Thoughts on whether any of the remaining candidates drop out before South Carolina?
Biden
Bloomberg
Buttigieg
Gabbard
Klobuchar
Sanders
Steyer
Warren
Obviously staying in: Biden, Bloomberg, Sanders, Buttigieg
I assume staying in til they run out of money for the Fox News appearances and grifting: Tulsi
Dropping Sometime Soon, Perhaps? Klobuchar, Warren, Steyer
But Steyer has spent millions on Super Tuesday and is polling in third in SC, Warren has had some good fundraising recently and Klobuchar and Warren both have their home states on Super Tuesday.
Trying to predict this is tough, but I have felt like behind the scenes at some point the DNC/establishment was going to lean very hard on people to drop out so that the moderate wing can coalesce around one candidate. If that’s the case, they have to wait until after South Carolina, right? If Biden doesn’t win it, he’s not the guy, so you pick from the others. If Biden wins it, you lean on the others then… But the flip side of that is that it’s tougher for him to win with Warren, Klobuchar and Buttigieg still in.
But now I’m starting to wonder if the DNC/establishment strategy isn’t going to have to shift? Their goal is to defeat Bernie, and I just can’t figure out who can do it head to head unless Biden crushes SC and thus has a path through the South. If they decide nobody can, does the establishment just make its goal to hold Bernie down to like 40% of pledged delegates and coordinate a shadow campaign among the other campaigns? Biden gets the South, Klobuchar gets the Great Plains, Buttigieg gets the midwest and some of the northeast, Warren gets the Pacific Northwest, Massachusetts, and some of the northeast? Bloomberg spends like crazy on negative Bernie ads everywhere and gets like Florida to himself?
Getting back to the PredictIt point, is the field pretty much locked for South Carolina at this point regardless of the strategies at play? I just can’t come up with anyone I see dropping out.