Joe Biden’s got this
There’s every reason to believe former Vice President Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee outside of some statistically improbable event. Biden followed his impressive victories on Super Tuesday with another round of strong performances on Super Tuesday II, and it looks like he will continue his march toward the nomination going forward.
Candidates in Biden’s position have always gone on to win the Democratic Party’s nomination. Since 1988, the candidate with a delegate lead following the round of contests after Super Tuesday has taken the Democratic nomination six of six times in competitive primaries.
Some of those were close calls (see Michael Dukakis in 1988), but there’s no reason to believe this will be one of those situations. Biden is up by close to 150 delegates. That lead might not seem large. Make no mistake: it is.
Remember, Democrats allocate their delegates proportionally. Once a candidate jumps out to a clear lead with a substantial number of delegates allotted, as Biden has, an opponent must start winning contests by large margins. It’s not enough just to win.
CNN’s latest national poll has Biden up by 16 points. When Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was trying to stop Hillary Clinton four years ago, he was down by about half that.
Perhaps Sanders could be hopeful if somehow Biden’s best states had voted. The opposite is true.
I took a look at our poll but limited it to those who are in states yet to vote and those who took the poll after Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the race.
Biden’s lead ballooned up to 30 points.
Sanders would need to be up by closer to 10 points in the remaining states to have a realistic shot at winning the nomination.
The problem for Sanders is that his best states have already voted. He does best in the west (where Latinos and progressives make up a slew of voters), and the two biggest delegate prizes out there (California and Washington) have already cast their ballots, though we’re still waiting on final vote tallies and delegate allocations in both of those states.
Meanwhile, there are a lot more delegates to be had in the southeast (Georgia and Florida are coming up in a few weeks). Biden’s been regularly racking up victories of 30 points or greater in this region.
But even if the south was out of delegates, Biden’s done more than good enough in the north to be considered the favorite. He has, in fact, won every Midwest and Northeastern state on or after Super Tuesday outside of Vermont, Sanders’ home state. Just Tuesday night, Biden garnered more votes than Sanders in every county in Michigan and Missouri.
Indeed, the Super Tuesday II results point to the fact that Biden’s coalition is quite wide. He is winning urban, suburban and rural areas. Biden’s taking the plurality of votes from African Americans, whites without a college degree and whites with a college degree. The last marks a true departure for Biden from Clinton in 2016.
The bottom line is Sanders needs a miracle to catch Biden. It’s very unlikely to happen.
