No path for Sanders…but it’s a long one

[BlueMTexpat]

This is taken from Sam Wang's post at PEC from Mar 26. I don't believe that it's already been posted on DU. But Sam provides more math to show what Bernie must win to win the delegates he claims he can. He believes that a Bernie win is highly unlikely and puts the probability of such at 5%. Those are very long odds. IMO, with the recent increase in negative campaigning which is turning a lot of people off, that probability may even be lower now.

The comments are also very interesting, as are Sam's comments in response.

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/03/26/no-path-forward-for-sanders/#more-14773

To keep the calculation simple, let’s just focus on pledged delegates, which are driven entirely by voting. In other words, what is the probability that Sanders gets half of all pledged delegates? This is useful, since if such an event did happen, then superdelegates might potentially follow suit to give him an overall majority.

Sanders has won 44% of pledged delegates so far. How would he get to 50%-of-delegates-plus-1?
...
Luckily, it is an easy problem to figure out what fraction of the vote Sanders needs. The Democratic Party’s rules assign delegates proportionally to the popular vote. (In this respect, the Democrats’ rules are more truly democratic than either the Electoral College or the Republican Party, which are both dominated by winner-take-all contests. Indeed, if the Democratic Party’s delegates were assigned on a winner-take-all basis, tonight’s delegate count would be Clinton 2020, Sanders 734, a 2.7-to-1 margin.) So Sanders needs to win the popular vote 56%-44% in the remaining elections, i.e. he needs Sanders +12%.

Now let’s look at national opinion surveys. In the last 8 polls (spanning March 17-23), Clinton led by a median of 9.5 +/- 2.1%. Overall, Democratic polls have been pretty accurate. Therefore, assume that the upcoming 22 primaries and caucuses will have an average margin that is similar to national opinion.*

For national opinion to come into line with what Sanders needs, there would have to be a change from Clinton +9.5% to Sanders +12%. That’s a 22-point swing. To put that into perspective, that is about how much the Clinton-Sanders margin has moved over the last seven months, since the start of August. Going forward, opinion would have to start moving about three times faster. And for this to happen, Sanders would have to start to cut into Clinton’s support, which has stayed in the 50-55% range this whole season. Basically, her support would have to drop to 40%. That simply isn’t going to happen.

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R

[Cha]

2. They're trying to make it happen.. smearing all that disingenuous bull shite on

Hillary. They're trying like hell.

"Well, you know what they say: “play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

Yo Mama~http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1107&pid=88641

Thank you, Blue~

[BlueMTexpat]

3. I loved this response of Sam's to

one of the comments: "I think the words “momentum” and “buzz” mean “I am a journalist or pundit, and I feel excited about writing about this person.” I believe they carry no other meaning."

[Cha]

4. Thank you for that.. lol. True. And, thank you for Sam Wang.. I thought about him as I

liked him in 2012 but then I read he wasn't going to do this primary.. thought it wasn't a close race or something?

Now here he is.

[BlueMTexpat]

5. He said a few days back that

he's on a low posting regimen because he believes that both the Dem and GOP primaries are basically settled. But I'm glad that he still posts from time to time nonetheless.

I'm sure we'll see a lot more of him in the GE.

[CalvinballPro]

6. "delegate count would be Clinton 2020, Sanders 734" Boy, if only, right? nt

[BlueMTexpat]

7. I found that interesting too.

If Dems did as the Reps do, i.e., generally assign ALL state delegates to the winner of the primary or caucus, that would be the delegate situation at this moment. Either way, Hillary would still be ahead. I find the Dem process to be more democratic, however.

It is ironic that that those who insist that they are "progressive" not only want to ignore the results of democratic voting so far, but believe that - despite the polls, especially for closed primaries - that there will somehow be a sea change resulting in a tsunami of votes for Bernie that will contradict those polls. But the final straw is when those who state that if Hillary is the GE candidate, i.e., is the candidate preferred by the majority, they will not support her, thus shattering their "progressive" veneer entirely.

It is one thing to want your candidate to win and to work hard to make that happen, even against overwhelming odds. We should all be supporting our candidate, of course, so that is a good thing. But doubling-down on negativity and nastiness in the light of your candidate's potential loss overall, and then threatening to hold the democratic process hostage or worse - risking a GOP win in November - is frankly unforgivable, IMO.

[CalvinballPro]

8. But every state Sanders lost is a conspiracy or scam or fraud or whatever. It's defensive groupthink

at its worst. The Church of Scientology springs to mind when I try to find other examples of such similar defensiveness by an organization known to tell its members flat-out lies.

[BlueMTexpat]

9. Some people literally seem to have given up

their brains to cult-think.