All elections are hard to look at in hindsight, 2020 primary especially hard. Sure seems like Sanders had it in his grasp, but, if Sanders' lead was not robust to "Joe Biden has one good night and the also-ran moderates endorse him", how much could it have gone another way? IDK.
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Biden led or tied every public poll of South Carolina. So he was going to have a good night there, let's say, under most counterfactuals. If he had won by, say, 10, instead of winning by almost 30, would that have been enough to give Sanders the nomination?
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I myself thought of Sanders as a "weak frontrunner" even when he was one, so I'm not super-surprised, I guess, except at how quickly he collapsed.pic.twitter.com/Qoo9I8ZMwD
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Basically I thought there could be an "eh ok it's this one now let's get to the general election" cascade among the various top Democratic candidates, and instead there were two, a partial cascade to Sanders, then a full one to Biden.
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After all, even under nearly-optimal conditions (winning or winning* the first three states, having lots of money+broad popularity among Democrats), Sanders didn't get that Kerry-esque stampede, even then head-to-heads with Biden were rather close. So was there just a reluctance?
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Or am I over-reading? If Clyburn doesn't endorse Biden and Pete and Amy hang on through Tuesday because YOLO, maybe the "Sanders plan" works.
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My trouble with this reading is that there was a "Sanders plan", articulated at every rally, which didn't work at all—getting young people and independents to vote in record numbers.
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