Thread by @PJverhagen

Thread not about Corona (at least not directly..) #ThirdSuperTuesday Democratic Primaries!

In all this madness there are still three primaries being held today.

Florida (291): Biden +40
Illinois (155): Biden +35
Arizona (67): Biden +25
Ohio: Suspended

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

1/15

Lets be real, Biden is going to win. I think that there are really three(ish) relevant questions here to ask:

1. What impact does the Covid pandemic have?
2. When does Sanders formally concede?
3. Why is Biden going to win?

So lets step through each of these in turn. 2/15

1. The pandemic

Ohio has already delayed its primary due to fears over Covid. So thats one impact right away. There are a couple of reasons why elections are a bad idea during pandemics.

First of all, there are a lot of people that will be touching screens and handing 3/15

over ballots that need to be checked and put into various different boxes. Thats a lot of hand to hand exchange.

Second, there are a lot of people just standing in lines for hours on end doing nothing but spreading Covid.

Third, the people staffing the polling stations 4/15

and the ones that will have the greatest degree of social interaction are disproportionately old. In Georgia for instance, the average age of poll workers is 70+. These people are especially at risk for Covid.

Fourth, there is a turnout question. Will people come out and 5/15

vote if there is a direct health risk? Furthermore, the race is pretty much over, so what if you are convinced Biden is going to win, why bother showing up?

Fifth, this is the first test of election infrastructure during pandemics. See it as a learning curve for the next 6/15

couple of states that could be coming up.

Now over to Sanders.

2. When does he concede?

Listen. The math is just not there for Sanders to still win. He technically could, but it is just exceedingly unlikely @FiveThirtyEight has it at less than 1%. Some betting markets 7/15

actually give a greater chance to Hillary Clinton to become the nominee than Sanders.

That being said, Corona is the type of black swan event that might (dont think it will) have impact in the following way.

It could suppress older voters. We have talked at length about 8/15

the age gap between Sanders and Biden voters. Older voters are more health conscious, so they might not show up.

The thing is that the disadvantage Sanders needs to overcome is so insurmountable that its practically impossible. So the real question is, why is he still 9/15

in the running?

There are some theories.

One is that he is trying to push Biden to the left on issues. This would be a bit strained because Biden has already moved left on issues and was still attacked by Sanders in the debate.

The other is that he is trying to hold 10/15

Biden accountable, and that is trying to prevent the kind of 'coronation' that Hillary Clinton had. While its true that some voters were put off by the inevitability of Clinton I wonder whether that applies equally to Biden?

Tonight is a logical moment for Sanders to throw 11/15

in the towel... If he doesnt it will be this weird suspended campaign where there are no races coming up anytime soon. Georgia has suspended its primary, as has Louisiana. The next real race would be 4th of April, and the first important on on the 7th of April. 12/15

Logic and math dictates that Sanders drops out tomorrow, but if he doesnt I expect there to be some fairly pointed attacks on Sanders that he is actually endangering the electorate by not conceding (it means people have to come and vote).

3. Why is Biden going to win?

13/15

Well polling for one. These are also very friendly states to Biden with lots of moderate and older voters, Arizona might have a lot of hispanics that are typically pro sanders but Arizona as a whole skews quite conservative.

Illinois has a large black population in Chicago 14/15

is Obama's home state. Finally Florida is quite old on average and a lot of the Hispanics there are Cuban refugees who will not like Sanders' comments on Fidel Castro.

We will see what happens, but its nice to think about something other than Covid for a chance.