2020, the election campaigns have begun

[Labster]

Two weeks ago, we were all saying the same thing with the names reversed.

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings... but I think I hear her warming up in the wings.

Sort of a late reply, but they were saying that three weeks ago before >1% of the peole had voted.  Once we started getting larger, diverse states to vote, things fairly rapidly coalesced behind Biden.

Here we are with the next set of large states: Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio.  Ohio being the most interesting case, because the governor asked a trial court for permission to postpone the primaries.  They ruled against him, and he said, fuck it, cancelling anyway.  The Ohio Supreme Court declined to intervene in his cancellation, which meant no elections for you.

As for the other three states, everything is coming up Biden.  Bernie can't keep eking out narrow victories or near-ties in smaller states alongside huge losses in states like Florida, where it looks like Biden gets a net gain of 80 delegates.  In a two-man race, you have to win most of the time.  Sanders has essentially no path to get to those wins.  His coalition seems to be young people (who don't vote that much), and Latinos (of the type whose ancestors didn't flee socialism in Cuba).  Except New Mexico, those states are pretty much gone.

And then, the electoral effects of coronavirus.  This is going to do a few things:

• College students sent home, depressing Bernie turnout
  
• Elections not happening, possibly at all?
  
• People in the party really wanting this to be over so they don't have to vote, or really just leave the house in general
  
• Taste for revolution, even in mild form, being reduced as people really just want to go back to "normal"
  
• Even Republicans are now advocating free money for everyone due to the current economic recession #YangGang
  
• No one is holding rallies, how do you even excite rare voters in these circumstances
  

Biden is giving speeches where he is trying to act like the President, and (arguably) doing a better job of it than the actual President.  Sanders has stopped giving election night speeches.  I mean, what do you have to say to losses?  "We're going to win 80% of the delegates in Pennsylvania to get back on track."?

NBC News is running a banner headline on their website "Reality sets in: America is shutting down".  The House passed a bill to provide money to workers on an emergency basis.  It's currently stalled in the Senate, as Rand Paul tries to force the US military to leave Afghanistan.  So reality has set in, but it isn't evenly distributed.  The mayor of New York City has instructed city crisis teams to assume the federal government will not contribute any aid to their emergency response, because that seems the most likely outcome.

And hey, does it even matter that Bernie is a climate hawk in a world where oil is heading near $30 a barrel from low demand?  Can he go through with his plan to ban imports of oil when oil drillers nationwide start going belly up?

So, sorry, this race is dead.  There's discussion that the Democratic National Convention won't even happen -- at least not in person.  The ground has moved beneath our feet, and there's been a sea change in the issues important to voters.