Nolte: Polling Shows Mike Bloomberg’s Debate Debacle Was Indeed a Debacle

There’s now enough polling to declare Mike Bloomberg’s Nevada debate debacle a True Debacle.

On February 19, after spending almost a half-billion — with a “B” — dollars on political advertising, for the first time since the 2020 election began, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg stepped before the national public and onto a debate stage … and fell on his face.

It was the kersplat heard ’round the world, the ultimate Emperor Has No Clothes moment…

Bloomberg’s national debut was pissy, humorless, sour-faced, lacking the stature required to qualify for a ride on Space Mountain, and completely unprepared for attacks he not only should have been prepared for, but should have been eager to address and forever wipe off the table. He entered the stage the entitled, pompous, heir apparent and walked off naked and humiliated.

And of all people, it was Pocahontas who laid him out… Elizabeth Warren, the weak neurotic who makes Lou Costello look like Albert Einstein.

But if we’ve learned anything — and by “we,” I mean those of us lucky enough to cover this stuff for a living — it is humility. Human nature is a fickle thing. What might look like a catastrophic game changer in our own minds does not transfer to the minds of others. In other words, Democrat primary voters might not have cared about Bloomberg’s pratfall or his mayoral record, and the billions he has on hand to fight the Bad Orange Man might be good enough.

Well, we can now conclude the kersplat was real.

At the very least, two things have happened…

To begin with, Bloomberg’s momentum has at best screeched to a full stop.

Between January 20 and the Nevada debate a month later, the average of Bloomberg’s national polling spiked from 7 to 16 points, from fifth place to third place. There’s no question the combination of his ad spending and an understandable dissatisfaction with this terrible field of Democrat contenders made Bloomberg a real contender.

Since February 19, though, since that debate, Bloomberg’s lost two points nationally. More importantly, all that momentum is doornail dead.

The second thing that’s happening is Joe Biden has returned from the dead. Bloomberg’s momentum died at the exact same time Biden’s collapse finally stalled out.

Biden went from 28 points on January 20, to 17.6 points on February 20. It was a straight line to oblivion. But now, Biden is up a half-point to 18, and it looks like he could walk out of Saturday’s South Carolina primary a winner — a zombie, not quite alive, but at least on his feet.

For the record, Bernie Sanders is in first place nationally with 29.2 points, well ahead of second-place Biden at 18, and third-place Bloomberg at 14.4.

While Bloomberg chose not to compete in South Carolina (he skipped the first four contests entirely), he has laid all his chips on Super Tuesday, which is just five days away. So how is he doing there…?

There’s not a ton of polling, but, again, at best, Bloomberg’s momentum has stalled in the states we do have data from.

California: Hugely important, delegate-rich California has Bloomberg in fourth place, thanks to a real collapse after that debate  — a drop from 16.5 to 10.3.

Colorado: Two polls show Mini Mike basically tied for third in the low teens. Bernie’s in first place at 30.5. Warren is in second at 17.5.

North Carolina: Bloomberg stalled out at 18.7. But the state is essentially a three-way tie with Bernie at 21 and Biden at 19.7.

Virginia: Bloomberg is in second place, but basically tied with Biden. Bernie is up six.

In the remaining states, there is no pre/post-debate polling to compare.

FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver sees the same thing. “Bloomberg is in quite a lot of trouble. His national polls have stalled out or begun to reverse themselves,” Silver tweeted Wednesday. “He’s fallen to 11% in our CA polling average. In other Super Tuesday states, we aren’t seeing the leads we saw pre-NV debate; it’s a lot of stuff in the teens and low 20s.”

As I’ve mentioned before, all this dumb talk about “lanes” we keep hearing from the idiotic pundit class is nonsense. Biden’s collapse didn’t level off because Bloomberg’s debate debacle “opened up the moderate lane.”

The rise and fall of specific candidates throughout this primary — from Biden to Kamala Harris to Elizabeth Warren to Bloomberg to Bernie  — point to one lane: the Competency Lane, the Who Can Beat Trump Lane — if it’s Jurassic Marxist, so be it.

So things aren’t looking good for Bloomberg right now and will probably look worse after South Carolina votes on Saturday, especially if Biden wins. Slow Joe will have the wind at his back, while Bloomberg’s ads, which are little more than white noise now, remain white noise.

Biden is also benefiting from the media’s anti-Bernie pile on, which is a direct attack on the Vermont senator’s electability. Basically, after Bloomberg’s pratfall and Bernie’s vetting, desperate Democrats are giving Burisma Biden another look. He’s even rebounded in Florida. Biden is also benefiting from the fact that the spotlight is no longer on him. This would have been a much bigger story had Biden not been written off for dead.

Finally, Bloomberg’s only chance to recover from the Nevada debate was this week’s debate in South Carolina, where he did do better (low bar that). But a poll of Democrat voters who watched the debate shows that Bloomberg hurt himself more than helped himself.

The moral here is that you can spend a half-billion dollars to depict yourself as a lion, but if you walk out from behind all that advertising and reveal yourself to be a mewling gerbil, you’ve just wasted a ton of money — unless the goal was to make a fool of yourself.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.