In general I agree. The major issue has been there’s so god damn many of them and the DNC has been over cautious with how everything was structured. There’s just no pressure on the field to narrow.
Together with all the other news that’s going on it’s created this big ole mush where nothing important has happened. Nobody is really breaking out and polls have been remarkably stable.
Iowa was almost guaranteed to be a wash, and most of the quality coverage was glossing what kind of wash. So Iowa pulling and Iowa on it might be a blessing in disguise because it actually caused people to focus on the primary a bit. And the one important maybe take away is that turnout was relatively low compared to past years. Which is bad.
But Iowa being Iowa it’s not the sort of conclusion you can draw. New Hampshire is a pretty bad gauge on that too.
New York state is only barely a Democratic hold. And pretty much only because of NYC and a couple of smaller upstate cities. Until 2018 the Republicans controlled our state legislature despite a majority of actual Democrats in seats. Thanks to a handful of blue dogs who split off to caucus with the GOP.
Primary challenges played a minor role in finally undermining those assholes (and Cuomo played no role despite what he says, more than happy to grovel).
Challenging democratic politicians in the NY metro doesn’t get rid of Lee Zeldin out on Long Island, or flip that massive expanse of red in the center of the state. And those areas are why we have Cuomos and Chuck Schumers. There are politicians nationwide that need to be pushed out, especially as they become Joe Manchin. But it’s not a silver bullet.
Bloomberg was kinda a transitional figure in NY politics. We were coming off total Republican control of the state and city. He was basically less baldly corrupt, less agressive Guiliani. And his affiliations shifted along with the city. There are still bluedogs camped in congressional districts and down ballot seats in the deep blue areas in and around the city. But the city’s politics aren’t the state’s.
From what I understand they did not. Buttigieg’s camp was tweeting numbers and “proof” they were likely to win the minute delays hit. And while every other candidate made a point not to explicitly claim victory in their night of speech. Buttigieg gave an explicit victory speech.
Sander’s campaign might have made an official claim first. But Buttigieg was taking a victory lap before it was even known there wouldn’t be numbers that night. He was making talking head appearances on practically every news program desperate for something to report. And just about as soon as he finished that speech he seems to have been out of the state to do more of that.
The only reason that wasn’t a massive embarrassment is the vague technicality of a single delegate.
But as more votes have been counted it looks like Pete has taken a more legit lead. That may change as the remaining 25% comes in. That would seem to be a pretty small amount of votes still.
