Interesting Demographic Analysis of the Race Going Forward

[tritsofme]

I don't know much of anything about the author, but he seems to know his stuff pretty well:

The Democratic Race Moving Forward

Today's column is a continuation of yesterday's essay. Thus, it is appropriate to review exactly what was accomplished yesterday. Using two distinct data sets - the exit polls to date supplemented by the statewide vote totals - we formulated a basic outline of the set of groups that seem to be influential in the Democratic primary race.

The exit polling data indicates that several variables are factors in determining who wins a given primary or caucus: union workers, Catholics, Hispanics, African Americans, party identification, geography, and gender. In particular, we noted yesterday that southern whites tend to support Clinton, while northern whites split their support between Clinton and Obama according to gender.

We supplemented this analysis with an OLS regression model whose purpose was fairly modest. It was designed to confirm some of the observations made on the micro level as well as test whether some other factors might be influential. It was helpful in this regard. In particular, we found that caucus states, states with high white median income, and "homogeneously white" states all tend to support Obama.

What I would like to do today is use this knowledge to estimate where the race goes from here.

Hillary Clinton has been on a bit of a losing streak lately - and that streak continued last night. Clinton lost all three contests in the so-called "Potomac Primary" by large margins. Unsurprisingly, there have been stories about the bottom dropping out of her campaign - and we should expect them to continue given last night's results.

However, I respectfully submit that all of this talk is a bit hasty. Not necessarily wrong. Just hasty.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2008/02/the_democratic_race_moving_for.html