MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki Explains What Joe Biden Needs on Tuesday to Take on Bernie Sanders

NBC News’ Steve Kornacki explained, on Sunday evening, what 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden would have to achieve on Super Tuesday to have a fighting chance against fellow candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

“Let’s take a look at this in terms of what’s coming up on Tuesday… 1,344 delegates. We’re getting into the big time here with delegates, and the key number to remember on Tuesday night statewide and by congressional district, everywhere you’re looking here, is 15,” explained Kornacki. “Candidates need to be hitting 15 percent statewide, 15 percent in each individual congressional district — you have 53 congressional districts there in California — to be collecting delegates.”

“And the challenge for Joe Biden on Tuesday night is this: if you look at all of these states, basically across the board Bernie Sanders looks positioned to hit fifteen percent,” Kornacki continued. “We don’t know if he has a ceiling, but we know his floor seems to be above fifteen percent, so Bernie Sanders looks like he’s going to be collecting delegates across the country. Looks like he’s going to be collecting a lot of delegates out of California where the polls have him doing well.”

“The challenge for Biden: can he get up to fifteen percent in as many places as possible, because there are a lot more question marks on the board for Biden,” he noted. “And the hope for Biden, looking at this news from Pete Buttigieg tonight, is in some of these states is Buttigieg’s absence going to provide a new pool of voters that Biden can tap into to hit that fifteen percent treshold and not fall as far behind Sanders in the delegates?”

One example Kornacki went through was California.

“They got Biden at at thirteen percent here. He desperately needs to get to fifteen percent statewide. They got Buttigieg running at seven. Is there some Buttigieg support enough that could get Biden up to fifteen?” Kornacki questioned. “It’s a critical difference for Joe Biden. Remember, California a state where you’ve got a lot of mail-in voting. A lot of the votes already cast. There will be a lot cast on Tuesday, but a lot are already cast there.”

Kornacki then moved onto Massachusetts.

“It’s a Sanders-Warren fight. Biden’s all the way back at eleven percent, but Buttigieg is sitting at twelve percent in Massachusetts. There are a lot of delegates in Massachusetts. If this were the result right now, Bernie Sanders is picking up dozens of delegates in Massachusetts and Biden is picking up none,” he reported. “If Biden can get to fifteen percent in Massachusetts, suddenly he’s not falling that far behind Bernie Sanders in the delegates.”

“So play that out in Massachusetts, play that out in Minnesota, play it out in Colorado,” Kornacki concluded. “All these states where Biden’s a question mark for delegates right now but Sanders isn’t, that is the difference between Joe Biden being close enough coming out of Super Tuesday to make a run at Sanders in the later March states, or falling farther behind and having that math be more difficult when we get to March 10th, March 17th.”

Watch above via MSNBC.