Tonight 7 candidates will face off in South Carolina ahead of the primary there on Saturday. Bernie Sanders comes in as the sole frontrunner after going 3/3 to start. He broke it open in Nevada where he doubled up 2nd place Biden. If he goes 4/4 it’ll seemingly be over after Super Tuesday (where 1/3 of the delegates are up for grabs) so this may be the last time for someone to try and stop him (if you even can at this point). Right now it seems like South Carolina will be the last stand for about half the candidates and Super Tuesday will be make or break for the other half. I can’t see more than 3 or 4 max still going after that.
As always here’s the state of the race in 1 picture:
The first thing to look for tonight is whether the bottom 5 candidates attack Bernie at the start of if they go right for Bloomberg’s jugular again. Biden & Steyer need to be strong ahead of the primary and with Super Tuesday a week away people like Warren, Amy, & Pete will need to either attack Bernie or Bloomberg or just fight it out and try to be the last of the 3 standing. Hopefully this debate is as fiery and entertaining as the last one. It should be as so many campaigns hang in the balance of what happens in the next week or so.
Front-Runner
Bernie Sanders is in a great spot going into the debate. He’s coming off a huge win in Nevada and as of now he’s the only non-billionaire to have the money to compete on Super Tuesday. I’d also be happy if i was him, when I see the media/other candidates grasping at straws trying to go after him. They can’t really go after him on the issues because he’s the most trusted on the issues. It’s tough to say he’s unelectable when he’s literally winning elections now and it’s tough to say he has a ceiling or is divisive when he almost got 50% in Nevada. So now they’ve gone for his supporters are mean online, he’s a Russian asset, he once said something nice about Fidel Castro decades ago (the same “something nice” Obama said when he was President), or that he hasn’t released all of his medical records. I don’t think any of these attacks hurt him, especailly when he can point to Mike Bloomberg who hasn’t realeased any tax returns and who’s said nice things about Xi Jinping in China this decade. In reality, unless Biden wins SC it’ll likely be Bernie v. Bloomberg and I think that’s the perfect match up for Bernie.
South Carolina Last Stand
South Carolina appears to be Joe Biden’s last stand. He needs a win to keep going and even if he does it might be too late. Biden’s been hurting for cash already so, (along with a win) he’ll need a huge fundraising haul/SuperPAC dump to fund operations/ads in all those states on ST. Biden needs to have his best debate ever tonight in order to try and get some momentum going forward. If not Uncle Joe might never get that 1st career Presidential Primary win.
Tom Steyer has invested heavily in South Carolina and if he doesn’t do well he should get out of the race….but Steyer has the money to waste if he wants to keep going. He’s back on the stage tonight and he needs to make a good showing to stay in the top 3.
Make or Break on Super Tuesday
The campaigns of Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg all seemingly will be make or break on ST. Both Warren and Klobuchar’s home-states vote on ST so a loss there should be enough to get them outta the race. Pete needs to attract non-white voters to continue and despite his best attempts at Obama cosplay, after getting caught faking black endorsements for the second (2nd) time this campaign, that seems unlikely.
The big question for those 3 is who they go after tonight. Bloomberg is the perfect foil for Warren and she should go hard at him again. Amy & Pete seemingly will go hard for Bernie/Warren but I’m not sure either one of them can do anything to get themselves back into it.
Billionaire
The good news for Michael Bloomberg is that he couldn’t do any worse than the least debate. A win for him tonight would be just standing on the stage and having everyone forget he was there. His only plan seems to be buy delegates and hope to get enough to force a contested convention. He’s the only candidate in the race with negative favorability, has stop & frisk, NDAs, ties with China, and his name in Epstein’s little black book. It’s hard to underestimate someone with $60 billion dollars but that money seems like the only thing working for him at the moment.
District of Clowns 