Super Tuesday is wrapping up. It’s getting close to 10 PM here in Montana.
Here are some early thoughts.
The corporate media called the races right as the polls closed. There’s no waiting anymore, no verifying - just a rush to be first.
While it’s easy to call a state, it’s harder to call which candidates got the 15% threshold at the district-levels to qualify for delegates. The Dem primary system isn’t winner-take-all, like the GOP primary system is.
I was curious how Trump did, as the corporate media will make it a point not to tell us this.
Around 9 PM I went on Politico and looked up the Super Tuesday states. 10 of the 14 states were in by then, though two (MN and VA) didn’t have a GOP primary.
The GOP got around 3 million votes and the Dems got over 5 million.
Liz Warren got more than 15% of the vote in three of those states - Colorado, Minnesota, and Utah.
Bloomberg got up to 15% in Tennessee, and he got very close in Oklahoma and Utah.
These results will of course change over the next couple of days.
One thing is certain - the Dems got more votes today than Trump did, a lot more.
The GOP only got 10,000 more votes today in Oklahoma than the Democrats did, for instance, and that state went red in ‘16.
Now, many Republicans probably didn’t bother to vote today, so that could be something.
But you have to wonder.
Bloomberg spent $500 million to win a territory 5,500 miles from the US, one that most Americans couldn’t point to on a map if you paid them.
7 delegates. Woo-hoo!
Chances are good he will get a few more delegates, but at this point he seems a non-factor more than ever.
Clearly the deal struck with Mayor Pete and Klobochar - and to a lesser extent (much lesser), Beto - had an effect.
Voters were swayed, and they went with Biden.
I think it was clear that there was a mega-effort to have those two drop out before Super Tuesday, probably with cabinet positions offered if Biden wins.
I think what was less clear is that an effort was probably also made to ensure Warren stayed in it. That way she might take some votes away from Bernie.
I suspect, now that her role is over, she’ll drop out.
California is huge. The state has 415 delegates.
The vote won’t be in for days, as so many mail ballots are still coming in and being counted.
The state is big and doesn’t really represent the country.
The state is also wholly unmanageable, with the biggest homeless population in the country and probably the worst drug crisis.
Nearly 2,000 people a day are fleeing that state, so bad is it to live there.
I mean, drug addicts can go into a store and steal up to $950 worth of goods and they won’t be arrested.
After they steal the goods they can make a campsite on the sidewalk in front of the business.
How do you do business in a climate like that?
You don’t - you move to another state...probably a red state.
I wonder if California will be broken up at some point. It seems like it might do better being a few different states instead of one huge one.
Bernie is expected to win most of the delegates here, and that will create problems for Biden. I guess this is now Bernie’s firewall.
We know that Bernie will cut a deal and bow out, however, as he’s done so in the past.
In ‘16 when Hillary needed him gone, Bernie went.
I’m not sure he’ll go so quietly into the night this year, though.
There could be a fight, and that fight could alienate Bernie’s ‘bros.’
Even if there isn’t a fight, I don’t see a lot of young Bernie supporters getting excited about ‘Sleepy Joe,’ a man that more and more, seems like he’s going senile.
No...Bernie voters won't go with Biden even if Bernie endorses him at the convention. I think they'll just stay home, or write-in Bernie, or do some other protest vote, maybe Libertarian.
Biden better get a damn good VP-pick, but I’m worried he’ll get Stacy Abrams or someone equally as bad.
Well, probably not as bad as Whitney’s LT pick.
But we’ll talk Montana politics another day.
