What Went Down In The 2020 Nevada Caucuses

When Bloomberg and Patrick got into the race in November, their unstated but clear concern was that Warren would win Iowa and New Hampshire, come out of those with enough momentum to overtake Biden in Nevada and then be able to either defeat him or narrowly lose to him in South Carolina. I thought that seemed far-fetched at the time. But here we are, with Sanders on the eve of achieving what it looked like Warren could a few months ago.

There is buzz on the left (let’s say the Intercept as a good example) about how MSNBC, officially the “liberal” network, is too anti-Sanders. James Carville has been on air there several times recently attacking Sanders and saying he will be a disaster for the Democrats in the general election. That is not a unique opinion among Democrats, but he is saying it very confidently. In the days between now and Super Tuesday, it will be interesting to watch the discourse on MSNBC in particular. There is not quite a Stop Sanders movement among Democrats, but there are a lot of prominent anti-Sanders people. I will be curious if the Never Trump Republicans on MSNBC (Nicole Wallace, Jennifer Rubin, Joe Scarborough, Michael Steele) in particular get really loud and vocal AND direct Democrats to get behind one anti-Sanders alternative. Younger people (Sanders’s base) don’t watch a ton of cable news. But the majority of the electorate is over 45.

I know #math doesn’t work this way, but I still can’t help but think that if Sanders crushes Nevada, the moderates in fourth and fifth place have to take a long look at their performance and think, man, maybe I should drop out and endorse one of the moderates who is doing well. I know no one agrees with this take … except Bloomberg.