so, a bit of a polling update....

this is pretty much the catastrophe that seemed obvious when sanders decided to run directly against biden in the south - biden is still going to win the south by huge margins, while a younger centrist is apparently going to win the north by huge margins. sanders got greedy, and lost everything.

buttigieg is essentially carrying through with the only possible winning strategy against biden, while sanders is clinging to what was clearly a losing strategy, from the start.

so, you might find that sanders is doing ok in national polls, and i don't dispute the point with any zeal, but the fact that his campaign is pushing national polls in the november before an iowa primary is a sign of desperation, on his behalf. why isn't he pushing polls in any actual states? because he's losing everywhere. national polls are all he's got. he could finish second in every single state, and then what? take it to the convention and argue that you're consistently second-place, and deserve a consolation prize? likewise, if warren doesn't start showing us where she's going to actually win, it's time that people start telling her to go home.

the story on the fake left appears to be that not only are they not in each others' lanes, but they've both hit support ceilings. classic prisoner's dilemma. again: they had a winning strategy of co-operation, but they picked a losing strategy of competition. when firms compete against each other, they both lose. that's basic economics.

the narrative is "ok, but buttigieg has 0% support in the black states", but that suggests that the black states were ever actually in play, and, of course they weren't. biden has plurality black support, which nobody else has in any other demographic, and if somebody is going to cut into that, it's not going to be bernie sanders. you're going to need a black candidate to do that, and booker is too educated for them to relate to him.

so, you have to sweep the north to win. and, the only person in a position to do that right now, however tenuously, is actually buttigieg. sanders has alienated too many people, and warren can only fool a fraction of the pool with her phony rhetoric. buttigieg's surge may not be real, but it hasn't demonstrated a ceiling, yet.

that would mean that, realistically, the fight right now is between buttigieg and biden, but that buttigieg has a very difficult path. as mentioned, he will have to put up numbers in the north that essentially mirror biden's numbers in the south - he'll need to be getting 60-70% of white voters in these states. there's little evidence he's doing nearly that well, but if somebody is going to pull off the only strategy that there is, he's the only one doing it right...

it's a long shot, though. even if he can't do it, and he probably can't, buttigieg may be positioning himself as an impossible-to-ignore vp candidate, because if that's how this works out - if buttigieg ends up with clear wins in states like michigan and pennsylvania and minnesota and wisconsin - then biden is going to have little other choice. he will need those states to win.

can that change? sure. i don't suspect that buttigieg will survive a serious policy berating. i'm not sure that people really know what they're claiming they'll vote for. most of his support in the north does still appear to be coming from sanders, who is running fourth in the north right now by some polling estimates, and i pointed to the queer sympathy vote, but he may be enjoying some kind of default transitional state, as people rule out the other candidates.

if they've ruled out biden, and they've ruled out sanders, and they've ruled out warren, they might sit with "buttigieg. i guess." for a few weeks. who do they vote for, in the end? nobody knows, yet.

but, if measured voting intention translates into real votes, and the vote is tomorrow, you're looking at a biden/buttigeg ticket, as biden scrambles to find a white running mate that can help him win in wisconsin.