The calendar post-Super Tuesday highly favors Biden

[RI]

If Sanders is to win, he's going to need to build up a big lead on Super Tuesday, because the calendar thereafter is really tough for him in a one-on-one race with Biden.

On 3/10, we have ID, MI, MS, MO, ND, and WA. Biden almost certainly wins MI, MS, and MO and thereby takes most of the delegates. He may even win WA thanks to the Seattle suburbs. Sanders is quite unlikely to win MI this time around; that part of his 2016 coalition is gone. Sanders likely wins ID. ND depends on if Klobuchar wins MN and sticks around or not.

On 3/17, we have AZ, FL, IL, and OH. Biden takes FL for sure, likely OH, and could very well take a clean sweep on the back of AZ retirees and IL black voters/suburbanites, which would be devastating to the Sanders campaign narrative. The next week Biden takes GA easily. The question would start to become: where can Sanders win outside the West?

On 4/4, Sanders may win a few small states such as AK, HI, and WY, but Biden wins LA and takes the majority of delegates for the day. Again, the narrative is in Biden's favor.

On 4/7, WI votes, which might save Sanders for a bit, but could just as easily be a dagger in his campaign.

The big one is 4/28 when CT, DE, MD, NY, PA, and RI vote. Biden definitely takes DE and MD and is strongly favored in establishment-friendly CT, PA, and RI. Sanders likely pins his hopes on NY, but I don't see it breaking for him at this point. If Biden pulls off the clean sweep, he's the presumptive nominee, even if he can't get the majority of delegates on the first ballot.

So what's Sanders's path? I suppose his hope would be to take CA big and win TX on Super Tuesday to build up a lead, hope to keep the Rust Belt as close as possible or even sneak a win or two, hope for a 2/2 split on 3/17 (winning AZ and IL), win WI, and pull off a narrow win in NY and maybe CT/RI. Basically, he would need to keep his losses to a minimum, and hope he can maintain his delegate plurality going into the convention. Above all, he needs to keep the perception of Biden building momentum at bay. The calendar makes that task quite difficult.

[mgop]

biden can't win anything outside south, and most of the south will be done tomorrow, so stop trolling

[Redban]

If Sanders is to win, he's going to need to build up a big lead on Super Tuesday, because the calendar thereafter is really tough for him in a one-on-one race with Biden.

[RI]

If Sanders is to win, he's going to need to build up a big lead on Super Tuesday, because the calendar thereafter is really tough for him in a one-on-one race with Biden.

Bloomberg's support will evaporate when he can't win anything.

[MT Treasurer]

If Sanders does end up losing the nomination (which is certainly possible, whether people like it or not), the irony is that it will be due in no small part to the fact that he’s lost a lot of support in the states/among the demographics that made him a viable candidate in 2016 (i.e. states like NH, MI, MO, etc.). The Sanders campaign should have sounded the alarm bells over his underperformance in NH, which was the first major warning sign for him (IA wasn’t an impressive win, but could be explained by other factors).

I (for good reason) took a lot of flack for my "Likely Biden/Sanders faces an uphill battle" predictions, but in all honesty, if Sanders wins the primary, it will mostly be because of circumstances beyond his control. Sanders probably would have never had a path against a stronger and more charismatic candidate than Biden who could have united enough factions of the party early on and established himself as a viable alternative to Sanders from the get-go.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I don't think MI goes for Biden.  But I do think he is leading the delegate count at the end of March.

ACELA should be the death blow for the Sanders campaign in a clean Biden victory scenario.  The problem is that, like Hillary, Biden has to endure a month of losses in small states that will be blown up in significance by the media out of sheer boredom.  In a rational world nobody would care that Sanders won Wyoming, but because it's the only primary to write about, we'll get an entire news cycle about how Biden can't keep it up.

Clinton managed to pull through and smash Sanders to pieces on ACELA.  But she ran a much better primary campaign than Biden.  Can he do the same?

Biden also needs to win Ohio and Illinois.  He should already be looking forward to them.  Let Sanders have AZ, it's much too far away from OH/IL to go campaign there.

[RI]

I don't think MI goes for Biden.  But I do think he is leading the delegate count at the end of March.

ACELA should be the death blow for the Sanders campaign in a clean Biden victory scenario.  The problem is that, like Hillary, Biden has to endure a month of losses in small states that will be blown up in significance by the media out of sheer boredom.  In a rational world nobody would care that Sanders won Wyoming, but because it's the only primary to write about, we'll get an entire news cycle about how Biden can't keep it up.

Clinton managed to pull through and smash Sanders to pieces on ACELA.  But she ran a much better primary campaign than Biden.  Can he do the same?

Biden also needs to win Ohio and Illinois.  He should already be looking forward to them.  Let Sanders have AZ, it's much too far away from OH/IL to go campaign there.

Where would Sanders's strength in MI come from? Michigan has large black populations in Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw to start from for Biden. Michigan has a ton of older non-college whites who are not supportive of Sanders this time around. If Biden is the main anti-Bernie, he likely runs strong in Oakland County and probably Macomb as well.

Sanders has places like Ann Arbor (which should also be very good for Warren), maybe Lansing and Kalamazoo and a few other college towns like Mount Pleasant and Marquette, and? I guess he hopes to repeat his performance in Grand Rapids? He's not going to clean up the rural counties like he did in 2016.

[Holmes]

I don't think MI goes for Biden.  But I do think he is leading the delegate count at the end of March.

ACELA should be the death blow for the Sanders campaign in a clean Biden victory scenario.  The problem is that, like Hillary, Biden has to endure a month of losses in small states that will be blown up in significance by the media out of sheer boredom.  In a rational world nobody would care that Sanders won Wyoming, but because it's the only primary to write about, we'll get an entire news cycle about how Biden can't keep it up.

Clinton managed to pull through and smash Sanders to pieces on ACELA.  But she ran a much better primary campaign than Biden.  Can he do the same?

Biden also needs to win Ohio and Illinois.  He should already be looking forward to them.  Let Sanders have AZ, it's much too far away from OH/IL to go campaign there.

Where would Sanders's strength in MI come from? Michigan has large black populations in Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw to start from for Biden. Michigan has a ton of older non-college whites who are not supportive of Sanders this time around. If Biden is the main anti-Bernie, he likely runs strong in Oakland County and probably Macomb as well.

Sanders has places like Ann Arbor (which should also be very good for Warren), maybe Lansing and Kalamazoo and a few other college towns like Mount Pleasant and Marquette, and? I guess he hopes to repeat his performance in Grand Rapids? He's not going to clean up the rural counties like he did in 2016.

Some of this reads a little like a post from 2016 explaining that Sanders can't win Michigan against Hillary.

[YE]

I think you’re overestimating Biden’s strength in margins among black voters and rurals. Somewhat related it’s going to be hard for Biden to get a plurality when he’s currently down by a bit nationally but Bernie hasn’t preformed as well in state polls as his national numbers would suggest and signals are mixed to who would have more support in a 1 vs 1. Honestly this whole primary will appear more clear after tomorrow lol.

[RI]

I think you’re overestimating Biden’s strength in margins among black voters and rurals. Somewhat related it’s going to be hard for Biden to get a plurality when he’s currently down by a bit nationally but Bernie hasn’t preformed as well in state polls as his national numbers would suggest and signals are mixed to who would have more support in a 1 vs 1. Honestly this whole primary will appear more clear after tomorrow lol.

That may be true. I suppose the broader points are these: 1) Sanders needs a lot of things to break his way that he has no control over, 2) if he thinks he can coast his way to the nomination on the strength of Super Tuesday, he'll find his delegate lead will disappear quite quickly if the perception is that the party is rallying around Biden, and 3) Sanders needs to find a way to expand his coalition beyond the groups we've seen so far before Biden co-opts his potential allies.

[Matty]

Bernie is ahead nationally by double digits


That translates into a lot of state wins

[7,052,770]

Sounds about right. People forget that a lot of Sanders's support in 2016 was from people who simply wanted an alternative to Hillary.

[RI]

Bernie is ahead nationally by double digits

Not anymore

[Gass3268]

Bernie is ahead nationally by double digits

Not anymore

[Grassroots]

If Sanders is to win, he's going to need to build up a big lead on Super Tuesday, because the calendar thereafter is really tough for him in a one-on-one race with Biden.

Bloomberg's support will evaporate when he can't win anything.

He is going to win OK and AR.

[GeneralMacArthur]

MC has Biden only down 3 and that's with Buttigieg still in the race.

If CNN is to be believed, a Buttigieg endorsement of Biden is coming sooner rather than later.  Probably before Ohio and Illinois, both neighboring states of Indiana.  That might be enough to move his 10 points to something like 6 Biden 2 Warren 2 Sanders, which would close the gap.  This is also ignoring the imminent Klobuchar dropout, and the fact that Bloomberg voters will go to Biden rather than Sanders.