538's "Endorsement Primary"

Politics & Elections
1

FiveThirtyEight.com is tracking political endorsements on for the Presidential race. They have made up a point system and have a tracker on the home page. They claim that endorsements (from other current elected officials: Governors, Senators, and Representatives) are a good predictor of success.

According to their count, Hillary Clinton has been endorsed by 9 Governors, 30 Senators, and 114 Representatives :eek: giving her nearly twice as many “endorsement points” as the entire GOP field combined.

Trump has zero endorsements.

This is an interesting way to look at the race, and I’m glad someone is counting this. I think the point weighting system is basically something they pulled out of their asses, but it makes some intuitive sense. In most cases, a Representative’s endorsement means a lot less than a Governor’s.

On the Republican side, Christie and Huckabee have more endorsements than I would expect. I certainly don’t think either of those guys has a chance.

Do you think endorsements by other politicians matter?

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I believe it is based on research in the book The Party Decides.

3

Carson also has no endorsements, among the ones that are ahead in the polls for the Republicans Carly Fiorina has 2 endorsements.

As I suspected there are a lot of Republicans in power that do not think that they should support people like Trump or Carson.

4

I suspect that with 16 candidates and not a single delegate selected yet, a lot of Republican politicians are staying away from endorsing anyone right now.

5

Nate Silver relies on data, and endorsements predicting the eventual winner is pretty reliable, at least when one candidate has a big lead.

The reason it might not hold up this time around is because the frontrunner is damaged and there might be a late entry into the race on the Democratic side, and because on the Republican side their brand is so shitty even among their own supporters that endorsements by party figures might actually be a negative.