Iowa was a must win for Sanders

[Gothmog]

Sanders is only polling well in four states where the voting population is 90+% and if Sanders can not win in Iowa then he is in trouble in South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/01/iowa_caucus_stakes_for_hillary_clinton_and_bernie_sanders.html

For Bernie, meanwhile, a Hillary victory would be an undeniable blow. With the exception of New Hampshire and his home state of Vermont, the Hawkeye State—with a Democratic electorate that skews white and liberal—represents the friendliest terrain on the map for Sanders. If Bernie can’t win in Iowa, Clinton and her allies will have no problem brushing off a Sanders win in New Hampshire next week as little more than the result of the senator being a near-native son in the Granite State. Sanders, then, would be in need of a win elsewhere to reset the race—and soon—but won’t have any obvious place to turn.

South Carolina and Super Tuesday will be fun

[BlueCaliDem]

1. Yep. Iowa as a *must win* for Bernie - and the numbers don't look all too good for him,

especially in the delegate count (Bernie 21 to Hillary's 28 with only two undecided). Even if Bernie would win both undecideds, he still lost Iowa.

[sheshe2]

3. ssssssssssh~

I am back.

[BlueCaliDem]

4. ssssssssssssshesssssssssssshe!

*whispering* ~ Welcome back.

[sheshe2]

5. love

[Gothmog]

9. Welcome back

[sheshe2]

24. Whispering.....

Thank you~

[Treant]

2. I expect

that the spin tomorrow will be that he made some sort of amazing showing in an unfriendly state.

Um, no. He made a modest showing in a friendly state (I can only think of five that will be more friendly to him), and it's essentially a tie.

Similarly, the screaming of the inevitable win will resound when he winds NH (but watch the final vote totals for any weaknesses starting to show). The only way he loses NH is if he's dumb enough to contest the IA elections over minor issues.

Then he takes a drubbing in NV and SC and it gets worse on Super Tuesday.

Iowa was a must win by +5 or better...and he didn't.

[ismnotwasm]

8. Yup

[sheshe2]

6. K&R

[SunSeeker]

7. K & R

[Gothmog]

10. According to the Cook Report, Sanders needed to win 70% of the Iowa delegates to be competitive

According to one of the experts for the Cook Report, Sanders needs to win big in Iowa to have a chance http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/sanders-needs-more-than-a-win-in-iowa-to-beat-clinton

As David Wasserman wrote in the Cook Political Report last week, "98 percent of pledged Democratic delegates will come from states with lower shares of liberal whites than Iowa and New Hampshire." That is a big problem for Sanders who has yet to prove he can expand his base....

Yet, even then, delegate allocation is proportional, which means that Sanders would have to begin winning by major margins to make the race a serious contest.

Wasserman estimates that according to his models, Sanders would "need to win 70 percent of Iowa's delegates and 63 percent of New Hampshire's delegates" to even "be on track" to stay competitive with Clinton in later states where demographically speaking, Clinton has shown she has more support. And in a states like Florida and South Carolina, Clinton leads in recent polls by 36 points and 19 points, respectively.

"It is not merely the delegate process that favors Hillary, it is the voters. She has earned the loyalty and support of communities of color, women, the LGBTQ community, environmentalists, and other vital parts of the Democratic coalition," says Democratic strategist Paul Begala, a Clinton supporter. "Bernie's coalition - so far - is more narrow. It is impressive in its energy and its passion, but it is, I think, more narrow."

The Cook Report has some good analysis

[Cha]

11. So how many delegates did he win in Iowa then?

Thank you, Gothmog

[pandr32]

15. He fell far short

...and so he has ground to make up for. The thing is, how can he?
Hopefully there will not be another weak spot where the data firewall goes down--allowing him (via surrogates) to access other important state Clinton campaign data, and hopefully there will be no more "masquerading" shenanigans to try to gain access to union members or other strategically important people.
A clean campaign would be nice, yet Sanders has been getting rather urgently negative of late. No matter--more debates where Clinton shines every time (being the gem that she is) will not help Sanders, and the strategic releases of movies about Benghazi and press releases of "top secret" e-mails that weren't top secret at the time, have pretty much already done their worst for Clinton and won't make much of a dent in her very solid support.
Where would Sanders gain from, except with Republicans, but they would have to officially change party for the primaries I think.

[mcar]

16. Good analysis

Thanks Gothmog!

[Tarheel_Dem]

20. "Bernie's coalition - so far - is more narrow."

This is what confounds me with the M$M narrative. I'm aware that they do love a horse race, but no one bothers to point out that both IA & NH are two of the whitest states in the country, and DO NOT, in any way represent the breadth & width of diversity in the Democratic party.

"Enthusiastic", "Energized" "Passionate" is what we hear when they talk about BS, but they don't bother to mention that they are 99.9999% Caucasian. Although they never forget to point out how disappointed this "narrow" piece of the Democratic electorate is in the current president.

[beachbum bob]

12. iowa was a must win for bernie

a tie/close results doesn't help at all as once we move past theses first few samll state primaries...its pretty much over for bernie no matter how much MSM will do to sabotage Clinton

[comradebillyboy]

13. Rove's super-pac went all in to help Bernie

but it wasn't enough. That plus the strategically timed e-mail accusations couldn't put Bernie over the top.

[NurseJackie]

14. Was there ever any definitive report on the data breach?

Could that have helped him?

[comradebillyboy]

17. I don't really know. From the standpoint of campaign

mechanics, Bernie's team did a really good job in Iowa. I don't think the data breach is really very important except to further illustrate what a slime ball Weaver is.

[Starry Messenger]

18. Bernie Sanders Needs More Than The Tie He Got In Iowa

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-needs-more-than-the-tie-he-got-in-iowa/?ex_cid=538twitter

We can change "tie" to "loss" now...

We’ve said for months that Iowa and New Hampshire are two of the best states for Sanders demographically. You can see why in the entrance poll taken in Iowa. Sanders won very liberal voters over Clinton by 19 percentage points, but he lost self-identified somewhat liberals and moderates to Clinton by 6 percentage points and 23 percentage points, respectively. That’s bad for Sanders because even though 68 percent of Iowa Democratic caucus-goers identified as liberal this year, only 47 percent of Democratic primary voters nationwide did so in 2008. We’ll need to see if Sanders can do better in a state that is more moderate than Iowa before thinking he can win the nomination.

Iowa and New Hampshire also lack nonwhite voters, who form a huge part of the Democratic base. Can Sanders win over some of these voters? Clinton has held a lead among nonwhites of nearly 40 percentage points in national polls. In Nevada, which votes after the New Hampshire primary, the electorate for the Democratic caucuses in 2008 was 15 percent Hispanic and 15 percent black. After Nevada comes South Carolina, where a majority of Democratic voters will be black. Our polls-only forecast in South Carolina gives Clinton a 94 percent chance to win, and our polls-plus forecast gives her a 96 percent chance to win.

Clinton will continue to be a favorite for the Democratic nomination if she continues to hold a large lead among nonwhite voters and basically breaks even with white voters, as she did in Iowa. Sanders, meanwhile, needs to cut into Clinton’s lead among nonwhites and expand his support among white voters beyond what he won in Iowa. If he does that, he’ll put himself in contention to win the nomination. If he doesn’t, he’ll continue to be an underdog.

[Tarheel_Dem]

21. Thank you Starry. This piece shows just how "narrow" the BS coalition is. Starry eyed college coeds

won't be enough. I find this part extremely encouraging:

"if she continues to hold a large lead among nonwhite voters and basically breaks even with white voters, as she did in Iowa. Sanders, meanwhile, needs to cut into Clinton’s lead among nonwhites and expand his support among white voters beyond what he won in Iowa."

Sanders cannot make any significant cuts in her "nonwhite" voter base. It's too late for that. The best he can hope for is to grow his white support. I'm guessing that a lot of Democrats got scared shitless last night after a Cruz victory in IA, and they'll be looking for someone who is sure to defeat him if by some chance he wins the nomination.

I love Nate Silver.

[Starry Messenger]

22. Me too!

I had him open on one tab last night, and a live caucus map open on another tab, and twitter going in another.

I don't see any path for him into the Obama coalition either. Especially with that new "Buyer's Remorse" book crap--people need to get out of their bubble and realize you can't just blow off loyal Democratic voters like they are dumb sheep. He's had years to make the case with folks, and he just hasn't, and all the other shenanigans going on are not helping him.

[Tarheel_Dem]

23. Sounds like he's made the misguided calculation to run against Pres. Obama as a way to take down....

Hillary. Bad move, considering the president has very loyal constituencies in the party. Congrats to you being able to stomach the play by play. I stayed offline & avoided all news media, cuz I wanted to be surprised this morning. And boy...was I. Pleasantly, I might add.

[William769]

19. Kick & recommended.