Danny

As Suedehead has said though, that table is based on the very dubious assumption that superdelegates' votes can't change. If anything, I would say that if (IF!) Sanders finishes ahead of Clinton in the primaries, it would be more likely that the Establishment would draft Joe Biden or possibly Elizabeth Warren as a "compromise" candidate. There is no way the superdelegates could justify imposing Clinton on the party as a candidate if she'd just been rejected by the party's own voters.

It's also just been said on CNN that Sanders is beating Clinton by 2:1 among blue-collar white workers. He's gone well beyond just the "Guardianista" middle-class types.

Again though, this idea that Sanders' only chances of winning states were in Iowa and New Hampshire doesn't make sense: he wouldn't've pulled to within a few % of Clinton in the national polls if he wasn't in pole position in a lot of states.

To be fair, he's not actually saying changing the country is a bad thing per se, he's just trying to rebuff one of the attack lines some of the other Republicans are throwing at him. There's been talk that Rubio would be "another Obama" in that he's an amateur with little executive experience; Rubio's counter to that is that Obama's problem isn't that he was an amateur who didn't know how to implement anything, it's that (in his view) the things he's trying to implement are wrong. That said, that clip will still probably go down as Rubio's "these strikes are WRONG" moment.

Clinton is still the favourite, but there's a path for Sanders now -- there really aren't THAT many states where black voters make up the overwhelming majority of the Democrat selectorate, yet increasingly it looks like that might be what Clinton is mainly relying on. The theory that "Iowa was one of Sanders's best states" is based on the assumption that Sanders' ONLY appeal to is to highly-educated liberal white people (the "Guardianista" equivalents) but he wouldn't be getting close to 40% in national polls if he hadn't expanded his support base beyond that. Plus, apart from anything else, Iowa has one of the highest rates of pensioners of any state, which is pretty crucial since age seems to be the most crucial predictor of whether people go for Clinton or Sanders.

Clinton's national lead over Sanders down to just 2% in the latest Quinnipiac poll - a massive swing from the 31% lead she had in December: http://uk.businessinsider.com/poll-bernie-...2?r=US&IR=T

To WIN the nomination Sanders probably needed Iowa, but he could definitely stretch the contest out for a while. I could see him pretty much sweeping the board in New England (quite possibly including New York), and the West Coast and the Rust Belt could be good territory for him too. That said, ethnic minorities (especially black voters) still seem very secure for Clinton even after Sanders' surge in recent weeks, and it's hard to see how Sanders could get the nomination if he has such a poor showing with them.

I think Clinton will just edge Iowa by a hair (like Romney-vs-Santorum 2012 margin). Trump should probably take the Republican one, with maybe Rubio a surprise second - Cruz seems to have come right off the boil after his flop in the debate the other day, and there's just a few tiny signs that Rubio's clean-cut wholesome image is cutting into Cruz's support with the evangelical Christians.

Well, there's a new poll out of the far less white Nevada, where Clinton has only a 4-point lead http://overtimepolitics.com/clinton-holds-...n-nevada-47-43/

But the thing is that Hillary's lead in the national polls is still largely based on her HUGE lead with black voters. But it's not actually clear whether they genuinely have affinity with her, or whether it's more that they tend to be less interested in politics and are simply answering Clinton by default right now because they know nothing about Sanders (or haven't even heard of him). If it's the latter, then the media coverage from a potential Sanders Iowa/New Hampshire sweep would certainly get them to know him, and COULD (COULD!) switch things round with black voters, as happened in 2008 after Obama's early success. That said, an Obama endorsement for Hillary would probably guard against the chances of that. I would still expect Hillary to grind it out at this point, but it's going to be competitive. (Also, New Hampshire ok, but is Iowa really that liberal? It wouldn't really have struck me as one of the most Sanders-friendly states.)

She reminds me more of Kate Thornton.

Christ. I swear one of them (rightfully) had his head in his hands in the last few seconds.

Who do you think it will be? I got heavily on Rubio on Betfair a few months ago, on the basis that he had less flaws than any of the others, but I'm having doubts now - the fact he's still flatlining in the polls even after a couple of months of pretty good media attention (especially the hype after one of the debates) makes me think there must be some fundamental problems with him to the Republican selectorate. I'm now thinking Chris Christie might be worth a punt - he's starting to pick up in the New Hampshire polls, and he might have the combination of being moderate enough in policies to satisfy the Republican establishment, while having enough of an abrasive and "strong-man" personality to win over some Trump voters.

His age is a legitimate issue (though Hillary isn't much younger), but the gaffes don't really matter since he's been vice-president, and thus no-one really doubts his competence anymore. The only real reasons Clinton would probably still have the edge over Biden is that she's got such a headstart by starting her campaign much earlier, and there's a lot of Democrat bigwigs who owe the Clintons favours. Otherwise, Biden is the better candidate - Hillary just isn't a very good politician (people forget how awful her 2007-08 campaign was until late on when she became the "underdog who refuses to quit", but that kind of campaign is inherently only available to her when she's losing).

He's only backtracked on things like Trident, which in my experience (anecdote alert) was not one of the main reasons for his win - it was mainly the anti-austerity stance.

I think there's a strong case that Donald Trump is the Republicans' best candidate. Imo, he has potential to do much better than Romney among industrial workers in the likes of Ohio/Pennsylvania/Michigan -- amid all his craziness about immigrants, he's also made one of his big things the fact that big businesses keep "shipping jobs overseas", which could strike a chord. Plus, I still doubt Clinton especially is going to come close to the turnout that Obama managed with the young / black people.

He's the sitting vice-president, and has been one of the loudest advocates for Obama policies for 7 years! You don't get more of a partisan-political figure than that. His numbers now are not comparable to Clinton's polling when she was a hypothetical candidate, because her previous numbers were artificially inflated by her having been "above the fray" for years in a way Biden hasn't been.

I think Biden if he sold himself as the "real Obama heir" could very easily start chipping away at Clinton's edge with black voters, which is the one thing which is currently keeping Hillary standing. If anything, I would say given the fact there's little between them on political positioning, it's hard to see what the USP for Clinton over Biden is. The polling consistently shows Biden doing better against Republicans, he's equally as experienced, and he's seen as more honest and likeable.

Latest polling shows Joe Biden in with a fighting chance of beating Hillary.

But that report shows that some of the London/southern areas which have seen huge increases in house prices/incomes have trended Labour, whereas some of the Midlands areas which have most strongly trended Tory are lagging behind on house prices/incomes. Their problems are mostly cultural, not wealth-related.

By "trending", I mean that it's got comparitively better for Labour compared to the national average changes in their vote. In any case, it certainly gives the lie to this mantra that Labour's problems are with middle-class/"aspirational" voters.

Very interesting analysis of Labour's problems: http://www.progressonline.org.uk/content/u...9-spreading.pdf Essentially, for all the Blairites witter on about the South, much of the south-east actually seems to be on the verge of trending Labour as it becomes more "Londonised" (more ethnic minorities, young people and uni graduates). On the other hand, it's the Midlands (outside of the big cities) which is going the wrong way for Labour, as their standing with the white working-class rapidly weakens.

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Well, the Abbott-Corbyn hook-up managed to last as "most disturbing mental imagery of the year" for a whole 5 days.

You're overthinking this: we all know Corbyn is never going to be PM, and that he'll probably go before 2020 even if he was a "success". The whole point of his leadership is to move the centre of gravity to the left. He's the trailblazer putting "outrageous" ideas on the table today, so that those same ideas won't seem so outrageous when the next guy (preferrably a younger and more media-friendly one) comes along saying them tomorrow.