2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMake your prediction. How long will the Democratic field remain at three candidates?
I am going to go ahead and say it will remain three for the foreseeable future.
Clinton - frontrunner by a huge margin, popularity on the upswing, has more than a quarter of total votes required to become the nominee thanks to the number of superdelegates that have publicly supported her and a substantial campaign war chest. The only thing that will kick her out of the race anytime soon would be a criminal conviction... and that isn't happening.
Sanders - He won't drop out anytime before it becomes clear he can't mathematically win, nor should anyone expect him to. However, I think he stays in right up to the convention, regardless. This is a huge public platform for him to show the what a democratic socialist actually is, and he can see that he is pushing the party to the left. Even if the numbers swing against him, I think he will use the bully pulpit to keep the party honest.
O'Malley - Most likely candidate to drop out next due to miniscule numbers in comparison to Clinton and Sanders. But I don't see it. I think O'Malley sticks around until votes start coming in, because he might feel that he would be the main benefactor on the off-chance Clinton does fold. There is no telling where the majority of Democratic voters and superdelegates would go, if the frontrunner did drop out of the race.
So my current prediction:
No one else drops out until after Iowa and New Hampshire.
RandySF
(58,772 posts)And Hillary will have it pretty much wrapped up March 2.
smilingwen
(52 posts)Unless O'Malley runs out of money and his numbers stay as low as they are now. He did sound really good at the dinner tonight, so he could get a bump.
TSIAS
(14,689 posts)Lawrence Lessig is running in the Democratic primary, and had similar amounts of support that Webb and Chafee established.
O'Malley will likely stick around to make himself viable to be Clinton's VP. I expect he'll be an attack dog on Sanders and be relatively passive on Clinton.
Godhumor
(6,437 posts)Lawrence could drop out tomorrow or stay to the convention and it wouldn't register one way or the other.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)Snubbed by the establishment again.
aidbo
(2,328 posts)Agschmid
(28,749 posts)elleng
(130,865 posts)as HE's running for POTUS.