Moderate Democrats face key strategic voting decision

Democratic Party rules and a badly fractured field of moderate candidates pose an election dilemma for California’s centrist voters.

Do they want to cast a vote for their favorite candidate, or do they want to stop Sen. Bernie Sanders from becoming the party nominee? A California poll released Friday suggests they can’t do both.

If they put a premium on beating President Trump in November, and believe, as many do, that Sanders can’t do the job, the poll suggests that their only option is the other left-of-center candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren — that a vote for any other candidate would be wasted.

That’s because party rules that have been in effect since 1992 only allocate pledged delegates to candidates who receive 15% of the vote statewide or within one of California’s 53 congressional districts. And the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found only Sanders, at 34%, and Warren, at 17%, reaching that threshold statewide.

To be sure, the electorate this primary season is volatile. Polls are just snapshots in time. Things could shift between now and Tuesday, especially after the results of Saturday’s South Carolina primary are digested.

But the bottom line for California voters is that they face a unique situation with a large group of moderate candidates who are likely to split the centrist vote so much that none of them emerge with a meaningful number of delegates. Sanders could capture about a third of the California primary vote and almost all the delegates.

A key question is how many moderates will vote strategically rather than follow their passion. “My experience with strategic voting is that it is usually small,” says Mark Dicamillo, who runs the UC Berkeley poll. “But this might be an exception. We’ve never had an election like this where the party is so divided.”

For moderates, the stakes are high. California has just over 10% of the 3,979 delegates who can vote on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July. Or, put another way, a Sanders rout in California could give him about 20% of the delegates he would need for the nomination.

Bob Mulholland, a veteran Democratic campaign strategist, likens it to a race coming down to the finish line.

The moderates who are trailing “have just way too many candidates trying to fit into the lanes,” he said. “California on Tuesday could end up with a NASCAR finish with a huge crash and Sanders in front getting all the delegates.”

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. While Sanders could wind up with all the 144 pledged delegates allocated based on the statewide results, he’s unlikely to be the only one to garner 15% in each individual congressional district.

However, says Dicamillo, Sanders is the only candidate showing strength across all regions of the state so he could get the lion’s share of the 271 delegates distributed by congressional districts.

The UC Berkeley poll was conducted Feb. 20-25, finishing one week before Election Day.

It found, behind Sanders and Warren, likely Democratic primary voters favor former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at 12%; former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 11%; former Vice President Joe Biden at 8%; and Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 6%.

But the only one with upward momentum is Warren. That can be seen by looking at the preferences of the 20% of likely voters who had already cast ballots compared to the 80% who had yet to do so.

Bloomberg’s and Buttigieg’s support slips significantly from those who had already voted to those who were planning to. Meanwhile, Warren polled better with those who had yet to cast their ballots.

Fallout from the results in South Carolina on Saturday could change that. How much the effect will be on California’s vote Tuesday is anybody’s guess.

What is clear is that moderates in the Golden State who stop to think about the delegate-selection rules face a tough decision: Will they follow their heart? Or will they focus strategically on stopping Sanders?