With Elizabeth Warren’s spectacular pummeling of Michael Bloomberg in the Nevada debate and the media finally challenging Bernie Sanders’s continued affection for Cuba’s Communist dictatorship in this week’s contest, perhaps Joe Biden will live to see another day.
He had a solid final debate performance before the South Carolina primary and obtained the crucial endorsement of Rep. Jim Clyburn. And now there’s evidence that Biden can still win after the Palmetto State.
Florida had long been one of Biden’s strongest large states in polling. But just as Biden’s national and state polling fell after his dismal showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, the few polls coming out of the Sunshine State indicated that he was losing his hold there as well. From the end of January to Feb. 19, Biden’s support fell from 41% to 27%, according to St. Pete Polls, with Bloomberg nearly doubling his support from 17% to 32%.
But in the latest from the pollster, Biden is back at a commanding lead, with 34% to Bloomberg’s 25% and Sanders’s 13%.
There are three obvious factors at play here. First, the media finally woke up to the fact that Sanders cannot stop praising Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Cuban Americans, 45% of whom vote Democrat or independent, comprise 1.5 million of Florida’s 21 million residents. Sanders’s support in St. Pete Polls has remained more or less stagnant, presumably with his base, but the strong swing back to Biden away from Bloomberg clearly indicates that Floridians are keyed in to the candidate who can beat Sanders. This brings us to the second factor — that Bloomberg stinks.
Money may be able to buy your way onto a debate stage, but it can’t buy a personality, as evidenced by Bloomberg’s atrocious performances. Warren brutally compared Bloomberg on stage unfavorably to President Trump and reduced him to bumbling nonsense when she brought up sexual harassment complaints about his company. He also came across as a vacuum of likability, a caricature of an evil billionaire, and a tacky discount version of Trump.
But perhaps most importantly, Biden’s improved polling, both in Florida and somewhat nationally, indicates that he’s more viable than people thought. If he blows out South Carolina and has strong enough showings in Super Tuesday states, he might still be in this thing.
It’s still hard to imagine him overcoming Sanders’s delegate lead, but perhaps Biden could make it a contested convention. And then the real fun would begin.
