Highway To Heaven

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made it happen, folks: The overpass that collapsed in a tractor trailer fire two weeks ago on I-95 in Philly is repaired and traffic is open well before the July 4th holiday travel rush.

The reopened portions of I-95 have been “completed safely” and are “available for traffic,” Mike Carroll, Pennsylvania’s secretary of transportation, said Friday.

Workers labored through the night. Some worked up until a few minutes before state officials held a press conference about the reopening, installing guide rails on the road, Carroll said.

The partially reopened bridge was constructed with “the high standards that exist for our structures across the state,” Carroll said, and “every bit of material used to construct this facility has been rigorously tested and used in multiple applications for many years in Pennsylvania, and across the nation from Maine to Arizona.”

“This road is being opened because it’s completed, it’s safely completed, and it’s ready for traffic,” Carroll reiterated. “And I don’t think the people of Philadelphia want to wait one more minute to put a vehicle across 95.”

Next up, said Gov. Josh Shapiro, is building the rest of the bridge around the reopened lanes in a process officials have said they expect to take months, and to “keep traffic flowing while that work goes on.”

 

So a new permanent bridge will be completed later this year, but the new temporary lanes are good to go. 

Nice job, Philly.

 

Highway To Hell, Con't

President Biden's infrastructure bill set aside billions for highway and bridge repair, but those repairs are going to take years, and some highways need the money, you know, yesterday.

 

Repairs on Interstate 95 are expected to take "months" after an elevated section collapsed in Philadelphia on Sunday morning when a tanker truck carrying flammable cargo caught fire beneath the overpass, officials said.

"With regards to the complete rebuild of I-95 roadway, we expect it to take some number of months," Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told a press conference on Sunday evening, adding that he plans to issue a disaster declaration to "expedite this process" and "immediately draw down federal funds."

Shapiro said he had spoken directly to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg who assured him there would be "absolutely no delay" in getting federal funds to safely and swiftly rebuild the "critical roadway."

In the meantime, officials are looking at "interim solutions to connect both sides of I-95 to get traffic through the area," according to Shapiro. All lanes between the exits for Philadelphia's Woodhaven Road and Aramingo Avenue are closed in both directions indefinitely, local ABC station WPVI reported.

The northbound side of the affected segment "completely collapsed," while the southbound lanes are "not structurally sound to carry any traffic," Shapiro said. One vehicle remains trapped beneath the collapsed roadway, according to the governor.


"We are still working to identify any individual or individuals who may have been caught in the fire and the collapse," he said, before later clarifying that no one on I-95 at the time was injured or killed in the incident.

Inspectors from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation determined that the southbound portion cannot be reopened and will also need to be replaced, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report reviewed by ABC News on Monday.

 

Taxpayers sure hate gas taxes and highway repairs, right up until said highway collapses and screws up traffic for three months at a time. Ask your friends in Cincy about the Brent Spence Bridge sometime.

 

Last Call For Going Off The Rails, Con't

The massive chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio due to a Norfolk Southern train derailment has brought all sorts of ire from folks quick to blame Biden for every damn thing when Trump Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao rolled back train braking safety regulations and Republicans like Marco Rubio demanded that the regs be further rolled back in October 2021, but now the EPA has stepped in to make things right.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency announced a sweeping enforcement action against Norfolk Southern on Tuesday, compelling the rail company to conduct and pay for cleanup actions associated with the Feb. 3 derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.

“The Norfolk Southern train derailment has upended the lives of East Palestine families, and EPA’s order will ensure the company is held accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of this community,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan in remarks prepared for a news conference in East Palestine. “Let me be clear: Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess they created and for the trauma they’ve inflicted on this community.”

If the company fails to complete any of the actions ordered by the EPA, the agency will “immediately” conduct the necessary work and then seek to compel Norfolk Southern to pay triple the cost. The order will require the company to identify and clean contaminated soil and water; pay any EPA costs, including reimbursing the agency for cleaning services that it will offer to residents and businesses; and participate in public meetings at EPA’s request and post information on-line.

The rail company already faces multiple class-action suits from members of the East Palestine community over the incident, which forced residents within roughly a mile radius to evacuate their homes.

 

Now, how quickly will Ohio GOP Gov. Mike DeWine find a federal judge friendly enough to block this order, saying the Environmental Protection Agency has no authority to actually protect the environment?

We're going to find out in short order.

Ridin' With Biden, Railroad Edition

President Biden has announced a tentative deal to avoid a crippling national rail strike that would devastate the economy...and to be perfectly honest, any chance the Democrats would have had in November along with it.

 

President Joe Biden said Thursday a tentative railway labor agreement has been reached, averting a potentially devastating strike before the pivotal midterm elections.

He said the tentative deal “will keep our critical rail system working and avoid disruption of our economy.”

The Democratic president believes unions built the middle class, but he also knew a rail worker strike could have badly damaged the nation’s economy. That left him in the awkward position of espousing the virtues of unionization in Detroit, a stalwart of the labor movement, while members of his administration went all-out to keep talks going in Washington between the railroads and unionized workers in hopes of averting a shutdown.

But after a long night, the talks succeeded and Biden announced Thursday that the parties had reached a tentative agreement to avoid a shutdown that would go to union members for a vote. He hailed the deal in a statement for avoiding a shutdown and as a win for all sides.

“These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned,” Biden said. “The agreement is also a victory for railway companies who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come.

It looked far more tenuous for the president just a day earlier.

United Auto Workers Local 598 member Ryan Buchalski introduced Biden at the Detroit auto show on Wednesday as “the most union- and labor-friendly president in American history” and someone who was “kickin’ ass for the working class.” Buchalski harked back to the pivotal sitdown strikes by autoworkers in the 1930s.

In the speech that followed, Biden recognized that he wouldn’t be in the White House without the support of unions such as the UAW and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, saying autoworkers “brung me to the dance.”

But back in Washington, officials in his administration at the Labor Department were in tense negotiations to prevent a strike — one of the most powerful sources of leverage that unions have to bring about change and improve working conditions.

Without the deal that was reached among the 12 unions, a stoppage could have begun as early as Friday that could halt shipments of food and fuel at a cost of $2 billion a day.

 

Needless to say, food and gas prices skyrocketing as long lines, shortages, and suffering among those who could least afford the price hikes spreading nationwide would have most likely been the end of the Dems' chances in November.

But Biden got the deal done, and averting this rail strike and getting rail workers whet they deserved for keeping America running is a complete win for this administration, bar none.

Former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, as Labor Secretary, just earned himself a StupidiTag™ with this one. He was instrumental in brokering the deal over a 20-hour session that was a total success.

I was a young kid when Reagan broke the air traffic controller's strike in 1981 in a move that almost completely crushed unions in the US. Now four decades later, Biden's successful treatment of rail workers may herald in a new era of union growth.

That's the Joe Biden I voted for.

Last Call For You Interstated In The Wrong Neighborhood

The Biden Administration is serious about making the Civil Rights Division of the DoJ a working concern again after Republicans keep dismantling it, and that means that, you know, recognizing that federal highway projects through Black neighborhoods might be systemic racism.

President Joe Biden's Department of Transportation is invoking the Civil Rights Act to pause a highway project near Houston, a rare move that offers an early test of the administration's willingness to wield federal power to address a long history of government-driven racial inequities.

DOT's intervention follows complaints from local activists that the state's proposed widening of Interstate 45 would displace an overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic community, including schools, places of worship and more than 1,000 homes and businesses.

It also comes as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has identified racial equity as a major priority for his department — after decades in which federal highway money has paid for projects that leveled minority and low-income communities.

"I think this project is the poster child for [the administration's] policies," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat representing the Houston area, who has joined local officials in challenging the project. 

In a March 8 letter to the state, the Federal Highway Administration, citing complaints from local activists and Jackson Lee, requested that the Texas Department of Transportation hold off on its expansion of I-45, including initiating more contract solicitations, until the federal DOT has time to review civil rights and environmental justice concerns.

Federal officials could ultimately allow the project to proceed, but the action to freeze it at all, and in particular DOT's use of civil rights laws to underpin that decision, has buoyed activists on the ground and surprised even seasoned regulators in Washington.

“This is a big deal,” said Fred Wagner, an attorney who served as general counsel at FHWA for three years during the Obama administration. "It just doesn’t happen very often."

 

Try "never". 

 

Post-Trumpism Joe Biden is turning out to be the real deal.

I couldn't be happier.

Last Call For Buttigieg, Building Bridges

Mayor Pete, now Secretary of Transportation Pete, has some bridges, roads, highways and other assorted pipes, drains, and dams to sell to voters, and the self-proclaimed "infrastructure nerd" may be the right person in the right place at the right time. At least, that's the plan...

Buttigieg may be the youngest of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet secretaries and the one with the most on-the-job learning to do. But he also comes with the most prominent reputation — a small-town mayor with big ideas and even bigger ambitions; the type of person who plunges so deep into new subjects that he might spend a casual evening sifting through a digital library on transportation and actually enjoy it.

With the White House’s massive infrastructure bill set for its formal unveiling, he and his boss are looking to turn that reputation into a political asset. They want to make him one of the package’s chief pitchmen.

In recent weeks, Buttigieg has held scores of meetings with transportation, business and labor groups on infrastructure, which will take up a major part of the upcoming $3 trillion "Build Back Better" plan. Central to his approach is a Capitol Hill tour that’s part listening session, part charm offensive. It has included meeting with those Democrats helping craft the legislation and those Republicans who he and Biden hope will have a say in the process. Buttigieg, while still in the early stages, has found friendly responses on both sides.

In interviews, more than a dozen people who have spoken with him or been read-in on the conversations — including lawmakers and their aides, and transportation industry groups, environmental outfits and labor organizers — described a capable and engaged emissary for Biden. While many say he’s living up to his reputation as an affable policy wonk, others say they still came away unclear about how much policy influence he will ultimately wield.

Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana, a high-ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, spoke by phone with Buttigieg. The congressman conceded that when the former mayor took over the department, his expectations were not especially high.

“I’ll be really candid with you: My initial impression when they announced the appointment was here we go, a guy who has no knowledge, background or understanding of infrastructure,” Graves said. “But I do think he’s been able to demonstrate some proficiency, and clearly has some experience in the department’s portfolio. I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

The shift to Buttigieg from his predecessor, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, has been among the more jarring transitions of any of the Cabinet posts this year. Chao was reclusive, and a classic Washington insider, having served in prior cabinets and with a powerful husband holding the title of Senate majority leader.

This is Buttigieg’s first D.C. job. And instead of being a homebody, he is seemingly everywhere. He’s continued his torrid pace of television appearances that began during his 2020 presidential campaign and into his role as a top Biden campaign surrogate. And in Washington, where Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, have relocated to an apartment on Capitol Hill after selling their home in South Bend, Ind., the two have been spotted alone or joined by other dignitaries on strolls through their new neighborhood.

Buttigieg was seen with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and their dogs, in what was described as a chance run-in. He was noticed going for a walk with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a one-time debate sparring partner, as part of a scheduled get-together so the two could continue what was described as frequent talks about improving infrastructure.

“Secretary Buttigieg’s experience in local government and ability to work across the aisle are key assets,” Klobuchar said, pointing to their desire to expand access to broadband and fixing roads and bridges.

 

Hey, if Secretary Pete is going to build bridges in order to well, build more bridges, I'm all for that. We'll see what he can do, but something tells me it's only a matter of time before he has a political fender-bender or worse.

 

Then we'll see what happens when, well, the rubber meets the road.

Last Call For Hard Hats, Parklands, and Reactors

Joe Biden is picking former rival Pete Buttigieg for Transportation Secretary, which means maybe we can actually get the damn Brent Spence Bridge replaced.

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Pete Buttigieg to be his transportation secretary, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN, elevating the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to a top post in the federal government.
Buttigieg would be the first Senate-confirmed LGBTQ Cabinet secretary should his nomination make it through the chamber. 

The choice -- which represents the first time the President-elect has called on one of his former Democratic presidential opponents to join his administration as a Cabinet secretary -- vaults a candidate Biden spoke glowingly of after the primary into a top job in his incoming administration and could earn Buttigieg what many Democrats believe is needed experience should he run for president again. 

The role of transportation secretary is expected to play a central role in Biden's push for a bipartisan infrastructure package. 

Buttigieg is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party but someone who lacked an obvious path to higher elected office given the continued rightward shift of his home state of Indiana. 

As a presidential candidate, he rolled out a $1 trillion infrastructure plan that prioritized upgrading the country's crumbling infrastructure and expanding broadband internet access through payment to state and local governments. Buttigieg often spoke about infrastructure on the campaign trail from the perspective of a small mayor, arguing that local governments like the one he once ran needed people in Washington who understood their needs and issues.

Infrastructure reform had been a priority of Trump's earlier in his four years in office, but if routinely took a back seat to other issues. 

Buttigieg often faulted the administration for failing to do anything on infrastructure, writing in his plan on the issue that the Republican President's team was "incapable of keeping its promise to pass major infrastructure legislation, and critical projects around the country are stalled because of it." 

Buttigieg emerged as the leading candidate for the transportation secretary role in recent days. The former mayor was considered for a host of other posts, including US ambassador to the United Nations and commerce secretary. 

Other Democrats were also considered for the post, including former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo.

 

While Pete wouldn't be my first choice for the job, it's not my call to make, and it's not like Elaine Chao cared about anything other than lining her own pockets (and that of her husband, Mitch McConnell). 

 

Besides, the other candidates, Gina Raimondo, Eric Garcetti, and especially Rahm Emanuel, all were train wrecks who would have been far worse. Raimondo has had multiple ethics problems with unions and casinos as Rhode Island's governor, Garcetti, LA's mayor, has a serious issue with the fact his top aide is a serial sexual predator, and Rahm...well..Rahm should never be anywhere near a Biden administration except if he buys a ticket to an event, and even then he should be tossed out on his ass.

Mayor Pete is actually the best pick of a truly meh bunch.

Meanwhile, Biden's doing a much better job with former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm as his choice for Energy Secretary, and Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico as Interior Secretary.

U.S. Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico appears to be President-elect Joe Biden’s top choice to head the Interior Department, three informed sources said, a pick that would make her the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency.

The position would give her authority over a department that employs more than 70,000 people across the United States and oversees more than 20% of the nation’s surface, including tribal lands and national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite.

She has told Reuters she would seek to usher in an expansion of renewable energy production on federal land to contribute to the fight against climate change, and undo President Donald Trump’s focus on bolstering fossil fuels output.

Two of the sources familiar with the proceedings said Biden’s team was close to finalizing the decision on Haaland but weighing concerns about the loss of a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democrats are hanging on to a slim majority. The third source said the decision was made and that an announcement was imminent.

Biden is also in the process of finalizing other key energy and environment picks, including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator and Secretary of Energy - all of which will be crucial to his sweeping climate change agenda.

Two sources said Biden currently favors Jennifer Granholm to run the Department of Energy. Granholm, 61, was Michigan’s first female governor and pushed for a transition to green technologies in the longtime car-manufacturing state.

 

Both Haaland and Granholm are excellent choices.

 

And then there's...Pete.  I guess.

Primary Positions, Con't

Joe Biden had a very good night last night on Super Tuesday, winning several Southern states (including Texas!) as well as Massachusetts and Minnesota, while Bernie Sanders won Vermont, Colorado, and Utah and the primary's biggest prize, California.  Five Thirty Eight's Sarah Frostenson recaps the Night Joe Came Back.

Well, it’ll still be days or weeks before we have the full vote total in California, and it’s still too close to call in Maine, but with Texas now in the win column for Biden, this evening’s top-line takeaway is even clearer: Biden mounted a comeback and won Super Tuesday.

In total, Biden won nine of the 15 primary contests at stake tonight, pulling off a number of upset victories, including a win in Minnesota (we’d projected Sanders would win there), a win in Massachusetts (Sanders again), and a win in Texas (that was more of a toss-up going into tonight), but basically Biden cleaned up across the board. He performed well in states where he wasn’t even really competing, and he proved he’s more than a regional candidate.

Sanders, on the other hand, did not have a great evening. He won just three states outright (Colorado, Utah and Vermont) and underperformed expectations. So far, he does seem on track to win delegate-rich California, though we won’t know the exact margin for a while yet.

Once all the Super Tuesday results are fully counted, 38 percent of delegates will have been awarded in the primary race, but this nomination fight is far from over, and there’s a real question about where it will go from here.

The big story from Super Tuesday was that young Democratic voters didn't show up for Bernie's revolution.  Not even close.

Exit polls for five southern states that Biden won – Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – found that young voters did not show up at the polls in the numbers they did in 2016.

In addition, the Vermont senator has been grabbing a smaller share of them in most cases.

•  In Alabama, only 7% of the voters were in the 17-29 range compared to 14% in 2016. Sanders won six of every 10 of those voters Tuesday compared to four of 10 in 2016.
•  In North Carolina, 13% of Tuesday’s electorate were young voters, compared to 16% four years ago. Of those, 57% went for Sanders in 2020 compared to 69% in 2016.
•  In South Carolina, young voters made up 11% of the electorate Tuesday compared to 15% in 2016. Sanders won 43% of those voters Tuesday compared to 54% four years ago.
•  In Tennessee, 11% of those voters showed up Tuesday versus 15% in 2016. Sanders did better among that group Tuesday winning 65% compared to 61% four years ago.
•  In Virginia, young voters comprised 13% of Tuesday’s vote compared to 16% in 2016. Sanders won 57% of those voters Tuesday compared to 69% four years ago.

Even Sanders’ home state of Vermont showed a lackluster turnout of young millennials and 'Gen Zers.' Only 10% of the state’s electorate were under 30 compared to 15% when he ran against Clinton, according to exit polls.

And a similar trend was playing out in Texas where 16% of voters were between 17 and 29 compared to 20% in 2016.

Sanders couldn't get the numbers he got from four years ago, even in his home state.  The why of that is two words: Liz Warren.  She split Sanders's votes far more than Bloomberg split Biden's haul.

And speaking of Liz Warren, she came in a distant third pretty much everywhere last night, even in her home state of Massachusetts.

Elizabeth Warren had a plan for winning. It didn't work: In 18 nomination contests, she hasn't finished above third place — including in her home state.

Now, she's facing political and financial pressures to get out.

Warren's campaign declined to comment on her next steps after her dismal Super Tuesday performance. But allies who speak regularly with the campaign say the mood was bleak. A small wave of last-minute endorsements from groups like EMILY’s List, along with late financial help from a super PAC, did not significantly move the needle.

That's left the Warren campaign to wonder whether a path forward exists. While the campaign had insisted it still saw an opening by going to the convention — she will likely collect at least several dozen delegates Tuesday — the results were far below their own publicly-released projections.

How well Bernie Sanders does from here depends on how long Liz Warren stays in the race.  As I said after Nevada, unless something happened that changed the entire trajectory of the primary race on Super Tuesday, Bernie was going to be the presumptive nominee.

That something was "Joe Biden winning in SC and both Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropping out and endorsing him."

It's a fight now.  Sanders remains ahead in national polling.  But Joe did something I thought that couldn't happen: he most likely ended up with more total delegates last night.  The resurrection of his campaign is something unprecedented. A week ago we were counting Biden out and Bernie running the table seemed all but assured.

The "all but" happened.

Let the battle commence.

[UPDATE] Bloomberg is out.

BREAKING: Michael Bloomberg suspends campaign https://t.co/yNCVUDNe1g

— Axios (@axios) March 4, 2020

Bye, Mike.

Last Call For Primary Positions, Con't

Ahead of tomorrow's Super Tuesday primary voting, Sen. Amy Klobuchar is leaving the race and endorsing Joe Biden.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar will end her presidential bid on Monday and endorse Joe Biden, a campaign aide tells CNN. 

The Klobuchar campaign confirmed that the senator is flying to Dallas to join the former vice president at his rally, where she will suspend her campaign and give her endorsement on the eve of Super Tuesday. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg also will endorse Biden at the rally, a source familiar told CNN. 

Klobuchar's path to the nomination all but closed after she posted sixth-place finishes in Nevada and South Carolina, a sign that the Minnesota senator's surprising showing in New Hampshire would not be nearly enough to propel her toward the nomination. 

A Democratic official told CNN that the Klobuchar campaign was worried that the senator would lose her home state of Minnesota on Tuesday. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the race's front-runner, is holding a rally in the state on Monday night. 

The high point of Klobuchar's campaign came in mid-February, when a strong debate days before the New Hampshire primary led to a third-place finish in the state. But the showing even caught Klobuchar's campaign off guard, and a lack of organization on the ground in Nevada and South Carolina, along with the senator's inability to win over Latino and black voters, ultimately stalled her candidacy.

Former Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid also endorsed Biden today, and the timing could not be better for the former VP.

Democratic primary voters appear to be giving former Vice President Joe Biden another look after his victory in the South Carolina presidential primary and ahead of the key Super Tuesday contests.

A Morning Consult poll conducted Sunday found 26 percent of Democratic primary voters nationwide said they’d vote for Biden if the Democratic primary or caucus were held in their state today, up 7 percentage points since polling conducted ahead of Saturday’s first-in-the-South primary in the Palmetto State.

National support for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) fell 3 points, to 29 percent, while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg remained in third place, with 17 percent.

Sanders saw his first-choice support shrink among black voters, leaving him in a tie with Biden, at 31 percent. Among Hispanic voters, who will play a prominent role in Tuesday’s contests in Texas and California, Biden’s first-choice support increased 9 points, to 21 percent, though he still trailed far behind Sanders, who has more than twice that share of support with the voting bloc.

With 33 percent, Sanders leads in an average of polling from the 14 Super Tuesday states, while Biden saw a 7-point boost, to 24 percent, following his South Carolina victory. Bloomberg, who’s staked his campaign on victories in Tuesday’s contests, is backed by 16 percent of Super Tuesday voters, down 4 points from the previous polling.

The latest poll of 2,656 voters who indicated they may vote in the Democratic primary or caucus in their state, which has a 2-point margin of error, was mostly conducted before former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg of Indiana ended his campaign on Sunday night. Billionaire Tom Steyer, who dropped out of the race on Saturday night, was also included in the poll, coming in with 1 percent of the vote.

The issue for Biden is now Michael Bloomberg is on the ballot in the Super Tuesday states tomorrow, Michigan and 5 other states next week, Big Tuesday states of Florida, Illinois, and Ohio in two weeks, and Georgia in three.  That will be over half the states and nearly two-thirds of delegates decided by then.

How much will Bloomberg cut into Biden's share, and will it be enough to put Bernie in the lead?  Will Warren stay in or drop out and endorse Sanders? We'll find out a big chunk of that picture this week.

Not-So-Great Expectations

Roughly two-thirds of Americans expect Trump to win in November, and that includes a healthy chunk of people who have no intention of voting for him, in a new CBS News/YouGov poll.  The poll also finds Sanders in the lead in national polling with 27% of the vote, but also sees Elizabeth Warren rocketing into second at 19% past Joe Biden, now at 17% heading into South Carolina on Saturday.

Whether or not they're voting for him, 65% of registered voters nationwide think President Trump will definitely or probably be reelected, including more than a third of Democrats who think so. Republicans are especially optimistic: more than 9 in 10 expect him to win.

Still, potential head to head matchups with all the major Democratic candidates against Mr. Trump show a tight race no matter who the Democratic nominee is, with no more than three percentage points separating the Democratic candidates from Mr. Trump in any matchup with the six top polling Democratic contenders.





Most voters have dug in. When it comes to who they will vote for in November, 6 in 10 voters say it doesn't matter who the Democratic nominee is, or what Mr. Trump might do over the next year.

Despite these close matchups, no Democratic candidate gets more than about a quarter of voters who thinks they would probably beat Mr. Trump (Bernie Sanders does best at 27%). Republicans are particularly confident of Mr. Trump's chances: large majorities think each of these potential Democratic opponents would be long shots to beat him in November. Democrats are less sure of their party's chances. They express the most confidence in Joe Biden and Sanders, but fewer than half of Democrats think any of the candidates is above a "maybe" to win.

This is a big indication that Trump won't get 50% of the popular vote in November, but with the electoral college as it is now, he doesn't need to.  A 47%-45% or 47%-44% result with the Democrat winning the popular vote is almost certainly going to turn out the same way as things did in 2016.

The big wild card is Florida, with the fight over disenfranchising the 1.5 million felons in the state (the vast majority who are black) who still may not be able to vote in November thanks to the GOP's Poll Tax 2.0 project, and how many of them who can get registered will turn out.  Don't expect every felon to flock to the Democrats, either.  The truth is I don't know how all that will play out in the state.

Democrats can win without Florida, but Trump will have a tremendously difficult time winning without it...unless he wins every other state he won in 2016.  If he does that, he still ends up with 277 without Florida, and he wins. It remains the ultimate battleground state, but we're actually in a situation where both candidates can win without it.  PA, WI, and MI combined are 46 electoral votes compared to Florida's 29, so the race is still going to come down to the those three Rust Belt states.

Here's what the 2016 map would look like with all four of those states as toss-ups:

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

As you can see, it's basically even elsewhere in the US.  The killer is if Trump wins Wisconsin and the Democratic candidate wins Pennsylvania and Michigan, it would be Dems 268-Trump 241, and Florida decides the whole ball of wax.  If Florida then went for Trump, it would be a 270-268 victory.

That should be keeping everyone up at night.

Bern-ing Through The Competition

With a substantial win thanks to Hispanic voters in Nevada's caucuses yesterday, unless something dramatic changes in the next two weeks or so, Bernie Sanders will be in a commanding position position after Super Tuesday as the opposition to him is hopelessly split. That should be reminding people of Donald Trump's 2016 run in many, many more ways than just one...

Put "Bernie Bros" on the back-burner.

It's the army of sobrinos and sobrinas — the Spanish words for nephews and nieces — who should strike fear in the hearts of Bernie Sanders' rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination and party elites after he ran up the score among Latino voters in the Nevada caucuses Saturday. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other Latinx backers of Sanders refer to him fondly as their "tío," or uncle.

Sanders was the choice of 54 percent of Hispanic caucus-goers Saturday on his way to steamrolling to the most convincing victory of the primary season, according to an NBC entrance poll. His closest competitor, former Vice President Joe Biden, racked up 14 percent, with no other candidate cracking double digits.

Those results signaled that the energy Sanders has poured into building a more diverse coalition than his failed 2016 campaign is paying off at just the right time. He can now stake the first claim — less than two weeks before the "Super Tuesday" contests in 14 states — to having won a state where white, Hispanic and black voters are all represented in substantial numbers.

"If you can’t put two out of those three together, you should start figuring out your exit plan," Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said of most of Sanders' rivals — excluding Biden and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg — in a telephone interview with NBC News.

Gallego added that he is "not surprised" that Sanders performed so well because the candidate and his campaign learned from missteps in 2016 and organized early and effectively in the Latino community.

The outcome among Hispanic voters here could easily portend success for Sanders in delegate-rich California and other heavily Hispanic states and congressional districts coming up on the primary calendar. At the same time, Sanders has closed Biden's lead with African-American voters to 31 percent to 29 percent nationally, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Friday.

If things hold true, in two weeks pundits are going to start attaching "presumptive nominee" in front of "Bernie Sanders" and it's going to be true.  After tonight, it's time for the second-stringers to drop out: Steyer, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and I hate to say it, Warren.  Bloomberg won't go anywhere, but the only way anyone can stop Bernie at this point is everyone else bailing and leaving the road open for somebody, and that somebody should be Biden at this point.

It won't happen, of course.  Too much ego involved, and by splitting the opposition among five opponents, Sanders now has an open, if not easy path to Milwaukee in five months.

Sanders still isn't pulling in majorities, which means there's still a chance for somebody to rise up to challenge him.  But everyone still in the race believes they are one who will win, and all but one of them are 100% wrong...

That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

The latest Quinnipiac University national poll wrecks the notion that Trump somehow benefited from his acquittal, as he gets crushed in all the head-to-head matchups by a margin that not even the electoral college can save him from.

Among all registered voters, Democratic candidates lead President Trump in general election matchups by between 4 and 9 percentage points, with Bloomberg claiming the biggest numerical lead against Trump: 

• Bloomberg tops Trump 51 - 42 percent;
• Sanders defeats Trump 51 - 43 percent;
• Biden beats Trump 50 - 43 percent;
• Klobuchar defeats Trump 49 - 43 percent;
• Warren wins narrowly over Trump 48 - 44 percent;
• Buttigieg is also slightly ahead of Trump 47 - 43 percent. 

President Trump's favorability rating is underwater, as 42 percent of registered voters have a favorable opinion of him, while 55 percent have an unfavorable view of him. However, it is his best favorability rating since a March 7th, 2017 poll, when his favorability rating was a negative 43 - 53 percent.

So people hate him slightly less now, but he still loses to everybody.

Even Bloomberg.

A Case Of Government Cheese

The biggest problem that Democratic 2020 presidential candidates have with selling the grandiose plans of Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg and others to black voters especially is that in practice, government programs run headlong into systemic racism and become things that work for white America, but not for the rest.

Democratic candidates have come to understand that they need policies that target racial inequities, especially to win over black voters — a vital force in the Democratic primary. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont says single-payer health insurance will close disparities like the higher infant morality rate in black families. Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., released his Frederick Douglass Plan, which calls for overhauling the criminal justice system, health care equity, and education funding.

In addition to her proposals for black farmers, Ms. Warren has aimed to design her health care and education plans so that they take corrective steps to address historical inequality.

Still, even as the plans add up, black voters have largely not shown enthusiasm about these candidates, and the polling numbers have barely budged. According to a recent nationwide poll of black voters from The Washington Post and Ipsos, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. holds a significant edge, with the support of nearly 50 percent of respondents. Among black voters 65 and older, poll showed Mr. Biden ahead by 60 percentage points.

Mr. Sanders had 20 percent support, driven largely by his popularity with black voters under 35 years old. Ms. Warren was third in The Post’s poll, with 9 percent.

Over the course of her campaign, at events geared toward black voters, Ms. Warren often cites policy proposals such as investment in historically black colleges and new housing in formerly redlined communities. Crowds generally respond positively.

“I want a world where the color of your skin doesn’t matter, you get the same opportunities,” Ms. Warren said at an event over the weekend hosted with groups including the Iowa chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. “We do not fix a system like this by pretending that race doesn’t matter.”

Mr. Sanders’s progress with black voters has been a mixed bag; he is beloved among younger voters and viewed with some suspicion by older ones, who largely supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and found his insurgent campaign to be harmful to her in the general election. Late last year, Mr. Sanders replaced his South Carolina state director, a sign of the campaign’s desire to shift his strategy for winning over black voters.

Mr. Biden’s candidacy is helped by several factors, including his widespread name recognition, public proximity to former President Barack Obama, and close relationship with black community leaders dating to his years in the Senate.

But in interviews with dozens of black voters in Virginia and South Carolina, another theme emerges: Mr. Biden is also ahead because his leading rivals have yet to wrestle with how their promises of structural change must overcome historical distrust of the government in black communities.

When you ask black voters like myself why we should trust Joe Biden, it's because he spent eight years as Obama's VP.  You ask me about Sanders, and I'm gonna say "the guy who spent more than 30 years in Congress and got nothing passed?"  Warren at least ran for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...and then Trump and the GOP neutered it to the point where it does nothing now precisely because it was helping black and brown folk.

Nobody in SC believe Sanders or Warren or Pete are going to get any major programs past Mitch or the Roberts Court because we all saw what happened to the ACA and to Democrats in 2010 and again when Black Lives Matter gained national attention in 2014.  Affordable health care for all Americans, not just the white ones, became a massive political liability when it threatened the careers of Democratic politicians and they ran from Obama.

We know what Sanders' supporters said and did to the ACA.

We know Warren decided the ACA was bad but she would do better.

Same with Mayor Pete.

Everyone says "We can do better."  Not one of them pointed out that the ACA was sabotaged again and again by Republicans and oh yeah, more than a few Democrats.  Well, Joe Biden did.

It's not rocket science, guys. Joe Biden has his issues, there's a reason I did not vote for him in 2008 in the primaries, in fact several reasons, all of which are pretty terrible baggage.  And he still pretends that the GOP will work with him, when they will spend every day calling him a socialist and a traitor and will sabotage him just as much as they did to Obama, if not more so.

But he is loyal to Obama, and he is loyal to the voters who put Obama in office. And frankly, the GOP will try to destroy any Democratic president, and there's no guarantee Trump will even leave office.

Right now, until somebody can make the case better than Biden that you gotta dance with the people that brung ya, he's my current choice.

Last Call For Pete's Sake

With the Iowa caucuses just two weeks and change away, Pete Buttigieg is making his stand in the Hawkeye State and the biggest question on the mind of his supporters isn't "How does he beat Trump in the general" but "Why don't black Democratic primary voters love him?"

The white voters who come to Pete Buttigieg's rallies just don't understand.

Many of them fell for the 37-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, the first time they heard him speak: his calm demeanor, his intelligence, the way he seemed to appeal to progressives and moderates alike.

But his support among Democratic-leaning black voters nationally is stuck in the abysmally low single digits.

“I don’t understand that,” said Bill Koeneig, a physician in Des Moines who said Buttigieg is one of his top choices in the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

“I don’t understand it,” said Julie Walstrom, a retired teacher in Perry, Iowa, who is deciding between Buttigieg, former vice president Joe Biden, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

“I don’t understand what that issue could possibly be,” said Doug Gardner, a retired sales worker in Urbandale.

In nearly two dozen interviews across Iowa this month, white voters struggled to reconcile their affection for Buttigieg with how black voters see the candidate. Some said it simply didn’t matter to them. Many more had been grappling with how to think about the disconnect and Buttigieg’s challenges: Some were worried, others frustrated.

But not a single person considering Buttigieg said it would affect their vote in the caucuses, which are nearly two weeks away.

“That’s not my battle to fight,” said Gardner.

Buttigieg is among the frontrunners in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two mostly white states that play an outsize role in deciding the presidential nomination as the first two states to vote. But his standing is lower nationally. In South Carolina, a key early-voting state because of its large black population, Buttigieg has frequently pulled 0% among black voters.

The vast majority of white Iowa voters said they’d heard about Buttigieg’s difficulties with voters of color. Many had heard, particularly, of his record in South Bend, where he was criticized for his handling of police relations and housing issues in communities of color.

“I think it’s partly because of the incident that happened in South Bend,” said Sue Seidenfeld, a retired physician assistant in Waukee who said she was undecided in the race and had come to see Buttigieg in Winterset. She did not specify the incident.

“I think that maybe that black voters feel like he wasn’t as empathetic as he could have been, and as on top of the situation as he should have been,” she said. “Which is kind of a shame — because he has to be impartial, and he has to take some time to see what really the facts were, and I think people are too quick to judge sometimes.”

She paused and added: “But maybe not, you know. There may be something to it.”

Still, Seidenfeld said, it wasn’t an issue that was going to affect her vote either way. She thought Buttigieg was “more empathetic to minorities than a lot of people. I also think, for what it’s worth, that it’s a shame that people think that Iowa shouldn’t be the first [caucus] in the nation. Because after all, we were the first to go for Barack Obama.” 

Let me answer the question for the folks in Iowa.  Three answers, actually.

1) The number one priority for black voters like myself is getting rid of Trump.  It's not just a matter of politics, it's a matter of survival.  He hurts us daily.  Trump and his base are doing everything they can to erase Barack Obama's legacy and memory from this country, and along with it all the executive decisions and government agency programs and departmental memos that Obama issued to help us.  All those are going away and his base cheers that on.  White voters in Iowa will survive a second Trump term.  Black voters will continue to suffer grievous harm from it.

So when we ask Pete "Hey, are you going to bring back the Obama-era policies that we need, are you going to get rid of the federal government's systemic hostility towards black and brown folk" he responds with "That's on the list" like great, like he doesn't want to upset the white people voting for him, especially the ones that say "Well, frankly, all lives matter!"  because he knows Clinton's support for Black Lives Matter hurt her in the Midwest.  Clinton at least had the courage to go down swinging and not assume we would support her.

2) There are some real issues with the South Bend PD and Pete's relationship with it and black residents in the city.  The story of how Pete badly handled examples of overt racism in the city government when he was Mayor doesn't fill anyone with confidence.  This story has dogged him for eight months now and he has yet to actually respond to it in any meaningful way, in fact over and over again in interviews and in his own book, he's responded with "I didn't know".

Again, he's had months to respond to the criticism of this (and not all of it is fair criticism against him) and he's chosen to ignore it or to profess ignorance.  It doesn't make black folk willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because we've all dealt with white folk in positions of power like this who say they are our friends, but act like we don't matter. 

3) Iowa has a four percent black population.  It's nowhere near representative of the country. questions of why a state with a small fraction of black voters is the most important state in the nation when it comes to deciding a Democratic presidential candidate aside, Pete has sunk all of his resources into the state and is ignoring the most more representative SC.  You know who thinks SC matters?  Joe Biden.  Obama's VP.  The guy who stood by Obama for eight years.

Biden has earned the loyalty of black voters because he was there for us and still is.  Yes, he made some terrible calls 40 years ago in his Senate career.  He made some terrible calls when he was running in 2008.  But Barack Obama trusted him, and it was a great choice, and I trust him too.  Iowa is not representative of America and Iowa voters acting insulted that somebody wouldn't pick their candidate i not the way to get people to pick your candidate.

Pete has a long, long way to go, frankly.

That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

It's time to start taking a serious look at the February primary and caucus contests, and it's still mostly a four-way contest in Iowa at this point, with Bernie on top at 20% and Biden, Buttigieg and Warren all within five.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders leads the Democratic field three weeks ahead of Caucus Day in Iowa — narrowly overtaking his closest competitors, who remain locked in a tight contest just behind him.

A new Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows 20% of likely Democratic caucusgoers name Sanders as their first choice for president.

After a surge of enthusiasm that pushed Pete Buttigieg to the top of the field in November, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor has faded, falling 9 percentage points to land behind both Sanders and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Warren is at 17%; Buttigieg, 16%; and former Vice President Joe Biden, 15%.

“There’s no denying that this is a good poll for Bernie Sanders. He leads, but it’s not an uncontested lead,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll. “He’s got a firmer grip on his supporters than the rest of his compatriots.”

The poll of 701 likely Democratic caucusgoers was conducted Jan. 2-8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren have remained clustered atop the Register’s Iowa Poll throughout the 2020 campaign cycle, though no one has definitively pulled away from the pack. Instead, each of the top four has now led the Iowa Poll at some point this cycle as the field continues to shift.

The percentage of those who say their mind is made up about which candidate to support on caucus night has risen to 40% — up 10 percentage points from November. But that leaves 45% who say they could still be persuaded to support someone else and another 13% who have not picked a favorite candidate yet.

Iowa is looking like anyone's game at this point, and as Nate Silver points out, Biden is the favorite but not a runaway one...yet.

Joe Biden is the most likely person to win a majority of pledged Democratic delegates, according to the FiveThirtyEight primary model, which we launched on Thursday morning. This is our first-ever full-fledged model of the primaries and we’re pretty excited about it — to read more about how the model works, see here.

But saying the former vice president is the front-runner doesn’t really tell the whole story. He may be the most likely nominee, but he’s still a slight underdog relative to the field, with a 40 percent chance of winning a majority of pledged delegates1 by the time of the last scheduled Democratic contest — the Virgin Islands caucus on June 6. If one lowers the threshold to a plurality of delegates, rather than a majority, then Biden’s chances are almost 50-50, but not quite — he has a 45 percent chance of a delegate plurality, per our forecast.

I want to emphasize that there’s still a lot of room for another candidate to surge because nobody has voted yet, the primaries are a complex process, and frankly here at FiveThirtyEight, we’re a little self-conscious about how people interpret — or sometimes misinterpret — our probabilistic forecasts. The Democratic primary still features 14 candidates, and while most of them have little to no shot, there are still several fairly realistic possibilities.

 

So while Biden’s in a reasonably strong and perhaps even slightly underrated position, it’s slightly more likely than not that Biden won’t be the nominee. Sen. Bernie Sanders has the next-best shot, with a 22 percent chance at a majority, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 12 percent and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 10 percent. There’s also a 14 percent chance — about 1 in 7 — that no one will win a majority of pledged delegates by June 6, which could lead to a contested convention.

The model works by simulating the nomination race thousands of times, accounting for the bounces that candidates may receive by winning or losing states, along with other contingencies — such as candidates dropping out and polls moving in response to debates and news events. Like all of our models, it’s empirically driven, built using data from the 15 competitive nomination races since 1980.2

Since the primaries themselves are fairly complex process, the model is fairly complex also — which we mean as a warning as much as a brag. Models with more complexity are easier to screw up and can be more sensitive to initial assumptions — so we’d encourage you to read more about how our model works.

As an illustration of how one race can affect the following ones in our model, here are each of the leading candidates’ chances of winning a plurality or majority of delegates conditional on winning or losing Iowa.

 

So if Biden does win Iowa, his odds go up from about 40% to about 80%. 

Whoever wins Iowa is the favorite, period.

We'll see if that holds up.  Most primary years like this it does.

But that was before Trump came along.