Almost overnight Joe Biden has gone from being the favorite to win the Democratic Party nomination in Nate Silver's political forecast to a candidate with merely a one-in-six chance; Nate Silver considers a brokered convention more likely. Amazingly, the faux-hipster Disney-owned FiveThirtyEight now declares Bernie Sanders the odds-on favorite with a 50-50 shot at winning the primaries. (The New York Times gets into the act, joining Silver in trumpeting the political death of Joe Biden.)
Biden's weakness was obvious from the get-go. But national polls almost unanimously showed, and probably still do, Biden as the front-runner. Maybe he can turn it around with a strong showing in New Hampshire. But at this point anything worse than a close second will likely mean the end of his candidacy.
With 97% of the precincts reported in Iowa, the results show a dead heat between Sanders and Buttigieg. My guess is that Granite State voters aren't going to look kindly on the pipsqueak former mayor repeatedly claiming victory for himself. Caitlin Johnstone argues this morning that the slow release of the Iowa results is a DNC, not state party, initiative to favor Mayor Pete over Bernie. It's hard to conclude otherwise. Since the Monday meltdown Buttigieg has been shown day after day as the front-runner. That's a lot of free media.
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