Simple question: Does anyone believe Biden will still win this thing?

[GeneralMacArthur]

It's a race now.  But Biden is still the favorite.  Am I confident he'll win?  No, but I'd still put my money on him.  He has way more ground to gain as his support is currently being eaten into by several other candidates.  He will have the backing of key major endorsements down the road.  He destroys Sanders in H2H polling.  And Sanders is finally, at long last, starting to come under fire and get a proper vetting.

There's plenty of scenarios where Sanders wins, of course.  But I still think his path to the nomination is much narrower than Biden's.

[Orser67]

I think he has somewhere between a 50%-66% chance of victory. Aside from his standing in polls, I think he has a few factors going for him:

1)Klobuchar and Buttigieg are fairly likely to drop out before Super Tuesday, and their voters are likely to choose Biden over Sanders. Whereas Warren (whose voters would be more likely to choose Sanders over Biden) seems a bit more likely to stay in through Super Tuesday.
2)Party leaders favor Biden over Sanders and I think we'll see some moderately important Biden endorsements going forward.

Additionally, I think that people are (as usual) overrating the importance of the early states. Yes, they will be important for whittling down the field. But they ultimately represent just 4% of the pledged delegates at stake. As long as Biden wins SC and has respectable showings in the other three states, he'll be in a decent position for Super Tuesday.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The real worrying scenario is if, after winning the first three states, Sanders starts to poll ahead of Biden in states like Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio or NY.  Those are the Biden firewall states.  He needs them to make up the delegate gap from losing California by double digits.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways he can fight back.  A Kamala Harris endorsement, for instance, is something Joe can hope for.  Harris would never endorse Sanders.

[MT Treasurer]

Biden can definitely win the nomination even if he loses IA and NH badly (although I’m sure this forum will declare Biden DOA after IA, if it hasn’t already), but he needs to crawl his way back in NV and absolutely crush it in SC. NV probably becomes the most important state for Biden.

[Sbane]

Biden can definitely win the nomination even if he loses IA and NH badly (although I’m sure this forum will declare Biden DOA after IA, if it hasn’t already), but he needs to crawl his way back in NV and absolutely crush it in SC. NV probably becomes the most important state for Biden.

Considering that western Whites and Hispanics are Bernie's core demographic, and it is a caucus not a primary, how likely is that?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Biden can definitely win the nomination even if he loses IA and NH badly (although I’m sure this forum will declare Biden DOA after IA, if it hasn’t already), but he needs to crawl his way back in NV and absolutely crush it in SC. NV probably becomes the most important state for Biden.

Even if he doesn't do any of those things, it's still only a slight Sanders lead.  People underestimate just how many delegates are wrapped up in the big states.  California alone has more than 10% of delegates.  Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania each have 5%.  New York has about 7%.  Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Michigan, and North Carolina are the other big ones.  Combined, these ten states are more than half of the delegates.  Sanders can win 30 of the 40 other states and it won't matter if he can't beat Biden here.

Most of these states vote in March or April.  Nobody is going to care what happened in early February . by that point.  Either Biden is still viable or he isn't.  If he is still viable, the entirety of the party that doesn't want Sanders (90% of elected officials and the entire establishment) will coalesce around him, not to mention all the binary-choice voters who will come home to him (Bloomberg of course is a wild card).

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It should be obvious that a Biden victory remains plausible.

That said, it's increasingly clear that a great deal of opposition to Biden comes from voters who don't particularly like Sanders.

We're talking about most Buttigieg and Bloomberg voters, many Warren and Klobuchar voters, and a solid chunk of undecideds.

Journalists and others eager to collapse this campaign along strict moderate vs. left lanes have missed this story. Others will continue to describe this as the "woke" lane, but that's not exactly true either, even if it describes attitudes that are common among some of these voters.

Whether Sanders becomes the frontrunner, remains competitive, or (by now unlikely barring a health issue) swiftly becomes a non-factor, the party at-large appears reluctant to line up behind Biden.

This would be the very worrying thing if I were on the Biden team, the "establishment" have been trying to find a Biden alternative since he got into the race. They clearly don't think he's a strong candidate in the general for whatever reason.

[The Mikado]

I think it's more likely than not Biden's the nominee. He'll be the beneficiary of some rapid field winnowing the next two weeks.

[AN63093]

Not sure OP knows what the definition of "free fall" means...

In any case, the answer is that Biden is still favored overall, but there is now an opening for Sanders depending on when the non-Sanders factions unify around a single candidate.  Barring some surprise like Warren becoming viable again, the race will eventually become Sanders v Biden... but how long it takes to get to that point will determine whether we get a R-2016 type primary or a R-2012.

Averroes has identified the primary issue- what's happening is the faction some call the "woke lane" or the SJW/identity politics faction, or whatever you want to call this group.. the people who went from Harris > Warren > Buttigieg, and are now scattered amongst several candidates (including Klobuchar).. these people plus the undecideds have not coalesced around a candidate yet.  They started to in the summer with Harris, and then definitely did in the fall with Warren when she had her bump.  But what I was waiting to see is if any black voters left Biden to join them, and that never happened.  From an independent observer with no horse in the race, it was fascinating to watch this- like viewing a game of chicken where the participants didn't know they're playing.

Well.. the woke lane ended up dispersing first, which is not what I would've guessed a year ago, but Biden's support was never as soft as a lot of people were predicting (including myself).  My inclination is all these people end up with Biden in the end, because while they may not particularly care for him (and wish to see the party go in a different direction), about the only thing they like even less is Sanders.  When they jump on board the Biden train will be critical- if it happens early enough, particularly by Super Tuesday (or especially in the first 4 states), then the race is over.  If it happens too late, then you get more of a Cruz v Trump type scenario and Sanders has a shot.

We'll see.  I don't know exactly when the "point of no return" is.. but maybe around the FL primary.

[SN2903]

I don't think Biden will end up as the nominee

Yes he will.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Biden has huge, meaningful endorsements still in his arsenal and the CBC ready to swoop in and save him.

Bernie Sanders is not winning the nomination.

[Roblox]

He's still favored by a fair bit, but unlike a month or even a couple weeks ago i'm no longer resigned to the inevitability of his nomination, especially if Sanders wins 3/4 early states.

[One Term Floridian]

Lol Biden is the odds on favorite to win the nomination no matter what trolls on the internet think

[SN2903]

Biden has huge, meaningful endorsements still in his arsenal and the CBC ready to swoop in and save him.

Bernie Sanders is not winning the nomination.

More like DNC will rig it against him. Bernie supporters either stay home, vote for Trump, vote for Stein and a small portion may vote for Biden. Dems won't unite in 2020 either. Trump wins big.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Biden has huge, meaningful endorsements still in his arsenal and the CBC ready to swoop in and save him.

Bernie Sanders is not winning the nomination.

More like DNC will rig it against him. Bernie supporters either stay home, vote for Trump, vote for Stein and a small portion may vote for Biden. Dems won't unite in 2020 either. Trump wins big.

Oh please. The DNC isn't rigging a damn thing. Why did Bernie whoop Hillary in the caucuses organized by the DNC? You're just trying to sow dissension and set the stage for animus towards Biden when he secures the 1990 delegates needed to win.

[randomusername]

I don't think that the results in Iowa and New Hampshire will have long term impact.  It hasn't for several election cycles.

I'm not so sure about that. I realize that correlation does not imply causation, but the winner of the Iowa for the Democrats has been the nominee since 2000 and since 1980 (if you remove 88 and 92). Granted, New Hampshire's record has been more spotty when it comes to the future nominee.

[ProudModerate2]

Lol Biden is the odds on favorite to win the nomination no matter what trolls on the internet think

I pretty-much agree with this.
But, just 2 or 3 weeks ago, I would have given Biden about a 60-70% chance of winning the entire nomination.
Bernie has definitely closed the gap somewhat, and now I believe Biden's chances are between 50-60%.

[Non Swing Voter]

um yes.  Is this a concern trolling thread or do people here legitimately believe he doesn't have a chance despite every poll to the contrary and his stability as front runner or near front runner this entire time?

[Skill and Chance]

He's still the most likely individual to be the nominee.  All he has to do is win Iowa by even a single delegate and he's back on track.

[HisGrace]

Unlike last time there is a clear path for Bernie. But Biden should still be considered the frontrunner. Everyone's been saying he's "finished" over and over and hyping the hot new contender but he keeps his base which is bigger than any of the other candidates. Reminds me of Trump and Romney in the last two Rep primaries.

[Bojack Horseman]

He has no chance against Trump but the DNC will find a way to rig it for him which pisses off all the Bernie voters. Trump has got this.

The rigged primary narrative just doesn’t hold any water. The DNC kowtowed to Bernie’s supporters by removing superdelegates from the first ballot. They got what they wanted but now they’re still not happy.

[HisGrace]

He has no chance against Trump but the DNC will find a way to rig it for him which pisses off all the Bernie voters. Trump has got this.

The rigged primary narrative just doesn’t hold any water. The DNC kowtowed to Bernie’s supporters by removing superdelegates from the first ballot. They got what they wanted but now they’re still not happy.

Clinton won last time because she got more votes. Superdelegates expanded her margin of victory but she did not need them to win. The "rigged primary" storyline is just whining.

[win win]

Biden will be cleaning out Bernie in places like Mississipi.

Clinton beat Bernie 82 to 18 there.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I don't think that the results in Iowa and New Hampshire will have long term impact.  It hasn't for several election cycles.

I'm not so sure about that. I realize that correlation does not imply causation, but the winner of the Iowa for the Democrats has been the nominee since 2000 and since 1980 (if you remove 88 and 92). Granted, New Hampshire's record has been more spotty when it comes to the future nominee.

Welcome to the forum.  Love the username.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The answer will be revealed in 4 days!

Nah. Even if Bernie wins Iowa and NH DNC will find a way to help Biden get it.

IA and NH by themselves aren't nearly enough to win it, and not that representative of the overall Democratic primary electorate.

Friendly advice: try toning it down a bit with your proclamations of what's going to happen.  You come across as an overconfident, smug, know-it-all.