Recent weeks attempts to prime bloomberg for a second ballot contest at the Democratic National convention in july by approaching supporters of joe biden and other moderate democrats according to two democratic strategists familiar with the talks. Get ready to hear more about superdelegates, a term of which Election Officials are guaranteed a role at their convention. Its an uniquely democratic phenomenon. And its origins lie in trying to offset populist nominations that cant win general election. Its a form of peer review. Use of super delegates followed a tremendous shift from the nomination an affair strictly controlled by the party elite to one predominantly decided by Party Participation and the understand that an inherent risk was being taken. The Party Leaders feared their own voters nominating a disastrous general election choice. And so super delegates were created to mitigate this risk as a hedge against the populist surge that would not survive a general election. The thinks was with more experience, understanding of the comphet tigs and concern for the longterm success of the party, elected officials and Party Leaders should maintain a say in the nomination. The debate moved from the theoretical to practical after George Mcgovern was blown out in the 1972 election winning only 17 of the 538 electoral votes against richard nixon. An often repeated criticism of superdelegates is that their participation is undemocratic. But is that really the case . Thought of one way these unpledged delegates actually function as a means of preserving maximum Voter Participation and enhancing the level of competition in the general election. The majority of super delegates are themselves elected. Moat are current or former members of congress. Theyre senators, theyre governors, theyre mayors who are selected based on their elected position. Those who were not have been served within some leadership role within the Democratic Party to warrant the position. Super delegates themselves have succeeded in mass election. Theyve served diverse constituencies. Theyve been with the democratic parties for an extended period of time or some combination of these traits. Its as a result of these positions that they represent the nomination choice of constituents. This year, super delegates wont have a say until the second ballot. Thats a change instituted after the last convention which followed a primary in which super delegates overwhelmingly sided with Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders. And now there are concerns over bernies prospects in a general election against trump that is placing renewed emphasis on what super delegates might do on a second ballot in milwaukee. Heres somethings to consider. Sometimes, the collective wisdom of the Party Establishment is wrong. As nate silver pointed out in the last cycle if 2016s republican nomination were contested under Democratic Delegate rules, donald trump would have found it almost impossible to get a majority of delegates and a floor fight in cleveland would have been inevitable. Instead, he won an improbable victory. Donald trump may be Bernie Sanders best argument. I want to know what you think. Should democrats nominate the candidates who arrives at the july convention with the most delegates even if its not the required majority . Joining me now is john brownstein, Senior Editor at the the atlantic where he recently wrote this piece, democrats went after the wrong guy. Bernie sanders is the frontrunner, but voters still arent treating him like one. Ron, i read the piece with interest. What explained how they avoided sanders and traded all of their political weaponry on Mike Bloomberg. First of all, i read exactly your question, that is the question facing democrats. Do they have to nominate on rise in mruplurality, but not in the majority. Bernie sanders cap is ultimately too small to win and ultimate result is to maneuver to be the last person standing against him on the theory that then you would have the majority of the party with him. The problem with that theory was demonstrated both by trump in 2016 and by what we are seeing now which is it is not guaranteed that even as a candidate has a majority of the party that is skeptical of him, that majority will ever coalesce, you know, a single candidate. Even though the democratic rules are not as favable to the frontrunner as the republican rules, the reality remains you can win a higher share of delegates than your share of the vote, as long as your opposition is divided and many of those candidates dont reach the 15 threshold of a vote you need to obtain any delegate. Thats a really important point. Lets make sure everybody understands it. In other words, that vote, that lower than threshold vote then gets foldsed in with that which exceeded the threshold. And could in this instance, innur a sanders benefit . Right. On democrats on individual Congressional Districts as well as statewide. And only people who reach 15 of the vote are counted in the way those delegates are allocated both at the district and state level. Take one example, if you have a Congressional District where Bernie Sanders gets 20 of the vote, joe biden gets 15, Bernie Sanders would get 60 of the delegates so that is why Many Democrats fear that if sanders kind of goes into super tuesday with a head of steam and the center does not consolconsolidae muddle in the middle, he could converge with all the way to milwaukee. Without expanding the support beyond the roughly one quarter to onethird were seeing in the results so far and in polling of the upcoming states. I recognize that were only two states in. Today, nevada becomes the third. But in ron brownsteins crystal ball, does bernie hear headed for a plurality, a majority or maybe neither . Im going with conventional wisdom here. I think hes headed to plurality. The big question is can he expand his reach beyond what weve seen so far . Hes somewhere to a quarter to a third of the vote. Hes doing very well with young people as he did in 2016. Hes leading among blue color whites in the primary. And the most liberal. While Hillary Clinton was the dominant in latinos last time, sanders does seem to be the leader in the latinos. Almost all states with big latino populations, texas, california, florida, colorado and arizona are all voting between now and march 17th. Its entirely possible that he will come out as a substantial lead in delegates. Absent the coalition he has thus far, hes got an uphill climb. You get to the issue not only of superdelegates whether the other candidates if trailing if they cumulative have a majority to come together in a way to deny him the nomination and whether the party can sustain that kind of turmoil. So, on that subject which was also the focus of my opening commentary. Lets put up on the screen what senator sanders tweeted. And have everybody take a look. Heres a radical idea. The person with the most votes should be the democratic nomi e nominee. Isn is it that simple, ron . He didnt say that in 2017. He said that the superdelegates should take him because Hillary Clinton could not win the general election. Look, the rules are the rules. All of the other candidates said on the debate stage, the rules are that someone has to get to the majority. If sanders gets close to the majority through the primary process, its almost inevitable that support will drift towards him and he will end up as the nominee. With all the kind of roll of the dice that represents. The real question is is there some kind of cutoff. You know, in the mind of not only superdelegates but other candidates. With sanders, 40 , say, of the delegates do you have to dominate him . If buttigieg and biden come together to make 50 , could they come together . I think it would be explosive to pick a nominee who finish below the delegates. Its hard to make that case. You do wonder if we get in an scenario that the democrats will look at someone as possibly a unity candidate who is not part of the whole process, understanding how difficult it is to parachute someone in. Who can that be . Who has not been part of the process other than there are shaerrod brown, from ohio, is someone who is a bridge. Okay. I thought you were thinking hillary. No, im not thinking hillary. Look, all of that is very speculative. The core question of the democrats is one they have not faced since 1952 which is what do you do if someone arrives with a plurality and not the majority. One other point noting, donald trump in 2016, bill clinton, 92, decaucus in 88, kerry in 04. Youre ahead, often the coalition collapses in the final third of the primary season. Its possible if sanders has a big enough lead he could get to a majority. Right now, if you look at the polls this week, hes still in 25 range in many of these states that are coming up on super tuesday. That, again, because the rules we talked about might be enough to give hip a delegate lead. But it doesnt show that the resistance in the party, the concern in the party is breaking down but, again, as in 2016, trump was in a very similar situation for a while. Unless that resistance coalesces to a greater extent than so far, he will have kind of the upper hand in the delegate race. Ron, that was excellent. You have framed exactly where this thing stands. Thank you. Thank you, michael. Todays nevada caucus could be where Bernie Sanders establishes himself as the clear 2020 democratic frontrunner. Back with me is megan mehserle, political reporter for the nevada independent. Megan, thanks for being here. Is nevada ready to tally this vote . That is the big question, adding into the day. Ive been talking with volunteers and campaigns. And i think its fair to say that tensions are high. You know, folks are cautiously optimistic. They hope that the results will work. Talks with campaigns late last night that the party has been sending, rather, early vote data to them. Just the names of volkswagen that have early voted to check them off the list and not having to do the lastminute phone bank for them. And the campaign had not still received that data as of 11 00 p. M. Last night. They were promise that data yesterday. We have concerns about is the data processed . Is it ready to go . Are we going to have those early voting totals at the caucus site . Folks are hopeful but a little nervous, i would say. This is a bit of a hybrid system in so far as youve had four days of early voting and today is the caucus. What if someone voted earlier i know theres been confusion wrote, say, Bernie Sanders as their one, two and third choice . Right. That was actually a subject of much confusion in the early vote process. Folks were not sure whether they could submit three different candidates or but bernie across the ballot. If you chose it three times it would still be counted but essentially it would be the same if you left the caucus. This happened in an actual caucus room where you align in support of one candidate and you ultimately dont stick around. Your first choice is not viable. So it would essentially be counted the same way in the process. Its not like your vote goes somewhere else or the candidate thats automatically selected. It just means that those folks who chose to vote for the same candidate three times, their second place vote wont go their. Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton by 5. 4, he was expected to lose by double digits, you correct me if im wrong. Hes the presumptive frontrunner today, and tonight. It definitely is, like you mentioned Bernie Sanders had so much momentum behind him in 2016, more than anyone attempted him to have. He was 20, 30, 40 points behind Hillary Clinton in the polls leading up to nevadas caucus. As you mentioned only finished five points behind her. That was a victory for him. Hes had that enthusiasm going into the caucus. A strong team on the ground. 250plus staffers. Much more than any other campaign staffers. As far as second place, i think youre right there, michael. This is a battle for second. Stakes are high for candidates, for instance, joe biden who did not finish well in New Hampshire and iowa really needs a secondplace victory to show that he can stay in the race. A lot of folks are clamoring for that as well, Pete Buttigieg in iowa and New Hampshire, he would love to see a second place victory in nevada. Elizabeth warren who had a middling performance in the first two states would love that second place as well to prove she has the staying power in the race but we really have no idea how thats going to shape up today. The only thing we know for sure, you have a long day ahead of you. I do. Thank you so much for coming back. Thank you, michael. Thanks, megan. What are your thoughts, tweet me smerconish. I will read it throughout. Smerconish, stop trying to justify superdelegates you are a corporate puppet, you dont even realize. All right. I shouldnt be so dismissive, come on, look how nasty that is. Im a corporate. You pe you. Y you puppet . Put that camera on me. You know, theres some street smarts inherent in this. Hey, lets put in a secret sauce. And the secret sauce will be people who have actually won elections. Because they know a Little Something about it. And so if you got this populist movement in the country that nominates someone who cant win a general election, weve got the wisdom of the party elders whose own names have been on the line, to hold back the masses and say, wait a minute, this may go the way of mcgovern. And if you were paying close attention to my opening commentary, what i also said is, sometimes, the party wisdom is wrong. Because if republicans ill say it flat out if republican has superdelegates in 2016, i dont think donald trump would have been the nominee. And obviously, we know how that ended. He upset the whole apple cart and won the white house. I want to remind you to go to my website smerconish. Com and answer the question, should democrats nominate the candidate who arrives at the july convention with the most delegates, even if its not the required majority . Up hapahead, the coronaviru has infected 77,000 people, killed more than 2300. 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Conventional wisdom has held that lower turnout would help republicans, but a new Study Suggests that turnout could actually help the president. In 2016,