Nate Silver: After Super Tuesday, Joe Biden Is A Clear Favorite To Win The Nomination

[highplainsdem]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/after-super-tuesday-joe-biden-is-a-clear-favorite-to-win-the-nomination/


Silver says Sanders "has a window, but it's small" because of these problems:

-snip-

First, he’s already behind by around 70 delegates, according to our estimates, based on returns in each state as currently reported. That deficit could get worse because there are some signs that late-returned mail ballots in California will help Biden — a reflection of the fact that Biden surged in the race in the final few days before Super Tuesday.

As mentioned, Biden will probably get a bounce in the polls as a result of his Super Tuesday wins. The model’s guess (accounting for its projected Super Tuesday bounce for Biden and the effects of Bloomberg and Warren dropping out) is that he’s currently ahead by the equivalent of 6 or 7 points in national polls. So although momentum could shift back toward Sanders later on, it may get worse for him in the short run.

Some of Sanders’s best states (California, Nevada) have already voted, and the upcoming states generally either aren’t good for him or have relatively few delegates. In fact, given how broadly Sanders lost on Super Tuesday — including in northern states such as Minnesota, Massachusetts and Maine — it’s hard to know where his strengths lie, other than among young progressives and Hispanics, who are not large enough groups to constitute a winning coalition in most states. Conversely, it’s easy to identify places where Sanders will likely lose badly to Biden. Our model has Biden winning a net of about 85 delegates over Sanders in Florida on March 17, where Sanders’s polling has been terrible, and a net of about 35 delegates in Georgia, which votes on March 24.

There aren’t that many delegates left after March. Some 38 percent of delegates have already been selected. And by the time Georgia votes in two-and-a-half weeks, 61 percent of delegates will already have been chosen. So even if Sanders did get a big, massive momentum swing late in the race, it might not be enough to allow him to come back, with only about a third of delegates still to be chosen.

-snip-

And even if Sanders can overcome those problems, Silver thinks he'd end up with a plurality rather than a majority of delegrates.

[LongtimeAZDem]

1. If SC had been a week earlier, it would be over at this point

[TwilightZone]

3. Of if CA, CO, etc., didn't have early voting.

[LaurenOlimina]

2. Yeah, the math is tough after Super Tuesday.

[calimary]

4. With those Castro comments, Bernie is NOT going to win Florida.

Sheesh - how old is he? How long has he been around? Did he truly not realize you DON'T talk up Castro's Cuba where Floridians are within earshot? Especially if you hope to get them them to vote for you!

For Pete's sake!

[highplainsdem]

5. Nope. Not a chance.

[brush]

6. So true. He's lived in this country all his life so how is he not aware of that...

about Florida? IMO it's also like his incredible naivete/egoism in mis-reading this country entirely in thinking the nation will elect a socialist—not gonna happen. It's also pied piper-esque to mislead his followers into also thinking that can happen.

[Jarqui]

7. 538.com chances of winning: Biden 87%, Sanders 3%, No one 10%

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/?ex_cid=rrpromo

A staggering reversal from a couple of weeks ago.

But I think it's not an unreasonable position having looked at state by state polls and the impact of all the other candidates dropping out.