DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY PROJECTIONS: KENTUCKY AND OREGON

/ Tyler Pedigo
As you all know, I’m just a graduate student with no income. If you would like to support my work and want me to be able to afford Top Ramen (or maybe even Mellow Mushroom pizza if you all are extraordinarily generous) while I’m working on these statistics, please click this link to donate to Tyler’s Food & Rent Fund!
Also, if you are an employer and have an open position, ideally in the D.C. area, I need a summer job! Please contact me if you think I would be a good fit for your organization. Paid positions only, please.


 I am estimating that Bernie Sanders will win both primaries tomorrow, in Kentucky and Oregon. Using my metrics, Oregon seems poised to be a blowout Sanders victory, while Kentucky stands to be a hard-fought battle between both candidates for a win. I have put together an entirely new framework over the past week to account for votes going to other candidates, which is where my West Virginia projection fell most short. It is a more comprehensive model, and should be more accurate. For anyone concerned, my old model is generating very similar estimates for tomorrow. Here they are:

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KENTUCKY

The demographics of Kentucky favor Bernie Sanders. It is a white state with only a 7.8% African American population, similar to that of Kansas (5.9%), Wisconsin (6.3%), and Indiana (9.4%), all states that he has previously won. 7.8% is approximately at one standard deviation from the mean Black population percentage (4.2%) of the states that Bernie has won, meaning that it is not too far out of the ballpark for a Sanders victory. Bernie has also done quite well with campaign contributions in Kentucky, with the logged value of the relative number of <$200 contributions being 0.337. This is slightly under the average of states that he has won, 0.366, but far higher than the average of the states that he has lost, -0.07. These reasons are the primary drivers of my estimated Sanders victory.

Bernie’s Facebook presence in the state is poor, 73.91%, which is lower than any state he has won at this point. Bernie’s relative search interest in Kentucky is poor as well, with the three-day average currently at 0.927. The mean three-day average for all the states that he has won is 2.167, though just last week he won West Virginia at a relative search interest value of 0.94.

Lastly, Kentucky has a closed primary electoral format, which Bernie has never won before. Regardless of who actually wins the Kentucky primary tomorrow, I believe it will be a very close race.

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OREGON

Oregon is Bernie’s best state with the exception of Vermont when it comes to Facebook data. He has 84.314% of Democrat Facebook Likes, similar to Idaho (84.0%), Maine (84.09%), and Alaska (83.87%) (Vermont was 95.00%). Demographically, Oregon is about as good as it gets for Bernie. The African American population is only 1.8%, similar to Hawaii (1.6%), Utah (1.1%), and Alaska (3.3%). Only in Vermont and Alaska did Bernie outpace Hillary to a greater extent than in Oregon in the relative number of <$200 campaign contributions. These are the primary drivers of the massive margin of victory that I am projecting. It is difficult to reconcile the one and only poll (that showed Hillary with a 15% lead… but also had 19% undecided… and was also conducted well after ballots had already been received and presumably had already been mailed off by many voters) conducted in Oregon with this projection, but I refuse to arbitrarily tack on extra points because I have a hunch about something.

Oregon is entirely vote by mail. Clinton has traditionally dominated early voting, but Oregon’s format is unique to all the states that have already voted, so it is difficult to predict how much of an effect this will have. Personally, I doubt it will be significant due to practically every metric being overwhelmingly in Bernie’s favor (imagine Vermont was only vote-by-mail, would that have really changed the result?). Also, the party registration deadline was recent, April 26th. Bernie’s current relative search interest is quite low, but Oregonians began receiving their ballots two-three weeks ago. If we go back in the Google Trends data to April 26th (around the day voters began receiving ballots), Bernie’s relative search interest for the next week and a half was around 1.45; not bad. The average for all the states he has won is 2.167, but the standard deviation is 0.61, so 1.45 is not indicative of anything particularly remarkable.

Lastly, Oregon is also a closed primary, which Bernie Sanders has never won before.

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If the above estimates are correct, this should give Hillary Clinton a ~24 delegate deficit tomorrow. Good luck to both candidates, and happy voting to all you Oregonians and Kentuckians!

-Tyler

36 thoughts on “DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY PROJECTIONS: KENTUCKY AND OREGON”

  1. GREAT NEWS, I have it on good authority that Bernie Sanders is going to take 100% of CA!!! My source is how me and all my friends are voting. Never mind that we are all young, white, and there are only 5 of us…

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      • Susan, you are probably a bitch $HILLARY supporter who just likes her because you have common genitals. All women who vote for KILLARY are dumb, low information genital voters!!!!

        #BERNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

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  4. I suspect that your work is in fact highly accurate and that your projections were right on. And then… there was fraud and thousands of votes for Bernie disappeared or went to Hillary. There’s just no explanation for where these votes for Hillary came from, particularly in OR.

    The media and the DNC cancelled exit polls last week, which internationally are used as indicators of fraud. So now we don’t even have that to consider.

    For now, maybe you should consider as an additional factor — after all your other data — whether the voting will be on electronic machines without a paper trail, whether there will be a 5% manual recount to check the validity of the machines, etc. Hillary has done best where the voting machines are the oldest and most prone to hacking. Data on counterpunch.com about this.

    (ps: Ignore the trolls. They’re probably paid people for Hillary’s ‘correct the record’ trolling organization. I’m sure they’ll attack me too. The point is, your work IS good, and you should know that. We need to fight for fair voting systems, and we need to reestablish exit polling and manual recounts. And yes, I’m leaving you $5 for Mellow Mushroom. Keep it up. )

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    • There was no voter fraud. HRC did much better than Tyler thought but about what many others expected. OR is all mail-in or drop off ballot…no voting machines. There is no conspiracy. The people prefer HRC to Sanders by over 3 million votes. HRC will be the next POTUS and it is time to stand with her.

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      • Actually we come here to see Tyler’s predictions not to be told who to vote for! I think Tyler has some great models running. Wasn’t perfect but has to be some trial and error. But I am a 70 year old activist and author who will vote for who I want to vote for and I thought that was what this is all about.

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      • If you’re so sure Hillary will be the next President then why ask us to stand with her? I’ll be standing with Stein come November, your party just isn’t for me.

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    • Occham’s razor my friend – its a lot more likely that a lone grad student from Kentucky trying to estimate an electoral outcome 2300 miles away got it wrong than there being a mass conspiracy of dozens (if not hundreds) of electoral and party officials to fraudulently inflate HRC’s vote in a state she had already written-off and which ultimately would have no bearing on her ability to win the nomination anyway. Was hoping for a bigger Bern in OR too, but I don’t think throwing out conspiracy theories and rejecting the legitimacy of the results gets us very far…..

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      • Wasn’t your username Craig or Purple or FeelTheMath a couple of posts ago?

        Does Correct The Record pay well?

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    • Yeah, this is how I operate:
      Is the primary closed? –> voter suppression = Bernie Wins
      Is the primary open? –> fraud = Bernie Wins
      Is it a caucus? –> illegal coin flips = Bernie Wins
      Is it in the south? –> “lower info” BLACK voters = Bernie Wins

      Basically, Bernie always wins!! EVEN WHEN HE LOSES!!

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    • Thank you for your work, Tyler. I think you are doing a great job. Tony is absolutely right. Maybe everyone visiting the site should make a donation to you every time a troll visits. Fingers crossed for you finding a good summer job in DC.

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