The votes are in and Sleepy Joe Biden has gulped a giant shot of caffeine thanks to older black voters not keen to vote for a socialist or a homosexual or a faux Cherokee. But this is not Bernie Sander’s Stalingrad. Bernie has not suffered a fatal blow. But I think the Democrat Party has.
| Candidate | Votes | % | Delegates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joe Biden | 255,662 | 48.4 | 41 |
| Bernie Sanders | 105,070 | 19.9 | 13 |
| Tom Steyer | 59,815 | 11.3 | 0 |
| Pete Buttigieg | 43,484 | 8.2 | 0 |
| Elizabeth Warren | 37,285 | 7.1 | 0 |
| Amy Klobuchar | 16,610 | 3.1 | 0 |
| Tulsi Gabbard | 6,749 | 1.3 | 0 |
| Andrew Yang (withdrawn) | 1,044 | 0.2 | 0 |
| Michael Bennet (withdrawn) | 748 | 0.1 | 0 |
| Cory Booker (withdrawn) | 643 | 0.1 | 0 |
| John Delaney (withdrawn) | 345 | 0.1 | 0 |
| Deval Patrick (withdrawn) | 273 | 0.1 | 0 |
| Total | 527,728 | 100% | 54 |
Source: Wikipedia.
Total turnout for the Democrats was up significantly–an additional 150,000 people voted compared to 2016. But you have to take this with a grain of salt. Thirty-eight percent of the folks at the Friday night Trump rally in Charleston were registered Democrats. Trump called on all his supporters to vote in the Democrat primary and help sow some chaos. We do not know if the increase in voter turnout was due to Republican participation.
What we do know for certain is that Bernie Sanders got a smaller percentage of the vote compared to 2016–19.9% in 2020, 26.2% in 2016. While he got 9000 more votes this time, it is highly likely that most of that came from Republicans wanting to mess with the Democrat primary.
That said, Bernie is the leader in the delegate hunt and is likely to remain atop the heap when the smoke clears from the battles on Super Tuesday (two days from now). But he will have a strong plurality, not a decisive majority.
The battle for the heart and soul of the Democrat party is now engaged. The so-called moderates (those who want to say please before confiscating your wealth and weapons) are sapping strength from each other. I fully anticipate that Joe Biden and former Republican Mikey “Money Bags” Bloomberg will score some delegates. Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren as well. But no one will run away with the lion’s share and Bernie will still have more than the others.
In 2016, thanks to the leak of the DNC emails to Wikileaks, Americans learned that the Democrat hierarchy conspired to rob Bernie of any chance of winning the 2016 nomination. But the Democrats and media back then successfully diverted public attention from that stark fact by blaming the Russians and Donald Trump for the email heist. That was not true, but public attention followed the shiny Russian Nesting doll tale offered up by Democrat propaganda masters rather than confront the dirty truth that Bernie was robbed. In an information warfare campaign, truth is the first casualty.
The Democrat establishment’s plan to deny Bernie the Presidential crown this go round is not a secret. What remains to be seen is whether or not Bernie supporters will roll over like submissive dogs or will they fight back and refuse to be denied? Either option is a recipe for months of turmoil and fighting among Democrats.
Originally published on Sic Semper Tyrannis. Republished by permission.
Picture by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Joe Biden, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link.
