New Hampshire Primary Thread (polls close at 6-7 CT)

[Beet]

At this point Klobuchar is only serving as an extra column for the Bernie Sanders campaign. She is there to take votes from his opponents, Buttigieg, Biden and Warren. She might as well be on the Bernie Sanders payroll.

What did I say, folks, what did I say? I was right again. If Amy was not in this, Pete would be running away with it.

[Beet]

Impressive turnout tonight, in contrast to Iowa. It's almost as if the voters could smell the caucuses being *#!@ from earlier in the day.

[Beet]

It's crazy to think that Bernie's campaign would've probably been finished after tonight if Klobuchar didn't go after Pete in the debate. Still an underwhelming victory for him, but he's still in the game.

Yeah, he's been the frontrunner for a month now, and co-frontrunner for a few months. I don't understand why they never attack him. They really have to do it if any of them actually wants to win the nomination.

[Beet]

So if we divide the current vote into factions...

Joe + Pete + Amy (Moderates): 53%

Bernie + Warren (Progressives): 35%

If it wasn't for the split in the moderate vote, Bernie wouldn't even be competitive.

Politics is never that simple, a lot of those Klobuchar second preferences are for Warren. Furthermore a lot of the younger Buttigeg supporters are not going to go to Biden or Amy and would go to Yang.

Yeah by that standard, NH '16

Not Trump: 65%
Trump 35%

"If it wasn't for the split in the traditional Republican vote, Trump wouldn't even be competitive."

Edit: Also relevant to the post above. Anyway, I'd just love to see one candidate for once passionately go after Sanders.

[Beet]

So if we divide the current vote into factions...

Joe + Pete + Amy (Moderates): 53%

Bernie + Warren (Progressives): 35%

If it wasn't for the split in the moderate vote, Bernie wouldn't even be competitive.

This is a ridiculous & nonsensical analysis given that a majority of voters in exit polls expressed support for Medicare for all & free college.

I agree that the analysis isn’t a great one, however many people can express support for M4A without actually agreeing with Bernies path to getting there. That explains the drop in support that happens in polling when you mention M4A eliminating private health insurance. Additionally, even if one may support Bernie’s approach to M4A, it does not mean that they support him. My mother, for example, supports Bernie’s M4A, but not his plan for the Green New Deal, Federal jobs guarantee, student loan cancellation, or  free college. She supports the concepts behind all these policies, but not the extreme amount of spending that they require. That’s why she supports Biden. She’s not a super informed voter either, but the “free everything” approach is a big turn off for her.

Yeah, my biggest issue with Bernie's healthcare plan has nothing that he supports universal healthcare (something I've supported for about 15 years or so).  Instead, it's that it completely eliminates private health insurance without giving folks who can afford it and prefer it to public healthcare the option to choose for themselves. I think everyone (especially the wealthy) should have to pay higher taxes to fund a public option regardless of whether they choose private or public healthcare.  

However, the idea of depriving folks who can afford a higher quality private healthcare plan of the right to choose that over a government plan is a non-starter for me and the only reason it doesn't make me a diehard #NeverBernie voter in the primary season is because there's no way he'd ever be able to get such a thing through Congress.  If a hypothetical President Sanders tried to do so, I'd certainly call and write every Democratic representative from my state to express my opposition to the proposal, as well as seriously consider donating to anyone with a real shot at successfully primarying any congressional Democrat who voted for it.  

Side note: Pete's line about how the meaning of M4A has changed is actually pretty spot on.  It used to be that people used it as a stand in for universal healthcare and recognized that there were tons of ways to potentially achieve that goal.  However, now many folks thing M4A means "eliminate all private healthcare and replace it with a mandatory government program" (i.e. the average person's perception of Bernie's healthcare plan).  As such, there's nothing inconsistent about having supported M4A four years ago and opposing what it has come to mean.  In fact, many Democrats have done just that.

My views on M4A almost verbatim.

Ditto under the condition that enrolling in a government run health plan would have little out of pocket costs. I don't want a two tiered health care system with a government plan becoming more of a high risk pool than it already is.

I've made clear I'm no fan of Bernie, but the problem with keeping a "higher quality" private health insurance is that, in my mind, it would eventually result in a 2-tiered system, a "better" private system and an "inferior" public system. The public system would eventually acquire the stigma of inferiority and poverty and more and more people would try to escape from it. That would further decrease its quality in a negative spiral. Eventually there is the risk of ghettoization.

If there were only a public system that everyone had to use, then the political pressure to keep up the quality of this public system would be intense, and would be coming from upper middle class people. That is what you need.

That being said, I completely agree that Bernie has no chance of getting any of this into law, which is part of why I don't support him.

[Beet]

Wow Republican turnout was huge, Trump got 151,000 votes in an uncontested primary, compared to Obama 61,000 in 2012 and Bush 67,000 in 2004.