Concur.
Everyone is buying support.
Like it or not money plays a huge role in elections. Without it your chances of winning are slim to none.
So, the question then becomes where the money is coming from?
- Buttigieg: Big time PAC money
- Bloomberg: Writing fat checks to himself
- Sanders: Small donations
- Biden: PAC and small donations (more PAC though)
- Klobuchar: (no idea)
Seems to me if you are so wealthy that you can write $100 million checks to your own campaign you are buying an election. Literally.
Buttigieg voters will probably jump to Biden if Buttigieg is out. Buttigieg has done well in these first two elections. If Biden can snap them up then Biden won two states with no effort and spent all his money/time in South Carolina.
Unless Buttigieg stays in the race but his very low minority support suggests he good run so far will end soon…then Biden takes those voters.
Or maybe not…whoever you support this is certainly an interesting race right now.
Buttigieg’s big time PAC money? Don’t make me laugh. Now, Sanders and Our Revolution, that’s another story.
I really do not know what planet you live on:
Some billionaires are as smart as Dalej42, they’re looking to donate the maximum of $2800 to Pete.
I’d far rather have Our Revolution than VoteVets.
I was channeling Trump, but to be fair, in what universe is it a slur? It is an insult to someone claiming something that she is not.
If you have a Native American co-worker named Jane Jones and you call her Running Bear, yes, that is a racial insult and should be scorned.
If you have a white coworker who because his great-grandpappy told him that there was Indian blood in his family way back and hates Columbus Day because it insults “his” people, I think calling him Sitting Bull would be a jab at him, but not a racially disparaging remark against Native Americans at all.
Context matters and calling everything “racism” runs that argument into the ground. It takes away from real racism.
When marginalized people tell you that your language or actions are racist, you should listen.
The context here is that you are a Trump supporter repeating Trump’s racist slurs. Please stop.
Yes, money plays a huge role in elections. I hope all realize that. That is one of the reasons that the purity test of no money from those who have it is so self-defeating. Many $1 donations is a great gimmick but more helps.
Big donations do buy something - access to make your pitch, and there is a concern that the chasing of big donations can result in influence. Being self-funded does not do that. No amount of money buys an election, or even assures persuasion - Clinton lost with much more than Trump spent for example. But it helps. I’d rather my candidate be well funded into the battle than not.
None of what you cited shows outsized PAC funds for Buttigieg. So far $900K for Sanders, $6.6 for Biden, and from your cite, $1.7 million for Buttigieg. Nothing like what will be spent. Most money is going to the campaigns at this point. Individual donations are, as pointed out, capped by law at $2800 per election per individual. Not even much access bought with that. Being the one who organizes them and collects might get you some.
I read “Oops”, a diary of the Rick Perry campaign. The reporter complained that he had to listen to the same speeches from each candidate so many times “without blowing his brain out”. (Note that to the typical audience, they’re only hearing the speech for the first time.) I don’t think it’s fair to criticize the monotonous speeches.
Unfortunately unicorn candidates (supporting policies important to me, have charisma and competence) are rare. Candidates with less charisma can still win the “invisible primary” (looking at Steve Kerry and Mitt Romney here).
Klobuchar appears to be a centrist, and is female, so that might be bringing in some support.
I’m declaring this discussion out of bounds for this thread. It may be worthy of its own. If you feel so, please make one.
Yeah, I’m sure Warren will wait until after Super Tuesday before suspending her campaign, since it’s only 20 days away and she’s been campaigning for a year. But barring one hell of a surprise, it’s game over for her.
I don’t think this is really all that good a result for anyone besides Klobuchar. Biden’s obvious, following up a 4th place in Iowa with a 5th in NH. If Bernie was going to knock the lights out anywhere, it should have been here, and he only managed 26%. And Buttigieg couldn’t finish better than 2nd in the voting in two states where he was polling way ahead of his national average.
If I were one of the candidates who dropped out in 2019, I’d be looking to see whether it was still possible to jump back in. Because if Bloomberg does OK but not great on Super Tuesday, it’ll be anybody’s game, with nobody in the race looking like they can actually win it.
Come back, Inslee, Harris, Castro! America needs you! 
In some good news for Democrats, turnout in NH was very close to record levels (2008 was the record). Compared to 2016, we only need slightly better turnout to win the electoral college, most likely. I believe this is on track for significantly better Democratic turnout than 2016.
Trump’s turnout was more than double than that of Obama and Bush in NH (cite). Trump didn’t win NH in 2016. He lost by 2736 votes.
I wouldn’t necessarily assume that the happy news about turn out is limited only to one side.
Regards,
Shodan
So far I haven’t seen any evidence that Trump has either increased his support from 2016, or that his supporters are more engaged then they were in 2016. On the other hand, there is some evidence that the Democrats are more engaged than they were in 2016. Too early to be confident about any of this, of course.
Turnout at primaries is not at all predictive of the turnout in the general. So it’s not evidence of anything other than a lively primary.
Biden will start facing pressure from some of his predominantly big, ‘establishment’ oriented donors now to get out. And his erstwhile rank and file supporters in upcoming states will now face 2-3 weeks of media coverage about how badly his campaign tanked in IA and NH. We’ll soon see ‘shocking’ (not) declines in Biden support in newer polls in NV and SC, none taken since the twin debacles. He doesn’t have absolutely zero chance of reversing that, but RCP betting odds for Biden 9% v almost 15% for Buttigieg.
Buttigieg, winner or near in the first two primaries is going to quit soon: who did that, ever, and why would anyone? If he starts doing consistently disappointingly in future primaries yeah eventually he’ll drop out…like every candidate but one at some point before the end of the convention. But that’s way down the road if so. Biden could be out in days.
Only scenario where Biden is in but Buttigieg drops out is some double bank shot of an unlikely Biden comeback that sustains him the weeks or months it will now take for Buttigieg to run out of momentum and money. Biden looks just tired of it too. Looking at clips of him, it’s pretty unreal to me to think about Buttigieg dropping out and Biden getting his support.
Pete derangement syndrome is real. The campaign is running exactly as planned, leading in delegates after the first two states. The ground operation isn’t as strong in NV and SC, but I don’t think any campaign really is. But, now all the talented staff from IA and NH can start helping. And, the next debate will finally have Pete shedding the target on his back as Amy and Bloomberg will get most of the fire. No one did oppo research on Amy for the last debate, everyone will for the next one. And everyone knows about the Bloomberg money machine that they’re facing in Super Tuesday.
Mostly just being snarky. But the independents voting last night were a much less liberal group than voted there in 2016. And really, Bernie’s core demographics include youth and working class voters. New Hampshire is significantly older and wealthier than the nation as a whole, so the big 2016 win actually seems harder to explain than last night’s modest victory.
Your post is your cite. 