The great realignment in support of Joe Biden appears to be underway
This week Joe Biden has benefited from a strong debate performance and rising poll numbers in South Carolina. It’s given a lot of people hope that Biden can emerge from the logjam of mainstream Democratic candidates, and overtake divisive loose cannon Bernie Sanders. Accordingly I’ve seen a large number of Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Tom Steyer supporters, and for that matter a few Elizabeth Warren supporters, say that if Biden does dominate in South Carolina, they’ll vote for him on Super Tuesday just to help fend off Sanders. But how real is this trend?
This tweet last night from Da’Quan Love, the Deputy Finance and Digital Director for the North Carolina House Democrats, said a lot:
For the last two months I’ve concurrently displayed @amyklobuchar and @JoeBiden yard signs (since Harris and Booker dropped).
Since Klobuchar’s team abandoned S.C. and in my view black voters, I’ve abandoned her yard sign today.
Alright Joe let’s go win this!
— Da'Quan Marcell Love (@daquanlove) February 29, 2020
The current polling averages suggest that Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Warren, and Steyer could each finish as much as twenty-five points behind Joe Biden in South Carolina. No amount of last-minute campaigning on their part is going to make those numbers any less embarrassing for them. So from a mathematical standpoint, it makes sense to pull out of South Carolina early in favor of heading directly to Super Tuesday states where they’re polling within contention. But the trouble with pulling out of such a pivotal state like South Carolina is that it sends the wrong message, as evidenced by Da’Quan Love’s tweet above.
From the start, Palmer Report has pointed out the black vote in the South Carolina Democratic primary is the single strongest indicator of who’s going to end up being the nominee. February always sees so much nationwide focus on Iowa and New Hampshire. But then South Carolina comes along and tells us how these candidates are likely to fare with voters in the more diverse states on Super Tuesday, and no one listens, so everyone ends up being surprised at how Super Tuesday goes.
In any case, this is the latest evidence that a bunch of voters are indeed realigning themselves in support of Joe Biden, with the expectation that he’ll emerge from South Carolina as the one mainstream Democratic candidate who can pull ahead of the pack and keep the nomination in the hands of an actual Democrat.
