Super Tuesday: Who Will Win

The “pre-season” is over! On Saturday, the final February primary event was contested and South Carolina voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden, injecting his campaign with a shot of adrenaline and clearly positioning him as the default alternative to Bernie Sanders.

In the 48 hours afterward, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar suspended their campaigns (and then Klobuchar endorsed Biden and then Buttigieg endorsed Biden). That cleared the field so that heading into Super Tuesday, the race was reduced to Biden, Bloomberg, Sanders and Warren.

3,979 delegates will be determined via the primaries. So far, 155 have been awarded in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. On Super Tuesday, 1,357 delegates will be awarded. A candidate needs 1,991 delegates to win the nomination on the 1st round of voting at the Convention.

Now we head into the day that people who follow politics have been anticipating since the states altered their schedules in preparation for the 2020 race. Most importantly California moved its primary from near the end of the calendar to the first week of March. That instantly created a new tempo in the race. Other states followed suit and now Super Tuesday consists of more than a third of all the delegates which will be contested in the entire primary season.

Who Win California?

Bernie Sanders will win California. But the interesting question is who else will qualify to receive delegates.

All Democratic nomination contests have the same basic rules which are that a candidate must receive 15% of the vote to receive any delegates, and the delegates are awarded proportionally between those who qualify. California’s primary reequires that the 15% viability threshold is checked at the level of the Congressional Districts, so a candidate doesn’t have to be over 15% statewide to get some delegates.

As this is written on Monday before Super Tuesday, both Biden and Warren look likely to be viable in some or all of the Districts, but their numbers are close to the 15% threshold and either or both could be over or under on election day. Bloomberg trails the 15% benchmark but it is possible that a late surge, driven by his enormous spending on TV advertising could help.

With Buttigieg and Klobuchar out of the race, some of their voters will likely transition to Biden, Sanders or Warren. However, almost 40% of California’s votes have already been cast…