Sooooo .... Iowa's happening tomorrow and it is looking to be an absolute nightmare. It's a thread guys.

The polls have been super weird but ... well this is why this is a thread.

A month or so ago the polls made it seem like Sanders was a lock for Iowa. I chalked that up to Iowa being white and Sanders being really good at disenfranchising minority voices. But since then there's been a steady stream of Sanders scandals so his numbers ... well ... thread.

What happened to Sanders' poll numbers was weird. When he was caught in a lie about Warren his poll numbers went up. When he was caught in a lie about Biden they went down. It's tempting to chalk this up to misogyny, but I think in this case it has more to do with overlap.

And then of course it wasn't just Sanders being caught in a string of lies. He also was revealed at about the same time as someone who is supportive of George Wallace and Joe Rogan, and there's been several articles out about the misadventures of his surrogates and supporters.

So weird stuff happened as a result. His campaign got super aggressive and upped the harassment campaigns it had ... everywhere ... which may be why his numbers are fluctuating all over the place. I'll explain.

The harassment has temporarily silenced voters who don't like Sanders. Most of them are still voting but their preferences aren't necessarily appearing in the polls. Social media accounts have gone into private or lock-down mode meaning you can't necessarily see dissent.

So that might give the idea that there's more support for Sanders or at least less disillusionment in him than there actually is which in turn could influence polling.

But twitter is twitter and polls are polls so people who were undecided might be a little more one way or another, but that's it. I didn't do a regression, but my impression is that Sanders is trending downwards. Could be wishful thinking. Dude's a nightmare.

Last I eyeballed them though Biden is tied with Sanders in the Iowa caucus and way out in front for basically everything else. Again, Biden's not as good as HRC but a literal bag of hair is better than Sanders so this is Biden's primary to lose if Sanders is seriously 2nd place.

But my point with noting this is Sanders was originally slated to win Iowa and now it's a toss up. AND Iowa's a caucus so everyone who's candidate scores below I think 15% can choose a second favourite. That's to Biden's almost exclusive advantage.

A lot of the people in Warren's camp overlap with Sanders, but she looks like she's going to hit over 15% meaning hers stay hers. Yang is likely to fail but his supporters have basically said they won't switch. Klobuchar's and most others will go Biden.

Aaaaand here's where we get to the underhanded part of all this. Politico is usually a bit absurdly pro-BS, but in this case they are actually calling him to the carpet. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/02/berniesanders-campaigniowa-results-110318

Now, yeah, in the past few days Sanders and his campaign have made a bunch of false statements because they know they won't be fact-checked prior to the Iowa caucus. For example, no, he can't make pot legal in all 50 states, nor can he erase student debt. Congress does that.

Promises he fully intends to break are bad, but this whole thing he's planning to do with Iowa is ... I dunno how you can be a lawmaker and even THINK of doing what his campaign is planning to do. It's so disgustingly unDemocratic he's just clearly an oligarch.

For those of you who don't want to read the article what he plans to do is declare victory at the first or second round and convince all the caucus-goers that their services are no longer needed.

BS's doing this because past the second round he won't gain any votes. But, of course, Biden needs that third round to gain or increase his lead in Iowa. He probably hopes to use this to claim "momentum" and "grassroots," but yeah he's just disenfranchising voters.

And of course keep in mind that Sanders and his base have already successfully convinced a lot of black Iowans to just stay home and not vote at all. Rather awful of him but racism and autocracy are Sanders' brand.

But yeah, I don't have a magic ball so I dunno what's going to happen in Iowa but it's not looking great. The DNC's going to try to keep it democratic but there's already huge flashing neon lights that it's going to devolve.