But have you ever seen anything like Trump? A demagogue with no political experience bulldozing his way to the nomination? Absolutely no one has been able to predict or explain this year’s primaries, for either party. How this is playing out is so completely outside the box of how anyone could’ve foreseen. So to say that some article you read claims this or that about candidates in previous years means jack shit, and it means even less when trying to predict how Hillary picks her running mate.
One interesting thing I read on 538 right now is that this might, just might, mean that Sanders isn’t completely screwed with the black vote, just with black voters in the South.
Nate Silver said, if Bernie were to pull off a win after being down so far in the polls, “it will count as among the greatest polling errors in primary history.”
The Northern black vote means Clinton may not have very many “huge victories” left, but they also will feature prominently in almost every state remaining with a large number of delegates, and will serve as a backstop for Hillary. Remember–Bernie can’t just win the midwest and West by 2%, he needs huge margins.
Well.
Okay, I’m disappointed with being wrong, but I’m fascinated by it, as well. Is there a systemic problem with the polling beforehand, or did something change between when the polls were taken and the actual primary?
Myself, I’m leaning to a bit of the first, and a bit more of the latter. I suspect that pollsters and analysts overestimated the similarity of Southern and Northern black voters; they simply didn’t break the same way.
On the other hand, I’m reading above that the Sanders campaign outspent the Clinton one by a considerable margin. Also, some analysts are saying that the Clinton campaign and voters may have been misled by the polling as well, taking a victory for granted. That may have led to Clinton supporters either staying home, or crossing over to the Republican primary to vote tactically, depressing the turnout for Clinton.
Given my track record on predicting this particular race, I’m hesitant to make any more predictions, but I have the feeling that Clinton will still be the eventual nominee. Sanders has a fair deficit in pledged delegates to make up, after all.
Either way, there’s probably some uncomfortable scenes in the big polling firms going on right now!
Au contraire, the Democrats have been all but ignoring their base, which is considerably to the left of them on economic issues, ever since Clinton took office. And the Republicans have been courting racists and bigots since the Southern Strategy. This isn’t dissent that doesn’t need to exist, this is a whirlwind that you get when you sow the wind, bringing all the chickens home to roost, and all the dogs to the yard!
I kinda have to agree with what you are saying but I just can’t imagine the conversation between the two that would lead to them both agreeing to do this. It would be a tough ticket to beat but I would wager Bernie would think going back to the Senate as a member, rather than as its President, would give him a better platform to put his ideas into action.
That’s a really interesting point. I have, as many of you know, been planning to vote for Drumpf on March 15 to make trouble for the GOP. But this slight tightening of the Democratic race gives me pause: now I wonder if I should just vote for Hillary. Here in Missouri, we can decide when we walk into the polling place. Had I been a Michigan Democrat, where the rules sound similar, with the information available to me a few hours ago I definitely would have gone for Drumpf.
Since it’s really delegates that count, what you should actually be celebrating is that Bernie cleared the 15% minimum in Mississippi by the skin of his teeth (he got 16%), which netted him four delegates. Had he not done so, those four would have gone to Hillary, making that an eight point swing had he ended up a couple points lower. Whereas in Michigan, had he gotten two points fewer, he would not have bragging rights of winning the state, but would have essentially the same number of delegates (or maybe one fewer?).
But I suppose it wouldn’t fit into the ebullient narrative to focus any attention on the fact that MS was Bernie’s worst result in any state thus far…
I would facepalm if she selected him, but I don’t think there’s much risk of it actually happening.
A couple of other things that may have hurt Clinton tonight. Michigan doesn’t have early voting or no excuse absentee balloting. It was also 70 degrees today in Detroit.
The notion of Sanders as Vice President is ridiculous. He’s very much, “My way or the highway.” which isn’t a particularly good trait for a Veep. He’s not considered a dean of the senate such a Biden was. As VP he’d be off giving speeches in Idaho or attending funerals. In the senate, he can continue to rant against income inequality, big banks, and Wall Street.
Unfortunately, we’re in for another week of, “Hillary is doomed!” coverage by the media even though she won more delegates tonight.
Rubio is doomed and I still think he suspends his campaign. If he pushes on to Florida, I think he’s putting his entire political future on the line. A big loss in the primary there isn’t the best way to run for governor in 2018.
I’m completely unsurprised that the party of Dubyah is voting for Trump. Just listen to Faux News for a while, if you can stomach it. They spew so much egocentric fantasy it’s not even funny.
Fortunately, neither the ‘change for change’s sake’ crowd nor the ‘let’s return to antebellum times’ crowd is big enough for Trump to have a serious shot at winning the general.
What ever happened to reasonable conservatives? Come back to the five-and-dime, Bill Buckley, Bill Buckley…
Just to put the Dem race into perspective, assuming there’s no major waffling among superdelegates:
Hillary has over half the delegates she needs to win the nomination; Bernie has less than a quarter. She leads by close to 700 delegates. If Bernie got 60% of the remaining delegates (and most agree this is impossible without Hillary falling off a cliff), he’d still be about 40 delegates short.
I think Hillary needs to get either the majority of pledged delegates or the majority of votes cast in all contests, or it will be a major problem to have the superdelegates decide it.
Trump won 3 states by between 10-12 points, most notably Michigan. Kasich actually finished third there, with Cruz taking second by a nose.
Not a successful demonstration project for Kasich. Sure, he can and likely will win Ohio. But to matter, he’s got to be able to win a bunch of states other than his own. Michigan as a test case says that’s not the way to bet.
Cruz won Idaho by 17 points. Looks like he may be the #1 guy in the Rocky Mountain states, which are somewhat overrepresented in the GOP primaries due to bonus delegates for Senators, governors, majorities of House delegations, and control of state legislatures. So he could ultimately get a decent haul out west.
By that rationale, any nominee would have to get 60% of the delegates, which is fairly rare.
Beyond that, I really don’t see people who are generally part of the party leadership selecting Bernie over Hillary in any significant proportion. She literally has a 20:1 lead among supers at this point.
In the short history of superdelegates (this will be the ninth presidential election since their final ratification and inclusion), I can think of none.
And so far losing at least 60 to 40% in the popular vote totals. (Note caucus states not included as no popular vote totals reported.)
As impressive as it was last night for him to get 50% of the vote (and it was, it was amazing), he needs to do much better than 50% to catch up.* Now there are some populous states coming up, including some next Tuesday. If he starts to win those states by significant margins especially with turnout that gets closer to 2008 levels, then it is not impossible. And while the polls say he is way down, well, we saw how predictive they were last night … and both Ohio and Illinois are also open primaries.
It would be a hard sell for supers to flip if he lost the popular vote.
*His path to a pledged delegate majority is a wee tad less daunting as the later states are overweighted in delegates. But delegate math remains a bitch for him too. Last night apparently saw his pledged delegate deficit grow by 14, now 762 to 547, now 215 down.
