Joe Henderson
The Florida primary arrives unfashionably late next Tuesday. The drama has all but vanished from the Democrats’ race for the presidential nomination. After a smashing night Tuesday, highlighted by a massive win in Michigan, Joe Biden seems assured of the nomination.
He also appears headed for a landslide victory in our state. That was before the result in Michigan, by the way.
A poll by Florida Atlantic University has Biden ahead of Bernie Sanders by 36 points. That’s terrible for cable news squawkers because if that holds, they’ll call the election for Biden about 3 seconds after the polls close.
What will they talk about for the rest of the night?
Twenty-five states and four U.S. territories will have voted before Florida. That’s ridiculous for the third-largest state.
How did Florida end up near the back of the line?
The Legislature, under pressure from Republicans and Democrats, actually set that date. Remember what happened when lawmakers bucked the system in 2008 by scheduling the primary in January. Maybe they were still counting ballots in Palm Beach by then; I can’t be sure.
Anyway, in retribution for that affront, the Democratic National Committee stripped the state of its delegates at the convention. For some reason, leaders of both parties believe Florida’s importance during the primary season needs to be limited.
Opinions vary on that, by the way. Some Democratic leaders saw the bloated field of candidates this year and opined that the late date gave the state a prime spot. They saw hand-to-hand political combat to earn the favor of Florida voters. They saw a major focus on the Sunshine State.
“This year, the way it is shaping up, it is going to make Florida very much in play,” Democrat Eric Johnson told Politico back in December. “It looks like we could come out of Super Tuesday without clarity. Right now, there quite possibly could be different winners in each of the early states.”
So much for that notion. Biden built on his South Carolina win and blitzed Sanders on Super Tuesday. The moderates who were splitting the Florida vote united behind Biden. Blowout city. That essentially made the Florida primary a victory lap.
It also meant Elizabeth Warren’s strong ground game in Florida was a waste. Mike Bloomberg invested heavily in staffers throughout Florida, but presumably, they’ll be in place for Biden in the general election.
All this shows how whacked the primary system continues to be.
Democrats spent months trying to woo caucus voters in Iowa, only to find state party leaders didn’t know how to count. New Hampshire is home to about 1.35 million hearty souls. That’s about half the number of people who live in the Tampa Bay area.
Yet, Biden’s campaign was dangling by a silk thread until South Carolina gave him momentum. It raises the question of why Iowa and New Hampshire should have an outsized influence?
It’s ridiculous.
We’ll go through the process next Tuesday because that’s what we do. But if Biden loses Florida in November, national Democrats may rue the time he wasted in Iowa and New Hampshire when he could have been in Florida.
