Senator Bernie Sanders has ended his campaign for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination.

CNN:

Sanders' exit caps a stunning reversal of fortune following a strong performance in the first three states that voted in February. The nomination appeared his for the taking until, on the last day of February, Biden surged to a blowout victory in South Carolina that set off a consolidation of moderate voters around the former vice president. The contest ends now as the country continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, which halted in-person campaigning for both Sanders and Biden and has led many states to delay their primary elections.

Bernie Sanders today declared victory in Iowa's bungled headcount of Democratic voters, with the latest results putting him neck-and-neck with Pete Buttigieg. It was already clear he had the most votes, but Iowa Democrats' abstruse "caucus math" had awarded Buttigieg an advantage in delegates earlier in the count.

"With 97 percent of precincts now reporting, the results showed South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 26.2 percent of state delegate equivalents and Sanders with 26.1 percent," reported The Hill's Kyle Balluck. "Sanders, however, is leading in the final alignment votes tally, though the share of delegates is considered the most important metric of the Iowa results."

When asked why he was declaring victory despite the neck-and-neck delegate count, he told reporters "because I got 6,000 more votes."

In any case, both candidates did well on the night, with Elizabeth Warren running a close third. But it was a "gut punch" for supposed front-runner Joe Biden, trailing a distant fourth. Read the rest

From June 9-12, Fox News commissioned pollsters Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R) to survey 1,001 representative Americans; the poll concluded that if the election were called today, Sanders would beat Trump by 9 points, 49%-40%, as would Biden; Warren would beat him 43%-41%; Harris would beat him 42%-41%; and Buttigieg would beat him 41%-40% -- Sanders has acknowledged that "polls go up and polls go down." (via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

Rep. Joe Crowley has been in Congress since 1999; he's the number four Dem in the House, representing a diverse district in the Bronx, and winning primaries in a solidly Democratic district by raising millions from his friends in the finance industry. Read the rest

All things being equal, a Democrat in a safe seat is likely to swing to the right, because doing so allows them to hoover up massive campaign contributions from rich people and corporate lobbyists and secure themselves cozy sinecures for themselves once they leave office -- all without risking their seat, because incumbents automatically get re-nominated and incumbents in safe seats always get re-elected. Read the rest

Thirty years ago, the collapse of the USSR and the ascendancy of the neoliberal policies of Thatcher, Reagan, Pinochet and Mulroney sent the left into retreat, and what has passed for the left ever since has been dominated by Bill Clinton/Tony Blair-style "triangulation" or "humanized capitalism," whose core hypothesis might be summed up as, "Rather than allowing 150 white male CEOs to run the world, we should ensure that at least half of them are women and/or people of color." Read the rest

A sustained and rousing standing ovation for Bernie Sanders at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, tonight. Read the rest

Reuters' largest poll of 2016 on the racial attitudes of supporters of various political candidates found that Trump supporters are seriously racist, Clinton supporters are a little less racist than the average respondent, but Sanders supporters are less racist than the supporters of any other candidate. Read the rest

All the projections that suggest Sanders can't win the nomination and the election suppose that a large slice of his supporters (or people who would support him if they could be reached) just won't bother to vote -- and that's a pretty save bet. Read the rest

The internet was horrified yesterday by the photoshopped visage of Trump without the Tan. A symbol of Trump's impervious vanity, the Tan was revealed as somehow – necessary? Without it he just looks like his own waterlogged corpse. But it got me wondering what rival presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, renowned in equal and opposite fashion for his rumpled indifference to his own appearance, would look like with all the standard political trappings. The skin a bronze battleground in the eternal war between tanning addiction and smoothing peels. The 1990s hairplugs, silvered weekly. Spectacles discarded except for those scholarly photo-ops… Read the rest

This is a damned inspiring way to spend 90 minutes; Dawson's speech is a hell of a barn-burner that makes the connection between anti-establishment movements on the right and left (and points out they key difference: Trump will go to the White House to say, 'You're fired!' and Bernie will take office to say 'You're hired!'), Spike Lee makes an impassioned plea for people to talk to their parents about Clinton's actual track record on social justice issues, and Residente minces no words about someone who lauds Kissinger, the architect of Latin American genocide, as a foreign policy inspiration. Read the rest

Kim Metcalfe is a Democratic Party superdelegate from Alaska, a state whose party members pledged 81.6% of their support to Bernie Sanders. Read the rest

Sanders won an unprecedented six out of seven primaries in a streak that culminated with astounding, lopsided victories on Saturday night. MSNBC "covered" it by airing a couple of reality TV shows about life in prison, while CNN preferred to cover some breaking news about Jesus, who has been dead for at least 2,000 years, and who would have felt the Bern anyway. Read the rest

Of course, they also ran two neutral ones during that period, so I suppose it all balances out -- it's not like he's raising more money, from more Americans, than any other candidate in history. Oh, wait. Read the rest

Bernie Sanders won a surprise victory in the Michigan Democrat primary Tuesday, pulling two points clear of rival Hillary Clinton in a late-night nail-biter of a count.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting as of midnight, Sanders had captured 50 percent of the vote compared with 48.1 percent for Clinton.

Sanders upended public opinion polls and conventional wisdom in Michigan, where he packed college arenas and other venues in the past week while touting his message of change and promise of “political revolution.”

Five Thirty Eight had tracked a 20-point polling lead for Hillary Clinton, assigning her a 99% chance of winning the state according to their electoral prediction model. The media, including them, is shocked by the result, writes Harry Enten.

The question I am asking myself now is whether this means the polls are off in other Midwest states that are holding open primaries. I’m talking specifically about Illinois and Ohio, both of which vote next Tuesday. The FiveThirtyEight polling average in Illinois gives Clinton a 37 percentage point lead, while the average in Ohio gives her a 20 percentage point lead. If Michigan was just a fluke (which is possible), then tonight will be forgotten soon enough. If, however, pollsters are missing something more fundamental about the electorate, then the Ohio and Illinois primaries could be a lot closer than expected.

Either way, this result will send a shock wave through the press.

Clinton so heavily trounced Sanders in the evening's other major race, Mississipi, that she heads into Wednesday with more new delegates than Sanders. Read the rest

After mixed showings in the primaries and a sense that the Democratic Party's profoundly undemocratic "superdelegates" will hand Hillary the nomination no matter what, the press has all but declared Bernie Sanders out of the race. Read the rest

Marches supporting the Sanders campaign were called for in 70 cities across the USA, and at least 40 had confirmed marches with thousands turning out -- but the press barely noticed. Read the rest