Sanders On New Iowa Poll: With So Many Candidates, 'Nobody' Is Going To Reach 50%

[DonViejo]

By Cristina Cabrera
June 9, 2019 10:00 am

2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said on Sunday that with such a large field of primary candidates, “nobody” is going to get 50 percent of the caucus vote in Iowa.

During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” reporter Dana Bash asked Sanders if the new CNN/Des Moines Register poll showing the Vermont senator in a near tie for second place with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Mayor Pete Buttigieg meant that he’d lost his position as the “clear progressive alternative” to former Vice President Joe Biden.

“Dana, what I think is that four years ago there were only two of us in the race and we split the vote about 50% each,” replied Sanders, who is currently in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “This time we’ve got a whole lot of candidates and I don’t think anybody is going to reach 50 percent.”

“But I gotta tell you, we have an incredibly strong volunteer network here in Iowa,” he continued.

-snip-

Link to tweet

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bernie-sanders-iowa-poll-nobody-reach-50-percent

[MrsCoffee]

1. I heard that's what he's hoping for.

[Uncle Joe]

2. I believe Bernie's analysis is correct.

Too many good candidates are splitting up the pie.

[RandySF]

3. Is 50% even necessary?

[highplainsdem]

5. No, and you're unlikely to see it with so many candidates. But that hadn't been the question.

[karynnj]

10. No

In an open race with many candidates, it may end up with 3 or 4 candidates above the 15 percent threshold. Some candidates, with strong appeal in other early states, could survive getting no delegates in Iowa. Those getting delegates, especially the winner, will get a boost nationally and possibly in NH.

For instances, if Warren emerges as a strong second to Biden, she might be helped a lot in her neighboring state. Obviously, this might especially be true if she does significantly better than Sanders. Many might find that money dries up. I suspect that Iowa might be more high stakes for Klobuchar as winning it or doing very well might be her chance,

It might be that many candidates drop out after Iowa. It might depend on the strategies that the various candidates have on how they could win. Consider the difference between 2004 and 2008.

In 2008, nearly all the field dropped out after Iowa when it became clear it would be a fight between Obama and Clinton. Edwards stayed in, even as Elizabeth was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, but he dropped out before super Tuesday as polls showed he could very well get no delegates. The race was just Obama and Clinton.

In 2004, Lieberman and Clark opted not to contest Iowa spending a huge amount of time in NH. Gephardt, who in early days was expected to win near by Iowa, dropped out after getting 11 percent meaning no delegates. Some early candidates, Bob Graham, Al Sharpton, Carol Mosley Braun and maybe others dropped out before the Iowa caucus or shortly after.

Kerry who won rapidly improved in NH where he was already liked, mostly gaining the undecided voters and many Clark supporters as Clark imploded there. Dean saw his percent freeze pretty much where it was. Lieberman claimed he was in a three way tie for third, but he was a few points behind Clark and Edwards. At that point, he dropped out realizing the Lieberman wing of the party was very small.

At that point, Kerry was the frontrunner, but either Clark or Edwards were seen as having the potential to take the majority of the mostly 7 Southern, south western and rural states on the first multistage day. Dean opted to mostly ignore that set and concentrate on the set after that set explaining they were tough for a NewEnglander . Kerry won 5 of them which really left no one else with a path forward. I think Clark soon dropped out.

Dean and Edwards continued through several more primaries losing to Kerry. Other than their home states, which they won after they were out, Kerry won every state. Kucinich stayed in until the convention winning nothing.

[George II]

16. I think it'll be two, three tops. It could conceivably turn out that only one exceeds 15%...

Right now Biden is at 24%, BS is at 16%, Warren at 15%, and Buttigieg at 14%. If Sanders drops 2 and Warren 1, then Biden could get all 41 pledged delegates (pending district splits, which can be complicated)

[karynnj]

18. Looking at past years,

Both 2004 and 2008 had three people got delegates. If we were closer to the caucus with this poll, I would think this year could easily be 4. If Biden stays below 40 and IF the next three stay as close to each other as they are, that would happen. Remember the poll has some people as undecided. If Biden has 40, there's another 60 percent to divide. Divided equally, each would have 20. Note that Iowa is a caucus, so all those 1s, 2s etc don't get delegates in the districts.

[George II]

24. If Biden gets 40% and the other three get 15% (close to where they are now)....

Biden would get 20 delegates and the other three would get 7 each.

[Hortensis]

22. Yes. My best guess is Sanders fighting to reach that magic 15%.

But hopefully that will be out of reach before then. I imagine high turnout will be bad for him, and people are really engaged.

[karynnj]

27. If that happens, my guess is that it benefits Warren if she does well

This could lead to her winning NH. Sanders would then head into SC where he is not favored at all.

Just speculation, but Biden's best Iowa outcome would be he wins with a big gap over 3 or 4 other candidates, who all survive in NH. The worst outcome is that someone comes from behind and wins Iowa and then NH getting the press given by a media obsessed with the race. A lesser version of that would be that Biden wins NH narrowly with ONE opponent nearly tying him while the others are far behind. In both cases, Iowa and NH would have resulted in defining NOT BIDEN.

NOTE All this assumes that Biden remains strong and the one to beat as we move toward Iowa. At this point, he is a strong favorite, but he faces a half year as frontrunner before Iowa. That does bring everything he does and has done under intense scrutiny. If he handles that well, for good reasons, he will be incredibly tough to beat.

[Hortensis]

30. That all seems very plausible. It'll be interesting

to see how long the Only-Sanders contingent stays. If he does well to the bitter end, of course, but if he doesn't? The rest I could see scattering a bit, only most to Warren, though she's giving out some more conservative-friendly vibes, such as her economic patriotism/nationalism, which might keep some of the social conservative types among Sanders' LW populists from going to one of the blue dogs or just leaving.

[highplainsdem]

4. He's right about the # of candidates, but he dodged Dana Bash's question,

which was about him being practically tied with Warren and Buttigieg for second place.

[Cha]

7. Hmmm.. I wonder why? She should

have asked it again.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. There were three of you in Iowa, you dolt.

[aikoaiko]

12. Not in terms of splitting up the delegates.

O'Malley didn't get any.

[DavidDvorkin]

13. That's not what Sanders said

He said there were two of us in the race. He was talking about going into the primary.

[aikoaiko]

14. Sure, technically, O'Malley was there.

But functionally, it was as if he wasn't. It was a two-person race in Iowa.

[still_one]

8. He is probably right, but whether someone does or not it matters little

After Super Tuesday on the other hand, the picture should be much clearer

[George II]

17. +1,000,000

[Cha]

20. He didn't answer the question, though.

During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” reporter Dana Bash asked Sanders if the new CNN/Des Moines Register poll showing the Vermont senator in a near tie for second place with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Mayor Pete Buttigieg meant that he’d lost his position as the “clear progressive alternative” to former Vice President Joe Biden.

[still_one]

26. Good point Cha. I was just going off the headline. Thanks

[Cha]

42. You're Welcome..

[FloridaBlues]

11. With the primaries being pushed up I don't think Iowa has the pull in this process as it use to have

[George II]

15. It's quite likely that only one candidate, possibly two or three, will break the 15% threshold.

If that's the case, one candidate will get all the delegates. If two or three, the top candidate will get the bulk of the candidates. If the ultimate split is 35-15-15, the top candidate will get 22 of the 41 delegates, the other two will split the remaining 19 delegates.

[Blue_true]

19. The thing is. Senator Sanders gave a non answer answer to the question.

The question was not about getting 50%, it was about Senator Warren and Mayor Buttigieg having eliminated his advantage there.

[George II]

23. It was an irrelevant answer, I can't remember the last time anyone got 50% in Iowa, even 2016.

Both candidates got 49%.

[karynnj]

28. Al Gore got about 63 percent to Bradley's 37 percent

2008 had a near three way tie. Edwards had essentially lived in Iowa for a very long time concentrating on winning there. It was the high point of his campaign. Even as he stayed in, it became in reality a 2 way race, where he was irrelevant.

[George II]

29. Just looked it up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucuses

1972 Uncommitted 36%, Muskie 36%
1976 Uncommitted 37% Carter 28%
1980 Carter had 59% but he was the incumbent
1984 Mondale 49%
1988 Gephardt 31%
1992 Harkin 76% (!!)
1996 Clinton 98% (incumbent)
2000 Gore 63%
2004 Kerry 38%
2008 Obama 38%
2012 Obama 98% (incumbent)
2016 Clinton 49.8%

I guess Harkin got 76% because he was a sitting Senator from Iowa. Gore is surprising, but he was Vice President at the time. Also surprising is the high number of uncommitted in 1972 and 1976.

[karynnj]

32. Harkin was the favorite son and many of the other candidates simply

conceded Iowa to him. Bill Clinton, for example, did not campaign there.

As to 1972 and 1976, maybe someone from Iowa remembers. It might be that this was kind of the transition from the nominee being chosen behind closed doors and most of the delegates being pledged based on public primaries or caucuses.

The Paley Center in NYC has a wealth of archival TV/radio that people can view. One time my husband and I were there, we watched hours of coverage of the 1960 Democratic convention. It was absolutely fascinating. The Democratic power brokers came to a convention where the nominee was to be chosen - for real. There had been only a very small number of primaries. Large blocks of delegates were essentially controlled by a big wig from the state.

It might have been that people caucusing as uncommitted were essentially delegating their decision to the state leaders who would chose who represented them at the actual convention. (Because Carter was very out of the mainstream, I wonder if so many essentially not choosing, enabled Carter to emerge the very surprising delegate leader. Without that, it is very unlikely he would have received the attention that allowed Americans to see this soft spoken, essentially decent, intelligent man -- as the antidote to the ugliness of the Nixon/Agnew shadow that colored Ford's run.)

[Hortensis]

21. It'd be very interesting to know what's in his mind.

I've never begun to understand him. Remembering his irrational rage when he lost last time (months after it was inevitable), he may truly believe he can win. Or not.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

31. "irrational rage"?

Ok, sure, you just keep revising history.

[Hortensis]

33. This matters because the same person is running again,

his staff again has access to a computer system used by all candidates, and he will very possibly be once again losing in most of 50 states plus territories. And, in the end, he will be expected to drop out and endorse the choice of a majority of Democrats. So, how do you think he will respond to that? That could critically affect press coverage and public opinion.

So, let's not revise history. Let's try to predict it. Okay?

Examining these issues and how he's likely to respond in future, is he likely to be enraged, rationally or irrationally, at many state Democratic Parties for NOT stealing election after election in state after state? So much so that throughout the primaries he would again be required to complain publicly again and again about election theft and even file lawsuits to demonstrate how injured he is? If he again dropped them all after the press moved on, how would his followers be liable to take that? As proof that he can't win against a corrupt system, still enraging them over 2 years later, or...?

Perhaps we should also wonder about other kinds of election theft. For instance, if his staff were to illegally access and download to his computers extremely valuable, secret voter data obtained at enormous cost and belonging to other candidates, how would he, and thus his loyal followers, take being found out and his campaign sanctioned for this crime? Rational rage or irrational? A smiling shrug, with a philosophical "hey, it was there so we had to try"? As you'll recall, though, this kind of thing not only injured him so badly that he not only had no choice but to sue them, but many of his followers also sustained severe, seemingly permanent damage to their ability to trust their own party.

These are all pertinent considerations for this election. Will roughly the same 23-24% again be so enraged that they again vote for Trump or some third-party pop-up? (They are promising to.) How will Sanders handle being expected to endorse the nominee this time? Many of his followers were themselves enormously enraged all over again -- at him -- when he finally did last time. Will he try to convince them to stay this time or be too rationally enraged himself?

Last questions we should examine: If the Democratic Party is not corrupt and the results of the election not already "rigged," is all this residual and future rage against the party rational and what would explain it? Can anything be done proactively to help those prone to it?

[Cuthbert Allgood]

34. Well, I notice you don't support that he had "irrational rage," but let's not forget

that when he did not win the nomination in 2016, he did more visits for Clinton than she did for Obama in 2008. And Sanders supporters voted for Clinton at a higher rate than Clinton supporters voted for Obama. So, how will he respond? Pretty damn well, based on history.

And speaking of history, are we now just forgetting that what he said was going on with the DNC was, you know, actually going on with the DNC? That's not irrational rage. That's pointing out problems with the system that need to be changed.

[Hortensis]

35. Okay. This is a huge and complex syndrome only the professionals

who study these phenomena are qualified to explain anyway. Fortunately, they have been and will be, and eventually much of what they're learning will become available to us in lay language.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

39. *Insert random word salad response here*

Since I have no idea how what you just said replies to my post.

[JudyM]

37. Good post, cuts to the chase. People "forget" the truth or outright revise it, false memes abound

here.

[LibFarmer]

25. Sanders is done

and history will remember him harshly

[Politicub]

38. I see history remembering him as an important figure

While he didn't come up with the idea of Medicare for all and most of his other proposals, they did come to the forefront and people are giving him a lot of credit for that. I think the credit should be given to many people, but we won't be around to see history written a century from now to know.

When history is written, historians look to primary sources from the time period. When they search, a lot of articles and broadcast footage will surface that show Bernie and his campaign were a force in American politics.

While Bernie isn't on my short list, I do recognize that he was able to build a movement.

[LibFarmer]

40. You are missing the elephant in the room

Historians will not miss that.

How Trump got elected will be a major part of history.

[Politicub]

36. Thanks for the blinding flash of the obvious, Bernie

Did anyone expect someone to walk away with 50 percent? Maybe team Bernie thought he would get 50 percent when they started the campaign this time around, but now have to face reality that there's no way Bernie will get to 50.

[LibFarmer]

41. 50?

He is struggling to get to 15% in a 98% white state.

He will be demolished in the South.