Joe Biden’s “firewall state” held. Except that it’s not really a firewall in the classical political sense, as South Carolina isn’t representative of the rest of the Democrat primaries except for those in the south, and Bernie still retains a national lead. This Fox News report nibbles at the edge of Biden’s real problem:

In the Palmetto State, where Biden was counting on his popularity among African-Americans, he captured 48 percent of Democratic presidential primary voters, crushing Sanders by nearly 30 percentage points and making up lots of lost ground to the populist senator from Vermont in the all-important race for convention delegates.

But the true test for Biden will come this week on “Super Tuesday” – when 14 states from coast-to-coast, including delegate-rich behemoths like California and Texas, hold primaries that offer a potential combined prize of a third of all nomination delegates.

California and Texas and the other Super Tuesday states aren’t South Carolina. Nationally, in the latest Real Clear Politics averages, Bernie Sanders is still 10 points ahead of Biden, but where it really counts – for example in California – the gap is gargantuan, i.e, 34% for Bernie and a paltry 13% for Biden. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ Democrat primary voters outside of the Deep South have got the Gaffe Machine’s number. In fact, in Massachusetts, the bulwark of lefty Democrat bulwarks, doesn’t even crack 10% and is a distant fifth in the polls.

I happen to think that Richard Baris, the “People’s Pundit” on Twitter, who has done excellent work in developing election projection models and analyzing poll numbers for several years, has Biden’s dilemma nailed. Baris believes that Biden has not and can not reconstitute the “Hillary Clinton coalition” from 20116 that beat Sanders, as Bernie is on track to pick up primary wins in the “West, Midwest, and Northeast.” Biden hasn’t shown any ability to draw in Hispanics, an important part of that coalition, too. Baris maintains that Biden’s coalition is a “Southern Black Coalition,” which not only can’t deliver him the necessary delegates to win, but will be death during the general election, as President Trump will sweep the South by huge margins against any Democrat nominee. Here is Baris’s Twitter thread on the subject, which has a lot of good information and is well worth reading in its entirety:

1. Not that it wasn’t expected, but media coverage after South Carolina is a real disservice.

It’s partly their horse race coverage model, part bias/corruption and part just good old fashion stupidity/ignorance.

Here’s the real state of the race after Joe Biden’s expected win.

— Peoples_Pundit (@Peoples_Pundit) March 1, 2020

While the Democrat-media networks are chasing the Democrat horse race, they are missing the real story, which remains that Bernie is the front-runner, and the best that Biden can do at this point is to split the vote and deny Bernie a first-ballot nomination, as it is unlikely at this point that Bernie can garner the 1990 delegates necessary to win him the nomination outright. That means that the Democrats will deny him the nomination once more, as the Democrat super delegates will rule the roost after the first ballot is cast in Milwaukee in July. Do the Democrats roll the dice and deny the nomination to the leading delegate winner? If so, the Democrat convention will be lit, as the Bernie bros literally won’t go down without a real fight this time around. A Biden alternative would be unacceptable to the Bernie bros, who are hardcore leftists.

As for Bernie himself? Last time, his was loss was mitigated for the price of a new house, and that could be what he’s angling for this time around, too. Despite what he says publicly, he is as motivated by personal profit as is any capitalist. And does he REALLY think the Democrats are going to nominate an outsider who is a Communist? I think even he knows the score at this point.

The end.