0% chance Warren (or Sanders) drop out before the likes of Booker or O'Rourke. Given their personalities and support, I say they're riding this to the end no matter what, like Cruz and Kasich.

But why? It's not logical to think that receiving extra campaign donations will change their views.

I agree the system is broken and needs to be redone, but it's because it gives a lopsided advantage to your Trumps, Howard Schultzs, and Romneys because their large donors are much more numerous. I don't see how on earth more money to the donations of their campaigns will do anything to impact Warren or Sanders; other than give them more lawn signs and banner advertisements. The only reason they would get large donations is that the people giving those donations really want them to win.

The irony is that the campaigns of Warren and Sanders are VOLUNTARILY even more compromised now because now they're not just playing the game handicapped, but with a greater handicap. They're cutting off worker unions and leftist organizations from making big money donations to their own campaigns, while not doing ANYTHING to prevent corporations from making big money donations to their candidates.

Well if the primary started today Biden would 100% win so i'd say his chances of winning are far higher than 30%.

Yet it doesn't start today. Therefore we have the situation we have. If the primaries were closer more people had made a clear decision and the polls would more stable. If the primaries were closer more people would've endorsed and so we had a clearer picture of endorsement preferences. But the primaries are still a long way away aand a lot is still in the flow. Has Biden the best position currently? Undoubtely. But he hasn't the thing in the bag yet, far from it.

Chances of nomination according to 538 based on historical data. Blue line is 100% name recognition, red line 50% name recognition. According to Morning Consult, all candidates are above 50% name recognition except for someone called "Seth Moulton". Sanders, Biden, Warren, Harris are around or above 90%. Looking pretty good for Uncle Joe - mind that primaries usually have smaller fields, as well, so his chances are higher than the graph suggests on all likehood.

Why, of course. Because it means people are far more likely to vote for a given candidate once they know about them.

Imagine if someone has 30% of the vote with 50% name recognition. Do you believe they'll be stuck there once everyone knows about them?

Now, the opposite situation - what happened with Jeb!. Evidently, Jeb! polling at 3% is a far greater failure, and far less likely to become a nominee, than someone like Gabbard with 62% recognition polling at 3%.

I see step 1 happening, and 4, and eventually 5, but there's no way Warren drops out before California. I recall her campaign indicating something to this effect back when she was fading in the polls and nowhere near Bernie, so now that she's tied for or possibly straight up second place, that plan will definitely hold. If O'Rourke hangs in until Texas, I foresee him eating into Biden's potential vote there, pulling Biden down enough that he doesn't win Texas. Multiple polls have shown that Kamala Harris dropping out would benefit Warren more than Biden or Sanders. I'd guess this is because she tends to attract a certain kind of "progressive" that really wants a woman in the white house regardless of her economic policy preferences, and are only voting Kamala over Warren because they'd rather see a woman of color for intersectionality reasons, but would vote Warren if Kamala dropped out. If Warren holds until California as I believe she will, I think she'll stand a genuine chance of beating Kamala, which would probably make Kamala drop out, and if the polls I've seen are correct, this would be to Warren's benefit and provide a second wind for the campaign. As for the first contests, I don't see Biden or Sanders as shoe-ins for them yet.

True. But for a company, a PAC is an investment, and they expect a return of their investment. Mostly in the lines of: I gave you x amount of money that helped you win the election, now can you please do something for me in return? It's a more subtle way of influencing someone or their policies.

Not accepting big dollars means nor risking having to do something for those companies. And in most of the the rest of the world, the money for the campaign is given from the state explicitly to avoid companies and rich individuals to influence or outright buy elections.

OK, so Biden has a 40% chance of the nomination, leaving 60% for the other candidates.

If an unknown candidate already polls high it is a very bullish indicator that others that learn about the candidate may like him too.