The vote count doesn’t matter in Iowa. If you want to start talking about vote tallies, talk about primaries. And you’re right, in New Hampshire, Sanders won by just over a percentage point (or about 4,000 votes). But welcome to the world of proportional allocation. It kept Sanders in the race last time despite…

Honestly, I’m not implying anything of the kind. I’m just acknowledging that right now, a contested convention is the most likely way Sanders is actually named the nominee, but Sanders being named the nominee is probably the third of fourth most likely outcome of a contested convention.

How do you feel about a contested convention? 

I’m not telling you how to feel. I’m saying that if you think that’s the primary reasoning behind the swing, you’re saying it’s a bunch of women making a purely emotional vote. I’m sure that describes some aspect of how those women are feeling—as I think was implied when I explained why they didn’t go to Buttigieg…

I’m not trying to make you like him, but just because you don’t like him doesn’t mean he is unskilled. Again, shoot for intellectual honesty.

Well, first, Buttigieg is remarkably skilled and second, as I’m sure you’ve probably heard, men with skills are often afforded opportunities that skilled women have to learn to do without.

In a crowded field, it’s more an indication of name recognition. Making due despite organizational and name recognition liabilities is a greater indication of skill.

Based on what? I mean, my supposition fits with what happened and would seem to directly contradict your experience—or at least challenge its relevance.

Because she lacked the fundraising organization or campaign infrastructure to keep her name in the news by herself, and when you get an early bounce but lack the organizational infrastructure to capitalize on it, that bounce becomes a “moment.”

I’m not saying they picked her because she’s a woman. Although her being a woman was likely viewed as a positive to this specific demo, I’m saying they picked her because they generally liked her and because the media reinforced the narrative over and over that it was basically a three-way race. And in that context,…

He’s actually not leading. He’s tied and technically slightly behind Pete Buttigieg. And again, my hypothesis is that the white, educated female voter that is the bedrock of Warren’s support were never supporting her primarily on policy grounds.

I don’t know. I think Klobuchar has played this really well. I think you’re assuming that Warren’s support was more about policy than it was the most viable alternative to Biden and Sanders.

I’m not saying she wanted to poll in the single digits. I’m saying she likely didn’t see a viable path out of single digits that could be sustained in this environment.

It’s not that perplexing. The voters we’re talking about are some of the more pragmatic voters you’re going to find. They may have liked Warren’s policy proposals, but they mostly understand that Warren’s policy wishlist has very little relationship to what a Warren presidency could hope to achieve. So they really…

If anybody was running to lose, it was Warren (and obviously Sanders, whose path to victory leads through a contested convention only he and his supporters think they want). Klobuchar was running not to lose. She was cautious. She’s was patient. She was all the things all the failed candidates should have been but…

See though, even in that scenario, the balance of the senate goes from 50-50 to 50-49, in which case, the Republicans will be the de facto majority—for at least the first few months. 

It would be temporary in both states, but it will take at least three months to schedule a special election. That’s 100 days. 

I don’t think those are particularly well-founded assumptions. She entered the race as a not-particularly visible senator from the midwest. She staked out a policy platform designed to appeal to a specific subset of the electorate that were going to default to Biden—but that she seems to have assumed would abandon him…

She doesn’t have to supplant Buttigieg to become viable. She just has to supplant both Biden and Warren, and while it’s still a work in progress, even in finishing third, she did just receive more votes than the two of them combined.

I don’t think it’s hindsight that says that Warren set her sights on a strategy that could only work if she managed to get Sanders to step aside willfully and without resentment. I don’t think it’s hindsight that suggests that was a poor strategy.