The 538 Benchmarks for Tomorrow's Caucuses

[RandySF]

Nate Silver's 538 site has a handy tool that I've been referring to over the past several weeks and can serve as a handy guide to tomorrow's caucuses. As of tonight, Hillary has 1,229 pledged delegates and is at 110% of what she needs to be on track to eventually reach a majority. Bernie has 933 pledged delegates and is at 89% of target. With these numbers, 538 calculates that, Bernie needs to pick up 81 delegates out of the 142 that are available tomorrow to get on track. Hillary needs 61 delegates to stay on track.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/

Benchmarks:
Bernie: 81 pledged delegates
Hillary: 61 pledged delegates.

Good luck, everyone.

[Garrett78]

1. That'd be 57%, and I think that's feasible.

The problem is Sanders needs to do much better than that in the states he's expected to win, so as to make up for losing (or falling well short of 57%) in the delegate-rich states where he's expected to lose.

[paulthompson]

2. I disagree

I'm a Sanders supporter, and I think he needs to do a lot better than that. Washington is an open primary AND a caucus, both things that have favored Sanders up until now. It's one of his best states to have a huge win and close the delegate gap in a significant way.

And I think he will win big there. I also think he'll crush it in Alaska. Hawaii's a question mark, but it doesn't have many delegates. If he can win massively in Washington and Alaska and do okay in Hawaii, that will be a very good night for him.

fivethirtyeight.com should adjust their model to expect him to do better in states like these and less well in closed primaries and states with different demographics and such, and then have that average to 57 or 58% overall.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. These are not predictions of outcome but benchmarks that 538 says need to be met as minimums

So they are saying 'each candidate needs at least this number of delegates' and not 'this is how many each candidate will get'.

[Godhumor]

3. Actually, Bernie needs to exceed those targets, as they've been static since the beginning

Basically, the targets to split the vote 50-50 were calculated at the very beginning to show how each candidate has to do to get to a tire in delegates after 50 states. Since Bernie is at 88% of his target right now, he he needs to hit his targets +12% extra to make up the ground (In other words, if he gets 74 delegates today, he hit his static target. But he will remain at 88% of his total target for the entire election cycle.)

To be on pace to attempt to make up his deficit, he actually needs 83 delegates tonight. (112% of 74)

[DCBob]

4. Bernie needs blowout wins to change the dynamics.

Just "winning" is not near good enough. If he can win Wash by more than 85-15 then he can capture all 101 delegates due to the 15% rule. That would catch people's attention.. short of that.. probably not.