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You are here: Home / Politics / America / All the Polls Are Closed. All the Calls Have Been Made. VP Biden Has Swept Today’s Elections

All the Polls Are Closed. All the Calls Have Been Made. VP Biden Has Swept Today’s Elections

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Arizona has now been called for VP Biden because Maricopa County, AZ – the state’s largest county – has now reported its vote and VP Biden won the county by double digits. As a result, they’ve now called Arizona for him. He has also won Florida and Illinois and swept the day given the postponement of the Ohio primary.

Personally, I think he should go with the mustache idea!

VP Biden now has over a 300 delegate lead over Senator Sanders. The usual rule of thumb is that it is impossible for a candidate in a Democratic presidential primary contest to overcome a 200 delegate lead because the Democratic primaries are proportional. As a result there is little chance that Senator Sanders can overcome this deficit, despite the number of states still left to vote. It is time for Senator Sanders to actually become a leader and do something he doesn’t want to do for the good of the Republic.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  4. 4.

    lamh36

    Ok. I would love to stay up guys, but after a long day at the lab today, I’m dead tired. I was just waiting for the results from Arizona to come in before heading to sleep.

    Can’t wait to see the numbers from the Hispanic vote in Arizona.

    I’ll probably be up a bit longer, but no more than 30min to an hour.

    While I’m still awake though, just wanted to say, I know alot of folks worried about how long the quarantine could last. It’s early yet, but it has been my theory, as someone who deals in this type of thing as part of my job, that we’ll know for sure if COVID-19 is handled by May. The “season” for respiratory virus infection tends to taper out in early May as the spring gives way to summer and the spring showers and flowers lead to less pollen and so less respiratory illnesses.

    For now the belief is tht COVID like SARS like FLU is transmitted via respiratory droplets, the Winter and Spring months are the ones that lead to the most coughing, sneezing, and respiratory symptoms that help to spread those viruses.

    As the weather gets dryer and warmer, it should taper off. We’ll see if my theory is correct.

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    It is time for Senator Sanders to actually become a leader.

    I guess we’ll find out in the next day or two. There’s no plausible path for him to win; he’d have to take all of the remaining states by something like 60-40 margins, and that’s …just not going to happen. Mathematically possible, yes, and of course the concern is that he’ll fixate on that one-in-a-million chance.

  6. 6.

    Facebones

    This will not happen, because Bernie and his campaign staff are sore losers. You cannot appeal to them to do what’s best for the party, because they aren’t Democrats and hate the DNC more than Trump. They will scream conspiracy and drag this out to the convention and stomp their feet and demand to write the platform.

    The difference now is that he’s running against Uncle Joe and not a Hillary. The media had a 25 year reservoir of hate and misogyny to unleash against her. They don’t hate Joe.

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    @Facebones: They can’t drag this out all the way to the convention. Pledged delegates only for the first round of voting (which, ironically, was a rule change that Bernie’s team pushed hard for), so there’s no ‘the superdelegates will vote with us’ straw to cling to this time round. Assuming no more changes to the primary schedule, this is truly over by early or mid May.

  15. 15.

    sdhays

    @lamh36: Wouldn’t we expect it to be less serious in tropical places like Singapore and Malaysia if it were affected by warmer weather? It seemed to be pretty serious in Singapore and Malaysia is now starting to lockdown as it spreads.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    Robocalled that I’ll be called tomorrow as part of a conference call with Gabbard as Congressperson “addressing current issues.” Don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up giving a raspberry over the phone for that long without stopping for breath.

  25. 25.

    sdhays

    @Major Major Major Major: I think the argument that he should keep campaigning on to the convention in order to affect the party platform will be strong. I think that’s silly since that clearly didn’t make him or his core supporters happy in 2016, but the question is: has he learned anything from that experience? So far, the answer has been “no”, but I’d be happy to be wrong.

  27. 27.

    Mike S

    I know there are other races and issues in the coming primaries but even with that sanders would be selfish to continue making so many elderly people risk their lives to work at the polls. He should concede and the state legislatures in the remaining contests should find a way to make their elections more open to voting by mail.

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: He will not drop out tomorrow. His major surrogates and staff have already told the news media, this afternoon before any states had reported in, that he will not be dropping out any time soon. That he’s decided he’s staying in at least through the end of the April primaries.

    So instead of doing it now and starting the healing allowing a unified front to go after the President and the Republicans, he’s going to do what he did in 2016.

    All the Polls Are Closed. All the Calls Have Been Made. VP Biden Has Swept Today's Elections

  35. 35.

    Martin

    @sdhays: I think it may slow down in warm/humid areas, but not drop off as seriously as the flu. That may still help, but I think we’re going to be going through some variation of what we’re doing now for a year.

    But if lamh is right, then we 100% need a national vote by mail requirement because I will burn shit down if we aren’t voting Nov 3.

  37. 37.

    Mary G

    @Major Major Major Major: I agree; it’s seemed to me that he’s been signalling that he’ll be more reasonable, drop out earlier and support Biden more than HRC. Right now he has a lot of power over the platform. Waiting and screaming about the DNC rigging the election will diminish that. Of course, his brigades will scream bloody murder, but this is not the time for crap like that.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: The only benefit to him staying in, which was to help drive turnout because there was a competition, which benefits down ballot races like the state supreme court race in Wisconsin also no longer exists because of the novel Coronavirus and COVID-19. The social distancing and mandatory closure responses to the epidemic is going to depress that turnout.

  41. 41.

    sdhays

    @Adam L Silverman: LOL, that cartoon is real. I have a colleague who was a big supporter of Andrew Yang and then was supporting Bernie, but he didn’t even know the Iowa caucuses were happening, or even what a caucus was. I didn’t ask him if he voted when the primary came to my state, but I’m 99% sure that he didn’t vote (despite strongly disliking Biden because he’s seen a bunch of picture that make it look like Biden is creepy with children??) and probably wasn’t even aware that the state was having its primary that day.

  43. 43.

    Mary G

    @NotMax: If my experience with Darrell Issa’s telephone town halls is any indicator, there is a snowflake’s chance in hell that you will be allowed to say anything, or razz for that matter. The “constituents” giving “feedback” will sing her praises in unison, like a Trump cabinet meeting. Have blood pressure medication handy.

  48. 48.

    Suzanne

    @lamh36:

    As the weather gets dryer and warmer, it should taper off. We’ll see if my theory is correct.
     

    God, I hope so. This is terrible. Every activity for my Spawns is canceled through the rest of the school year. Mr. Suzanne is saying that it’s unlikely that they’ll go back to school this year at all. Spawn the Elder is not very mentally healthy and this is hard on him. At some point, I’m just not going to be able to do it. Apparently scientists are saying we could have a year of this.

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Even Brian Williams talking about the Sanders campaign as if they’re Billy Mummy who can send us to the cornfield

    ETA: Just cringing at Williams’ fawning introduction of the man we used to call Parson Meacham, and it turns out his latest book is reflections on Jesus’s last words from the cross.

  52. 52.

    Feathers

    Ugh. My Twitter feed is full of screeches that Pelosi is worse than useless because she can’t get everything they want in the relief bill. The problem is the Senate. Why aren’t they complaining about Schumer? Maddening.

  55. 55.

    Gravenstone

    @Adam L Silverman: Except there probably won’t be any April primaries due to the pandemic. So do they whine about that, or just quietly move the goalposts to May or beyond?

  59. 59.

    Martin

    @Suzanne: I think we’ll be dealing with this for a year, but I think it’ll be generally more orderly and less invasive than this. There may be smaller regions that lock down for a few weeks  because things got away from them, but it shouldn’t be as bad as this.

    For one, the nation can’t function in this state for very long. We may all have to wear respirators to work or shit like that, but it’ll return to some sense of normalcy.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    So, they issued a restatement of the OC lockdown order and now I have no idea what it means. Our county supervisor is a dipshit – and I thought that before all of this.

  66. 66.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: We still don’t really know yet, IMHO.  I got the flu in Japan in May, but most of the time the flu is worse in the winter.

    We need to throw lots of money at the right people (those who will lose their jobs, those who will lose their food and shelter, those who need equipment to study the virus and make treatments and cures, etc.) and we need time.

    Flatten the curve!  Wash your hands!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: Actually it wouldn’t. Leahy can’t be made President Pro Tem of the Senate if there’s no election, even if there’s a Democratic majority among the remaining senators who weren’t up for election/reelection in this year’s cycle, because without a House, there is no Congress to be sworn in. And without a new Congress sworn in, there’s no new Democratic majority by default Senate. Meaning that Grassley would remain the President Pro Tem as he is currently the President Pro Tem. After the discussion of this last night, I went and double checked and it turns out my initial response on this was correct. Amazing what a PhD in political science can do for a person.

  73. 73.

    Fair Economist

    @Martin: I too thought the initial order clearly required non-essential businesses to close if not providing essential services. Evidently they’ve dropped that and business not interacting with the public can stay open with suitable internal distancing, which I do think is reasonable given the current state in OC.

    I agree with your assessment of those responsible.

  74. 74.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    Chris Hayes says so much has changed in six weeks that we can’t be sure Biden will win the nomination.

    Sad!

  79. 79.

    Fair Economist

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: No. Similar events in the past were military munitions tests, and Pendleton has some firing scheduled, but it does often and I don’t recall anything like this before.

  83. 83.

    Martin

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Well, I took his point. I’m trying to get some plans in place for Monday and told my bosses – let’s not try this until Thursday because who the fuck knows.

    I mean, we still have the potential problem that either Bernie or Biden catches this, and that does change the math quite dramatically. But that seems more like a problem to be sorted out at the convention and not now by staying in the race.

  85. 85.

    NotMax

    @BillinGlendale

    Tradition, not requirement, that it is the most senior member of the majority elected by the body as president pro tem. In theory a Dem Senate could elect, say, Warren as president pro tem.

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Very gray area but the 116th Congress ends at 11:59:59 a.m. on January 3rd (unless the date is changed by Congress beforehand). As that can be argued to also be the ending time of Grassley’s office as president pro tem (pending re-election to the post whenever a new Senate convenes, if his party is in the majority), the next in line of succession could be hypothetically argued to be up – Secretary of State – who would still technically hold that office, which has no fixed term, on and past January 20 until resigning it.

  86. 86.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @NotMax:

    Tradition, not requirement, that it is the most senior member of the majority elected by the body as president pro tem. In theory a Dem Senate could elect, say, Warren as president pro tem.

    They could elect any Senator.  From the Senate rules:

    Resolved, That it is competent for the Senate to elect a President pro tempore, who shall hold the office during the pleasure of the Senate and until another is elected, and shall execute the duties thereof during all future absences of the Vice-President until the Senate otherwise order.

  87. 87.

    Kattails

    @Mary G: So; waiting and screaming about the election being rigged will diminish his power over the platform. I should think that waiting and continuing to lose by large margins would diminish that even further, which would be fine by me. If his ideas had had significant merit they would have been adopted in some form a long time ago, since he hasn’t changed them in 40 years.

  90. 90.

    smike

    @Kattails: I think this is true. After Bernie burns every bridge in sight, then what? If his power base hates the democratic party, where does that leave him? Alienate his democratic supporters and he will be left with… what, exactly”

  96. 96.

    Eolirin

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Which I think is Adam’s point, and I trust that he’s right on it. Without a new senate, there’s no new senate majority, and Grassley’s still president pro tempore.

    I mean, the Republicans could vote Trump into that position I suppose. Or anyone else they wanted. Even if it does require a senator they can just have an R senator from a state they control resign and have Trump or whoever put into the senate that way. They’d have time between not having elections and Jan 3rd.

    But this discussion is kind of dumb because that isn’t going to happen.

  99. 99.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Eolirin: Per Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution:

    Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

    The Court would have to defer to the Senate.

  102. 102.

    Eolirin

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Sorry, congress. Pretty sure it doesn’t affect the point though.

    And the court can do whatever the hell it wants. The constitution says what they say it says, never mind what the words say. It’d be an insane and transparent power grab with no legal basis, but they could do it in this already intensely stupid hypothetical. I mean if we’re going to supposing what would amount to a coup anyway, what’s going to stop them?

  103. 103.

    J R in WV

     

     

    @Mary G:

     

    March 18, 2020 at 12:30 am

    Content warning = contains short clips of Foxers:

    What a damning indictment of Fox News from the Post video team here. pic.twitter.com/r8Fz8vo5KV— andrew kaczynski? (@KFILE) March 18, 2020

    This is pretty funny, if it wasn’t a giant weeping tumor on the abdomen of our polity.  I think those clips should be run as commercials for all the other news outlets on a 24/7 basis ON FOX as advertisements for the real news outlets.

    Also, OT, we have multiple species of frogs in the little pond this morning, so cool.

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