A large democratic field, congested candidate lanes and the looming prospect of no one getting the needed delegates needed to secure before the convention now includes the spread of a deadly virus. We have 60 cases in the united states. Including four of unknown origin. Thankfully, for the president and the nation, absent during his tenure has been any national or international crisis. Thats now changed. As coronavirus spreads, it places the president under a microscope while managing a crisis. And doing so without the benefit of a solid stock market to stabilize his support. The dow has just lost 11. 5 in five days. And there are concerns about testing since only about 459 have been tested in this country, as compared to nearly 9,000 in the uk. Plus, worries about messaging. Todays wall street journal, i think, accurately sums up the president s challenge and opportunity. Quote, voters arent going to blame him for a slowing economy caused by the virus. They will blame him if the government response seems inept, or if he dismisses the problem and it turns out to be much worse than he has advertised. The best posture is to tell the truth that no one knows how much damage the virus will do while offering insurance that the governments Infectious Disease experts and enormous Health Public burae bureaucracy is up for the challenge. Mean while, today is the South Carolina primary. Were just three days from super tuesday. Former Vice President joe biden favored today in the palmetto state but then comes super tuesday where 34 of the democratic delegates will be selected. So, heres my question will super tuesday solidify Bernie Sanders frontrunner status or place it more in doubt . Go to my website right now at smerconish. Com. Ill give you the results later this hour. Are Democratic Leaders willing to risk party damage to stop Bernie Sanders. Joining me now is Democratic State jay jacobs, how do you view your role . Whats your job as a super delegate . A super delegate is an automatic delegate. We have the same amount of vote hour as the other delegates, as the elected delegates. Our responsibility, certainly in the second ballot, because we do not vote by virtue of a deal we made, we do not vote on the first ballot. We leave that to the choice of the majority of the elected delegates. So on the second ballot, if no one gets a majority, then it becomes our job, to decide, help decide on who will be the best candidate to win in november, not just the presidency, but all the way down ballot. I had a professor as an undergraduate at lehigh university, dr. Frank cologne, i remember him saying, remember this, Political Parties exist for one purpose, and that is to win. Is that how you see your role, to decide who among this field, or someone else, can win the white house . Well, i think the priority certainly is winning. I think Political Parties exist for our purposes as well, promoting values and principles and policies that the members believe in. But i think winning is exceedingly important. And i think theres been far too much talk so far about, you know, whos going to win, based upon whats actually occurred. If you take a look at it, weve had less than 2 of the delegates decided already. While bernie sits right now with 45 of the delegates that have been selected to date, thats only based on a vote, if you look at how many voters voted for him, the vote is 28. 6 voted for bernie. So theres no sure leader at this point, although it seems like in the media its a ordained decision. Well, i totally understand and respect that. Weve talked about this for so long its finally gameon. By tuesday, 38 of the delegates will have been selected and if it goes the way anticipated, it might not, then bernie will be the presumptive frontrunner coming out, lets say, by wednesday morning. Lets get to the plurality issue, hes saying something much different than four years ago, which is, if he has a plurality headed into milwaukee and no one has a majority, he thinks by rights he ought to get. Whats your response . I ask you, michael, is it such a radical idea that the Democratic Party should stick to the rules and is it such a radical idea that the person who wanted them this way is going to be kept to this word . I mean, bernie gave his word that this is going to be different actually, going to be a majorityrule decision, delegate, a candidate who. Majority of delegates would be the one who should be the nominee. Thats what we agreed on. And i think thats what he should stick to. I dont think thats so radical. And i dont think were so wrong to demand that we stick to those rules. So the catch22, perhaps, that the party will face, though, you dont want to piss off that businease that he brin the table. You need them to win. If you think hes faced with a plurality, how do you handle that conundrum. I think you have to look at two things. First of all, you dont want to piss off any part of the party. If bernie gets 51 of the majority of the elected delegates youre going to have the other side not happy. The other end ever this, were not going to be bullied by any faction of the party over, you know what were to do, which is the right thing to do, which is to stick to a majority. And, frankly, i have to tell you, weve seen this before, were always under threat of, you know, the discord in the party thats caused by primaries. We have to understand the Bigger Picture is this, we have to defeat donald trump. And any member of the party who thinks theyre going to walk out of a convention and choose not to vote, well, they might as well put on a red maga hat and go all the way. The fact of the matter is, theyre going to help elect donald trump. If thats the most important thing i get it. If it happens to be bernie, ill be voting for bernie. Dr. Cologne would have said, because your job was to win. Thank you, mr. Jacobs. Thanks for having me. Super delegate drama aside, if Bernie Sanders were to win the nomination could he actually beat donald trump . After all, thats what democratic voters say is the most important factor in choosing the nominee. David brockman is a director of Political Science at ucberkeley. He just titled this, candidate ideology and vote choice in the 2020 u. S. President ial election where he collected 40,000 responses about voter preference. Dr. Brockman, lets make clear you and your coauthor are democratic donors. I dont want somebody thinking that you come to the table with a republican bias, fair to say . Yes, in recent elections, i think i gave 27 to Bernie Sanders. 2 to pete buttigieg, 5 to amy klobuchar. Something like that. We have our personal biases. We come at this as social scientists and just want to say what does the data say. Okay. So the data generally says that the moderate stands a better chance in a general election. You point to the fact that in 2018, those House Democratic candidates who were supportive of medicare for all fared more poorly than those who were not. You also acknowledge that Bernie Sanders superficially in the survey data runs very well against President Trump as do the other democratic candidates. But upon closer inspection, you find what . Yeah, so, thanks first of all for having me on. So, i think whats really interesting about this data, as you said, if you look at the top lines, it seems like Bernie Sanders is doing just as well as the leading moderates. But when you dig in, you find a couple interesting things. The first is, as you alluded, it seems like there are some republicans when they try to decide between trump and sanders, they say, ive got to stick with trump. But when we ask about how they choose between trump and one of the moderates like buttigieg or bloomberg, we find theyd be willing to cross over to the democratic side. Thats just consistent with decades of social science. Some of those votes that they need to win, that they would normally get from the other side, they turn away. So, it seems like just that classic pattern that we found for decades seems to be true in this case as well. Seems like there are republican swing voters that Bernie Sanders has a risk of turning away that otherwise might come in the democratic column. A prosanders prospective would say, whatever he loses in defection hes going to make up for with the youth vote. And i think this is really the crux of your argument. Based on data, what do you find . Yeah, so, when we dig into the numbers, this is the other thing that we find thats really interesting. So, why is it that if Bernie Sanders seems like hes turning away some swing voters that hes still doing really well in the polls . And in our data, at least, what we find is that theres just a huge number of leftleaning young people who when we asked them about trump versus say, buttigieg or bloomberg, they say, were going to stay home. When we asked them about trump versus sanders, they say, well, im going to turn out to vote for sanders. That kind of enthusiasm would be great. The challenge for sanders would be, the number of young people who say theyre going to turn out is Something Like a 10 boost. That 10 percentage point boost if that adds to his number in november would be an asset. The first is that what people say until surveys about whether they will turn out to vote is just, we know, really inaccurate. It just doesnt correlate all that well with what they actually will do. Second of all, when you think about a 10point turnout boost, its gargantuan. When our first black president barack obama was on the ballot in 2012, black turnout, depending on the numbers went up by five points. An inspiring candidate for the africanamerican community. The kind of data that sanders would need is 10 . Theres not evidence that young voters are going to turn out that at historic rate. Let me undercorrespond this because this is the biggest takeaway and you tell me if im being too simplistic, brndz brn Bernie Sanders would need to be a better stimulant for the youth vote than barack obama was for the vote in 2008 and thats why it makes up for the election, yes or no . Does that encapsulate it . I think thats a fair overall summary. These early polls are no crystal ball. It is true that the Sanders Campaign said part of out were going to win is inspiring turnout. Im sure everyone would like to see higher voter turnout. The challenge for sanders is going to be social science just doesnt suggest by nominating a candidate further from the center you can inspire your base. Theres just not much evidence that suggests thats the case. I encourage folks to read what you wrote for vox and to delve into the study itself. Its fascinate. Thank you, dr. Brockman. Thanks for your time. A group of grassroots republicans in South Carolina do not believe that Bernie Sanders can beat donald trump, in fact they actually plan to vote for him in todays primary because theyre so confident hes the worst choice for democrats. Its being dubbed operation chaos. Even after losing in iowa and new hampshire, joe biden is still the favorite in South Carolina. We all know that the dnc and the democratic establishment do not want the independent senator from vermont as their nominee. Were asking South Carolina republicans to show their support for donald trump by crossing over and voting for Bernie Sanders. We feel this will help to move the needle. Heres the logic, South Carolina voters do not register by voter so theyre allowed to vote in either contest. These grassroots republicans are against it and theyre making a point and brought up sanders last night. By the way, the republicans will have to vote either way. Am i allowed to request first, we have to figure out who would be the weakest candidate against President Trump. Are we allowed to tell them who we would like them to vote for . So, will the effort back fire, will it be successful . Joining me now is presley stutz, hes the chair of the Greenville Tea Party and one of the organizers behind operation chaos. Mr. Stutz, youre doing today, or leading this effort to do today exactly what you think should be banned. Is that fair . Yes, michael, were basically saying to the democrats who have already crossed over for many years here in South Carolina whats good for the goose is good for the gander. And were using this as a demonstration to say to our legislates, close our primaries. Primaries are selection processes and these not an election. Theyre private Party Selection processes. And the democrats should not be telling the republicans what to do. Nor should the republicans be telling the democrats what to do but because of this double standard thats been applied upon us for so many year, we have launched operation chaos 2020. How big is your effort, is there any way to know how many republicans in South Carolina today will vote for Bernie Sanders . You know, its hard to tell, weve had thousands and thousands of responses. You know, we think that 10, 20, 30,000 votes can swing, you know, the election by several points. Joe biden is leading Bernie Sanders right now. Our goal is to get bernie up there to make him very competitive with biden on the delegate count. Maybe its a case of be careful what you wish for. I was just addressing with my last guest, the strength that senator sanders has with the youth vote. Maybe youd actually be boosting the strongest opponent for donald trump . Well, we believe that bernie is actually the worst candidate for the democrats because it would be a clear contrast between his communist, socialist ideologies, and the Free Enterprise and capitalism and the republican principles of President Trump. So, we dont think the american people, even though the younger skulls full of lush might be leaning to brntsdernie sanders. If youre not a conservative by the time youre 30, you dont have a brain. The socalled skulls full of mush for their candidate claim that their candidate would beat President Trump in the general election . You know what, all of the surveys in 2016 had Hillary Clinton beating President Trump hands down. It did not happen. Im just a regular guy. Im an activist here in greenville, South Carolina. We talk to people every day. And the polls are never right. It will be interesting to see the results tonight from the palmetto state. Mr. Stutts, thanks for being here. Thank you, michael. Have a good day, byebye. What are your thoughts . Tweet me smerconish. What do we have . From facebook, trump winning in 2016 was supposed to be a mirage. Bernie sanders could definitely win. Brian, ive said this routinely on my radio program, the best argument that bernie has, as these questions are raised about his nomination, they said the same thing about donald trump four years ago. And further, i think what bernie could say is, had there been su super delegates weighing in on the side of the republicans in 2016, by the way, republicans dont have the a super delegate process like the democrats do, but if there were one, there would likely will be mike marco rub rubio, or cruz. One more. N 2016, most polls had Hillary Clinton in the lead and look how that turned out. Nicole, my response would be, i guess my response would be those pollsters were actually right because they ended up winning the popular vote by 3 million votes. And in the national surveys, they pretty much got it on the button. Where they blew it were in the swing states like my home state of pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan. So point made. But its just not that clear to say, oh, the pollsters they really, you know, screwed up in the last cycle. Remember, i want to know what you think, go to my website smerconish. Com. Answer this question, will super tuesday solidify Bernie Sanders frontrunner status or place it more in doubt . Still to come, the k coronavirus is forcing shutdowns world wide, rattling the stock market. What should we be doing . Is this overblown . Plus, facebook end ed up playing a huge role in 2016, because her staff didnt believe it was important while President Trumps team thought it was important. Ill talk to facebook, the inside story. 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