy to see Markos step in. Things have gotten damned ugly since South Carolina. I thought they couldn’t get uglier, but they did. It was getting to point where the elevation in rhetoric was harming the community and the common sentiment and leaving a lot of bad feelings even between posters who knew each well and had previously had really good relations. There’s no sense in letting that continue past the point where the math becomes too hard. And if Sanders scores some upsets in the next few weeks, I don’t doubt that Markos may consider an extension, but if he doesn’t, regardless of how many delegates are still out he doesn't have a chance at winning the nomination.
But he should still campaign through June. There are good reasons to. Get as many delegates to the convention as possible, have as big as possible a voice, play a big role in shaping the platform, its all fine. And by staying in the race he continues to help bring focus to these issues and energize parts of the Democratic base. After March 15th though, I would like Sanders to shift focus from criticizing Hillary to focusing on attacking the Republican candidates, and I think he’s signaled that’s what he will do if he actively stays in the race until June. After March 15th, if he fails to win any upsets in states like Michigan and Ohio, and loses other bigger states like Illinois, North Carolina and Florida by big margins, I think he should focus on building a wave. Go around helping local Democratic candidates, make sure the Democratic party doesn't lose sight of the things the base really cares about, lots of good can still be done. It’s just after March 15th, there’s no sense in dividing ourselves and having nasty fights after what will probably be, at that point, academic arguments. Sanders' won’t technically have lost, but in all the predictive models he would be done, particularly with him needing 60-70 point shifts in how non-white Democrats are voting in order to get the massive margins in states like California and New York that he would need to catch up delegate wise.
So let’s see how next Tuesday goes first. That double header is one state, Mississippi, that may give Hillary her largest margin yet. And another state that Sanders has been spending huge in and outspending Hillary to try and compete in, Michigan. Polling hasn’t been kind to him there however, so he would need a pretty big upset and a lot movement over the last few days to win. If Hillary wins Michigan comfortably, it spells bad news for Sanders attempt to compete in other big, populous midwestern states on Super Tuesday 2: Electric Tuesday.