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kristopher

(29,798 posts)
Sat Mar 5, 2016, 06:25 PM Mar 2016

538 The Bernie Sanders Surge Appears To Be Over


2016 ELECTION
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 Clinton’s lead in Iowa and moved to within shouting distance of her in New Hampshire. But it’s 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 Clinton’s and Sanders’s 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 what’s 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. Sanders’s 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....
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-bernie-sanders-surge-appears-to-be-over/

4 Days Later

2016 ELECTION
AUG 19, 2015
Senator Sanders, You’re No Barack Obama
Clinton was the early favorite in 2008; she’s 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). Here’s 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 Sanders’s rise to President Obama’s toppling of Hillary Clinton in 2008....
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-youre-no-barack-obama/

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 "Who’s 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.

Methodology

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 candidate’s 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 Clinton’s and Sanders’s targets in those contests at half of the delegates available.



2016 ELECTION 1:55 PM FEB 25, 2016

Bernie Sanders Doesn’t 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 doesn’t do nearly enough to account for the demographic differences between the states. Considering the state’s demographics, Sanders’s 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 doesn’t 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 he’ll need to run neck and neck with Clinton later on.

These conclusions come from a set of state-by-state targets we’ve 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 week’s article “Bernie Sanders’s Path To The Nomination” for our previous estimates.) In particular, although Sanders might not have won the Hispanic vote in Nevada, he’s clearly made up ground among Hispanic voters. African-Americans, in contrast, remain overwhelmingly in Clinton’s 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/
34 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
538 The Bernie Sanders Surge Appears To Be Over (Original Post) kristopher Mar 2016 OP
They must really be nervous. Good. liberal_at_heart Mar 2016 #1
COULD I FUCKING VOTE, PLEASE? Le Taz Hot Mar 2016 #2
Did someone pass a law taking away your right to vote? LonePirate Mar 2016 #3
Seriously? Le Taz Hot Mar 2016 #4
Geek tragedies come in many forms. Kalidurga Mar 2016 #30
... yes ... In_The_Wind Mar 2016 #5
Sure Stuckinthebush Mar 2016 #16
Locking. bigwillq Mar 2016 #17
Not sure what you read that makes you think the OP discourages that. kristopher Mar 2016 #19
errrr.... who is stopping you? Buzz Clik Mar 2016 #26
Yes you may. coyote Mar 2016 #33
OMG! Panic!!! the sky is falling! Bernie's momentum is over...! peacebird Mar 2016 #6
+1 Champion Jack Mar 2016 #18
Just the calm before the BERN! Blue Owl Mar 2016 #7
Probably Right UMTerp01 Mar 2016 #8
I don't think that's accurate. Here's why. kristopher Mar 2016 #20
I remember when the surge was over. Good one. thereismore Mar 2016 #9
LOL!!! Two Clintons. 41 Years. $3 Billion. Inside The Clinton Donor Network (WP Nov.2015) bobthedrummer Mar 2016 #10
From last August? redgreenandblue Mar 2016 #11
Reading is FUNdamental. nt kristopher Mar 2016 #21
more from 538 Go Vols Mar 2016 #12
what's up with the monster's eyes? Perogie Mar 2016 #13
That's a vidcap of Hillary when asked about lying recently. nt kristopher Mar 2016 #22
Like I said Perogie Mar 2016 #24
Math sucks. off to the Greatest page itsrobert Mar 2016 #14
This is from August. pa28 Mar 2016 #27
Notice that math does not require a wall of heavy handed editorial language as 538 provided in great Bluenorthwest Mar 2016 #31
Is this the 5th or 6th time that they have declared this surge over? (nt) jeff47 Mar 2016 #15
I guess Bernie's SheilaT Mar 2016 #23
LOL! One more time... bobthedrummer Mar 2016 #25
hehe dana_b Mar 2016 #28
Ha Ha! KelleyKramer Mar 2016 #32
Looks like some people have missed this is from August. pa28 Mar 2016 #29
+1 Fearless Mar 2016 #34

Stuckinthebush

(10,845 posts)
16. Sure
Sat Mar 5, 2016, 06:55 PM
Mar 2016

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.

kristopher

(29,798 posts)
19. Not sure what you read that makes you think the OP discourages that.
Sat Mar 5, 2016, 07:31 PM
Mar 2016

You might review it again and send me a PM to let me know how I flubbed the message.

peacebird

(14,195 posts)
6. OMG! Panic!!! the sky is falling! Bernie's momentum is over...!
Sat Mar 5, 2016, 06:31 PM
Mar 2016


These maroons have declared Bernie's campaign dead in the water so many times, like Chicken Little. No credibility any more.
 

UMTerp01

(1,048 posts)
8. Probably Right
Sat Mar 5, 2016, 06:34 PM
Mar 2016

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)
20. I don't think that's accurate. Here's why.
Sat Mar 5, 2016, 07:39 PM
Mar 2016

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

 

bobthedrummer

(26,083 posts)
10. LOL!!! Two Clintons. 41 Years. $3 Billion. Inside The Clinton Donor Network (WP Nov.2015)
Sat Mar 5, 2016, 06:37 PM
Mar 2016

"Both Clintons declined to be interviewed or comment for this article."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/clinton-money


Go Vols

(5,902 posts)
12. more from 538
Sat Mar 5, 2016, 06:41 PM
Mar 2016
What We Got Wrong In Our 2015 U.K. General Election Model

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/

pa28

(6,145 posts)
27. This is from August.
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 05:48 PM
Mar 2016

I think the point was Nate's math doesn't suck but sometimes his reporters editorial evaluations do.

 

Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)
31. Notice that math does not require a wall of heavy handed editorial language as 538 provided in great
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 06:38 PM
Mar 2016

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.

 

SheilaT

(23,156 posts)
23. I guess Bernie's
Sat Mar 5, 2016, 07:55 PM
Mar 2016

taking some 60% of the vote in Kansas is further proof his surge is over.

Gosh, it was nice while it lasted.

pa28

(6,145 posts)
29. Looks like some people have missed this is from August.
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 05:52 PM
Mar 2016

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.

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