Biden Wins South Carolina; Steyer Out

South Carolina primary results have been, by far, the most promptly available. The results below are with 99% of the vote counted.

South Carolina (54 delegates total)

1. Biden 48.4% (38 delegates estimated; at least 38 delegates)

2. Sanders 19.9% (16 delegates estimated; at least 15 delegates)

3. Steyer 11.3%

4. Buttigieg 8.2%

5. Warren 7.1%

6. Klobuchar 3.1%

7. Gabbard 1.3%

Biden greatly exceeded the estimates of all of the South Carolina primary polling which had him at 24%-36% of the vote, but accurately estimated the performance of Sanders and Buttigieg. Steyer, Warren and Klobuchar did worse in the primary than they had in pre-primary polling. 

One way to interpret the shift to Biden relative to the polling is that almost all of the respondents who were undecided or non-responsive in polling, and some who had been leaning towards Steyer and Warren, ultimately broke for Biden in the voting booth. They may have made up their minds only shortly before voting, perhaps only after the South Carolina debate and the CNN town halls that followed it, where Biden performed well.

There are 10 more delegates whom pundits have not yet allocated between Biden and Sanders based upon the primary results, but which will be allocated roughly proportionately to their respective popular vote totals. 

UPDATE: Tom Steyer has dropped out of the Democratic Party primary race. Exit poll results suggest that this will be a slight boost for Biden relative to other candidates left in the race. This leaves seven candidates in the running, including Bloomberg.

Turnout was more than 500,000 in South Carolina, which easily makes this the largest increase in turnout in any early state, at least in raw numbers, according to the New York Times.

Exit poll details

CNN has a variety of exit poll results from South Carolina.

Gender

Women made up 59% of South Carolina Democratic primary voters (I suspect that the percentage of white primary voters in South Carolina that were women was even larger, although I don't have data from the exit polls on that). 

Unsurprisingly, Warren, Klobuchar did better with women, while Sanders did notably worse. Steyer also did better with women for reasons that aren't entirely clear. There wasn't a notable gender divide regarding the other candidates.

Race

The Democratic Party throughout most of the Southeastern United States is majority black. South Carolina Democratic primary voters were 40% white, 56% black, and 2% Hispanic, 1% "other" with the details of Hispanic and "other" voter who took exit polls too small to provide statistically significant details on how they voted. 

The exit polls supported the conventional wisdom that black voters like Biden, and dislike Buttigieg, a great deal, relative to white voters, and that black voters are less supportive of Sanders than white voters but that many black voters still do support Sanders. Steyer's stronger showing with black voters is somewhat unexpected. This is how the South Carolina Democratic primary exit polls broke out by race:

Age

Primary election voters tend to be older than general election voters. About 11% of Democratic primary voters in South Carolina were under 30, 18% were 30-44, 42% were 45-64, and 29% were 65 years old or older. 

Unsurprisingly, Sanders did better than he did overall with voters under 50 (and led among voters under age 40), while Biden led among voters over age 40, and overperformed with voters 50 years old and older. Warren and Buttigieg did better with younger voters, while Steyer and Klobuchar did better with older voters.

Candidate By Candidate Analysis After South Carolina

This is the first time that Biden has gotten the top spot in a primary or caucus so far, after a previous 2nd, 5th and 4th place showing. He now has an estimated 53 delegates, leaving him second in delegate count after Sanders after the first four contests.

The second place finish for Sanders in South Carolina still means that Sanders has managed a first or second place finish in each of the first four contests (Sanders was first place in popular vote, but second place in delegates in Iowa and finished 1st in New Hampshire and Nevada). Sanders has now racked up an estimated 61 delegates, leading the pack in delegates. Sanders is the only candidate to have picked up delegates in each of the first four contests.

The third place showing for Steyer is his best so far, compared to 6th in Nevada, 6th in New Hampshire, and worst than 5th in Iowa. But, the California billionaire still hasn't won a single delegate and winning 11.4% of the vote in his best showing isn't going to win him the nomination.  Steyer isn't polling in the top four, or with a high enough percentage to get any delegates, in any Super Tuesday state. Like Gabbard, he is a pure spoiler candidate in this primary race. UPDATE: Steyer had dropped out of the race.

The fourth place finish for Buttigieg is his worst of the primary campaign, but not too surprising in a Southern state where anti-LGBT sentiment runs strong. He was 3rd in Nevada, 2nd in New Hampshire, an 1st in delegates (but second in popular vote) in Iowa. He has 26 delegates so far, which puts him in third place in delegate count.

Clearly, South Carolina Democrats are not fond of any of the three female candidates in the race.

Warren came in 5th in South Carolina, after finishing 4th in Nevada despite a stunningly strong debate performance, 4th in New Hampshire, and 3rd in Iowa, in which she won all of her 8 delegates so far, putting her in fourth place in delegate count. Warren is polling in second place in several Super Tuesday states, so she isn't out of the running yet.

Klobuchar finished 6th place in the conservative South Carolina primary, which has to be disappointing for someone who is trying to position herself as a moderate Democratic candidate. She came in 5th place in Nevada, 3rd in New Hampshire, and 5th in Iowa. She was won only 7 delegates so far, putting her in fifth place in delegate count. Moderate Democratic voters may like her message, but they don't like the messenger. She will get some delegates in Minnesota on Super Tuesday, but probably not anywhere else. She doesn't even poll in the top four in any of the biggest Super Tuesday states.

Gabbard has also positioned herself as a conservative in the primary race and that isn't working well for her. South Carolina is Gabbard's third successive 7th place finish, and she also did extremely poorly in Iowa (worse than 5th place). Gabbard's best showing, in New Hampshire, was 3.2% of the vote. She has not won a single delegate and has no realistic prospect of winning any outside of Hawaii which won even vote until April 4, a late date the deprives her of any momentum that those delegates could have provided to her. It is not clear why she hasn't dropped out yet.

Mike Bloomberg, of course, wasn't a contender in any of the first four Democratic party primary season contests, and will make his debut before voters on Super Tuesday, which is just three days from now. But, the billionaire's unconventional campaign looks like a long shot at this point.

Bloomberg first participated in debates in the Nevada and South Carolina debates, and was only allowed to do so after he bribed to DNC to change the rules. He has no delegates. He's spend at least two hundred million dollars on advertising in advance of Super Tuesday, but isn't polling all that well considering the ad buy (he's polling in third place nationally and is not polling first place in a single state), and he has received immense push back on he stage of the two debates that he has participated in and in more grass roots media, like Facebook. He hasn't displaced Sanders as the front runner in the race and Bloomberg doesn't lead Sanders in polling in a single state. Bloomberg's "betting odds" are good, but any indicator that can be manipulated with money can't be trusted when it comes to his candidacy. Bloomberg is first nowhere in Super Tuesday state polling, is a clear second only in Virginia (and only by a single percentage point), and is tied for second place in Utah. But, Bloomberg is third in Texas and North Carolina, and is fourth in California, Colorado and Massachusetts. It is entirely possible that Bloomberg could fail to come in even second place in a single state. 

With polling like that, it is basically impossible for Bloomberg to win the nomination in the first round or to be the front runner on the first round. He would have to win the nomination, if he did, in a brokered convention well back in the delegate count behind many other candidates. And, I don't think that he would win many candidates originally pledged to Sanders or Warren at all, and he would probably need a clean sweep of candidates pledged to other Democratic party nominees which I don't think that he can pull off.

Upcoming Races

There will not be another debate until after most of the delegates have been awarded, a third on Super Tuesday, and more than half of the total by the time that the March 17, 2020 primaries are over.

It takes 1,919 pledged delegates, out of 3,979 total pledged delegates, to win on the first round in the Democratic National Convention (the 771 superdelegates, who bring the total to 4,750 only get to vote in the second and later rounds if those happen at all, with 2,382 delegates are needed to win).

There have been 155 delegates at stake in the first four states of the primary season in February. Another 2,448 delegates are at stake in March, with 2,603 delegates to be pledged by the end of March. Some polling in upcoming key races (as well as betting odds) are as follows:

In a drawn out two way primary fight between Sanders and Biden, mirroring the drawn out two way primary fight between Sanders and Hillary Clinton in 2016, it is pretty clear that Sanders would win this time around.

The following states are coming up in March for a total of 2,448 delegates (with the pledged delegates shown after each state):

March 3, 2020 (1,344 delegates)
Alabama 52
American Samoa 6
Arkansas 31
California 415
Colorado 67
Maine 24
Massachusetts 91
Minnesota 75
North Carolina 110
Oklahoma 37
Tennessee 64
Texas 228
Vermont 16
Virginia 99
Utah 29

March 10, 2020 (365 delegates)
Democrats Abroad 13
Idaho 20
Michigan 125
Mississippi 36
Missouri 68
North Dakota 14
Washington 89

March 14, 2020 (6 delegates)
Northern Marianas Islands 6

March 17, 2020 (577 delegates)
Arizona 67
Florida 219
Illinois 155
Ohio 136

March 24 (105 delegates)
Georgia 105

March 29 (51 delegates)
Puerto Rico 51

Recap of Previous Races

Nevada (first round votes)
1. Sanders 34.0% (24 delegates)
2. Biden 17.6% (9 delegates)
3. Buttigieg 15.4% (3 delegates)
4. Warren 12.8%
5. Klobuchar 9.6%
6. Steyer 9.1%
7. Gabbard 0.3%

New Hampshire 
1. Sanders 25.6% (9 delegates)
2. Buttigieg 24.3% (9 delegates)
3. Klobuchar 19.7% (6 delegates)
4. Warren 9.2%
5. Biden 8.4%
6. Steyer 3.6%
7. Gabbard 3.3%
8. Yang 2.8%
9. Patrick 0.4%
10. Bennet 0.3%

Iowa (percentages from first round)
1. Buttigieg 24.9% (14 delegates)
2. Sanders 21.4% (12 delegates)
3. Warren 18.6% (8 delegates)
4. Biden 15.0% (6 delegates)
5. Klobuchar 12.8% (1 delegate)

6. Yang 5.1%

7. Steyer 1.7%

8. Gabbard 0.2%
9. Blomberg 0.1%
10. Patrick 0.0%

Head To Head Polling

Everyone involved in the Democratic primary process knows that choosing a nominee involved two distinct considerations: who will best advance the Democratic party agenda if elected, and who is most likely to defeat Trump in the general election.

Conventional wisdom is that the two objectives are at odds and that a more conservative candidate who is to the right of the Democratic party as a whole is most likely to win in the general election. This heuristic is based upon the assumptions that (1) voter turnout is pretty much constant, (2) ideology is the primary driver of voter behavior, and (3) more ideologically moderate candidates will win larger shares of unaffiliated voters.

But, the head to head polling doesn't support this conclusion, and the heuristic upon which this is based ignores the fact that different candidates may secure different turnout levels for their base, and that unaffiliated voters are often swayed more by the personality of a candidate than by their ideology.

Also, while head to head polling is not necessarily a terribly accurate predictor of general election outcomes, many of the confounds between head to head polling in February and general election polling, pertain more to Trump's performance than to the relative strength of Democrats running against him.

Both Sanders and Biden poll better against Trump, head to head, than Bloomberg does in head to head polling, and both Sanders an Biden lead Trump by margins large enough to secure not just a popular vote win, but also an electoral college win. There are very few head to head polls available at the state level that actually matters for Electoral College purposes, but there are some, and a recent pro-Sanders op-ed spelled out the evidence this way:

Almost all of the current polling data shows Mr. Sanders winning the national popular vote. In the most recent national polls testing Democratic candidates against Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders beat him in every single one, with margins varying from 2 percent to 6 percent. This has been the case for nearly a year now, with Mr. Sanders outpolling the president in 67 of 72 head-to-head polls since March. 

As 2016 proved when Hillary Clinton defeated Mr. Trump in the popular vote by nearly three million votes, however, the Electoral College is what matters most. There, Mr. Sanders also does well, outperforming Mr. Trump in polls of the pivotal battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In the one poll showing significant Trump strength in Wisconsin (Quinnipiac), Mr. Sanders still fares the best of the Democratic contenders. . . . 

Exit polls and precinct analyses show that Mr. Sanders runs strongest with some of the most overlooked and undervalued sectors of the population — young people and Latinos in particular. In all three early states, he received twice as much support from voters under 30 than his closest competitor. In Nevada, he received about 70 percent of the vote in the most heavily Latino precincts. 

These particular strengths matter because the composition of the electorate in 2020 will be appreciably different than it was in 2016. Pew Research projects that this will be the most racially diverse electorate ever, with people of color making up fully one-third of all eligible voters. The share of eligible voters from Generation Z (18-23 year olds) will be more than twice as large in 2020 as it was in 2016 (10 percent versus 4 percent). 

Notably, the expanding sectors of the population are much more progressive and pro-Democratic than their aging and white counterparts. Mrs. Clinton defeated Mr. Trump by nearly 20 points among voters under 30, and the anti-Republican tilt of that demographic was even more pronounced in 2018, when 67 percent of them voted Democratic, 35 points more than the number who voted Republican. As for Latinos, nearly two-thirds of that population consistently vote Democratic. 

The implications of these developments are most significant in the specific states where the election will be most fiercely fought. In Michigan and Wisconsin, which were decided in 2016 by roughly 11,000 and 22,700 votes respectively, close to a million young people have since turned 18. Beyond the Midwestern trio of states, the demographic revolution has even more transformative potential. Mr. Trump won Arizona, for example, by 91,000 votes, and 160,000 Latinos have turned 18 in that state since then.

Of course, Super Tuesday is eight months (to the day) before the general election concludes, and polling can change dramatically over time. 

Name recognition is one important factor in relative strength in head to head polling, and any candidate that is less well known now, will be much better known in the general election if that candidate receives the Democratic nomination. This handicaps in favor of Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar, but only conditional upon any of them being able to secure the Democratic Presidential nomination, which would realistically only be possible in a brokered convention for any of those individuals.

On the flip side, if a candidate isn't actually all that great in the eyes of voters, support gained through name recognition will fall away as voters get to know the candidate better. This handicaps against Biden, and even more so against Bloomberg.

Real Clear Politics has recent national polling averages for leading Democrats v. Trump in general election matchups. The aggregated values and some additional details are as follows:

Sanders 49.4% v. 44.5% (+4.9) leads Trump in 8 of 8 last polls; gaining

Biden 49.8% v. 44.4% (+5.4) leads Trump in 7 of 8 last polls; gaining

Bloomberg 48.3% v. 44.3% (+4.0) leads Trump in 5 of 7 last polls; wild recent variation

Warren 47.0% v. 45.0% (+2.0) leads Trump in 5 of 5 last polls; gaining

Buttigieg 47.0% v. 45.0% (+2.0) leads Trump in 5 of 7 last polls; slipping

Klobuchar 47.0% v. 45.4% (+1.6) leads Trump in 5 of 7 last polls; slipping.

Popular Vote In Primaries And Caucuses To Date:

Across the first four states to vote, there have been a total of 1,100,351 votes cast (only candidates who are still running are listed, and the small number of votes cast to date for Bloomberg in Iowa and as a write in candidate, and for Gabbard, are not included):

1. Joe Biden: 326,448 votes (29.7%)

2. Bernie Sanders: 266,993 votes (24.3%)

3. Pete Buttigieg: 171,421 votes (15.6%)

4. Elizabeth Warren: 109,204 votes (9.9%)

5. Amy Klobuchar: 105,583 votes (9.6%)

Note that this approach systemically biases primaries which have higher turnout, over caucuses which can provide other benefits. The nomination is based upon delegates won rather than votes cast.