GOP

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY PROJECTIONS: SUPER TUESDAY 2

/ Tyler Pedigo / 40 Comments

There is a non-zero chance that Hillary Clinton will have a bad day tomorrow.

My model is estimating two Sanders wins on Tuesday, in Missouri and Illinois. However, Illinois and Ohio are both effectively coin flips with such thin margins between victory and defeat (if you recall, I put Bernie at 53.48% in Michigan and he won by less than 1%, though my model should be more accurate now). It is also estimating two wide victories for Hillary in North Carolina and Florida, which is and has been expected. Here are tomorrow’s projections:

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Only one Bernie win in Missouri will not likely lead to any permanent change in the perception of Hillary being the candidate that is destined to win the nomination. Two upsets will likely change the narrative of the presidential race, and bolster Bernie’s image as a threat to the prospect of Hillary being the Democratic nominee. Three upsets tomorrow will likely transform Bernie from “challenger” status to “probable nominee”status, and I say this because early numbers indicate to me that Bernie will win (at least) the next eight states in a row, all the way until April 19th. If Sanders wins three states tomorrow, this means that in mid-April he will be able to say that he has won eleven of the last thirteen state primaries. That’s some serious momentum.

I’ve also been putting together a GOP model over the past week. Though the model seems to fit previous elections extremely well, the GOP elections are just far too volatile for me to have much confidence in the numbers. Regardless, it is estimating at least two upsets tomorrow, in Florida and North Carolina. If it turns out to be acceptably accurate, I will begin posting projections for the GOP as well.

-Tyler

SUPER TUESDAY 2: PRELIMINARY DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY PROJECTIONS

/ Tyler Pedigo / 22 Comments

I received countless emails from all over the world expressing support after my very questionable Michigan projection turned out to be the only one that was correct this past week. To all of you that I haven’t yet personally responded to, thank you so much for the interest.

There is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding Super Tuesday 2. With three states having fairly even odds between Bernie and Hillary in the betting markets, it is not immediately clear who will emerge victorious in Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio. Today I am posting this to essentially echo that sentiment of uncertainty, because these are three remarkably close races. Florida and North Carolina will go to Hillary on Tuesday unless something catastrophic happens to her campaign.

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Illinois is, in my opinion, going to be the most interesting to watch. We know that politicians almost always get a bonus in their home state for obvious reasons, just as Bernie received in Vermont and Ted Cruz received in Texas. But what about Hillary? Where does she have the strongest ties? She grew up in Illinois, went to college and law school in Massachusetts and Connecticut, lived and served as First Lady in Arkansas, and was elected Senator for the state of New York. According to my calculations, she did get a bonus in Arkansas that can be attributed to her history with the state, but received no such bonus in Massachusetts. The question is, will she receive another “home state bonus” in the state of Illinois in addition to the bonus she already received in Arkansas? This is something that I genuinely don’t know, but if she does, I doubt it will be a significant number because of Bernie’s historical ties to Illinois. Furthermore, we are unable to even look to 2008 to make a better guess, because her most significant opponent was also from Illinois, Barack Obama.

If Bernie Sanders can maintain pressure in the state of Missouri, he should win it. He had one event in Springfield today, and has an event in St. Louis tomorrow and Monday, which will more than likely be enough to secure him a victory there.

Ohio is where Bernie must focus his energy if he wants to continue shifting the narrative of the presidential race (one win in Missouri won’t be enough) and build on his success from Michigan. This seems like what his campaign is trying to do, with events in different Ohioan cities over the next three days. Whether he will be able to get two points out of that remains to be seen, but if the outreach effort in that state is anything close to what happened in Michigan, and if Hillary focuses her efforts primarily in Illinois at the expense of Ohio, he may win.

-Tyler