2020 US General Election Thread IV: The Battle Begins

[Corrian]

Everyone's thanking Yang for running. Feels like everyone had some respect for the man.

[Cannot think of a name]

Everyone's thanking Yang for running. Feels like everyone had some respect for the man.

Well, and it's a primary. No one is going to go out and go, "Glad that jackass is gone..." You have to form a coalition and you might as well start at the beginning.

[Corrian]

Everyone's thanking Yang for running. Feels like everyone had some respect for the man.

Well, and it's a primary. No one is going to go out and go, "Glad that jackass is gone..." You have to form a coalition and you might as well start at the beginning.

I don't feel like I've seen it as much with any of the others.

[Zurkerx]

Looks like Sanders, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar will be the only ones to get delegates; the rest won't. Given it's a State with only 24, I wonder how they'll split it. Maybe 10, 8, and 6?

The Klobuchar train has been absolutely steaming down the track as of late. Do you think that this result will be indicative of further successes in the future?

You mean Klobmentum, don't you

It would lead to people giving her another look, especially among Biden supporters, but Buttigieg will compete for those votes too. I'm not sure if she'll win any contests but she's going to stay until Super Tuesday. Warren will too it seems, which I thought she wouldn't. Buttigieg is someone, I think, minority voters will also reconsider.

Looks like Sanders, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar will be the only ones to get delegates; the rest won't. Given it's a State with only 24, I wonder how they'll split it. Maybe 10, 8, and 6?

That's how it looks to me as well given the proportions.

Then it appears, based on that, the total Delegate Count stands as this:

Buttigieg: 22
Sanders: 22
Warren: 8
Klobuchar: 7
Biden: 6

[The South Falls]

Yang would be a very good representative or senator. A firebrand that's able to garner some sort of recognition in whatever house he chooses to run in, prior to running for president. He doesn't have the base of support currently that one needs to run for president.

Firebrand? Haven't seen it.

I remember in an interview him saying that when the stage thins enough he's gonna start getting mean, that I wanted to see

I don't necessarily mean firebrand in that he's crackin the whip on other politicians, but firebrand in the sense that he's pioneering new ideas, introducing new concepts to the American voter base. He's been the biggest peddler of UBI, and to some extent, it has succeeded. People are talking about it. People are agreeing with it. Even if it's not a mainstream concept yet, it's waiting in the wings for its introduction.

[Farnhamia]

Everyone's thanking Yang for running. Feels like everyone had some respect for the man.

Well, and it's a primary. No one is going to go out and go, "Glad that jackass is gone..." You have to form a coalition and you might as well start at the beginning.

Well, yeah. Does he at least get the Democratic Party Primary home game?

[Corrian]

Biden in 5th for total delegates? Remember when he was JUST the frontrunner?

[Kowani]

Everyone's thanking Yang for running. Feels like everyone had some respect for the man.

Well, and it's a primary. No one is going to go out and go, "Glad that jackass is gone..." You have to form a coalition and you might as well start at the beginning.

Wayne Messam just got derision and laughter.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

I made a prediction before Iowa, that Warren would have a terrible caucus and drop out before NH. I was wrong.

What sometimes happens when a prediction goes wrong is that person swings the other way. Not me. I'm now with "she will have nothing but terrible results and drop out before Super Tues". Let's see how many times I can be wrong before someone notices!

Proportional election with transferable vote and no Delegates. You need either ballots (with second choices etc) or Delegates, otherwise the Convention would need to go with plurality winner. And in a year with a lot of candidates the plurality winner might be the choice of a quite small minority of voters. It could be a Dixiecrat! All the others would have no way to combine and stop them.

I'm sure we're both going to be wrong in that case but, eh, let bygones be bygones.

Hmm, a rank voting system would easily solve that problem though the complexity of such a system maybe too much for Americans.

Counting the vote is (a) exactly the same if one candidate gets an outright majority, (b) considerably more complicated if the least-voted candidate has to be eliminated and the second-preference of their voters also counted.

It would be much the same in races that weren't close, but considerably slower in races that were. That would be the main drawback, but for primaries only the first preferences could be counted at the time, then all the ballots retained for a full count at the Convention if necessary.

Voters I think would like getting more than one choice, and "rank the candidates 1 for your favorite to 8 for your least favorite" isn't that hard to understand.

[Repubblica Fascista Sociale Italiana]

Sanders campaign organizers "anxious" after Buttigeg’s surprising surge

[Zurkerx]

Oh look, Biden is trying to beat his chest, ignoring his demise...

[Nobel Hobos 2]

50% counted and Sanders leads by over 3%. I think he's the winner.

[Farnhamia]

Oh look, Biden is trying to beat his chest, ignoring his demise...

What's with the venom? Did you think he'd collapse in tears? Did you want him to collapse in tears?

[Czechostan]

Both Trump and Sanders rail against the "elite," and, while Sanders is more justified (there are many of excessive and unfair wealth in the U.S.,) fear of the perceived "elite" is a very dangerous thing to all Americans.

They're both populists, sure, but they're populists of different varieties. Left-wing populism operates under a simple dichotomy: there's the people, and there's the elite. Right-wing populism is a different flavor, a triangle: there's the people, there's the elite, and there's the minority population (in this case illegal immigrants/Muslims) who the elite have been coddling. So while they rail against elites, they're railing against different elites and for different reasons. The people who should be most afraid of left-wing anti-elitism are the elites themselves and DNC apologists.

Both candidates are geriatric, each likely having suffered a stroke.

This describes most American politicians.

Sanders policies are impossible without a Democratic Senate (which I dearly hope for,) unless we plan to extend presidential power even further.

This is a fair point, but I'm not sure what it has to do with your argument.

Like Trump, Sanders has a love of antidemocratic authoritarians, having praised the USSR on his honeymoon there.

This was during perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet regime in general. More to the point, the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. I don't see Sanders praising the Saudis or Russia.

Sanders has more baggage than most other candidates too, having cosponsored a bill to dump nuclear waste in a poor, largely Hispanic Texan community largely because it was cheap and they could

Uiiop already responded to this claim of yours.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bernie-sanders-sierra-blanca-nuclear-waste/
He actually opposed nuclear power but thought the waste disposal was safe:

The only reason Senator Sanders was ever involved is because the constitution requires Congress to approve interstate compacts. Texas Representative Joe Barton introduced such legislation in 1998, and twenty-three members of the Vermont, Texas and Maine congressional delegations cosponsored it.

The bill did not endorse a specific site — in fact, it did not mention Sierra Blanca at all. Nor did the bill override the local and state approval process. In the end, the Texas agency in charge of permitting ruled against the Sierra Blanca site, choosing another site in Texas instead. So, the process worked.

The compact, much less the site selection were never Sen. Sanders’ idea. He disagrees with the very premise of the 1980 law that led to the Texas-Vermont-Maine compact, since it put the burden of disposing of low-level waste on the states, rather the nuclear energy companies that produced much of the waste.

In fact, he has long been an opponent of nuclear power precisely it produces waste for which we still have no solution (the Texas site is just for low-level contamination — there is still no plan for all of the high-level nuclear waste all across the country).

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpoli ... -explained
The other bit was also true but more of a dumb clickbait the campaign already apologized for.

Supporting one dumb bill and writing a pre-clickbaitng editoral while meaning well ain't quite it chief.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

To extrapolate to later in the primaries, things aren't as good for Sanders as they look.

How much of Biden's vote will he get? How much of Klobuchar or Buttigieg's vote? He can really only count on Warren's supporters (and maybe Yang's)

Though it's an oversimplification, Team Moderate got more votes here than Team Progressive.

[Zurkerx]

Oh look, Biden is trying to beat his chest, ignoring his demise...

What's with the venom? Did you think he'd collapse in tears? Did you want him to collapse in tears?

Delusions can do some funny things to people, especially older ones. No, it's just embarrassing at this point. I know candidates like to hold out hope, but at some point, reality needs to set in. Yang and Bennet saw that tonight.

[The South Falls]

The Klobuchar train has been absolutely steaming down the track as of late. Do you think that this result will be indicative of further successes in the future?

You mean Klobmentum, don't you

It would lead to people giving her another look, especially among Biden supporters, but Buttigieg will compete for those votes too. I'm not sure if she'll win any contests but she's going to stay until Super Tuesday. Warren will too it seems, which I thought she wouldn't. Buttigieg is someone, I think, minority voters will also reconsider.

That's how it looks to me as well given the proportions.

Then it appears, based on that, the total Delegate Count stands as this:

Buttigieg: 22
Sanders: 22
Warren: 8
Klobuchar: 7
Biden: 6

I don't think buttegieg is going to win the nomination. He's going to last until the DNC, however, along with Warren/Sanders and possibly Biden. Although, Biden's numbers for the caucus and now this primary have been disappointing at best. He was the frontrunner, but I think he's faded into the background as of late. It's not helped by his propensity to say extremely stupid things.

[Shrillland]

Oh look, Biden is trying to beat his chest, ignoring his demise...

What's with the venom? Did you think he'd collapse in tears? Did you want him to collapse in tears?

Besides, it isn't his demise yet. We still have Nevada and South Carolina to go. If he collapses there, then I'll call his death. Right now, he's still got a decent shot.

[Corrian]

To extrapolate to later in the primaries, things aren't as good for Sanders as they look.

How much of Biden's vote will he get? How much of Klobuchar or Buttigieg's vote? He can really only count on Warren's supporters (and maybe Yang's)

Though it's an oversimplification, Team Moderate got more votes here than Team Progressive.

Apparently 2nd vote options for Biden supporters was Sanders.

[Corrian]

What's with the venom? Did you think he'd collapse in tears? Did you want him to collapse in tears?

Besides, it isn't his demise yet. We still have Nevada and South Carolina to go. If he collapses there, then I'll call his death. Right now, he's still got a decent shot.

It doesn't look good, though. He dropped 14 points in a poll since around Iowa.

[Farnhamia]

What's with the venom? Did you think he'd collapse in tears? Did you want him to collapse in tears?

Delusions can do some funny things to people, especially older ones. No, it's just embarrassing at this point. I know candidates like to hold out hope, but at some point, reality needs to set in. Yang and Bennet saw that tonight.

Yang and Bennet have always been middle-tier candidates, at best. Bottom-tier for Bennet, to be honest. This is the second actual contest, not a "debate." Biden didn't do well, but he's a seasoned politician and knows how to read his donors and the polls. If those readings are telling him he can press on, he will. It would be very unlike him to drop out this early.

[Zurkerx]

50% counted and Sanders leads by over 3%. I think he's the winner.

He'll win, but it's a much smaller margin than I think most people were expecting. It should be a bit concerning for him.

To extrapolate to later in the primaries, things aren't as good for Sanders as they look.

How much of Biden's vote will he get? How much of Klobuchar or Buttigieg's vote? He can really only count on Warren's supporters (and maybe Yang's)

Though it's an oversimplification, Team Moderate got more votes here than Team Progressive.

Which is also not good for the Progressives: it shows a more moderate candidate is preferred.

I don't think buttegieg is going to win the nomination. He's going to last until the DNC, however, along with Warren/Sanders and possibly Biden. Although, Biden's numbers for the caucus and now this primary have been disappointing at best. He was the frontrunner, but I think he's faded into the background as of late. It's not helped by his propensity to say extremely stupid things.

I don't really see Warren going to the DNC though, and neither Biden (he's his worst enemy after all). We definitely need polls from NV and SC to see what it is like, but I just don't see it. But I do agree that Buttigieg won't be the nominee: I still think Sanders will get it.

What's with the venom? Did you think he'd collapse in tears? Did you want him to collapse in tears?

Besides, it isn't his demise yet. We still have Nevada and South Carolina to go. If he collapses there, then I'll call his death. Right now, he's still got a decent shot.

Okay, demise maybe not but he's most certainly on life support and someone is going to pull that cord.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Looks like Sanders, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar will be the only ones to get delegates; the rest won't. Given it's a State with only 24, I wonder how they'll split it. Maybe 10, 8, and 6?

It's complicated, unfortunately. Each of the two Congressional Districts casts 8 delegates, according to the vote in each district. The remaining 8 are cast at a later district convention, but can apparently be predicted perfectly.

Nobody should be calling the delegate count now with just over 50% of the vote counted.

[Zurkerx]

Delusions can do some funny things to people, especially older ones. No, it's just embarrassing at this point. I know candidates like to hold out hope, but at some point, reality needs to set in. Yang and Bennet saw that tonight.

Yang and Bennet have always been middle-tier candidates, at best. Bottom-tier for Bennet, to be honest. This is the second actual contest, not a "debate." Biden didn't do well, but he's a seasoned politician and knows how to read his donors and the polls. If those readings are telling him he can press on, he will. It would be very unlike him to drop out this early.

Oh no, I never said he would drop out after NH though that would be the biggest shock of tonight. However, if he doesn't come in first in SC, he's screwed.

[The South Falls]

Delusions can do some funny things to people, especially older ones. No, it's just embarrassing at this point. I know candidates like to hold out hope, but at some point, reality needs to set in. Yang and Bennet saw that tonight.

Yang and Bennet have always been middle-tier candidates, at best. Bottom-tier for Bennet, to be honest. This is the second actual contest, not a "debate." Biden didn't do well, but he's a seasoned politician and knows how to read his donors and the polls. If those readings are telling him he can press on, he will. It would be very unlike him to drop out this early.

Admittedly, he might just not have a base of support in these states. He might just be bide-n his time to garner better results from other primaries.