The last RCP average for Virginia was Clinton +21.5. The RCP average right now for North Carolina is Clinton +20.2. I just don’t think NC is going to have a wildly different result than VA, although I could be convinced by compelling data.
Florida has over 30% of the delegates available on 3/15 so moving the needle there means more than moving it elsewhere, but closed primary and early voting make it more difficult to do so.
Really, he has to move the needle everywhere and do so more effectively than he did in Michigan. If his campaign assumes the polls are correct, then it is a lost cause. Therefore they must assume the polls are incorrect and every state is winnable. In that case the focus should be on the states where he can get the most bang for his buck in this order: FL, IL, OH, NC, MO. You may want to move Florida down a bit if the closed primary/early voting roadblocks decrease the bang you get for your buck a bit.
But still no guarantee that you are correct. He closed the gap in Michigan and could just as easily do it here. We will see but just because Hillary is from here and Obama is from here doesn’t guarantee her a win.
ETA: While typing this I’m watching Mark Halperin on MSNBC and the consensus among the pundits on his show are that Bernie has a shot in Illinois as well. Nothing scientific there but the thinking is out there.
Like I said, we will see.
Well, the main thing he needs, which isn’t in his control, is for his tremendous overperformance relative to the polls yesterday to turn out to represent some systematic flaw in the polls which underestimate his popularity in non-Southern states, rather than just a fluky result.
Yesterday’s upset should energize the volunteers and donors and give hope to the voters who might otherwise not bother to vote. He needs to take advantage of that, pull off some more big wins and start chipping away at the delegate count.
One possible issue is that of electability. Any GOP administration is bad for black people so of course they’re going to try and play it safe.
Plus, things are probably the best economically for black people than ever before. Why would they be stoked for an economic revolution when things are finally getting less crappy?
I was talking about this with a friend who is totally “feeling the Bern,” while I’m voting for him but that’s about it. I need to remember that I’m a black person from California. I have a vastly different life experience re: race than a black person in the deep South.
I think he’s hurt by the calendar. Some of the states I’d expect him to do well in are fairly late in the cycle (speaking of which, why is California is in June? they’ve rightly got a huge number of delegates, but the race is decided before they get a chance to weigh in.) He’s at the point where he needs blowouts in order to make the math work.
He is so far losing the popular vote 60/40 and is 219 pledged delegates behind (according to the 538 delegate tracker). The hard reality is that he fell further behind last Tuesday even with that amazing and surprising upset win. Narrowing his loss and exceeding polling expectations in these states does not make up the ground he needs make up. These are populous states and between them there are, if I added up right, 792 pledged delegates to awarded. He needs to start winning a solid majority of those delegates and a performance that exceeds polling expectations, even one that wins a state or even two, still has him making up no ground in the delegate count and the popular vote totals (or even falling more in the hole) would be still be much less than what he needs to do.
Yes he has some favorable (very White) states coming up. But these are small states with few delegates. Sweeping Idaho, Utah, and Alaska … even by large margins … does not help much. After Tuesday here are only three big prizes left: NY; PA; and CA.
“Building momentum” while making up no ground and/or falling farther behind in delegates and popular vote totals would be insufficient. It is too late for that.
But sure I’ll play …
For Illinois what he should be doing is exploiting Rahm’s current weakness and tie Clinton to him.
He needs to narrow his loss in Florida as best he can because losing there by current polling margins (31.5 current on RCP) means falling behind 52 more delegates right there, even if he somehow pulled off Michigan sized (or larger) upsets and narrow victories everywhere else that day he’d still in reality be farther behind.
Those last three are some awfully lopsided contests, even with some possibly unreliable polling. If Sanders can beat expectations in those states the way he did in Michigan, I will have to concede I have no idea what is really going on in this race.
And we know that while Sanders’ camp can crow about their win in Michigan, how much you win by and how big the State is the important thing on the Dem side. Current RealClear poll averages for March 15th States:
Florida: Clinton +31 (Closed) 214 delegates
Illinois: Clinton +30 (Open) 156 delegates
Missouri: <no recent polls> (Open) 71 delegates
North Carolina: Clinton +20 (Dems&Unaffiliated) 107 delegates
Ohio: Clinton +20 (Open basically) 143 delegates
I lived in MO for 20 years. St. Louis specifically, both deep in the city and out in the burbs.
The MO D voters are not Sanders’ kinda people. I have no clue how much campaigning he’s done there, but given the small delegate count and the massive unlikelihood of a big win, IMO he’d do better to focus elsewhere.
There’s some thought out there that Sanders hammering Clinton’s free trade record helped him in Michigan. Are there any similar issues that could help in next Tuesday’s primaries?
So Florida is real trouble istm. It’s closed, need to register 30 days in advance, so Sanders can’t draw out last minute independent voters to swing the balance. Lots of old people. Lots of Latinos. I can’t see a strategy to stem the bleed here.
I expect that if Clinton gets the nod, her VP pick will be both browner and younger than Bernie (but just as male). Bernie is old, Clinton is not young herself (and, fair or not, seems to the the GOPs favorite bullseye for target practice), and we don’t need another Gerald Ford (though he made a fine President, it isn’t how we want to fill that office). If there is any chance at a Cruz nomination, look for a Hispanic (probably with the last name Castro) - she gets more leeway with Trump.
Nor do I think that Clinton herself would agree he’d make a great VP. A VPs job is to support the Presidency and go to funerals. Bernie is far more likely to spend his time bitching about how we aren’t moving left enough fast enough.
Yep, that would be the smart way to play it, but none of the ads I’ve seen bring up Rahm.
I’m expecting his strength to be in Evanston, along the Chicago lakefront and any areas where there is a significant population of people under 30. I don’t expect him to do all that well downstate. I seriously doubt it will be enough to win but it will tighten up significantly IMO. I realize his chances of overtaking Hillary are slim but if he makes it look competative it could influence what happens in CA, PA or NY.
I live in Missouri, and I wouldn’t be so sure. It’s frustrating that there’s no polling, but let’s not forget that this is the state where, out of all the left wing “PC” college movements roiling the nation, they actually succeeded in forcing the chancellor of Mizzou, the state’s flagship university, as well as its system president, out of office.
This number-crunching model, which essentially combines demographics and “South or not South”, seems to have a very strong correlation at least as a retrofit. It will be very interesting to see if it turns out to have predictive value as well. According to it, Missouri has a slight lean to Bernie, as does Ohio. Illinois slightly leans to Hillary, while she is expected to dominate in Florida and North Carolina.
If this ends up being really close, it will be **very **interesting to see how the remaining states track by this measure.
Also, I think it’s a little unfair to call Missouri a small prize in terms of delegates. Compared to the other really big states voting that day, okay. But Missouri, which is above average (18th) in population, has more delegates than all but six of the 21 states that have voted so far, and about the same as Nebraska, New Hampshire and Maine, combined. That ain’t nothin’!
