we try again in 2024.

Bottom line: Sanders or Elizabeth should get the nomination and we should count on the younger and more diverse groups of voters who overwhelmingly support them to get out the vote. If they don't, rather than settle on an oldie and not so goodie, we try again in 2024.

Your dislike of Biden aside,  this country cannot withstand another 4 years of Trump.

Hypothesis No. 5: There has already been a national surge toward Biden that is not fully reflected in the polls.

It didn't get much notice, but polling outside of South Carolina was also pretty favorable to Biden toward the end of last week, including polls that showed sharp improvements for him in states such as Florida and North Carolina. He's also gotten better results in some national polls lately -- climbing back into the low 20s -- along with other, not-so-great ones.

The data isn't comprehensive enough to know for sure. Between the dense cluster of events on the campaign trail (primaries, debates, etc.) and the different races that pollsters are surveying (South Carolina, Super Tuesday, national polls), everything is getting sliced pretty thin. But we do know that Biden made big improvements since the debate in South Carolina polling, the one state where we did have enough data to detect robust trendlines.

Degree of concern for Sanders if this hypothesis is true: High. Suppose that Biden gained 5 or 6 percentage points across the board nationally and in Super Tuesday states as a result of this week's debate (or other recent factors such as voters' reaction to coronavirus), but it's gone largely undetected because there hasn't been enough polling. If that's the case, then Biden may already be in a considerably better position than current polling averages and models imply -- and then he could get a further bounce from winning South Carolina on top of it. This is a scary possibility for Sanders, and although there isn't enough data to prove it, there also isn't much that would rule it out.

What Biden's Big South Carolina Win Might Mean For Sanders

Maybe Biden or Bloomberg (or a white knight who rides in at the last minute) can get the nomination on a later round or in the alternative Sanders winds getting it.

But look at how many big name dems have bashed Sanders in public on video.  Even if they later come out and support Sanders there are ads that make themselves of dems bashing Sanders that will be used against him.

By the same token the Bernie Bros are one small step from going off the deep end if they think the "establishment" stole the nomination from Sanders.

I have seen multiple comments by a couple of regulars here who basically say ignore the Bernie Bros and the havoc they will cause if Sanders is not nominated and go with a middle of the road candidate.  On the other hand some of these same posters who supported someone other than Biden have dissed Biden for his 'foot in his mouth' disease till it became clear their first choice had no chance.

Uh, you need to speakfor yourself rather than "the rest of us"

No one is mentioning the Latino vote which overwhelmingly has gone to Sanders so far. Or that in California alone, 25 million people are eligible to vote on Super Tuesday. Texas has 15 million eligible to vote. These two states have the largest number of Latino voters. [More...]

May very well be more consequential then the AA vote. The Latino vote decided Nevada, and will decide California and Texas.