Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forum538 : Five Scenarios For How Super Tuesday Could Go
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/five-scenarios-for-how-super-tuesday-could-go/Earlier today, my colleague Nathaniel Rakich and I wrote about the final FiveThirtyEight forecast before Super Tuesday. There are basically two big themes there. First, yes, the model has shifted strongly to former Vice President Joe Biden in recent days because of his big win in South Carolina and a major bounce for him in polls of Super Tuesday states. But second, theres a lot of uncertainty, both in terms of what happens tonight and for the rest of the race. The most likely outcome is still that theres no pledged delegate majority on June 6, once all states and territories have finished voting.
Im going to focus more on the uncertainty in this story. Lets stress test the model and see how its Super Tuesday projections might change if various candidates perform better or worse than our projections expect. (If you want to do your own version of this, you can! Please see our Super Tuesday scenarios interactive here.)
Scenario 1: The model is all-knowing
First, lets establish a baseline case. Heres how delegates would be allocated tonight under the DNCs rules if our forecast is exactly right in every state and Congressional district. If this happens (it will not), Im going to buy myself a really nice steak dinner tomorrow night. (Also, it will probably mean were living in a simulation, so this is not necessarily something to root for.)
In the base case, we have Biden finishing just slightly ahead of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, with 461 delegates (34 percent of the total possible tonight) to Bernies 445 (33 percent). But our baseline projections also have Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren picking up decent numbers of delegates. Heck, they even have Amy Klobuchar staying just above 15 percent of the vote in Minnesota and thereby getting delegates there, even though she dropped out. So basically, the base case for tonight is that one-third of the delegates go to Biden, one-third go to Sanders and one-third go to other, which is why we could be headed to a no majority (and possibly contested convention) outcome.
Scenario 2: Biden overperforms
snip
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)Three days ago - three - days - ago - we were talking about 100-150 point deficits or more, nearly guaranteed.
Now, the most optimistic, (unrealistic), Sanders overperforms option has Sanders +118. Best-case scenario.
Best-case scenario for Biden: +169.
This is effing crazy.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Celerity
(42,666 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)As soon as that clarity arrived, everyone committed. I didn't even decide until yesterday (my primary is today), and I'm a political junkie who's had a favorite candidate in every race since Carter/Ford when I was a little kid. The speed with which this has happened is just...shocking.
The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course. Clyburn with absolutely no doubt was a reason why the gap was so large, and the size of the gap woke a lot of people up, especially when combined with the sudden realization that we were going to end up with Sanders.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Celerity
(42,666 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
peggysue2
(10,811 posts)Voters needed that clarity, a signal from the base, that it was a GO4JOE, and then the clarion call that if we (as Democrats) did not coalesce in short order we would cede the primary to Sanders and the General to Trump.
The last minute scramble is indicative of that wake-up call.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
hlthe2b
(101,730 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
bucolic_frolic
(42,676 posts)I was in my 40s before I figured out what gut instinct was. It was always preached to me and I had no idea what they were talking about because I was taught to think, not feel with my gut. Anyway, with more experience I now have gut instincts, though I'd call it intuition as well. I'm thinking the Biden overperforms by 7%, Bernie by 1-2%, and those numbers come from the other 2.
633-455-179-45-16
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Happy Hoosier
(7,081 posts)I don't think even the "Sanders overperforms" scenario will give him a sufficient pad to grab a plurality of the delegates.
We'll see what happens, though.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
honest.abe
(8,556 posts)Thing are all moving in Biden favor right now. Sanders is stuck in neutral. I think we are going to see a big night for Biden tonight.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden