538:It Gets Harder From Here For Bernie Sanders But New Hampshire couldn’t have gone better for him

[hack89]

Polling has indicated that Sanders trails among nonwhite voters by nearly 40 percentage points nationally. Although no reliable recent polling is available in Nevada, Clinton leads by 30 percentage points in both of our South Carolina forecasts. In the latest Marist College poll, she’s buoyed by a 74 percent to 17 percent lead among black voters. Sanders must cut into that margin if he wants to have any chance in South Carolina or anywhere in the South.

You could already see how Sanders might have problems in Nevada and South Carolina even as he was crushing Clinton in New Hampshire. Despite winning the state by more than 20 percentage points, the best Sanders could manage among registered Democrats was a tie. His large margin came from registered independents who voted in the Democratic primary. You must be a registered Democrat to vote in the Nevada caucuses, though you can register as one the day of the election. In 2008, 81 percent of Nevada caucus-goers self-identified as Democrats. Just 58 percent of New Hampshire voters on Tuesday thought of themselves as Democrats.

Most worrisome for Sanders is his 25-percentage-point loss among New Hampshire Democrats who want to continue President Obama’s policies. Obama’s current job approval rating among blacks nationally is about 90 percent. Sanders will have big problems in South Carolina if he doesn’t do better among voters who like Obama.

The bottom line is that Sanders did very well in New Hampshire, and we can see the outlines of a campaign that can be competitive in the rest of the country. But there is plenty of work for him to do as we move away from the very white states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/it-gets-harder-from-here-for-bernie-sanders/

Bernie needs to find away to embrace Obama and woo registered Democrats.

[Dawson Leery]

1. k/r

[RobertEarl]

2. Wonderful

Gone from impossible to >>> gets harder.

In other words 538 doesn't know WTF is going on and is fumbling around trying to find out WTF is happening.

Put simply: 538 is feeling the Bern!

[hack89]

7. We will know either way after Nevada and South Carolina

no point in fighting over it now. We will soon know.

[RobertEarl]

9. We already know

Bernie is going to get nominated.

Gone from impossible to just hard. Even 538 can see that.
Bernie is rising and Hillary is going down hill.

[hack89]

11. Right. nt

[frylock]

13. How refreshing. That's what a lot of Sanders supporters had suggested just last summer..

you know, when Hillary Supporter was taking their victory laps. My, how the times have changed.

[hack89]

16. I always knew Super Tuesday was the defining date for determining who the nominee will be

something both Hillary and Sanders supporters should have no problem agreeing with.

[frylock]

18. I'm very much looking forward to it..

if a win in such an insignificant state as NH garners Sanders 3.5 million dollars in a 20 hour period, I can't imagine the jack he's going to rake in on 3/2 after soundly defeating Madam Secretary.

[marble falls]

3. So that's 538's way of saying they were wrong 2 out 2 primaries, right?

[hack89]

5. They called both correctly

they said that Hillary would win IA and Bernie would win NH. That is what happened.

[KingCharlemagne]

4. What this article fails to mention (at least the extract you published) is that Sanders

lost NH's black vote by only 1% to Hillary (50% HRC - 49% BS). Senator Sanders does not need to win that demographic, merely to replicate his NH percentages. If I were the Clinton campaign, I would be sweating bullets

[hack89]

6. There are 15,000 AA in all of NH - 1% of the population

of which a very small proportion actually voted yesterday. That is a tiny sample to extrapolate to black majority voting populations in the deep south.

Look at the polling in the south. If that starts changing then there is room for Hillary to be concerned.

[KingCharlemagne]

8. Yeah, demographics is not my area of expertise and I'm well aware of the perils

Last edited Wed Feb 10, 2016, 06:40 PM - Edit history (1)

of extrapolating from abnormally small sample sizes (generally speaking). Still, I thought that particular metric was worthy of note.

[hack89]

10. There is another metric that should concern Bernie

an that is his dependence on independents. Independent voters played an outsize role in NH that is not so common in the south.

[KingCharlemagne]

20. Nor in Feb. 20 Nevada caucuses where only registered Dems can

participate. Nevada does allow same-day registration, a fact I'm sure the Sanders field staff will put to good use. I'm not sure what the rules are for the Feb. 27 South Carolina primary.

[frylock]

15. What do you think has spurred all this talk of Superdelegates?

Hillary Supporter knows that the so-called PoC firewall has been breached.

[kcjohn1]

12. 538 is useless

For being ahead of trends. In December they had Clinton winning NH at 70%. Right before the vote they had it 99% for Sanders.

So the lesson is that they are useful only right before the vote and they can't really forecast things in the future.

[hack89]

14. Since the polls changed significantly over that period

and all 538 does is aggregate polls, don't see how they can be faulted.

[kcjohn1]

19. I'm not

Just objecting to them pontificating months out how Bernie doesn't have a chance when their expertise is only aggregating polls that are only good the closer you are to the voting day.

Real political analysis would be to see couple of months ago that Bernie had a good chance to win NH. Two months ago they were saying Clinton had 70% chance of winning NH.

[Godhumor]

17. They're 2 for 2 in forecasting Democratic states so far

Not a bad record.

[calguy]

21. LOL. They MUST be corrupt

If they don't go 100% all in for Bernie, right?