2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum538 The Bernie Sanders Surge Appears To Be Over
AUG 11, 2015
The Bernie Sanders Surge Appears To Be Over
By HARRY ENTEN
Not long ago, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was surging. In just a few months, the Vermont senator halved Hillary Clintons lead in Iowa and moved to within shouting distance of her in New Hampshire. But its probably time to change the verb tense. No longer is Sanders surging. He has surged. From now on, picking up additional support will be more of a slog.
Take a look at the monthly averages of Clintons and Sanderss support in live-interview polls taken in Iowa and New Hampshire since April (the month that both Clinton and Sanders officially entered the race):
Support for Sanders rocketed up in Iowa but has leveled off since June. The story is nearly the same in New Hampshire. Sanders rose from June to July in the Granite State, but his ascent slowed.1
So whats going on? Sanders is maxing out on gains simply because of increased name recognition. Different pollsters ask about favorability and name recognition in different ways making comparisons tricky but the University of New Hampshire (UNH) polled Democrats in the state in April, June and July. Sanderss favorable rating went from 45 percent in April to 66 percent in June and then to 69 percent in July. The share of respondents with a neutral opinion or no opinion of Sanders fell from 44 percent to 24 percent and then to 20 percent during that period. In other words, between April and June, Sanders was picking up low hanging fruit: The liberal wing of the Democratic Party learned about Sanders and liked him. But now, most voters who are predisposed to like Sanders already know about him....
4 Days Later
2016 ELECTION
AUG 19, 2015
Senator Sanders, Youre No Barack Obama
Clinton was the early favorite in 2008; shes more than that now.
By HARRY ENTEN
Is the 2016 Democratic primary a sequel of 2008? The Bernie Sanders supporters filling up my email inbox think so.
Less than 24 hours after I wrote that the Sanders surge had slowed, or even stopped, a poll came out showing Sanders with his first lead in any state (other than his home state of Vermont). That poll stirred a lot of responses (some kind and some not so kind). Heres a fairly typical comment:
One poll is just one poll; it could be an outlier, or it could signal some shift in the race. We need more data to find out. But we have plenty of data to see a number of problems with comparing Sanderss rise to President Obamas toppling of Hillary Clinton in 2008....
You get the drift, right?
Let's fast forward to today and their latest, slightly less overt attempt to depress the Bernie Movement.
This is from their page "Whos On Track For The Nomination?"
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/
Here are the ones we've finished. The number after the state is total delegates for the state and the split number after each name show the actual/projected number.
2/1 Iowa 44 Hillary 23/18 Bernie 21/26
2/9 N.H. 24 Hillary 09/09 Bernie 15/15
2/20 Nev. 35 Hillary 20/17 Bernie 15/18
2/27 S.C. 53 Hillary 39/32 Bernie 14/21
3/1 Ala. 53 Hillary 44/35 Bernie 09/18
WOW! LOOK AT HOW BERNIE HAS BEEN UNDERPERFORMING ALL THIS TIME!!! I THOUGHT HE WAS DOING GREAT?!?!? WTF!
Note the numbers are retroactively adjusted to an assumed 50/50 split in national support. That type of expectation was certainly not part of the narrative as we moved towards the early contests. You remember how the narrative went, right? A steady refrain from everywhere that was just like the two 538 samples posted above. The methodology for the prediction follows, along with the latest bit of soothsaying telling us that even though Sanders is doing pretty well, he just isn't up to where he should be and that disappointment is right around the corner.
Screw that Scat.
These interactive charts show which candidate is on target to win the Democratic nomination and which one is falling behind. They are based on our estimate of how many delegates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders would need in each primary and caucus to win a simple majority of the 4,051 pledged delegates at the Democratic National Convention.
We reached these estimates by developing benchmarks for each state based on its demographics. In particular, we used exit polls to determine the racial composition of the Democratic electorate in each state, how each state lines up on a liberal-conservative scale, and whether Democratic voters live in rural or conservative areas. Sanders does better in whiter, more liberal and more rural states. Clinton does better in states with more nonwhite voters especially African-Americans. For more detail about these procedures, see this article.
After we arrived at baseline estimates of candidate support, we adjusted their support proportionally in each state until both candidates were tied nationally. Finally, we multiplied each candidates adjusted share of support by the number of pledged delegates available in each state to arrive at delegate targets (unlike Republicans, Democrats award all of their pledged delegates proportionally). Because there is limited data available to model the 99 pledged delegates from six delegations American Samoa, Democrats Abroad, Guam, Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands we set both Clintons and Sanderss targets in those contests at half of the delegates available.
Bernie Sanders Doesnt Need Momentum He Needs To Win These States
By NATE SILVER
The media narrative of the Democratic presidential race is that Bernie Sanders has lost momentum to Hillary Clinton. After nearly beating Clinton in Iowa and then crushing her in New Hampshire, Sanders had a setback on Saturday, the story goes, losing Nevada to Clinton by 5 percentage points. And this weekend, Sanders is about to lose South Carolina and lose it badly.
All of this is true insofar as it goes. But it doesnt do nearly enough to account for the demographic differences between the states. Considering the states demographics, Sanderss 5-point loss in Nevada was probably more impressive than his photo-finish in Iowa. It was possibly even a more impressive result than his 22-point romp in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, a big loss in South Carolina would be relatively easy to forgive.
That doesnt mean Sanders is in great shape, however. Based on the polling so far, Sanders is coming up short of where he needs to be in most Super Tuesday (March 1) states, along with major industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania where hell need to run neck and neck with Clinton later on.
These conclusions come from a set of state-by-state targets weve calculated for Sanders and Clinton, which are based on some simple demographic factors in each state. As has been clear for a long while, Sanders performs better in whiter and more liberal states. But the abundance of new polling from Super Tuesday states, along with the Nevada result, gives us the data to establish more accurate benchmarks than the ones we set before. (See last weeks article Bernie Sanderss Path To The Nomination for our previous estimates.) In particular, although Sanders might not have won the Hispanic vote in Nevada, hes clearly made up ground among Hispanic voters. African-Americans, in contrast, remain overwhelmingly in Clintons camp. There may also be an urban/rural divide in the Democratic vote, with Sanders performing better in more rural areas....
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-doesnt-need-momentum-he-needs-to-win-these-states/
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)Thank you.
LonePirate
(13,424 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)<flush>
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)In_The_Wind
(72,300 posts)Stuckinthebush
(10,845 posts)Of course depending on the timing of your state primary it may have no bearing on the outcome.
Perhaps we go to a primary system in which everyone votes at the same time. Other than that, some voters will vote after the race is mathematically decided.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)kristopher
(29,798 posts)You might review it again and send me a PM to let me know how I flubbed the message.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Or are we just hearing your theme song?
coyote
(1,561 posts)Peace be with you.
peacebird
(14,195 posts)These maroons have declared Bernie's campaign dead in the water so many times, like Chicken Little. No credibility any more.
Blue Owl
(50,414 posts)UMTerp01
(1,048 posts)This is probably accurate. Bernie's core of support is there. They know their guy and are passionate about him. Hillary folks are passionate about her and are not going. But there are some undecideds, like me. However, I think we are few and far between and won't really move the needle one way or another. My state doesn't vote until late April, at which time the writing should be on the wall for whomever the Dem nominee will be. I think Hillary has her demos set and Bernie has his demos set. The only thing I can see Sanders doing is increasing his support among POC, especially Black voters, but don't see that improving by huge margins. But lets let everyone vote and feel like they are an important part of the process.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Favorability trends. Just generally across the board, the more people learn about Bernie, the more they like him.
Both charts Mar 2015 to present
Hillary
Bernie
thereismore
(13,326 posts)538 is just one short of 539.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)"Both Clintons declined to be interviewed or comment for this article."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/clinton-money
redgreenandblue
(2,088 posts)Not exactly the most recent data...
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Go Vols
(5,902 posts)No calculations are necessary to see that we missed badly in our forecast of the U.K. election.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/what-we-got-wrong-in-our-2015-uk-general-election-model/
Perogie
(687 posts)Are those suppose to scare us?
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Perogie
(687 posts)What's up with the Monster eyes?
itsrobert
(14,157 posts)with my REC.
pa28
(6,145 posts)I think the point was Nate's math doesn't suck but sometimes his reporters editorial evaluations do.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)heaping helpings. They have been busily attempting to construct a narrative and then tell it not with 'math' but with walls of snarky typing.
When someone says it's all math and but what they give you is mostly words, be skeptical and review the materials.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)taking some 60% of the vote in Kansas is further proof his surge is over.
Gosh, it was nice while it lasted.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)dana_b
(11,546 posts)at first I thought that this was from today and I was about to lose it.
KelleyKramer
(8,969 posts)Yep, one more time
pa28
(6,145 posts)Nate Silver and Harry Enten have pasted a strong pro-hillary editorial bias over their data when they really should have just been sticking to facts.
Last night both of them seemed to be desperately hoping for a Clinton last minute comeback in order to save face for themselves.
tsk, tsk. Just learn the lesson guys. Report facts and keep your opinions and personal wishes out of your analysis.