Clearly incorrect - see cite. Even not counting caucus estimates Obama won the popular vote. And again, had won the pledged delegate vote, which led the superdelegates to follow.
If Sander could catch up in the popular vote from here he would be far ahead in the pledged delegate vote as a result. 538’s best guess is that he’d need to win 60% of the popular vote from here (more than the delegate percent as these states are overweighted, as discussed in a previous post) to catch up there. And that is before the probable loss, possibly by double digits, to come in very populous NY. So even more than 60% from NY on.
Sanders won 56% of the popular vote last weekend in Wyoming. Caucus state Wyoming. Heavily white Wyoming. Wyoming, where Clinton didn’t even bother to campaign. Based on this information and the earlier votes of surrounding and similar-ish states, you’d expect him to have waltzed away with an enormous victory. 56% is solid, it’s okay; but it’s not what Sanders needed, and it certainly isn’t an enormous victory.
Maybe this result is the beginning of a downward trend. I don’t know that this is necessarily the case; could easily be that it’s an outlier. But if it has any meaning at all, it makes it really hard to see Sanders winning 60% in states like California and Pennsylvania, to say nothing of New York and Maryland. If he can’t even get that high a percentage in favorable-as-can-be Wyoming, how can he expect to win votes at that level in non-caucus states (often featuring closed primaries) with high proportions of Hispanics and blacks?
Hillary, as expected, took the first two races, one of which was controversial because Obama wasn’t on the ballot. Obama stunned Hillary with an impressive Super Tuesday showing, but there was still the hope that she could at least stop his momentum. That didn’t happen, as Obama destroyed Clinton in race after race between Feb 9 and Feb 19. It has been posited by some posters here that Clinton’s success in big states is a statement that discredits the Sanders campaign. However, Clinton won big states in 2008, just like she’s doing now. In fact a lot of Obama’s victories were racked up in small states just like Sanders has been doing. If Sanders somehow stuns Clinton in California and Pennsylvania, he would have accomplished something that Obama never did. But like Obama he would be able to say that he has won more individual contests, competed well in battleground states, and won states with diverse populations. I think a lot of Hillary supporters are just hoping she gets to the finish line and haven’t really considered how things might look on the other side of June 7. The dynamics can shift dramatically between now and then.
The difference between Obama and Sanders is that Obama was winning caucuses while keeping Clinton to a tie in large primary states. Sanders has won caucus states but failed to stop Clinton from making large primary wins in southern and swing states, only really keeping it to (near) ties in some blue states. As a result, he trails badly in both delegates and popular votes and he’ll be lucky to draw close in Pennsylvania and California. Thinking that he’ll pull out sweeping wins there is a pipe dream.
Sanders tried to use Obama’s caucus playbook, he was just outmaneuvered by Clinton who learned better from 2008.
In 2008 Clinton started out as the presumptive nominee. And came out of the chute OK. Then the Obama steamroller got going and never looked back until after he’d passed the finish line. Sure, Clinton won a few along the way, but the delegate count just kept leaning more and more Obama’s way.
In 2016 Clinton started out as the presumptive nominee. And came out of the chute OK. Then the Clinton steamroller got going while Sanders pretty much got stuck behind and has been slowly falling further behind ever since. Sure, Sanders won a few along the way, but the delegate count just kept leaning more and more Clinton’s way.
And here we now in April 2016 entering the third turn of this one-lap race and Sander’s people are using the 2008 narrative to predict a Clinton fade and Sanders win?
Other than both narratives containing the word “Clinton” they’re polar opposites of one another. The supers shifted away from Clinton in 2008 because she was losing. They’re not therefore going to shift away from Clinton in 2016 because she’s winning.
Somebody (actually lots of somebodies) in the Sanders camp are engaging in a lot of wishful to the point of delusional thinking.
Having said all that I agree the race is not over. Clinton is well ahead, but is also a particularly flawed candidate. And this is a particularly crazy year with wild cards and jokers popping up all over the place. Much might yet go wrong for her. But confidently extrapolating from 2008 is a mugs’ game. Whatever happens, it won’t be a replay of 2008’s Clinton fade from (almost) pole to pole.
I’d bet its FBI policy to release the investigation as a matter of fact - did she or didn’t she break the law and this is why - and not to make ethical, much less scathing commentary.
Well, in both scenarios, the losing camp kept making new and innovative metrics for who is really winning beyond “who has the most delegates”, pointed to strings of too-late late contest wins as “momentum” and gave petulant threats that they were going to go home and pout in November if their person wasn’t handed the nomination.
Good point. Losing teams are all alike in many ways. Humans being humans and all that.
One of the interesting things I learned from DSeid in the last couple days is that the delegate apportionment rules already include a factor for momentum.
A win counts for more delegates in a late contest than an identical win in an identical state does in an earlier contest. Precisely for the purpose of rewarding late momentum. So anybody arguing for extra points for late momentum are actually arguing for extra, *extra *points and are on shakier ground than they probably realize.
It’s funnier than that. Adaher claimed two things: the FBI would make a statement of some sort, and it would happen this summer. This article says nothing at all about the former, and specifically contradicts the latter:
If one assumes for a moment the FBI leans R (good bet), and one leans towards Clinton being chargeably guilty of something (also an R trait), then it’s probably more destructive to the D cause to release (or leak) the damning report after Clinton is nominated rather than before.
Said another way, nothing the FBI man said directly supports what **adaher **claimed. But neither does it refute it. A damning report released in late Aug is still “summer” and still fulfills the R wish / dream of the FBI dropping a house on the Wicked Witch.
And one can cynically interpret the “we’ll release the report when it’s good and ready” as “we’ll release the report when it’s most beneficial to us (= most detrimental to the Ds).”
The problem with cynical conspiratorial thinking is that sometimes the plain obvious interpretation really is the truth. And when it is, the cynics/CTers get it all backwards every time
To be fair I am not sure it was designed that way in order to reward momentum. My guess was iit was as much to give later going states an incentive to go late: they will more often no longer matter but when they do matter they matter lots more - a trade off.
But it does nevertheless have that result: momentum is built into the pledged delegate count, an up to 35% (!) bonus impact for a late state
Later voting states get a delegate bonus for coming in at the tail of the contest. Whether intentionally or not, it would reward late game momentum since the states you’re winning are worth more (by standard allocation metrics of size, legislature makeup, etc) than earlier voting states.