Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe gives his takeaway from Wednesday’s debate and what four moderates splitting the moderate vote could mean for the 2020 campaign on Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’
DAVID PLOUFFE: There was a poll in California this week, which I’m sure the actual results will not mirror that totally. He was the only one viable statewide, he was at 32. Everybody else is under 15. It means he would get all of the statewide delegates.
So at the end of the day, on March 4th, while we’re still counting votes and delegates, if somebody has not emerged as somebody who is getting in the 25, 28, 29, that can be a contender, Bernie Sanders in all likelihood is the nominee unless it gets taken from him at the convention. So that’s the way I judge this debate, who is on a trajectory. And I don’t think you know because think you have a bunch of people that are carving up a bunch of the vote and the question is in the next two weeks, is that going to change? …
That’s why the question that Chuck Todd asked was so important. Bernie Sanders said, whoever is the pledged delegate leader should be the nominee. Every other candidate refused to say that.
If we go into the convention and Bernie Sanders has 1,400 delegates let’s say and someone else has 1,350, I think it’s fair we’ll have a debate in Milwaukee. But if Bernie Sanders walks in the convention with a delegate lead in the hundreds, and he has all the support from the young people in particular, we’re really going to have the party bosses come in and say, ‘Thanks for playing, you did the best, we’re going to give it to somebody else.’ So I think that was really revealing because I think the rest of the field thinks that Bernie Sanders is going to lead in the delegates, in all likelihood.
