Today is the South Carolina primary and it's a closed primary. That means you HAVE to be a registered Democrat in order to vote. There's been some talk about Republicans switching their affiliation in order to vote for Sanders but I'm not convinced that will have a substantial affect. There are 54 delegates at stake today and they are distributed in the following way: 35 total for the 7 congressional districts, 7 PLEOs, and 12 state wide. You must clear a 15% threshold statewide OR in a congressional district in order to qualify for delegates.

This state is the first state where the majority of the electorate is black and it's known as Biden's firewall. This is a MUST WIN state for him and it has the potential to force the moderates to coalesce around Biden on Super Tuesday. A couple weeks ago, it seemed that Biden was virtually tied with Sanders but that seemed to change after the Nevada caucus and the last two debates. That's changed quite a bit and it seems that Biden is now polling with a double digit lead ahead of Sanders. I should note that there's been quite a lot of volatility in the polls so anything from a 5 to 20 point victory is possible here. The wildcard here is Tom Steyer. He's put a lot of money into this state and he has some good history with helping the African American community. It's quite possible that Bernie ends up in third place which would cause the media to go into a frenzy. Either way, Biden should get some really good press and that should help a lot on Super Tuesday. I think the best case scenario for Biden is to net 31 delegates so that he can go into Super Tuesday with the lead. That seems incredibly unlikely though and Biden would need to have a 40 point victory or something like that.

After this thread, I'm going to have just one more: Super Tuesday and Beyond. The reason for this is that the first 4 races are highly volatile and can change the momentum of the race quite a bit. After Super Tuesday, it's highly unlikely that the trajectory of the race changes significantly.

Unofficial Delegate Distribution:
Sanders - 45
Buttigieg - 26
Biden - 15
Warren - 8
Klobuchar - 7

Nevada Caucus Thread https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=82705330&f=119
New Hampshire Thread: https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=82653483&f=119
Iowa Caucus Thread: https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=82619910&f=119

The volatility in polls stems from how many old vs young black individuals they got their hands on. Young black people are very much a sanders voting block while old black folks are very much a Biden rock.

Considering that older voters vote in greater numbers I think Biden will take it with a double digit win.

This post was edited by Helloween7 on Feb 29 2020 02:37pm

lol at the rumor of republicans switching to vote for Bernie

The DNC is full of conspiracy theories to explain why Bernie is winning

>Russia bots
>Bernie bros are bullys
>Republicans are pretending to be Bernie bros

What's next?

Biden’s gonna do well, Barnie prob 2nd in SC

the whole weaken your opponent thing really only works in open primaries. And Super Tuesday this year has so many states it nulls the effects of it even more

I still think that Bernie will head into the convention with a plurality of the delegates. Biden will win tonight, but not by the overwhelming margin that he would need to emerge as the consensus choice of the "moderate lane".

An important factor to keep in mind is that his campaign has been running very dry on money in recent weeks/months, while Sanders is the most prolific fundraiser of these primaries. So with Super Tuesday coming in just 4 days, even if Biden wins big tonight, he still will not have the campaign infrastructure and ad spending to realiize his full potential in the Super Tuesday states. That ship has already sailed. He can take away good press coverage and "media momentum" from tonight, but due to the month-long fundraising drought, he'll get crushed on Tuesday outside of the South, no matter what happens tonight.

Sounds like Biden could win with a low margin, he's finished IMO

I've heard this in right-wing circles for months. It's not a novel concept.

https://www.tmz.com/2020/02/29/bernie-sanders-boards-wrong-gulfstream-private-jet-campaign/



planned parenthood forums and r/politics aren’t “right-wing” circles

This post was edited by excellence on Feb 29 2020 05:42pm

He needs to win by at least a 15% and more than likely 20%+ for him to have a strong momentum impact with the media narrative helping him. DNC praying that people from South Carolina, especially the black population, is "feeling the Burn" aka Clyburn endorsement. Anything less and the boots on the ground and ADs from the Bernie campaign will just work the magic for Super Tuesday.

here’s to 2016