In Defense Of Price Gougers

They pop up in almost every crisis. During hurricanes, they sell boards for windows and bottled water at inflated prices. After a flood, they always seem to have a stockpile of bleach to kill mold in water-damaged houses. During the current crisis, these keyboard capitalists have snapped up supplies of antiviral masks and hand sanitizer and are attempting to profit by reselling them online.

A report by USA Today found that prices of about one in six products sold online had spiked to levels that were 50 percent above the 90-day average. This included a 10-pack of N95 medical masks which normally retailed for $18.20 selling at $199.99 and a 12-pack of 8-ounce bottles of Purell hand sanitizer that had increased from $30 to $159.99.

While some state and local governments, as well as online retailers themselves, are attempting to crack down on price gouging, the reality is that price gougers are performing an important service for the public. By allowing prices to rise in tandem with demand, price gougers help to ensure that items remain available to those who need them when panic buying takes hold.

We have seen examples of this mob mentality in recent weeks. About three weeks ago, when the Coronavirus first started to spread in the US, I was one of the people who decided to buy a few masks as a precaution. Unfortunately, I made this decision a few days too late. When I went around town and looked on the internet, buyers had picked stores clean of every N95 mask, with the exception of a couple of $50 respirators that I found at a nearby Home Depot.

Price sensitivity kicked in and I left these on the shelf. I knew enough about the virus to know that my family was not in a high-risk category so I rejected the idea of spending $200 to outfit my family with something that we would probably never use, but, as I walked away, an older lady was putting one of the respirators into her cart.

As it turns out, the CDC now says that masks don’t do much to protect you from COVID-19. Instead, masks should be worn by those who are already infected to prevent them from spreading the virus when they cough or sneeze. An exception to that is people who are caregivers for Coronavirus patients.

The problem is that retailers did not adjust their prices to match the sudden increase in demand for masks. If you didn’t get a mask before they sold out, you probably can’t find one now. As soon as a new shipment comes in, they sell out because the price is not allowed to rise.

That’s where price gougers come in. When they take some of the available supply of masks and raise the price, it discourages people who don’t need them from buying them just in case. These days, if you see a pack of masks for $20, you’ll grab it. If you see a pack of masks for $200, you’ll think twice and not buy unless you really need it.

The run on toilet paper is another case of panic buying that could be averted by raising prices. My wife recently ran into a woman who had an entire shopping cart loaded with toilet paper. She was stocking up because she believed that “the ships were stuck in the middle of the ocean” and couldn’t deliver their cargo of precious booty paper to American stores. Because the TP was available at regular price, the woman took all she could carry, leaving little or nothing for the next customer who may be down to his last roll at home. If the store had increased its price by five or ten times, the hoarder would not have bought a veritable cartload of TP and would have left some for other shoppers who might need it more.

So when well-meaning people crack down on price gougers, they are effectively helping to create shortages. This was the case with Matt and Noah Colvin of Chattanooga, Tenn. The brothers bought $17,000 worth of hand sanitizer and were reselling it on Amazon along with wipes, masks, and other supplies. Amazon delisted their items and now the Colvins are stuck with a garage full of medical supplies that they aren’t allowed to sell. Many people around the country would be willing to pay inflated prices for the items, but instead, they are gathering dust.

While high prices anger people, the reality is that buyers have a choice of whether to enter into the transaction. If you don’t need to pay $70 for the Colvin’s hand sanitizer, then you won’t. If you are willing to accept their price, you probably really need it.

Price gouging is essentially a free market activity. Eliminating price gouging requires price controls, and, as conservatives have pointed out for decades with respect to health care, price controls invariably lead to shortages and rationing in periods of high demand.

While price gougers won’t win many friends, they do form an important part of the balance between supply and demand. If you need a medical mask or hand sanitizer these days, the odds are good that you’ll have to get it from a price gouger who kept people like the hoarder lady from locking it in their own closets.

Originally published on The Resurgent

The Top Ten Things To Do On Your Virus Vacation

If you’re like me, your kids just got an unexpected extension to their Spring Break. Schools in our county announced Friday that they won’t be back in session until April 6 at the earliest. To further add to the impending case of cabin fever in stately Thornton manor, my wife works in the school system and will also be home while my schedule at my primary job as a corporate pilot has suddenly become a lot less busy over the next few weeks.

Thousands of schools across the country are closing due to the virus outbreak and hundreds of thousands of kids will be staying home for the next few weeks. While some of these children will have to go to daycare or stay with friends or relatives, many parents will be working from home or furloughed from their jobs for the duration of the emergency. Since the nature of this school break is one that discourages travel or many other typical extracurricular pastimes, many parents will be wondering what to do with all of the unexpected quality time with their kids.

If you’re home alone with your family for the next few weeks, here are a few suggestions on how to spend your time.

10. Virus Movie Marathon The most obvious quarantine pastime that I thought of was to host a virus movie marathon. When I think of virus movies, the first two that come to mind are the screen adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Stand” (1994), featuring a star-studded cast, and “Outbreak,” a 1995 vehicle for Dustin Hoffman, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Renee Russo. All six hours of “The Stand” is available on YouTube and “Outbreak” is on numerous streaming services. “Twelve Monkeys” is another neglected classic sci-fi movie from 1995 featuring Bruce Willis as a convict from the future sent back in time to gather information about a pandemic. Willis is aided by a mental patient played by Brad Pitt.  

More recently, there was “World War Z,” also starring Brad Pitt, in 2013 about a worldwide outbreak of a zombie virus. I’ve also heard good things about 2011’s “Contagion,” which stars Matt Damon, Kate Winslett, and Jude Law.

9. Help The Kids With Their Homework Just because your kids won’t be going to school doesn’t mean that they won’t have schoolwork. My school district is sending out packets of homework to keep students busy while they are on the virus vacation. My high school son has already been assigned seven essays and 15 daily geometry problems. With a lot of work and not going to class, kids are going to need help with their assignments.

If you don’t remember much about geometry and other school subjects, there’s always Khan Academy.

8. Catch Up On Chores If your house is like ours, you have a to-do list that you need to catch up on. Whether it’s doing laundry or fixing that annoying drip on the bathroom faucet, there are odd jobs around your home that need doing.

Don’t just do it yourself. Put your kids to work. Let them help fold clothes. Show them how to fix things around the house so that they’ll know when they move out on their own.

7. Order Some Takeout A lot of restaurants will be hurting over the next few weeks as people stay home more than usual. Even if you don’t want to eat in a public place, you can order some takeout or delivery to break up the monotony of eating at home. You’ll also help to support local businesses through a slow time. Many delivery services are creating no-contact options for the duration of the emergency.

6. Read A Book A long break at home might give you a good opportunity to catch up on that book that you’ve been wanting to read. If you want to stick with the virus theme, I recommend “The Great Influenza,” which tells the story of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-20. While I enjoy reading histories, my guilty pleasure is Lee Child’s “Jack Reacher” series.

5. Listen To A Podcast If reading isn’t your thing or if you want to try something different, check out a podcast. There are a plethora of political and current events podcasts, including one by our intrepid leader Erick Erickson. Beyond that, historian Bill Whittle has a very entertaining podcast about the Apollo space program and a new one about the history of the Cold War. Whatever your interests, you can find a podcast.

4. Play An Offline Game Sometimes enforced time together without technology is a blessing. During power outages that sometimes came with floods and hurricanes while we lived in Texas, we often played board and card games as a family. Some favorites are Clue and Uno, but there are many possible choices that include both classic games like Monopoly and new ones like What Do You Meme (for fans of The Resurgent’s memes on our Facebook page).

3. Go Outside If you aren’t sick and haven’t been exposed to the Coronavirus, you don’t have to stay under quarantine. You can go out. Some places, such as museums, might either be closed or put you in closer proximity to the public than you prefer, but many parks and picnic areas will be accessible. With much of the country warming as spring approaches, you can take your family out for a picnic lunch. Picnicking should be safe because the open areas allow you to maintain a safe social distance from other people who have had the same idea.

You could also go walking or hiking. Parks often have hiking trails but even walking along your street will get you out of the house and into nature. I often walk with our dogs, Rocky, the min pin mix (we think), and Ginger, the one-eyed Shiba Inu. They aren’t as famous as Jonah Goldberg’s pooches, but they are still pretty cool and they love to go for walks. Often, I’ll take a bag to pick up trash along the road to help keep our neighborhood clean.

2. Help A Neighbor As the virus runs its course, people are going to need help. Maybe you’ll know someone who gets sick or has to be quarantined. Sick people will need to be cared for and there may not be hospital beds available. We may reach a point where volunteers are needed to augment health professionals in caring for the sick. The CDC has published guidelines for people who need to care for someone sick with COVID-19.

You can also help by providing food or making runs to the store for elderly neighbors who don’t want to risk going out in public. Some working parents may need neighbors to care for children who are out of school.

Maybe people who are isolated just need someone to talk to. One of my aunts is in an assisted living home that is already under lockdown. The residents are not allowed visitors and cannot even leave their rooms for the foreseeable future. People who are under quarantine can still take phone calls and talk to people on the internet. You could help them pass the time by playing games with them on social media.

1 Pray We are facing a dangerous situation and prayer is appropriate, both for affected individuals and the country in general. Prayer works and maybe God will use this crisis as an opportunity to bring America and the world closer to him and to strengthen our faith.

By most accounts, we are about to enter a very trying time as we face the possibility of a large number of deaths. We need to recommit ourselves to God and prepare ourselves for what lies ahead. Whether we die from COVID-19 this year or of old age decades from now, we will eventually meet our maker. We need to be ready.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Be Responsible: Don’t Spread The Virus Or The Panic

Over the past few days, panic has taken hold across the country. Coronavirus fears have crashed the stock market and emptied store shelves. For many, skepticism about the virus has given way to the belief that it is a Chinese bioweapon gone awry or a false flag meant to impose authoritarian rule.

It’s time for America to get a grip. As I’ve written in the past, the virus a real and serious threat, but it is also easy to take precautions to minimize the risk to yourself and others.

I’ve watched many people online transition from the claim that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu to the claim that it is a Chinese bioweapon aimed at killing Americans. Both statements are wrong and irresponsible.

While the death rate for COVID-19 is not firmly established yet, we do know that it is both more dangerous and contagious than the flu. The mortality rate for the Coronavirus is estimated to be about two percent, which is about 20 times higher than the 0.1 percent death rate for the flu.

COVID-19 also has a higher rate of transmission than the flu which means that it is more contagious. On average, a person infected with the flu passes that virus along to about 1.3 other people. In the case of COVID-19, a person carrying the virus infects about 2 to 3.1 others.

The good news is that about 80 percent of Coronavirus cases are mild. A two-percent death rate gives you a 98 percent chance of survival, although the odds are not nearly as good if you are a senior citizen. Still, those of us who are not in the most at-risk categories should act to protect ourselves from contracting the virus because that makes us carriers.

If we carry the disease, we can transmit it to people who are more likely to have a serious reaction. My father has had lung problems and my mother has a weakened immune system due to chemotherapy. My father-in-law has COPD. I want to avoid catching Coronavirus because I don’t want to spread it to them or others with similar health problems.

Part of not spreading the virus involves social distancing. You don’t have to self-quarantine if you haven’t been exposed. Just keep a little extra distance from people and spend a lot of time washing your hands. Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze.

Even if you have been exposed to the virus, the incubation period is only 14 days. If you self-quarantine and haven’t shown symptoms in that time, you are probably okay. In fact, the majority of people develop symptoms within about 11 days.

You also don’t have to stockpile several months’ worth of food and toilet paper. Having extra food on hand for emergencies is always a good idea, but pizza deliveries and Uber Eats are probably not going to be interrupted.

If you run out of toilet paper, use other materials, such as cleaning rags or paper towels. No one is predicting that electricity will go out so you can wash the rags. If you use paper towels, be sure not to flush them since they will clog water pipes. But just be aware that there are alternatives to toilet paper.

The decisions, made mostly by private companies and local governments, to postpone or cancel public gatherings and close schools, are a justified action and a good thing. Transmission of the virus will be slowed and lives will be saved.

Along with not spreading the virus, you should also not spread the panic. Most people are going to be okay. There will not be long-term shortages of either food or toilet paper or anything else. The country will return to normal in a few weeks.

There is also no evidence that the virus is a bioweapon from China, the US, or anywhere else. Logically, the bioweapon arguments, which are often made by the same people who say the virus is no worse than a cold or the flu, don’t really make sense. If the Chinese were responsible for unleashing COVID-19, why would they release it on their own population and, probably more important to Chinese leaders, their own economy? If it was the North Koreans, then why would they attack China, biting the hand that literally feeds them?

The theory that the Wuhan epidemic was created to crack down on the Hong Kong democracy protests falls apart when you realize that Wuhan is 919 kilometers (571 miles) from Hong Kong. This is roughly the same as the distance from New York to Dayton, Ohio. Besides, Chinese authorities have never shrunk from simple, naked, brutal aggression against dissidents.

Conspiracy theorists also point to the arrest of three alleged Chinese spies in Boston, one of whom was caught trying to smuggle biological samples out of the US, as evidence of China’s responsibility. However, the timeline doesn’t match since the arrests were made in December and January while the first case of COVID-19 dates back to mid-November. At any rate, it is unclear why Chinese spies would steal samples of the Coronavirus and smuggle it back to China to release it there instead of unleashing it in the United States, presumably the real target according to the tinfoil hat crowd.

Some attempt to deal with these arguments by speculating that the virus was a weapon that was released accidentally. However, COVID-19 makes a poor bioweapon. A weaponized virus that only kills two percent of its victims is much less effective than weaponized Ebola with a 90 percent kill rate. Most victims of the Coronavirus are the elderly which would leave both the enemy’s military and workforce intact. Except for causing a temporary recession, an attack with COVID-19 would seem to be pointless.

Many of the people pushing alarmist theories about biological attacks and false flags to impose authoritarian rule are people who sing the same tune about any world event. If you look back in their timelines, I’ll bet that you would find posts sounding the alarm about Obama imposing martial law, Jade Helm 17, FEMA camp detention centers, crisis actors at Sandy Hook, coups against Donald Trump, and a plethora of other theories that amount to nothing more than paranoid fantasies. They deserve to be ignored.

The bottom line is that the Coronavirus pandemic is a serious matter but it is not Armageddon. What the situation requires is that we, as a nation, keep our heads and not lose our cool. We can and will weather this storm.

If, several months from now, we can look back on the precautions we took and say that we overreacted instead of lamenting that we should have done more and sooner, it will be a job well done. That will mean that our defenses worked and the death toll from the pandemic was minimized because we made swift and strong choices to work together to fight the disease.

Until then, as LTG Russel Honore said in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, “Don’t get stuck on stupid.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Congressional Doctor Expects Up To 150 Million American Cases Of Coronavirus

Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician for the US Congress, briefed a bipartisan group of lawmakers and staff members about the expected impact of the Coronavirus in the United States this week. What he had to say was shocking.

Axios reported that at the meeting, which was held Thursday, Dr. Monahan told attendees that forecasting the spread of a virus is difficult but that he expects between 70 and 150 million Americans to contract the disease. This would represent an epidemic that impacts between 20 to 50 percent of the country. In contrast, the CDC estimates that the current flu season has seen less than 50 million cases.

Monahan isn’t the only public health expert who is sounding the alarm. Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch estimates that COVID-19 will spread to 60 percent of the world’s adults. Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton, a Republican appointee, estimated that the state already has more than 100,000 cases but notes that the lack of tests makes it impossible to know for sure.

“I don’t think the virus can be stopped anymore. It’s too late for that. In the United States, but also in Germany, we see transmission that isn’t linked to anything known,” Lipsitch told Der Spiegel. “So, the virus has already spread locally. That does seem to be a sign of things in some areas being out of hand.”

As I have explained before, Coronavirus has a much higher death rate than the flu. The CDC estimates that the mortality rate for the flu is 0.1 percent while an accepted figure for the mortality rate of the Coronavirus is two percent. In statistical terms, that means that COVID-19 is 20 times more dangerous than the flu.

So far, flu deaths have outpaced Coronavirus deaths but that is due to the fact that the flu has been more widespread than COVID-19. The flu outbreak also started months before the Coronavirus outbreak.

Now that Coronavirus seems to be uncontained and spreading, the number of deaths will continue to rise. At the low end of Monahan’s estimate, if 70 million Americans catch the virus, that would mean that about 14 million cases, 20 percent, would be severe. This would overwhelm hospitals around the country. If the two percent death rate holds, we could see 1.4 million Coronavirus deaths in this country alone. Compare that to the CDC estimate of about 50,000 flu deaths.

While the possibility of a severe outbreak is possible, that does not mean that Americans should panic. Approximately 80 percent of Coronavirus cases are light. The danger is that infected people with mild symptoms will spread the disease to those who are at a higher risk. This includes senior citizens and those who have other health problems, particularly respiratory issues.

Lipsitch says that taking early preventive measures to contain the virus could make a big difference. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 killed more than 650,000 Americans, but the pattern was different based on how communities responded.

“American cities reacted quite differently then,” Lipsitch said. “Philadelphia didn’t respond until two weeks after the first influenza case when it closed schools and canceled public events. St. Louis, on the contrary, put in interventions early on, after two days. The peak death rate in Saint Louis was only one-eighth that of Philadelphia. The study showed that if cities intervened early and implemented aggressive social distancing, the epidemic slowed down and was less deadly in general.”

“We learned from the years 1918 to 1920 that lifting bans too early can cause the number of cases to increase again and you get a second peak,” he continued. “This is because the virus is, of course, still there. However, disruptive measures can’t be in place forever. So, it’s necessarily going to be a trade-off.”

In the meantime, the CDC website contains a list of recommendations for protecting yourself and your family from the virus. These include:

• Wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds after being in public places and coughing or sneezing
• Use hand sanitizer that is 60 percent alcohol if you can’t wash your hands with soap
• Practice social distancing
• Stay away from sick people
• Isolate yourself if you are sick
• Do not go to school or work if you are sick
• Wear a mask if you are sick
• Call ahead before you go to the doctor if you think you have COVID-19
• Clean “high-touch” surfaces in your home daily

Dr. Monahan’s estimate of 150 million cases of Coronavirus is just a possibility at this point. The best way to prevent such an emergency is to take the Coronavirus seriously and follow the CDC recommendations, which do not, by the way, include hoarding toilet paper.

COVID-19 Is Not An Apocalyptic Disease But What If It Was?

Coronavirus has provoked a panic. People are stockpiling masks and toilet paper, public gatherings are being canceled, dogs and cats are living together. But the evidence shows that COVID-19 has a death rate that is still only about two percent. What if the death rate was much higher? For example, what if what we were dealing with was similar to the Super Flu from The Stand or the Motaba virus from Outbreak? Would we be comfortable with the government’s reaction?

Granted, if the stakes were higher, the federal government and both parties would probably be reacting differently. Still, what I have seen so far has not instilled me with confidence that our government is capable of handling a more serious emergency.

First off, let’s consider the jurisdiction argument. The Constitution specifically grants Congress the power to take action and spend to promote the general welfare of the United States. While the general welfare clause has been much abused over the years, taking action to prevent a pandemic from potentially killing thousands of citizens would seem to be a legitimate public welfare goal. Further, the Public Health Service Act specifically permits a national emergency to be declared if a “disease or disorder presents a public health emergency” or in the case of “significant outbreaks of infectious diseases.”

Having established that it is a proper government role to prepare the country for a pandemic, let’s look at the federal government’s response. The good news is that the Trump Administration took the pro-active step of limiting immigration from China back in January when the extent of the epidemic there became clear. The bad news is that the Administration’s steps since then have been much more muddled and less effective.

At this point, it is impossible to get an accurate count of COVID-19 cases in the US because of a shortage of test kits. Early test kits were inaccurate because of a faulty component. That problem has been resolved but the kits are still in short supply due to high worldwide demand and production that simply can’t keep up.

There have been other missteps as well. For example, After American evacuees from Wuhan were brought into the US in February, a whistleblower reported that they were met by health workers without protective gear and who were not tested for the virus. Several patients who were supposed to be under quarantine left their homes to travel, possibly infecting hundreds of others in the process. As recently as yesterday, a former photographer for the Chicago Tribune tweeted that she flew into O’Hare from Spain and was not questioned about exposure to the virus or examined for symptoms.

https://twitter.com/NancyLStone/status/1238282634041733122?s=20

Through it all, President Trump’s response has been inconsistent. Like elected officials in disaster movies, too often the president has seemed more focused on the election rather than preventing the spread of the disease and treating those who are at risk. There are reports that President Trump overruled a CDC plan to recommend that seniors, the most at-risk group for the Coronavirus, limit their air travel to help contain the disease. At the same time, the president said that he would prefer not to let cruise ship passengers who had been exposed to the disease enter the US where they could be treated and quarantined. As other organizations cancel public gatherings, the Trump campaign continues to hold rallies and the president continues to shake hands with supporters, even after an infected CPAC attendee exposed members of Congress to the virus. The president has, however, cited the Coronavirus as a reason to build the wall, a claim the director of the CDC rejects. Even after President Trump was exposed to the Coronavirus by a Brazilian official, the White House said that the president is not being tested for the disease and presumably will not subject himself to quarantine either. The president is setting a poor example for the country.

In fact, much of the information put out by the president has been bad. The president has been among those who pooh-poohed the severity of the disease, at one point saying that it would “miraculously” disappear by April, a statement disputed by the CDC. He has claimed that COVID-19 has been contained within the United States, that testing is available to anyone who wants it, and even that people infected by the virus should go to work. None of these claims are true.

Much of the Trump Administration’s response to the pandemic has been economic rather than health-related. Seeking to contain the damage that has been done to the stock market over the past week, the president has proposed a payroll tax cut and bailouts for affected industries. A travel ban directed at Europe seems to have been added as an afterthought and coincidentally exempts three nations that are home to Trump golf resorts.

At this point, the travel ban seems like a case of closing the barn door after the calf is out. COVID-19 is already present in the United States and apparently spreading quickly. As of this writing, there are 1,663 confirmed cases and likely many more that have not been identified. With the virus spreading inside our borders, restrictions would have to include domestic travel to be effective.

While the president was willing to declare a national emergency over migrant caravans approaching the southern border, he has so far been unwilling to do so with regard to the pandemic. Emergency measures to contain the virus within the US would undercut Mr. Trump’s claim that the virus is less severe than the “Fake News” and Democrats claim. Election year politics and the president’s previous claims that there is nothing-to-see-here-so-just-move-along make it difficult to acknowledge now that the virus is spreading throughout the country and is not contained at all.

As a conservative, I tend to view the government as inefficient regardless of which party is holding its reins at the time. Given the federal government’s response so far, it is a good thing that the estimated mortality rate of the Coronavirus is “only” about two percent. If we reacted as sloppily to an Ebola outbreak or a biological attack, there is no telling how many Americans would already be dead.

A two-percent mortality rate doesn’t mean that Coronavirus isn’t dangerous, however. The two percent rate is about 20 times the mortality rate of the flu. Germany estimates that about 70 percent of its citizens will become infected with the virus. If only half of the estimated 329 million Americans got sick, the 164.5 million cases would overwhelm the nation’s hospitals. A two percent mortality rate for the sick would mean that more than three million Americans would die from the virus. That’s serious and explains why containment is so important.

Thankfully, state and local governments, as well as private organizations, are picking up the slack. Georgia’s Republican governor asked schools to consider closing and New York deployed the National Guard to one hard-hit town to enforce a containment area and help deliver food to residents. Many organizations are postponing or canceling public gatherings to help prevent the spread of the disease. These closings are not totally altruistic. Few tickets to most events would be sold to a public that is increasingly avoiding crowds of strangers. Some Americans are panicking but others are taking simple precautions such as washing their hands and avoiding close proximity to those who are sneezing and coughing.

The Coronavirus is not Donald Trump’s fault, but it also is not a hoax or fake news. Unfortunately, the president seems to not be up to the task of leading the country through the crisis. Mr. Trump’s failure to rise to the occasion may haunt his re-election prospects much longer than this week’s stock market collapse.

Originally published on The Resurgent

You Can Stick A Fork In Bernie – He’s Done

oe Biden continued to outperform the polls in this week’s wave of Democratic primaries. The former vice president won four of six states outright with Washington still too close to call. At present, Biden leads Sanders by more than 150 delegates and there seems to be little chance for Sanders to make up the difference.

As I pointed out over the weekend, Michigan was last night’s big prize. Sanders won the state in a close race in 2016. This year, Biden won the state by 16 points. The final vote exceeded Biden’s lead in the polls by 10 points.

Here are the results from the March 10 elections:

• Idaho – (20 delegates) – Biden 48.9 – Sanders 42.5
• Michigan (125) – Biden 52.9 – Sanders 36.4
• Mississippi (36) – Biden 81 – Sanders 14.8
• Missouri (68) – Biden 60.1 – Sanders 34.5
• North Dakota (14) – Sanders – 53.3 – Biden 39.8
• Washington (89) – Sanders 32.7 – Biden 32.5 with only 69 percent of precincts reporting

The pattern follows that of Super Tuesday in which Biden runs up the delegate score in states with large minority populations and then holds Bernie to narrow leads in the few states where the Vermont senator wins. If this trend continues, Biden will continue to expand his lead over the coming weeks.

“The window is closing for Bernie. Losing states that he won last time in a scenario where he’s got a clean head to head is pretty damning for his candidacy,” said Doug Herman, a lead mail strategist for Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, told Politico. “The most crucial barometer for him is, ‘Has he expanded his coalition?’ And time after time we see that he hasn’t.”

Even before all the results were in, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), whose endorsement of Joe Biden before the South Carolina primary helped to reshape the race, said that it was time to pull the plug on the debates since Bernie had no path to victory.

“I think when the night is over, Joe Biden will be the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination,” Clyburn told NPR on Tuesday night. “Quite frankly, if the night ends the way it has begun, I think it is time for us to shut this primary down, it is time for us to cancel the rest of these debates. Because you don’t do anything but get yourself in trouble if you continue in this contest when it’s obvious that the numbers will not shake out for you.”

With Sanders consistently underperforming his 2016 numbers, it seems that his relative success that year was less about his movement than about Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity. Bernie’s wave of support seems to have been built around a Democratic Never Hillary movement that abandoned him when there were more candidates to choose from.

Unless there is a major change in the structure of the race, Sanders has no path to the nomination and will eventually be mathematically eliminated. With four big primaries coming up next week, all in states won by Clinton in 2016, Biden has the chance to expand his lead even further.

Bernie’s days are numbered, but the question remains whether Joe Biden will be able to bring his voters into the Democratic fold. In states like Michigan, Democrats are sharply divided among the two camps, but polling shows a very close general election race. Democrats will need every available voter to carry the state.

My personal prediction is that most Bernie Bros will rally around Biden for the simple reason that they hate Trump more. As I described back in April 2019, Bernie supporters don’t like Biden because they don’t see him as progressive enough, but still hold the attitude that “at least he’s not Donald Trump,” similar to the way that Republicans held their noses and voted for Trump in 2016 because he wasn’t Hillary.

As one Bernie supporter told me at the time, “I could take literally any other Democratic candidate other than Joe, but I will vote for him if I have to.”

It looks like she will.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Biden Could Clinch Nomination In Next Few Weeks

Joe Biden’s stunning turnaround and the decision of most of the Democratic candidates to suspend their campaigns have dramatically reshaped the primary campaign. A race that looked likely to be contested up to the convention now looks as though it may be resolved within the next month.

The Biden campaign had been all but written off by many observers when two solid debate performances and blowout victory in South Carolina turned the tide of the campaign. Realizing that the only way to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination was to line up in support of Biden, the other moderate Democrats suspended their campaigns and endorsed the former vice president, paving the way for Joe’s surprisingly extensive victories on Super Tuesday. Since the middle of February, Biden has gained 10 points in the national polling average while Sanders has dropped three points.

Following Super Tuesday, Biden now leads Sanders in the delegate race by 595 to 528. To win the nomination, a candidate needs 1,991 delegates.

The big prize for the March 10 wave of primaries next week is Michigan with 125 delegates. None of the other five primary states that day have more than 100 delegates.

Recent Michigan polling reflects the same shift that has been evident in the rest of the country. A mid-February poll showed Sanders up by nine points while a poll taken between February 28 and March 3 found Biden up by six.

The Sanders campaign has been confident about Michigan, having won there in 2016 and with Biden have very little in the way of organization there. However, Politico reports that Biden led the Vermont senator by 20 points in early absentee voting even before the momentum of Super Tuesday was apparent.

“This thing could be over for all intents and purposes in three weeks,” Paul Maslin, a top Democratic pollster who worked on the presidential campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean, told Politico. “It’s done unless Joe makes some horrible mistake. He will win blacks 75-25 minimum from here on in. He doesn’t have Hillary’s negatives. And people want to beat Trump big time. This race is over.”

“Everybody wants to get on the bandwagon now,” Barry Goodman, a bundler for Biden in Michigan, said. “I think if Joe wins [Michigan] by 10, Bernie may not leave yet. But the following weeks, when he loses by 10 in Florida, Mississippi, and Georgia, I think it’s done.”

March 17 is a big day for Democrats with primaries in four states, three of which have more than 100 delegates. Florida, Ohio, and Illinois are big primaries on St. Patrick’s Day. Biden leads in Florida, the only state of the three with recent polling.

Georgia, another strong Biden state, follows on March 24 with 105 delegates. The next big primaries after that are not until April 28 when New York and Pennsylvania vote.

If the Biden surge continues, he can be expected to start opening his lead on Sanders over the next few weeks. While Bernie Sanders is not the sort of candidate who can be expected to easily fall in line and join the Biden train, at some point, it will become apparent that he will be mathematically eliminated from winning a plurality of delegates.

As Bernie falls behind Biden in the popular vote, he will also lose his ability to claim a right to the nomination if no one wins the nomination outright. Democrats are speaking and what they are saying is that they want a more moderate candidate than Bernie. Democratic voters are prioritizing the ability to appeal to a large share of the electorate to beat Donald Trump over the radical change preferred by social media progressives.

Perhaps a bigger question for the next few months than who will be the Democratic nominee is how Sanders supporters will react to a loss by their candidate. Will the Bernie Bros rally around Joe Biden or will they repeat their mistake from 2016 and stay home, allowing Donald Trump to repeat his narrow Electoral College victory?

Originally posted on The Resurgent