Last night, I was looking at preliminary data from the AP posted on the NYTimes website. In the final vote (which I assume is the same as "final alignment"), Bernie was slightly behind Buttigieg for a while, before coming out ahead by about 2 percentage points. They took the results down as the jolly caucus race continued on through the night (can't say I blame them for that).
It is true that I will vote for the nominee. However, if the final results end up being different from that AP data, I'd need a very good explanation as to why that would be so. The case will be made that Trump needs to be replaced because he doesn't respect democratic values (don't think we've been as good at that as we like to pretend, but that's a different story). I certainly agree that Trump does not respect democratic values. However, if it's shown indisputably that the Democratic party doesn't have respect for these values, either, I'm not sure it's a case that they should be making.
I think a good way for the Democratic party to show it's support for democratic values would be to push the
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact hard. (I should note that legislation is pending in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. While some states might not sign on, it could make a significant difference, unless there's some bullshit court ruling that it's "unconstitutional.") If each state had been part of that in 2016, Clinton would be President. I find it beyond frustrating that instead of talking about that, people like failed presidential candidate John Kerry (and he was a popular vote loser, too, not just a case of getting screwed over by the electoral college) are placing more energy trying to stop Sanders.
At the moment, it's unclear to which lengths they will go.
Will they prove indisputably that they have as much respect for the will of the people as the Republican party, or will they stick to media attack dogs and fundraising efforts and so forth? I hope that they won't make the mistake of undermining democratic values while publicly claiming that they are alarmed by the erosion of such values. That would be a losing strategy for them. It would hand Trump the White House. While I would vote for the nominee anyway, lots of other people would probably stay home.
I know some people are probably thinking that this sounds like paranoid conspiracy bullshit, but let's do a thought experiment. Suppose it was a general election, and there were early data suggesting Buttigieg winning the electoral voting. Then there's a long delay because of "quality control issues" particularly in states where the process is controlled by the Republican party due to some new app being used. Then, finally, Trump comes out ahead, and there's no clear explanation of what happened there. What do you think you would make of that?