Let me first address the elephant in the room.
Arizona was a catastrophe. Thankfully, the controversy has picked up enough media attention that many of you already know what happened. For those of you that don’t, this article touches on some of the issues, though I don’t agree with everything that he says. I have been aware of several instances of election fraud (though these were through manipulation of votes on electronic voting machines) in this election cycle already through the incredible work of this statistician named Beth Clarkson, but have largely remained silent on the issue because the instances thus far haven’t altered the results so much that the candidate that should’ve won lost. Not to mention, anyone that speaks out against perceived electoral injustices is immediately deemed a sore loser and totally discredited.
I encourage you to read through Beth’s work. She has received a great deal of media attention over the past couple of years and is actively working to improve the electoral process. I know many of you will disagree, but I stand by my Arizona projection and believe that if the election had been conducted in a normal, reasonable way, Hillary would’ve lost or came very close to losing. I have honestly lost a lot of sleep over this, and I can only hope that none of us witness anything like that again. Like many of you, I just want a fair election.
Now, for the elections today. Here are the numbers:
Bernie Sanders should win Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington, largely for three reasons:
- Extremely low populations of African Americans, 1.6-3.6%, among the nations lowest
- All three are caucuses
- Hillary Clinton has an unusually low proportion of Facebook likes in all three states, 17-19%, which is among her worst
With all this being said, there is once again the question of how a particular ethnic group will vote, but this time it is with respect to Hawaii. Hawaii has a large population of Asians, native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, unlike any state we have seen thus far. These groups could be predisposed to favor Hillary Clinton, but the null hypothesis that I must currently accept is that they aren’t. I have tested the effect of Asian population size on previous results specifically for the sake of Hawaii after a friend suggested that I do, but it was very statistically insignificant, with a p-value of ~0.8 and actually a positive coefficient for Bernie vote share at that. Regardless, Hillary Clinton won the Northern Mariana Islands as well as American Samoa, so perhaps it is the case that in locales with Asian majorities, the dynamic changes. Hawaii is a politically unique state in many other ways, so it will be interesting to see if this estimate holds true.
Also, I want to sincerely thank everyone for the outpouring of support. I received countless emails and messages after Tuesday’s elections, even immediately after the initial Arizona results made me look like a complete moron. To all of you that I haven’t yet been able to respond to personally, I apologize for the delay but I will get to you!. I have no agenda, and I’m not doing anything remarkable, though I’m flattered by those that suggest as much. I just want to perform solid regression analysis and statistical work to give you all the most accurate electoral projections (without using polls!).
-Tyler