The Ninth Debate.

The ninth debate of the Democratic party was held in Las Vegas last night. It was much more lively and eventful than the prior eight, because five of the candidates had a common target-the short fellow down at the end of the line.  They did not shirk from their mission to destroy him and they largely succeeded. Quick impressions:

I. Helped Their Cause.

1. Elizabeth Warren.  Her best debate. All those committee sessions where she eviscerates banking execs were good preparation for getting Bloomberg on the hook and reeling him in. The stuff on the non-disclosure agreements was devastating.  He now has two choices-let those women out of their non-disclosure agreements or give up on being the Democratic nominee.  This is probably a false choice because I suspect the contents of those non-disclosure agreements would also foreclose him from being the nominee.  

Warren also got in good digs at other candidates, and deftly got in a moment of diplomacy when Pete when after Klobuchar.  If there are any soft Bernie supporters, they are probably giving Warren a second look.  Grade: A.

2. Joe Biden.  His best debate so far. He obviously knows that he's now a long shot and he was able to make his strongest points pretty effectively. He also stayed around to do post-debate interviews, something that he should have done even when he was a front-runner.  Most of all he benefits by the attacks on Bloomberg.  If Bloomberg goes down in the polls, Biden should be the beneficiary.  Grade: B+.

II.  Neither Helped Nor Hurt.

3. Pete Buttigieg.  He usually does well in these debates and he didn't have any terrible moments last night. But he spent most of his time going after Klobuchar, who isn't a front-runner. I think his campaign peaked in Iowa but if Bloomberg and Biden both flounder, he can stay around and gather some delegates.  It's not like he has anything better to do with his time.  Grade: B.

4.  Amy Klobuchar.  For the first time, she was a target of significant incoming fire. That's what happens when you exceed the polls a couple times. She was prepared for the question about the Mexican president, of course but I don't think she came across as warm and prepared as she did at the New Hampshire debate.  She regressed to the mean, which is understandable. But she needs to finish February strong or she will not be around much beyond Super Tuesday.  Grade: B.

III.  Hurt His Case.

5. Bernie Sanders.  The rest of this field has been hesitant to really go after Bernie becuase they all worry about alienating his base. But he's the front-runner now and he took at least some hits last night. He made his same ponderous "policy" points as he always does but he looked petty when responding to Bloomberg's attacks about being a millionaire with three homes by pretending this was a common thing in Vermont. 

He is likely to end the primaries with a plurality of delegates. Last nigth he made the statement that the candidate who should gets the most votes should be the nominee.  That sounds like a prety straight-forward and even obvious principle....if you forget 2016.

The last Democratic primary was held on June14th, 2016.  When it was over, Hillary Clinton had 3.7 million more votes than Bernie Sanders. She had won 54 percent of the pledged delegates. She won, fair and square.  But it took Bernie over a month to endorse her and he talked openly about trying to persuade Super Delegates to change their votes.  Now that the math is shaping up the other way, he has had a convenient change of principles.

This will hurt him, at some point. Unless of course, he runs away with the primaries and wins an outright majority of delegates. Given how fractured and mediocre his opponents looked last night, he should think this is a reasonable goal. Grade: C+.

IV.  A Monkey Trying to Fuck a Football Bat.

6. Michael Bloomberg.  Money can not buy you a personality and it can not buy a thick skin. Bloomberg was unprepared, ill-tempered and out of his league.  He pays his people a lot of money and somehow they convinced him that "The NDAs were consensual" is a sufficient defense to why he is keeping some untold number of actions for workplace harassment and discrimination secret.

There is another debate next week.  If he is really serious about being the nominee he needs to spend the whole week preparing for it, including interviews with some unfriendly outlets.  Two performances like this in a row, and he might as well turn off the cash spigots. 

I don't think Bloomberg will be the nominee. The question becomes, will he really spend a billion dollars supporting any of the people who unmaked him on that stage last night?  I don't see him doing it for Bernie or Warren. But maybe he's a bigger man than he showed last night.

Grade: F.

On to Cincinnati, I mean New Hampshire. And Then to Milwaukee.

The Iowa Caucus was both very, very close and riddled with administrative incompetence.  That is not a good way to start the election. I will begin my analysis by quoting Bernie Sanders:

"[W]hat happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period. The results were too close not to do a complete audit. This is not a — this is not, like, a winner-take-all thing. I think where we now stand... you have 22 delegates, I have 20 delegates. We need 2,500 delegates to win the nomination. You know, so this is not this is not the biggest deal in the world."

To clarify, that quote from Bernie Sanders was on February 4, 2016 during the Post-Iowa, Pre-New Hampshire debate. The 2016 Iowa caucus was basically a tie and so was the 2020 Iowa caucus. The screw up with the app and the delay in announcing results was bad in the moment but it will be forgotten soon enough. (Although I hope the Democratic party remember it when slating the next primary calendar. Iowa needs to go to the back of the line.)

I. Iowa Results.

The results are pretty muddled.  I will discuss each candidate with some reference to my predictions in the last post. 

1. Pete Buttigieg (26.2%, 13 or 14 delegates).

Buttigieg had a good night, finishing in a de-facto tie with Bernie Sanders. That's good for him, because a poor result in Iowa would have been fatal to his candidacy. He "won" to fight another day at least, and there is some evidence of an uptick in his New Hampshire numbers.  But I don't think he's going to have a long and deep run. His victory speech in Iowa rubbed people the wrong way, but he needed to do it because his fund raising has been sluggish.

I predicted he'd come 3rd with 17%, so a win/tie at 26 is a very good result.

2. Bernie Sanders (26.1% 12 or 13 delegates).

He did fine. He can make an honest claim of winning the raw vote, and in a virtual tie for delegates. His campaign did well at the satellite locations and turned out enough people to (almost) win. But turnout was lower than expected and the base theory of his campaign is that he is capable of turning out young and infrequent voters. Four years ago about 85,000 people turned up to caucus for him. This week, only about 26,000 chose him among a much larger field. Perhaps more troubling is that he didn't seem to gain a lot of voters between the 1st and 2nd rounds of voting, where Biden/Klobuchar and Warren voters gravitated towards Buttigieg, giving him the delegate lead.

I predicted he would win with 28%, so a very close 2nd with 26% is mildly disappointing. But he should win New Hampshire and the poor showing by Biden has pushed him into the lead of the betting markets.

3. Elizabeth Warren (18%, 8 delegates).

The good news is that she did better than her polling predicted. But she was pretty far off the lead and Bernie Sanders seems to be the clear choice of the progressive wing of the party. This is an adequate result for her and she will probably stick around past the early primaries.

I predicted she would be 4th with 14%, so she exceeded that.

4. Joe Biden (15.8%, 6 delegates).

He shit the bed. Iowa was not great for him demographically but he also failed to execute a good ground game, and that led to him underperforming. At the moment, he looks weak. And there's not much reason to think that New Hampshire will be much better for him.  He is going to stick around and make his stand in South Carolina. But he needs a stronger result in New Hampshire than this. 

I predicted he would be 2nd with 23%, so this is a very bad result.

5. Amy Klobuchar (12.3%, 1 delegate).

This was an adequate result. She was the first to take the podium on caucus night, taking advantage of the lack of results to claim that she had finished strong and was ready to move on to New Hampshire with momentum. She also won a delegate, which is significant because it gives her a guaranteed spot in the Nevada debate.

She also should be heartened by the Biden number. If Biden slips, Klobuchar could stand to gain a lot of his voters. Last night's debate in New Hampshire went very well for her and she was the overwhelming favorite of the "undecided" voters in the various TV audiences. Her campaign raised over a million dollars in just a few hours after the debate. If she can move up at all in NH, then she is probably going to stay in until at least Super Tuesday.

I predicted that she would be 5th with 12%, so I pretty much nailed that.

And for the non-delegate candidates:

These two chumps tried to compete in Iowa and came away with nothing for their efforts.

6. Andrew Yang 1%, Hardly surprising but still gratifying to see.

7. Tom Steyer 0.3%  Embarrassing.

The Non-Iowa candidates.

Four of the remaining 11 candidates decided to mostly skip Iowa in order to concentrate on New Hampshire, or in Bloomberg's case, the Super Tuesday States. 

8. Tulsi Gabbard   A grand total of 334 people turned up to caucus for her. That is 0.2%, which is 0.2% more than she deserved.

9. Michael Bloomberg 

10. Michael Bennet 

11, Deval Patrick

II. New Hampsire Predictions.

Bernie winning seems to be the only sure thing here.  The post-Iowa polls suggest that Bernie will win and Pete will come second. That would be the traditional revers of the Iowa result, but I think the margin should be significant.  In fact I think Pete is more likely to finish 3rd than to win.

The hardest candidate to hadicap is Biden. New Hampshire loves to reject the Iowa winner, so maybe he will bounce up to 2nd. But he also looks weak and feels vulnerable. Another 4th place finish would be a disaster. If he does fnish 4th (or 5th) it will be interesting to see where his voters go-to Buttigieg, Klobuchar or Warren. 

Without further ado, here is the official prediction for New Hampshire.

1. Bernie Sanders 28%.

2. Joe Biden 20%

3. Pete Buttigieg 16%

4. Elizabeth Warren 14%

5. Amy Klobuchar 11%

6. Yang 4%

7. Steyer 3%

8. Gabbard 2%

8. Patrick 1%

10. Bennet 0.3%

How to judge the results of each serious candidate:

• CANDIDATE                                    GOOD     ADEQUATE  BAD
• SANDERS                                          WIN            2ND             3RD
• BIDEN                                              2ND            3RD             4TH
• BUTTIGIEG                                      2ND            3RD             4TH
• WARREN                                          3RD            4TH              5TH
• KLOBUCHAR                                    3RD            4TH              5TH

*If anyone else finishes in the top 5, then the candidates they beat will probably have to drop out.

III.  Someone Has to Win This Thing.

Before Iowa, Joe Biden was the consensus front-runner. That is no longer the case. So far the race has been more like two separate races for the wings of the party. On the left, Bernie Sanders has solidified his base and has a clear lead over Elizabeth Warren.  In the center, Biden has faltered, with Buttigieg and Klobuchare both exceeding early expectations. And Michael Bloomberg is waiting in the wings to further confuse that end of the pool.

I think there are four likely outcomes to this race:  

1. Bernie Sanders wins a narrow majority after a potracted primary race. (40% chance)

2. The primaries end with no candidate having obtained a majority. (30% chance)

3.  Joe Biden consolidates the center and wins a majority of delegates. (25% chance)

4.  Pete Buttigieg and Michael Bloomberg win a combined majority of delegates and run on the same ticket (5%)

I hate that this gives short shrift to Elizabeth Warren. Maybe she can surprisse in New Hampshire and knock some of the smaller candidates out of the race early. If it becomes a head to head race between Sanders and Warren, some moderates will rally to her. But I don't think it's going to happen. But I have a hard time seeing her cobble together a delegate majority. Bernie owns all the real estate to her left and there are several viable options to her right.  I don't think this is her year.

Scenario number two is most interesting.  The current projections on 538.com have Bernie winning almost 42% of the delegates and Joe Biden winning 25%.  Buttigies and Warren each winning about 11% and Bloomberg winning about 9%. (These numbers will change wildly if any of the top candidates drop out before Super Tuesday.)

The easiest mathematical solution is a Sanders-Warren ticket. But there is a huge problem with that ticket. Both Vermont and Massachussets have Republican governors. If that ticket wins, it will immediately cost the Democratic party two senate seats.  In Massachussets, the interim senator will sit for about 100 days. In Vermont for up to six months.  Even if the Democrats win both special elections, the Warren-Sanders administration will be handicapped for the "First 100 days" of its term.  The party will not want to sign on to that.

So if that ticket doesn't happen, what does the party do?  If Bernie is very close to 50% of the delegates, he can probably pull it off. But if he is 300 or 400 delegates short, the party will be torn between rallying to him and pissing off his base. The only thing we know for sure, is that Bernie will fight to the last possible moment, just as he did in 2016. 

The Party regulars will not want to give it to Bernie for a variety of reasons. The simplest being that he is not a Democrat and he cares nothing about the party as an institution. That is alienating, and for good reason. (Imagine running for president of the local Ozzy Osbourne fan club with a platform of, "I don't care for Black Sabbath.")

If Biden has a plurality of the delegates, he will probably be the nominee. He can offer Veep to Klobuchar, who might control 50 or 100 delegates and who is well-liked by the establishment. And Buttigieg might realize that his future is long and bright so long as he doens't rock the boat. Bloomberg would also be fine with a Biden-Klobuchar ticket. So I think that's an easy sell.

But if the number really look like Nate Silver's forecast, the party might need to turn to a compromise candidate. It would be a huge risk to run an unvetted candidate, but let's consider some of the options.

Some of the best choices have probably taken themselves out of the running by having run in this race on their own.  Imagine a world in which the Democratic party needed to win with an unknown face who could do well in the Midwest, had no obvious diaqualifying qualities and appealed to most of the Democratic base?  Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris and Deval Partick all fit that description on paper. But ti would be hard for the party to foist a candidate on the general public who had been rejected by the voters.

Other possiblities:

1. Sherrod Brown.  This would cost the party a senate seate for 2 full years but he has a foot in both worlds of the party and he might make Ohio competitive. He's probably the best option in this scenario, if only because the decison to not run in this verkhata primary makes him look 10 IQ points smarter.

2. Stacey Abrams.  The party faithful will embrace her. But running a black woman whose highest electoral win is a state legislture race is very, very risky. Definitely on the VP short list though.

3. Tom Wolf.  Let me save you a Google.  He is the governor of Pennsyvlania. He's sane, sober and popular in one of the most important swing states.  He's also both bald and bland, so he won't excite anyone.  But he has to be considered.

4. Chris Murphy.  He doesn't put any swing states in play but he's young and handsome and moderate. His very public advocacy of gun control would help him with surubabn women but would also hurt him in some of the swing states that the Dems need to win back. He is viable.

5. Tammy Baldwin.  On the one hand, she is a popular senator twice elected in the 2016 tipping poin state of Wisconsin. On the other, she is lesbian and some people will think that's risky. She is also unmarried and childless, which I do believe are impediments to national candidates.

IV. The Old Metrics.

This is the 12th post I've done on the Democratic field, so I might as well update my usual standings.  There have been changes, after all.

A. The Horse Race, Take 12

The Top Tier (Front-Runners)

1. Bernie Sanders (up from 2)

2. Joe Biden (Down from 1)

3. Pete Buttigieg (Up from 5)

4. Mike Bloomberg

Tier Two (The Alternatives)

5. Elizabeh Warren (Down from 4)  This just does not seem to be her year. But if she does well in NH, I will happily put her back in the top tier.

6. Amy Klobuchar.

She has qualified for every debate stage (sometimes just barely) and she won an delegate in Iowa (just barely.) But she needs to actually lap some people in NH.

Tier Three; The Novelty Candidates.

7.  Tom Steyer.  (Up from 10)  He's the rich weirdo.

8. Andrew Yang (Up from 9) He's the amiable weirdo.

9. Tulsi Gabbard (Up from 11)  She's the malevlolent weirdo.

Tier Four: The Long Shots.

10. Deval Patrick (Down from 8)

11. Michael Bennet (Down from 7)

Note: I moved the Novelty Candidates ahead of the Long Shots. Now that we have some votes on the board, it's pretty obvious that Patrick and Bennet are not going to catch fire with the electorate. Steyer migth be committed to setting 20% of his fortune on fire, so he could hang around for awhiel.  Tulsi and Yang have never been serious about running for president, but it might serve their actual agenda to pretend to keep running for awhile.

B.  The Power Rankings, Take 11.

These are just my personal preferences among the remaining candidates.

1. Amy Klobuchar

2. Michael Bennet

3. Deval Patrick (Up from 7)

4. Joe Biden (Down from 3)

5. Pete Buttigieg (Down from 4)

6. Elizabeth Warren (Down from 5)

7. Michael Bloomberg (Up from 9)

8. Bernie Sanders (Down from 6)

9. Tome Steyer (Down from 8)

10. Andrew Yang

11. Tulsi Gabbard

Quick Thoughts on the Democratic Debate Lottery

Tomorrow night CNN will hold a live draw for the next Democratic debate. The first debate draw was done privately and was completely random. That resulted in an imbalanced division of the major candidates, with Warren hogging the first night and the other four debating each other on the second night.  For this second set of debates, the candidates will be divided into three tiers.  Each debate will get:

1. Two each among Biden, Harris, Sanders and Warren.

2. Three each among Buttigieg, Booker, Castro, Kloubuchar, O'Rourke and Yang.  

3. Five each among: Bennet, Bullock, de Blasio, Delaney, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Hickenloper, Inslee, Ryan and Williamson.

Let's ignore the middling candidates and the kiddy table folks. One or two of them will have a good night, but very few people will be tuning in to see them.  The main question is how will the top four candidtes be divide?  There are only three possible permutations of leading candidates.  Here are my thoughts on each, with a brief word about which order would be more ineresting.:

1. Biden and Harris  // Sanders and Warren.

Biden versus Harris would be built up as a rematch of the most memorable exhange from the first debate. Hopefully this time Biden will come prepared. Harris might prefer to be matched with one of the other choices, since she already got her licks in on Biden. Or she might look at it as her chance to  firm up her sanding among the moderate wing, while Elizaberth Warren and Bernie get framed as the left-wing prospects on the other night.

Both of these pairings will bring in a good audience. If I'm Warren, I want to go on the second night because last time Harris carried the news cycle for several days after Warren's strong performance against the tomato cans she drew on opening night. 

2. Biden and Sanders // Harris and Warren. 

A good old-fashioned guys versus dolls scenario.  Bernie probably wants to pummel Biden using his 2016 Hillary playbook. But that will feel very tired and I think Harris and Warren would wind up collectively elevating the discourse in their debate. If this is the draw, then Harris and Warren will want to be second. Let the old white guys get the stage warm for them, and then try to bring the discussion into the 21st century.

If this is the draw, I really hope it's Biden/Sanders on the first night, followed by Warren and Harris on the second. I think Biden and Sanders will make each other look old, especially if Buttigieg and or Beto are on the stage with them. 

3. Biden and Warren // Harris and Sanders.

This is probably the comination that CNN would most want to avoid.  But this is the one I am rootinng for. Biden and Warren have some very substantive beef that goes back to when Biden was reffered to as the senator from MBNA and Warren was a bankruptcy scholar at Harvard Law. Biden was a driving force behind the 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code and Warren made her reputation as a public academic by decrying that very law.  I doubt the CNN panelists know much about this so it might be a wasted story line, but I'm pretty sure Senator Warren will force some part of the conversation on to this terrain. She is chomping at the bit to tell the world that Joe Biden was on the side of credit card companies. She knows better than anyone the high human cost of those "reforms." 

Warren will clean Biden's clock with facts and figures. He might come prepared for Harris this time, but he cannot match Warren's economic sophistication. Biden will probably be hoping that foreign affairs are a prominent part of the debate in this permutation. But my money would be on Warren forching him to talk about middle class economics. And that is her strength.

If Biden draws Warren, he will want it to be on the first night. He can't take another extended news cycle about him getting his ass kicked by a woman. CNN would rather have this on the second night, because the substance of their exchanges will be a lot more compelling than Bernie vs. Kamala.

South Carolina & Nevada

The Republican primary is underway in South Carolina and Democrats are caucusing in Nevada. The markets today have seen a continued drop in Senator Cruz' numbers and a surge in support for Rubio. The Democratic race seems largely unchanged.

A few days ago Nate Silver's website published a post about Republican delegate math that made the argument that Ted Cruz had a very tough road to the nomination.  The thrust of the thesis was that most of the states he is likely to win do not award all of their delegates to the statewide winner. His home state of Texas only awards all of its delegates to the statewide winner if that candidate gets more than 50% of the vote. In a fractured field, that seems unlikely.

The other bad piece of news is that Marco Rubio is once again the darling of the media.  Several reporters embarrassed themselves this week by writing incredibly upbeat articles about Senator Rubio of a "comeback kid" nature.  Now that his tormentor Chris Christie has left the field he seems to be doing much better on the campaign trail. And Jeb Bush continues to set new standards for how not to run for president in 2016. I don't know if Marco is ready for prime time, but there are large segments of the party ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.

We'll know in a few hours whether Rubio's comeback is for real or just another figment of the mainstream media's natural instinct to over rate conventional, telegenic candidates.  I'm somewhat skeptical but the implosion of Jeb's campaign can't hurt him, especially if Jeb takes the hint and exits the race.

My official predictions for South Carolina GOP are:  Trump 31, Cruz 24, Rubio 21, Bush 10, Kasich 9, Carson 5.  The most interesting numbers and story lines to look for are these:

1. The race for 2nd place.  If Rubio passes Cruz then there will be more pressure on Bush and Kasich to clear the field for Rubio.  But if he finishes behind Rubio for the 3rd straight time I think those guys can justify staying in a little while longer.  The Republican caucuses are on Tuesday and that's supposed to be a good state for Bush. I think he has too much money and too big of an organization to not give it one more try.

2. Trump's ceiling.  A few days ago it looked like Trump was going to beat his New Hampshire mark of 35 percent. But his trend has been downward for a few days and I think a more realistic goal is 30 percent.

3. Trump's margin of victory.  If Trump wins by 10 points or more, he is likely to get all 50 SC delegates. I suspect Cruz will win at least one congressional district which would net him 3 delegates and maybe Rubio will come on strong to win 3 also.  The over/'under for Trump to have a truly successful night is 44 delegates.

4. How far does Jeb fall?  For almost 20 years the word on him was that it's such a shame he lost his first run for governor. If he had won in 1992, he would have had seniority over his brother and been the nominee/president in 2000. The past few weeks have exposed that myth. He lost in 1992 because he's a lousy politician. If he had won, then John McCain probably would have beat him in the 2000 primaries.

He can not do better than a distant 4th place tonight. The honorable thing would be to bow out immediately. But much like his older brother, he's not big on exit plans and I expect him to soldier on through Super Tuesday at least. If he doesn't, it's because the party bigwigs have figured out that his candidacy can only help Trump and hurt them.

5. How many dead-enders vote for Carson?  I think he has a rump of supporters who just feel good about voting for him.  This demographic can probably keep him in the mid single digits for the foreseeable future and the institutional party is probably okay with that because Cruz is the main person hurt by that.

6. Who wins Nevada for the Democrats?  Polling has been all but impossible in this race so my prediction is that Hillary's organizational ties out muscle any youthful enthusiasm on Bernie's side. If Hillary exceeds 52% of the vote, she can call it a good night. If not, Bernie will declare a tie to be a victory.  Official Predictions:  Hillary 52.2%, Bernie 47.8%