several states been in the democratic presidential primary and having states holding congressional primaries today, alabama, arkansas,north carolina and texas . >> watch our live campaign 2020 super tuesday coverage of the presidential primary caucuses from 14 states including alabama, arkansas, california, colorado, maine , massachusetts, minnesota, oklahoma, tennessee, texas, utah, vermont and virginia with candidate speeches and results. coverage begins life today at 7 pm eastern on c-span, at cspan.org or listen from wherever you are with the free c-span radio app. >> joining us, kyle kondik of

the center for politics managing editor. good morning, thanks for joining us. >> my people about what you do and the information you bring particularly today. >> santos crystal ball is a weekly newsletter although we will be publishing or frequently now because there's so much going on, a free newsletter about americancampaigns . we handicap general elections try to pick the winners for the electoral college, senate, house, governors and we're trying to assess the state of the democratic primary race which seems to be moving and changing and what part of the university of virginia center for politics. i'm based up here in washington dc but most everyone else is based in the university in charlottesville . >> what's different from the super tuesday to previous cycles? >> there is a lot more influx right now because you have two major candidates drop out in the last day or so, pete

buttigieg and amy klobuchar and there's an effort by democratic leaders to send a message to voters saying we want you all to vote for joe biden. it's up to you but we think joe biden is the better option. we suggest you vote for him. klobuchar and buttigieg dropping out and endorsing biden suggests the threat that democratic leaders feel from the sanders nomination. i'm not going to tell you they are necessarily right but that's what they're communicating and it seems to be having some effect. breaking survey about this morning over so by doing great. basically virginia north carolina seem like they were closing: i always thought biden was favored in them, now it looks like you might windows eight by double digits . you also have a big chunk of early votes cast in states like north carolina, texas and california so there are probably hundreds of thousands of people across various voted for candidates s

were no longer in the race. if tom stier drops out, a lot of those boats will basically be wasted. so again, it's an uncertain environment and here's a key iway in a different on the republican side, republican leaders in want donald trump to be the nominee. some of them tried to make that clear but never were able to coalesce around anyone in the voters who came to dislike the party leadership said we don't care, we're going to nominate trump and they were right, he won reedit slice and dice it however you want but the leader of therepublican leadership wanted in 08 , they lost, from one so i think for a lot of people it's as simple as that. democrats don't dislike nearly as much as republicans do so maybe some democrats are listening to this they're hearing about sanders. >> of the total amount of delegates that are available today, was the victory look like a candidates involved?

what state want and whofavor. >> versus north or rather versus the rest of thecountry because the west is ofpart of that . we're expecting bernie sanders to win california. bowling has indicated he said when it comfortably although even california is getting closer and even though many votes have been cast , i think the majority of the vote is still out there and in california , as long as your balance is postmarked today it will be counted so california vote count will take weeks, were not going to know for a long time to actually get specifically what delegates but that's the biggest delicate prize if you can win any single state, california is the oneyou choose . sanders looked certain when it is going to get delegates out of that, maybe not as big an advantage as we would have fought a week ago red states like massachusetts, elizabeth warren trying to defend her home state . there might be some late movement the war and because of buttigieg and klobuchar dropping out, some of those

voters amongst those three candidate. minnesota, any klobuchar that sanders is now favored to win but it biden were to search in that state it might tell us positive things about the midwest and northeast then the staff and this is where you've got six of the 11 states of the classically defined south, seven if you include oklahoma in that group and this is where biden beis going to be tempered because i personally think that brandon biden could have at least not now without winning every southern state but i think biden should win every southern state but one of course the biggest prize d in the south sanders has been leading there a lot of early votes have been at the polls are picking up on late movement towards biden. if i can say anyone statewide i think texas will be the one to watch. >> will drill into that but let me introduce folks, 748-8000 four democrats, republicans 202 and 48,001

and independence, 2027 48,002 and you can test us 202748 8003. if you have questions for about super tuesday, make those calls and we will take them momentarily. like texas ? >> it's the second largest private estate where i mention biden is strong in the south, part of the reason is and does so well with black voters and unlike the other southern states, texas is a very diverse population but that diversity comes more from hispanic americans and from african-americans. sanders has performed much better with hispanics and he has with lax . so that texas is different from the rest of the south, is classically defined again and some people might think n of it as more of a western state but we saw in the one referenced a nevada, bernie sanders and part of that was his strength withhispanic voters . so i think dthat why sanders and then we read there are also a lot of white

suburbanites in that state who may be getting the signal right now that biden is the person to vote for and we r.didn't even mention michael bloomberg has spent this outrageous amount ofmoney and this is his first test on the ballot .st personally i think the race is making a terrible way for him because all of these, after biden won south carolina, there would be signals to people who both provided . and so barbara as of today, it's possible you might win a state or two but i couldn't point to anyone and say favored. >> as he visited those asport as it had depending on ? >> .then all over the place that spending and i also think bloomberg come across all that well in the, these have become important particularly the first one he was and was widely watched . the clichc you only get one chance in first impression, the first impression i think a lot of people have

advertising, but political science research essentially argues that while advertising and have some effects effects of advertising in the world and also if you're ever every day withadvertising , it may, there may be diminishing returns for that, people may even say that and i would argue for my name, doesn't have a lot of money you have been running a lot of what you in terms of positive, what we call in the pr world media over the past couple of days is more valuable than anything over 10 by the put on television i think is not only did he prove himself in south carolina and when is the one byline, he also has gotten this amongst the nonstandard part of the party with klobuchar and buttigieg coming out for him and also beto o'rourke. >> when it comes to joe biden

is there an accidental debate going onon what the democratic party is ? >> i think this race boils down to basically sanders versus biden or the nomination d, voters are going to have clear choices i know a lot of policy think they aresimilar, better just more left-wing on a lot of things . also, what the sanders would tell you and is a legitimate point is might be able to argue against him from because he doesn't have some of the baggage that biden has and physically biden's support of the iraq war which even though trump government when the iraq war was happening and arguably supported at the time to, he was able to fashion himself as an iraqi warcritic and as a critic of george bush arab foreign policy . basically get to the left of biden on foreign policy matters, i don't think he can against sanders. and i think there are other things but i think biden has

talked about we are going to have big tent democratic party, we're going to be liberal but not too liberal, we're going to work with republicans which is an appealing message to a lot of people. sanders is like we're not going to work with republicans, they can't work with us. he talked about political revolution, to have a liberal president pursuing a progressive agenda and proposing things likemedicare for all that biden does not support . >> again kyle kondik our guest until 9:00 for questions about super tuesday. sergio is in florida, pompano beach,you're on with our guest . >> good morning gentlemen, how are you? yes kyle, i was impressed yesterday with everybody coming together and endorsing joe biden and what have you. that shows the strength of unity. my question is do you think that elizabeth warren has a

chance for michael bloomberg to rise to the occasion in super tuesday? >> guest: great question and an important question. i think buttigieg and klobuchar getting out help for them to in that remember in all the democratic primary contests you have 15 percent delegate threshold hit so you need to get 15 percent in a given state to get some share of the delegates. and also in individual congressional districts andin some states they are allocated like in texas at state senate districts . but the point is that klobuchar and buttigieg getting out, don't assume all the voters are going to go just to biden or sanders. it's going to be a mix . you see biden may benefit more than anybody else but for someone like warren or

bloomberg was pulling at 12 or 13 percent, if they get 15 or 16 they're going to start hitting delegate thresholdand a lot of places and the delicate picture will be muddier coming out of super tuesday and that means those two candidates are still in the game even though biden and sanders will have significantly more delegates . >> delegate threshold, explain what that is . >> guest: the way delegates allocate is proportional, in 2016 it was different like ohio, the only state john kasich one, he picked up all the delegates, there were other states like that . delegates democrats rules are all the same all over the place. it is 15 percent report threshold to get delegates and a statewide level and also some statewide level which is usually a congressional district so the state of california, you could look at that as before individual contests within that state. there's a significant block of delegates awarded

statewide, hundred 44 but then there are about 270 or so, 415 total delegates in california that are awarded in each of the 53 congressional districts and these congressional districts are a lot different. once that are going to be heavily african-american it may be possible that biden is the only candidate who get delegates out of those places . districts that are more maybe younger or more hispanic or what have you, maybe sanders is the only person with this threshold and the only other thing about california is the vote count is going to take weeks and there's no conspiracy about it, it's not incompetence, it's just that's how they do it out there. they spend a lot of time to verify the ballots so we can't make any judgments about california for weeks, even though that's the biggest source of delegates and also it's going to be where sanders gets probably the most delegates in his biggest delegate lead of any state. one other point, based on our

own assessment and many analysts assessments, a lot of us were coming in today assuming sanders was going to finish with more delegates . i think that's probably the case that we have to account with this late changing environment in which biden teams to be creeping up and if sanders comes out of today with a delegate lead only in double digits as opposed to triple digits, that's potentially an issue for him. >> host: this is lissa from twitter saying that starting with bloomberghas been virtually ignored, if he makes a killing today does that change the race ? >> it might and that i think is probably bad or worse for biden and for sanders. you see biden and bloomberg competing for the more voters than the other two are focompeting for for sanders although again, all sorts of different voters at the ways of looking at it.it's easy for people like me to say lisanders is liberal and bloomberg and biden are more centrist so therefore

everyone who thinks of himself as a centrist will vote for bidenor bloomberg , that's not how it works. there are a lot of people who would be fine with having either biden or sanders totally they are a lot different . but look, bloomberg starts hitting the 15 percent threshold, he starts articulating delegates and next time we have a debate scheduled for march 15. it's probably going to be for people on the stage or less at some of these other candidates get out soda you are candidates they are, the dimore it elevates the status of everyone else and of course whatever problems bloomberg may have as a candidate i'm not saying his money doesn't matter, i think it does matter it's just some things are more valuable than money and what biden has enjoyed the last couple of days is more valuable than money. >> host: early idaho is next up, jesse. jesse from idaho, hello. >> caller: hello. >> host: you are on, go ahead . >> caller: i was calling

because earlier you had a collar in there and he was suggesting that bernie sanders is representing the democratic party and that's not a true democrat. and d i said i kind of think well, the president isn't really a true republican as the republicans were and he's not really giving anybody up on the republican ticket to run against him. they're not giving them a chance there and so while i'm not a complete going for all the things that bernie sanders is for, i do agree on medicare for all. and. >> we've got your point, jesse. >> i think in some ways, sanders is distanced from the

leadership of hisown party . is an asset i think for some voters, there are a lot of people like sanders who don't like the partyleadership who don't like people like joe biden . and i think the president renovated from the two in 2016 red as i think i mentioned earlier, i do think that republicans based voters are a little more skeptical of their own leadership and democratic based voters are and we might be seeing evidence of that in this in this shift towards biden which i think is written to some degree i the messaging coming from elite members of the democratic party. the other thing too is that the way that the nomination process has been opened up in recent decades, you don't really have to be a republican in good standing for a democrat formerly in good standing to win the nomination. these parties have sort of, they ceded all of the institutional power and

selecting the money to certainly the voters themselves and in some states , independence and cross over and vote the democratic primary, republicans to switch their affiliation or whatnot and also frankly, there's some research that suggests that the parties have ceded to the media in some degree because who ends up doing well in some cases, may be determined by how much the media coverage they that was a big thing with donald he was willing to be on television . he was his rallies, they were interesting and entertaining vi to a lot of people and all of that coverage can, just like i would say all of the coverage of biden has helped him in recent days . now to me, that's more driven by actual events in that he did win big in south carolina and two of the major candidates dropping out and endorsing him are in fact extremely newsworthy events, worthy of live coverage and of analysis and whatnot but the power, what's the press decides to cover and again,

the press is not a monolithic thing either. that can help determine which candidates are on the spotlight and who are not. i've seen a lot of complaints from elizabeth warren supporters that she hasn't had the coverage she deserves and i think a lot of candidates who may not be pulling where they want to be , i think it's natural to blame the press sometimes were not getting coverage but you have to do certain things wget coverage. >> we talked about the state earlier, texas is next. republican line, jean, hello. >> are you this morning west : and mark i love washington journal but i get to the point now that i have to turn it off sometimes when it's not conducive oto my spiritual well-being. anyway, my call is that i am not a trump fan but i voted for him, i voted early and i voted for him as the democrats scared the heck out of me.

the willingness of people wiwanting to vote for anybody, no matter what their policyis . just to vote against trump. is not responsible. and they, you know, we don't know what is going to do. we don't know how he's going to make medicare for all and pay for it. is he going to have open iborders? is he going to, how is he going to dispute the money, everybody thinks they're going to be as rich people, and if he studies socialism, that's not the wayit works . >> thanks for the call. >> your thing, i think that yes, a lot of democrats are motivated to vote against trump and frankly i think there are going to be a lot of republicans motivated to vote against lori clinton in

2016 and also whoever the democratic nominee is being reared there's this phenomenon in american politics called negative partisanship coined by a political scientist alan abramowitz and stephen webster was done on a great work on that sort of thing but the idea of negative partisanship is that your motor more voting against the other side and for your own t side but there are key policy differences here among the candidates, enrepublicans i think are animated by judicial choices in the back that the president has made judicial choices that republicans have did not like. that's a feather in his cap and for all trumps distinctiveness i think the tax cuts built he signed was any something any republican president would have signed, the other policy decisions the white house made have been satisfactory to the republicans but otherwise democrats disagree with those choices and are going to

rally around whoever the democratic nominee in some being but the question is and this is what immigrant elites fear is that sanders essentially is too far left is going to scareaway , the new members of the democratic coalition, namely highly educated applicant's urbanites where you will find all sorts of people like that. trump only won by nine so there are substantial people who voted or romney and then they voted for a different party but things are based on yes their personality differences but there also based on policy differences and there are things republicans support that democrats hate and vice versa. you have toacknowledge the legitimacy of ththe other side's views i guess . >> the denver channel highlights the fact that in colorado today the first time they are holding a primary. >> guest: at the big trend is that a lot of state and have held caucuses in 2016 have moved more towards primaries to the point that we have iowa and nevada, those are

caucuses although nevada changed the rules so much it was almost a primary if you early voted and it was a caucus that showed up on that saturday. caucuses have been dying out generally speaking and nevada will be moving to a primary soon. maine, minnesota, three huge providence states voting today moved from caucuses, sanders did well last time although i'd say as of right now sanders is probably favored to win all three of those fstates but switched . colorado is probably the safest bet for him although maine probably did pretty good too and minnesota is very much in flux because amy klobuchar may have wanted if she was competing today but she's not. and maybe biden could make some inroads there. that leads to another important thing to watch which is biden is going to do well in the south, maybe he wins every single state in the south. what i would probably guess

right now although texas again is a major?, i think it's a tossup. does biden win anywhere outside the south? does he come close to winning anywhere outside the south because some of the major contests are not going to be in the south. with washington state, missouri next tuesday and the week after that another big day where biden is going to probably win florida but you've got illinois and ohio, those willbe important states . could biden complete compete outside the south? let's look for signs of that, does he come close to minnesota or massachusetts or maine , does he hit the delegate threshold in colorado or utah, that will show more strength for biden going forward even if he doesn't carry anything outside the south. >> another southern state, tennessee. >> tennessee is a state where the african-american population is not as big as south carolina or some of the

other southern states . there was some indication a couple days ago that sanders might be able to take that one off but it seems like things are trending more in biden's direction that we don't have a lot of data for tennessee, arkansas, oklahoma, they're just states again that are a little bit whiter overall, a little bit more white working class and in the midst of all of the horrible wreckage for sanders in south carolina, according to the exit poll he did carry white voters who could not have afforded a college degree and there are more of those voters in tennessee, arkansas, oklahoma so if sanders is going to spring an upset in the south outside of texas, where he has demographic advantages maybe you look at one of those three states but as we're sitting here right now i think what you're seeing in the south and in the polling suggests to me that biden should be favored in all of those. >> there were six people killed as a result of tornado in nashville in tennessee, out of the impact super tuesday ? how does it get modified?

>> i don't think the process is modified at all. i think that you maybe look for there's a natural disaster going on and it may distract people from voting. this is one of the arguments for early voting is that it gives people more of a timeline, a longer timeframe to vote and that if something doeshappen either to them or to the community on election day , that they will have already been able to vote. the downside of early voting is that sometimes you vote for someone who drops out of the race and probably hundreds of thousands of people did for any klobuchar and pete buttigieg. >> host: this is kyle kondik joining us, managing editor for crystal ball, find it

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%-%-% 3 -% % 33 - - 3% - 3 - %- %% --%p- -% _ --% p3% --%- % - --%-% _ p oser to the middle perform a little better, but biden does have some liabilities. i think some of the stories that have come out about biden's son are things republicans will use against him, and whether you think that is fair or unfair, that is how the campaigns will unfold. host: from missouri, independent line, tony. caller: yes, also, as far as

concerned, he is will never be able to fulfill these promises as long as the sun is held by the republicans. great point. if you go through what sanders talks about, it is a laundry list of ambitious public policy proposals. if the filibuster still exists in the senate, even if the democrats win the senate majority, are narrowly favored to hold the senate, you are not going to be able to get any of these things done if the senate competition remains republican. this is what a lot of democrats are using as a way to attack sanders. maybe this belief is true. maybe it is not. if sanders were to win, he would not generate the necessary coattails to carry the senate along with him. that is particularly interesting to me in that a lot of the key

senate races this year are in the sun belt. the democrats are very reliant on new democrats in those places. people who may have been republicans or independents who have moved over to the democratic party because they do not like trump. that is the thing. talked about this a lot in his campaign recently and reiterated it in his endorsement of joe biden last night, which is that not only do you have to win the white house, you have to have a candidate who can carry senate and house candidates across the finish line. a lot of democrats believe sanders is not that candidate. they may be right about that or wrong abou they are communicating that to the public and the public seems to be respondingha on the democratic side in a provided direction smacked for his

president he offers this this morning's passivity targeting text saying like bloomberg will kill your drilling, tracking and energy got jobs will be gone but don't vote for mike. jew ever recalling the president campaigning in states -- >> guest: i don't know what the president is trying to do but it seems like he wants to run again sanders and of course only he and his team know precisely what they want and you could almost say the president is elevating mike bloomberg and maybe that is something he wants to do to create more delegate chaos and make a convention more likely but the convention is getting at issue that might be important in that democrats and certainly they are the party that believes in much more muscular actions at the federal level to do something about climate change. rebel begins in don't seem that interested in government

intervention in that, even if they care about climate change one way or the other. one of the sort of issues that sometimes comes up is about what to do about fracking is part of this broad portfolio of environmental issues and some candidates, including sanders, said fracking should be banned. there are places where fracking energy jobs are important to people like in western pennsylvania which pennsylvania is a must win state for theia democrats and could there be a penalty for democrats in that particular part of the country? now, part of the problem for democrats in appalachia, western pennsylvania, eastern ohio, west virginia, et cetera has been that for a lot of reasons those areas feel culturally and economically democrats have moved away from them and so the democrats have lost ground in those places but there's always the possibility they could lose more but if they do lose more

ground in those kinds of places, ohio moves clearly off the map and pennsylvania becomes harder to win. >> host: from florida, republican line, tina, hello. >> caller: hello. how are you today? >> guest: doing great. >> caller: i have a question for kyle. i'm sitting here listening to him and i -- granted i am a republican and actually putting politics aside i lost my father to dementia. joe biden is sitting here talking about him being a viable candidate and anybody who has ever dealt with anybody with dementia can see the joe biden has got a real problem. i'm just curious how are you squaring that in stating he is a viable candidate? i just can't imagine that even you put him up against trump or bernie sanders how do you -- how do you say he's viable?

>> guest: i will not touch on whatever sort of -- i will not use the word dementia or anything but that said, i do think that the vice president campaign appearances probably -- i think he shows his age, to be honest. whatever that means to people that is what it means but in ways that even candidates like sanders and trump don't necessarily even though they are of similar age or over 70 years old and part of being a presidential candidate is being able to mitigate clearly and effectively and frankly doesn't do that. granted, i don't think the president necessarily does that all the time either but that may be it has held back some people

from supporting biden that they feel like his performances in the debates and on the trail just have not been all that compelling so that is a risk. again, all these candidates i think have liabilities and is it thssible that whether the democrats select sanders or biden or someone else and then democrats are watching that person in the debates in october and wondering what did we do and why do we select this person? again i could see that for any of these folks. i don't think there's a perfect candidate in the field. >> host: from rashida, super tuesday state in california, democrat line, hello. >> caller: hello, good morning. i am in dc temporarily and i'm in my last two months of law school but i am a bernie sanders supporter and i have to vote by

mail so i will be one of those late ballots that they are counting. my concern is about that this reminds me a lot of 2016 and i'm afraid that biden if he wins, despite maybe not winning a plurality of the delegates that a lot of sanders supporters wh who -- if they are like me have been lifelong democrats, they turn away from even voting in general and i especially think that for among white males in the midwest that they may not have as much of a state [inaudible] whereas for me i will vote for whoever because trump literally goes against things that will affect me. in addition to that, i do think that biden does sound incoherent right now. i don't know if it's his age or what lately but i'm just

concerned this will be a repeat of 2016. it doesn't look like sanders supporters will carry over to this candidate and i was wondering -- >> guest: those are great points and i think the carl or very clearly talked about biden from the sanders point of view and that is this the guy we want to put up against trump and is he up to the task and also i think she is right in that some sanders supporters probably would fall off particularly if the process was perceived to be unfair. i would say, i think, the charges of 2016 were not fair and not backed up by the facts and that clinton one the majority of the delegates in the nominating season and superdelegates and did not need the superdelegates for superdelegates did not exist and she would've won the nomination but anyway, if sanders were to win a plurality of the delegates

but not be the nominee a lot of people would have a problem with that because even though 40, 50 years ago in the primary did not quite matter as much but the conventions particularly in the pre-world war ii era conventions were second ballots all the time and you would expect that. americans have no living real experience for a contested convention with the second ballot of 1962 and that if happens some people will come away from the process bewildered, again, particularly if sanders goes back for the most delegates but does not win. there is a legitimacy perception in that sanders is much better claim to the nomination if he is 45% of the delegates and if he has 35% of the delegates. i think that's a fair way of looking at it and the closer sanders gets to 50% or biden if he is a plurality leader and again, there is this small d

democratic part of this nomination product that is been in place for several decades that is not for most of american history. i think it's incumbent tfo on if sanders wants to be the nominee or biden wants to be the nominee then finished the nominating season with more delegates than the other and particularly if you're close enough to 50 you will have a much more credibl credible -- >> this is a text from daniel in san diego saying he's working the polls today asking what is your take on senator sanders being a reminder of being -- for the party? >> guest: i think for some democrats particularly older democrats who remember george mcgovern who was wiped out in 1972 that sanders is the former governor represents the worst case scenarios for sanders. mcgovern was perceived as being too liberal on certa too liberal on certain issueser for his time and maybe that is true for sanders as well and that sanders would lose in a

landslide. friendly, i don't think landslides like that are possible in america politics right now. i could be wrong but there was much more crossover voting back in the 1960s and 1970s and the parties were figuring themselves out and you still had northeasternrn moderate liberals -- >> some leaders coming out of their meetings and would take you there live for remarks by senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. >> okay, we just had a good discussion with our major healthcare professionals, doctor brooks, doctor from cms and doctor hahn from fda on where we

are on the coronavirus. as you know, there are over with the democrats now making the same presentation. with regard to our role here in congress we are very optimistic that we will come together on a bicameral, bipartisan basis with a package, something may have happened in the last hour, i'm not familiar with but i think we are on the way to getting that through the house this week and with cooperation could get it through the senate as well. we have an energy bill on the floor and it is open for amendment and hopefully we will be able to have a regular amendment process. i think this is a bill that has been languishing for several congresses and there's a lot in there that would be good for the country that had been added to the bill in committee by both democrats and republicans and we hope to be able to move that

across the floor as well and as soon as possible. >> as we all know americans have been affected by the coronavirus in a very direct way and we have six now deaths in this country and our prayers go out to the loved ones of those who have been lost. as the leader pointed out, we have heard today from vice president pence and his team that i want to credit them with continuing to act swiftly to address issues as they come up and our role here in the senate is one that hopefully we will be able to fulfill here in the very near future as did senator shelby is working -- >> we leave leaders remarks and the senate gasoline back in. bes clean energy and emerging technologies so that this is the perfect opportunity to update an