First off, I’m not a Bernie Sanders supporter, I support Elizabeth Warren.
But, taking off my Warren stan hat for a minute and putting on my political analysis hat, I have to say I’ve noticed for awhile now that there are a number of Democrats and liberals, including the owner of this site, who on many occasions have expressed the belief that Sanders has no path, no chance at winning the Democratic nomination.
Well, here’s reality check #1 — it’s looking very possible that Sanders could sweep Iowa and NH:
Furthermore, according to the most recent polling of Nevada, Sanders is down just 1 point to Biden.
Also, he’s in good position to win delegate-rich California, which votes on Super Tuesday, March 3.
In fact if you look at all the Super Tuesday states, you’ll find that they are quite favorable to Sanders. Of the 16 states/territories voting that day, Sanders won 7 of them in 2016 (Colorado, Democrats Abroad, Maine, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Vermont), and if he holds them this year and adds California and Massachusetts (which Sanders lost narrowly in 2016), he will have won the most states and delegates on Super Tuesday.
Lastly and perhaps most significantly, there have been several polls that have come out in the last few weeks that have shown Sanders either leading among Nonwhite voters or polling close to Biden.
As NPR noted in an article from December titled “Why Bernie Sanders is Resonating With Latinos”:
Recent polls by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and Latino Decisions all show Sanders as the top Democratic presidential candidate choice among Latino Democrats. He has a particular strength with young Latinos.
And finally, a recent poll by Ipsos showed that —
Fully 56% of African-Americans said they’d “consider voting for” Sanders in 2020 — a statistical tie with the 54% who said the same about former Vice President Joe Biden and significantly higher than any other candidate.
If Sanders takes Iowa, NH, Nevada, California, and generally does well on Super Tuesday, he’s going to have an enormous amount of momentum, not to mention a healthy advantage in delegates. The airwaves will be swamped with talk about how Sanders is the frontrunner. You could see a bandwagon start to form around his candidacy among Democrats who just want to unify in order to get on with beating Trump. And unlike 2016, Sanders seems to have a diverse coalition this time around.
In other words, I think Sanders might be in the most enviable position right now of all the candidates, and if I was a betting man, my money would be on him having the most delegates heading into the convention. And if he has the most delegates going into the convention, he’s almost certain to become the nominee unless Dems decide to risk blowing up the party by selecting someone else.
Putting my Warren stan hat back on, I have to say that the centrist Democratic establishment would be truly getting what it deserves if Sanders is the nominee. To these centrists, Warren was clearly the more acceptable progressive in the race, but when she reached the top of the polls in October, they decided to go all-in on kneecapping her in the hopes that it would boost a centrist like Buttigieg or Klobuchar. Instead, weakening Warren just consolidated support around Sanders who centrists, in their infinite wisdom, thought was dead meat. Real political geniuses we’re talking about here.