Who would be the Democratic nominee if Biden didn’t run?

[MARGINS6729]

Warren would have a good chance for the reasons people have said (able to build a coalition of both moderates and progressives). Bernie always would have been a factional candidate simply unable to appeal to most mainstream Democrats given how his campaign was run.

But, this assumes nobody else runs without Joe in the mix. If Kerry or somebody like that does, possible they win instead.

Also, if most other things go pretty much the same until South Carolina (Buttigieg narrowly wins IA, Bernie narrowly wins NH and more solidly wins NV), it’s possible that Clyburn still endorses someone and that person wins the state, then the establishment/moderate candidates coalesce around whoever that is to stop Bernie. I kinda doubt that would be Buttigieg — maybe Klobuchar? Could even be Warren. Maybe Harris or Booker get more black support in the first place and therefore are still in the race at this point, and one of them ends up as the nominee.

Buttigieg... did better than Warren in South Carolina and Nevada. I know you're not dunking on him but I feel like everybody erases what he accomplished. In all four early states, he did better than Warren did.

[MARGINS6729]

I'm not at all sure, but my initial gut reaction is buttigieg. I know that doesn't seemed initially logical, and of course all this is subject to the complete change in Dynamics as to how the campaign would have progressed pre I awoke without buying as the presumptive FrontRunner for so many months.

Please correct me if anyone has statistics to the contrary, but I'm guessing a significant number of white Biden voters may have chosen buttigieg as their second choice. Buttigieg seem to do well with order Democratic whites who were liberal, but not Bernie Sanders liberal. As badly as fighting did in Iowa and New Hampshire, even winning a plurality abiding voters would have probably given him the victory in both of those close races over Sanders.

I don't think Harris or Booker would have necessarily been able to coalesce the black vote without buying. They had plenty of chances on their own when black support of buying was a mile wide and an inch deep, much like it was for Hillary during the 2007 race pre Iowa. Neither one of them could present themselves to the black community AZ a viable Contender to get behind the way Obama did. I just don't see that Dynamic changing much without Biden in the race. While I suppose either one could have held on through lousy showings in Iowa and New Hampshire to somehow pull off a black voters fuelled victory in South Carolina the way Biden did, neither of them had the national presents and name recognition that Biden does in order to survive such big early hits.

Of course that still leaves open the question of where does the black vote go? Buttigieg?!? Not likely. Warren seems only marginally more likely, and that ain't much.

I bet I mostly spitballing / $hitposting here rather than making a firm point.

Buttigieg... won Iowa. Maybe you made a typo but I'm so sick of him being erased from conversations like this which is why I'm really grateful for your post but let's be clear that Buttigieg WON IOWA.