2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNate Silver: Bernie Sanders’s Path To The Nomination - Here are the states he needs to win.
We can try to answer all of those questions with the help of the gigantic chart youll see below. On the left-hand side of the chart, youll find a projection for how each state might go if recent national polls are right, with Clinton ahead of Sanders by about 12 percentage points nationally. The right-hand side is more crucial: It shows how the states might line up if the vote were split 50-50 nationally. Since the Democrats delegate allocation is highly proportional to the vote in each state, that means Sanders will be on track to win the nomination if he consistently beats these 50-50 benchmarks. Conversely, Clinton will very probably win the nomination if Sanders fails to do so, especially since superdelegates would likely tip a nearly tied race toward Clinton.
The starting point for these estimates is state-by-state polling from Morning Consult, a non-partisan polling and media firm that has surveyed about 8,000 Democrats online since Jan. 1. Thats a lot of responses, although not enough to provide an adequate sample size for all 50 states; while there are about 800 respondents from California in the sample, for instance, there are only a dozen or so from Montana.
The solution is to blend the polling results with other data. In particular, I used exit polls to determine the nonwhite share of the Democratic electorate in each state and how each state lines up on a liberal-conservative scale (Sanders does better in white and liberal states). I also included the amount of money raised by Clinton and Sanders in each state in individual, itemized contributions, and their ratio of Facebook likes. In states like California where theres an adequate sample size from the Morning Consult polling, the polling gets a fair amount of weight, but in the smaller states the other factors predominante. (For a more technical explanation of how this is accomplished, check out the footnotes.1)
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanderss-path-to-the-nomination/
dana_b
(11,546 posts)it's going to be a tight race!! Tighter than I think some are expecting.
MuseRider
(34,125 posts)about the list, not a surprise but...
His dates are wrong? Kansas has our caucus on March 5th not the 1st, not that many care about Kansas but I don't understand how it is set up. I sort of understand the rest of it, hopeless though I am.
Godhumor
(6,437 posts)Look for the little gray line separating dates all the way to the left. Not the easiest thing to read (I would have put the date on the first state for the dates, not centered.).
bad day on top of charts that really confuse me! *sigh* sometimes I think I shoulda stayed in bed.
Bucky
(54,068 posts)This does not look good. Clinton clean-sweeping Super Tuesday will give her a chance to try nudging him out of the race.
Sanders needs to flip Tennessee or Virginia or both (Tennessee is a better chance). If Clinton takes Colorado a/o Massachusetts, Sanders will be in hot water. Quite sobering.
restorefreedom
(12,655 posts)somewhere there is an op on it
kenn3d
(486 posts)Not an OP but I posted this in another thread today:
I would also note that Sanders did significantly BETTER than Nate's left-side chart in both IOWA and NH, and very likely will do better than expected in NV and SC also.
The Huff Pollster now has the National spread at +7.7 Clinton btw which is a new all-time low. Here's the current chart:
restorefreedom
(12,655 posts)Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)and confirms what I've been sensing about the relative popularity of the two candidates in Alaska, if I'm reading this correctly.
Alaska's caucus is March 26.
Chichiri
(4,667 posts)The margin Bernie needs, versus the margin he currently has.
Nevada: Needs -3, has -1.
SC: Needs -11, has -21.
Vermont: Needs +49, has +76.
Mass.: Needs +11, has +7.
Oklahoma: Needs +2, has +2.
Tennessee: Needs -4, has -26.
Virginia: Needs -9, has -22.
Arkansas: Needs -20, has -25.
Texas: Needs -20, has -23.
Georgia: Needs -24, has -34.
Alabama: Needs -27, has -28.
Louisiana: Needs -22, has -31.
So except for Vermont and maybe Nevada, it's not looking very good for the Bernster.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)This entire analysis is based on them?
I'm not buying it.