The three late septuagenarians lead the race

The big development in the race for the White House overnight has been the decision by Pete Buttigieg to quit the race following his poor performance in South Carolina.

This comes just 36 hours after it was confirmed that he did in fact win the Iowa caucuses which of course was the first State to decide. I just wonder if the outcome in Iowa had been clear-cut and and Pete seen as the clear winner on the night whether he would have got more of the the benefit that the victory could have given him. It would have certainly helped momentum in New Hampshire.

This development also takes place on the eve of Super Tuesday when when more than a dozen States have their primaries including the two biggest Texas and of course California.

One of the reasons why Bernie Sanders was doing so well was that he was completely dominating the primaries as the candidate for the progressive wing of the party while the centrist vote was split between Biden, Buttigieg , and Klobuchar.

The question now how this will impact tomorrow’s voting when it was looking as though Bernie had a sporting chance of coming out of it almost as the presumptive nominee. That’s not going to happen and it is highly likely that Joe Biden will have a far better performance than anyone was predicting.

Tomorrow is also the first electoral test for the multi billionaire Mike Bloomberg who has not contested first four states in the primary process. He has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the states that are voting and the chances were that he could do very well indeed. This is been in spite of 2 poor debate performances when when he really has struggled against the other contenders.

The betting, inevitably, has been quite frenetic and £2.5m has been wagered on the nomination market alone in the past week on the Betfair Exchange.

I was long on Mayor Pete I cashed out in early December when I was trying to release some money for my UK general election betting.

Mike Smithson