I don’t know why anyone ever thought Joe Biden would win. On a good day, when he was sniffing the hair of random women, or telling racist jokes, or lying about his family history, or shaking down banks for large loans he would never have to repay, the best you could say about Joe Biden was that he was inoffensive and could work a small group of elderly voters  in a workmanlike manner. Add to that his age and obvious cognitive impairment, and what you have left is the sad shell of a Democrat apparatchik whose appeal to the Democrat base is somewhere between “it’s my turn” and “I’m not batsh** crazy like those other guys” and to the general electorate is “I’m not Donald Trump.”

While the RCP average (which, let’s be honest, is a lot like averaging apples and oranges and declaring the result to be kumquats) still shows Biden with a 7 point lead, that number is both a) meaningless (as there is no national primary) and b) deceptive. Over the past three weeks we’ve seen a major shift in the landscape with Elizabeth Warren pulling even with Biden.

CREDIT: RealClearPolitics Poll

Internal polling by Biden’s own campaign shows him in a freefall:

With more than four months until Iowa’s Feb. 3 caucus, there is plenty of time for the dynamics of the race to change. But there’s also cause for some alarm for Biden. In New Hampshire, Tyson’s just-completed 600-likely voter poll shows Warren with 18 percent of the vote and Biden 15 percent in an open-ended ballot question. It’s a dramatic change from his last poll, with Biden dropping 18 points while Warren gained 7 — a 25-point shift.
…
Biden’s level of support in South Carolina makes it his firewall state, but even in South Carolina there are troubling signs of erosion. While he remains on top, among black voters, who are more than 60 percent of the Democratic electorate, Biden has plummeted 19 points in Tyson’s polls. That’s a potential leading indicator of the problems he could face after South Carolina’s Feb. 29 primary when many of the minority-heavy Southeastern states — as well as Texas and California — beginning voting on Super Tuesday, March 3, and thereafter.

Florida, where about 28 percent of the Democratic primary electorate is black, votes March 17. Biden is in first there with 24 percent of the Democratic vote, losing 15 points since May in Tyson’s polls. Warren moved into second with 11 percent, a 6-point increase while Sanders is in third with 5 percent, an 11-point loss since before the first candidate debate.

The percentage of Democratic voters who were undecided also shot up by double-digits in polls of the state.

In Iowa, Warren has pulled ahead of Joe Biden — marginally — for the first time, according to the latest Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll released Saturday. Pollster J. Ann Selzer’s highly regarded survey of caucus-goers showed Warren was benefiting from an enthusiasm gap — 32 percent said they’re “extremely enthusiastic” about caucusing for the Massachusetts senator, compared with 22 percent those who support the former vice president.

My contention was, and is, that the Ukraine silliness is going to mortally wound Biden because no matter how much the left and NeverTrump lecture people on how all the Euros wanted the Ukrainian prosecutor fired because he is corrupt no one really believes that while everyone understands Joe Biden using his clout to protect his son. And so long as President Trump continues to hammer on that subject, the narrative will stick to Biden and his core quality that would lead anyone to vote for him–electability–becomes more and more tenuous.

The New York Times reports that Biden’s supporters are running scared and are organizing a Super PAC to staunch the bleeding:

Allies of Joseph R. Biden Jr., concerned about his slipping poll numbers in the Democratic presidential primary and an onslaught of attacks from President Trump, are weighing whether to mobilize a super PAC supporting Mr. Biden and have held conversations with wealthy donors to gauge their interest in contributing money.

I can save you the trouble. Zero. None. Zilch. Nada. Because that isn’t how any of this works. Biden doesn’t have a massively engaged fan base. He can’t pack arenas for his stump speeches. He was the comfort candidate in the beginning and now he’s dying and it is only going to get worse. No one opens their checkbooks to the kind of donation that is needed to make a difference in a campaign when the candidate is losing momentum and doesn’t seem to understand why the hell he’s even running beyond providing more opportunities for Hunter Biden to grift.

At the bottom of that NYT piece was this rather ominous statement:

The next round of fund-raising reports, due after the end of the month, will also reveal whether Mr. Biden is still in a strong financial position relative to his nearest competitors. In the last quarter, Mr. Biden raised the second-most money of any candidate, trailing only Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind. But he finished June with less money in the bank than Mr. Buttigieg, Ms. Warren, Mr. Sanders and Senator Kamala Harris of California.

And this broke earlier in the day.

SCOOP—Sources inside @JoeBiden camp bracing to lose Iowa, New Hampshire primaries to @ewarren but banking on Super Tuesday wins to reverse Warren’s momentum. Democrat fundraisers withholding contributions to Biden as Warren surges more now @FoxBusiness @TeamCavuto

— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) September 27, 2019

If Joe Biden loses Iowa and New Hampshire, he can hope all he wants for a South Carolina win but if it is anything less than a blowout, the momentum will be seen to be with Warren. And unless fundraising picks up, Biden won’t be around for South Carolina.

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