Bernie Sanders by DonkeyHotey, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0/Original

How ugly are things getting in the Democrat primary? The DNC is changing rules to allow Mike Bloomberg into the next debate and rumors of bringing back super delegates also abound.

Why? Because noted communist sympathizer and self-proclaimed “Democratic Socialist” Bernie Sanders is surging. And we aren’t talking about the equivalent of the over-hyped “Elizabeth Warren surge” that happened last fall. This looks to be real and it’s on the eve of the voting.

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are statistically tied at the top of the Democratic field, according to a new @NBCNews/Wall Street Journal poll.https://t.co/YCppxkFbYH — NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) February 1, 2020

Sanders gets 27 percent support from Democratic primary voters around the country, while Biden gets 26 percent. Sanders’ single-point advantage, while well within the poll’s +/- 4.74 percentage point margin of error, marks his first lead of the primary in the NBC/WSJ survey. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the only other Democrat registering in double digits, at 15 percent, while former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg now holds the fourth place spot, at 9 percent. Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg gets 7 percent support in the poll; Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has 5 percent, and businessman Andrew Yang stands at 4 percent. No other candidate has 3 percent support or more.

As a side note, you want to know how much the mainstream media despise Sanders? I had originally bookmarked a tweet from NBC that showed the actual results of the poll, with Sanders leading. When I came back this morning, they had deleted that tweet and put out one that only vaguely describes matters as a “statistical tie.” It’s a small thing, but it’s more evidence they really, really don’t want the old socialist to be the nominee and will try to kneecap in any way possible.

Back to the latest polls, Sanders doesn’t just lead Biden nationally, but he’s leading in Iowa and New Hampshire as well. There’s little polling out of Nevada, but he’s either leading or within striking distance (and it’s a caucus state that favors a candidate like Sanders). To round it out, he’s poised to win the big delegate state of California too. If Sanders goes four for five to start this primary season, this show is over and the Democrats are stuck with Sanders. There will be no southern firewall in existence any longer because the game will have fundamentally changed.

That leads back to what the media and DNC are trying to do. Many Sanders voters are loyal to their candidate and not necessarily the party. In some ways, it mirrors the contingent of blue-collar voters Trump gained in 2016. The more machinations that are undertaken to deny Sanders the nomination, the more likely an open civil war breaks out within the Democratic party, and if you read the responses of some Bernie fans, it may be safe to say it’s already broken out. Things are going to get really nasty going forward.

This all puts Trump is a rather good position for 2020. If Sanders is denied the nomination, millions of his voters are going to stay home (and like 2016, some may vote for Trump). It could be enough to swing the election. But if Sanders is the nominee, the Democrats could get buried in the general under his promises to raise taxes and nationalize industries.

Of course, there’s always the “be careful what you wish for” element. In 2016, Democrats wanted Trump and they ended up losing. Actively rooting for Sanders could backfire. But I’m content to sit back and watch the fireworks for now. We’ll deal with the general election when it comes.

Front-page contributor for RedState. Visit my archives for more of my latest articles and help out by following me on Twitter @bonchieredstate. Read more by Bonchie