Sanders is the underdog, but here's Nate Silver's site on small chance versus no chance

[Jim Lane]

In an NCAA basketball tournament game on Sunday night, Texas A&M was trailing Northern Iowa by 12 points with only 35 seconds left to play, and came back to win it. Silver got his start analyzing sports rather than politics. On his site, Neil Paine, who's a senior sportswriter for FiveThirtyEight, wrote:

In cases like this, it’s difficult to estimate the exact probability of a comeback, just because the model is verging on the realm of hypothetical possibilities instead of observed realities. (It also can’t account for specific, meaningful factors such as the Panthers’ top inbounder, Matt Bohannon, leaving the game with an injury right before his team’s meltdown began.) But based on all of the things our model does take into account, we assigned Texas A&M a 1-in-3,333 chance of winning when its deficit was 12 with 35 seconds left.

(from "Texas A&M Pulled Off A 1-in-3,000 Comeback")

He also mentions some similarly unlikely sports comebacks (or collapses) that have occurred.

It's a good thing those Texas A&M players were too busy with the tournament to be reading Clinton supporters' posts on DU, or they would have just gone to the locker room instead of finishing the game.

[geek tragedy]

1. so you're telling me there's a chance

in all seriousness, though, the question is not only whether it's physically possible, but whether how many resources should be poured into the cause, what tactics are considered in bounds vs scorched earth, etc.

Basketball players just had to play out 35 seconds of basketball, so there's never an issue of having a reason for them to leave.

Also, Donald Trump isn't their next opponent, and there's no "whoever wins this game MUST win the next game" idea.

[thesquanderer]

2. re:"not only whether it's physically possible but...how many resources should be poured into the cause"

If someone has a serious disease and is likely to die, s/he may pour inordinate resources into treatments, because the alternative is so terrible. For those who think American democracy is on its last legs before transforming into sheer oligarchy, the question of dedicating resources may defy a simple analysis of arithmetic probabilities.

[geek tragedy]

3. there are people who believe that, but it strikes many more of us

as being absurd hyperbole.

[thesquanderer]

4. Well look at it this way...

If one believes that Sanders' more liberal approach is the better path for this country, if not now, when do you think such an opportunity will come along again, to get even this close? Especially if he loses?

[geek tragedy]

5. Sanders has all the right goals, but the question is whether

his plans for realizing those goals make sense.

Many people have decided that he does not have sensible proposals for achieving those noble goals.

[thesquanderer]

6. So at least he moves the conversation. What's the downside?

Neither Hillary nor Bernie can do anything too ambitious with the current Congress. Let's at least start aiming for better, rather than conceding before we start. At least Bernie says that his supporters need to stay motivated, to give him a better congress, in this and the next election or three. Hillary seems content to work with whatever congress she gets, which I suppose is easier for her, since she's not trying to do as much to begin with.

[geek tragedy]

8. the downside is not being able to govern effectively.

the executive branch includes a lot of levers that have to be used very cleverly and subtly. Solutions to complex problems are themselves often complex and difficult to explain.

I highly doubt Clinton is content with having a Republican Congress.

The problem for Sanders is his entire theory of change rests on his ability to create a mass mobilization of opinion at the ballot box. He's failed that threshold test.

[thesquanderer]

15. It is too soon to know whether he fails that threshold test.

A big part of his mobilization would need to come from outside the Dem base. With all the states that have closed primaries, or where people with a choice were motivated to vote in Republican primaries instead, his ability to mobilize the general population remains untested. And again, it doesn't have to be done all at once, a President Sanders theoretically has up to 4 congresses to get through.

It is unlikely he will win the nomination, for sure. But if he does, then we will see the first test of his ability to mobilize the general electorate.

[upaloopa]

10. The congress is decided by all voters not just Bernie supporters.

If Bernie's supporters can deliver a Dem congress then everyone in hell gets ice water.

[thesquanderer]

12. Between 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, you think it's impossible to get a Dem congress?

We had one as recently as 2010. A lot can happen in 6 years.

What if we have a president who is better at motivating his party's base to support him, rather than a president who was better at getting his opponent's base to oppose him? It will always be a fight between those two factions. It is possible that the Republicans' current self-immolation may benefit the next Dem president in this fight.

[upaloopa]

14. I don't think it is impossible to get a Dem congress

It is incredulous to think we will get a Dem congress because of Bernie supporters.

All of us will contribute to the outcome.

[thesquanderer]

17. Of course it can't be done by the current Sanders supporters alone.

But Sanders supporters outside the Democratic base could make the difference between what he could do and what a more traditional Democrat can do. It's about adding to what's already there, not starting from zero.

[upaloopa]

18. That depends on if they stay involved. Younger people don't vote

in large numbers.

This idea that we need to give them something to vote for is weak since there never is what we want on the ballot.

We need to all stay engaged and work for the long term. That means voting in every election.

It means not sitting out elections and blaming who knows what for not voting.

[thesquanderer]

19. Exactly. Nobody said it would be easy.

But the fact that something is difficult is not an excuse not to try!

[upaloopa]

20. agree

[upaloopa]

7. We are in a primary campaign not a basketball game

[Kaleva]

9. There is no proportional scoring in sports.

[Garrett78]

11. Carolina dominated the 1st half of the Super Bowl. Seattle dominated the 2nd half.

The problem is the nomination process isn't really like a single sporting event. Based on the first half or so of the Democratic primary season, we can point to some patterns. Clinton does best in larger, more diverse states. Sanders does best in smaller, less diverse states. Along those same lines, Clinton does best in "blue" areas (such as Atlanta and St. Louis) and Sanders does best in "red" areas (such as rural Georgia and rural Missouri). Clinton does better among registered Democrats, and most of the remaining contests are closed.

Unless those patterns get flipped, Clinton will be the nominee. When your opponent is favored in the delegate-rich areas and you already have a deficit of 300+ delegates, you need something truly extraordinary to happen in order to win.

So, is there any reason to believe any of those patterns will get flipped?

[thesquanderer]

13. The argument isn't that it's likely, the argument is that it's possible.

What would make it impossible is if his supporters give up. Which, I suppose, is why so many Hillary supporters seem intent on getting his supporters to give up.

[Garrett78]

16. But the argument is based on a poor analogy.

That was my point.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

22. If there were zero cost to continuing, that would be a sensible argument.

But the tiny chance of Sanders winning if he stays in, as opposed to zero chance if he drops out, has to be weighed against the fact that by staying in he's increasing the chance that the next president of the USA will have a lemming on his head.

The "stay in" scale isn't empty, it's just that the "don't stay in" scale is heavier.

[thesquanderer]

23. Predictwise gives him a 6% chance at the nomination.

That's small, but significant enough to not walk away from.

[Jim Lane]

24. I disagree about the supposed "cost" of staying in

The most common approach of Clinton supporters seems to be: Any expression of disagreement with Clinton on issues is an "attack" on her (or maybe even "Hillary-bashing" or "Hillary-hating&quot , and any such disagreement increases the chance of a Republican victory. I think that's ridiculous. The Republican nominee is not going to denounce Clinton as a corporatist war hawk or criticize her vote for the Iraq War Resolution or call for curbing the influence of Wall Street.

The main effect of the Sanders campaign is to make Clinton look centrist by comparison. If she's the nominee, she'll be positioned to the right of Sanders but to the left of the Republican. To many voters, that by itself will make her look reasonable.

Other effects: The Democrats will continue to get some coverage, instead of ceding it all to the Republicans. Progressives who want to send the message that there's a considerable space to the left of Clinton can do so now, by voting Sanders, making it more likely that they'll grudgingly support Clinton in November if she's the nominee, instead of stomping off in disgust to vote for Jill Stein or to write in Bernie or whatever.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

21. 1 in 3000 chances come up one time in 3000.

And an awful lot of events happen every day.