If Biden enters the race, predict the primary results for IA, NH, SC

[MBplayer]

IA, NH = Sanders in a close race. Clinton 2, Biden 3
SC = Biden, wide margin Clinton 2, Sanders 3

[polichick]

1. Biden is a nice guy, but imo his time has come and gone - like the Clinton/Bush families.

[MBplayer]

4. Interesting, no one wants to predict...

The anti-Biden sentiment on this site is interesting. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems the higher the education level, the less they like him.

[polichick]

5. I like Joe as a person, but I'm not a voter who wants to elect someone based...

upon whether he'd be fun to have a beer with.

I'll have a beer with Biden.
HRC can be in my book club.
Bill and the Bushes can take a flying leap.

But we, the people, need a paradigm shift - and none of them helps with that.

[HereSince1628]

13. I probably wouldn't drink a beer with Biden, as a person he's a complete unknown to me

I could be pleasantly surprised.

Yes. I could be.

But then, I don't like surprises and don't make myself readily available to them.

I wouldn't have a problem with HRC in my book club, but my book club mostly reads Clancy and Brown novels. If you don't like burning aircraft on the cover...move along we've got nothing for you.

What I DO like especially is people who can sing songs that resonate with their own lives. That -ought- to make me an OMalley fan, but I do like Sanders on This Land Is Your Land.

And yes, It IS MY LAND!!!!!!!!

[brooklynite]

7. What "anti-Biden" sentiment?

I like him very much. I've had lunch with him. I've talked policy with him. I don't think he's going to run. Just like I predicted that Elizabeth Warren wasn't going to run.

[MineralMan]

11. I don't think he'll run either, but

the same people who are opposing Hillary Clinton will oppose Joe Biden, too, and for the same reasons. You can count on it. It just won't happen unless he decides to run.

The opposition is against establishment Democrats, whoever they are. It's there, it's angry, and it's noisy. It's also a minority opposition that will not affect who the nominee is, I'm certain.

[monmouth4]

2. If Biden were a Repub he wouldn't make the debate lineup. Hope he decides not to run..n/t

[MineralMan]

3. Nope. I don't think so.

Biden will pull 10% from Clinton's voters, 5% from Bernie, and most of O'Malley's votes. Hillary Clinton will still win.

But, I don't think Biden will actually join the campaign. He's going to be a Clinton supporter and will campaign for her.

[askew]

9. He'll campaign in the general for whoever is the nominee.

Obama and Biden will be neutral until then.

[MineralMan]

10. Yes. Of course. I didn't mean to imply

otherwise.

What I think is that a lot of people don't seem to take into account how much Obama and Biden's endorsement and campaign assistance will help the candidate. It is one of the main reasons we will have a Democratic President taking office in 2017.

[brooklynite]

6. Sanders chance of winning Iowa: 25%; New Hampshire: 40%; SC: 10%

Iowa is actually not that easy to win, especially if you don't have the paid full-time staff. He has a better shot at New Hampshire because of size and proximity to VT, but if Clinton could be Obama, she can beat Sanders.

[askew]

8. Biden is a better debater and is more likeable than Hillary.

He is also more well-known. When running in 2008, he was just one of the interchangeable old white guys (Dodd, Biden, Gravel).

He's also done more in 1/2 his life in politics than Hillary did in her entire career.

If he got in, I see this happening:

IA - Biden, O'Malley, Hillary, Sanders (Iowans always flirt with the lefty firebrands but don't caucus for them)
NH - Biden, Sanders, Hillary, O'Malley
NV - Hillary, Biden, O'Malley, Sanders
SC - Biden, Hillary, Sanders, O'Malley

After that, Sanders and O'Malley drop out leaving Biden and Hillary to slug it out.

[elleng]

14. As is O'Malley, a better debater and more likeable than Hillary.

The rest?

[kenfrequed]

12. It is sort of a wild card

Biden isn't going to pull a bit from Hillary. His running as a non-presumptive Veep maims him coming out of the gate. However, it will pull people from Hillary due to name recognition and... well... he is the VP. Sanders supporters are a bit more solid and less likely to move as much, at least initially.

If Hillary drops below 50% then the whole thing is blasted open. There will be a flush towards every non-Hillary candidate as she suddenly looks beatable again. Some of this will be temporary. Webb and Chafee will pick up a bit as Biden grabs a decent chunk. Sanders will pick up a few points and probably hold onto them. The Veep entering the race will become a big story that will soak up news cycles that the Webb, Chafee, and Sanders would like to have. It also gets the focus off of Hillary, again.

Hillary will be freed to run any direction she likes with Biden in the race but will probably still play it way too safe.

Eventually Chafee will through his thin support towards Biden or Sanders. O'Malley will go next and he will toss his support to Hillary to try to shore up her progressive cred. This would probably happen shortly after Warren (inevitably) endorses Sanders. Webb will actually scoop some of whatever Blue Dog absurdity still lingers in the party his support will be regional and he might try running as a populist though with the acknowledgement of Lieberman he will crash and burn pretty quickly. He will throw support behind whoever the front runner is or quietly slip away.

That leaves Clinton, Biden, and Sanders. The mini endorsement bumps are going to be more about wonkish media bullshit than anything else so anything like that will slip away. People that went for one of the smaller candidates after Biden jumps in will do some reevaluation as their candidate slips away and may jump on with whoever happens to have energy and moment at that point.

Of course none of this happens until the first debates anyhow and I really think that Biden isn't running. Many of the media speculators of Biden are really sort of pushing for Hillary and desperately trying to create any story that doesn't involve Bernie Sanders or the issues while desperately hoping to hamstring him with a Howard Dean bullshit thing.

[betterdemsonly]

15. He has a constituency among the same people that were into Mayor Bloomberg's Unity campaign.

He has run for President several times and has never been a contender. If he is running at his age, and with all his personal problems it is an indication Hillary is going down in flames and bankers are swinging desperately to have a horse in the race. For some reason beltway denizens believe he has some sort of cache with the working class, despite being the man from mbna America and a supporter of the bankruptcy bill. The bankruptcy bill made it more difficult to declare bankruptcy even if you were paying off medical bills.