New York

FINAL PROJECTION: NEW YORK DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

/ Tyler Pedigo / 76 Comments

A few weeks ago, I posted an outlook for all of the April Democratic primaries. This outlook included my initial estimate for the New York primary, showing Bernie Sanders at 38.8% in the Empire State. We are all aware that both candidates have been campaigning relentlessly in New York, and for that reason I didn’t believe that the needle would really move much from the initial estimate. This assumption of mine is based on the concept of “dynamic equilibrium” that I learned about in my Political Science senior seminar during my undergrad, from a book called The Gamble that covered the 2012 general election. The idea is that, if both candidates are campaigning with approximately the same vigor and intensity in a state, they will both likely get about the same amount of media coverage there, capture the same number of votes in that time frame, etc. It’s a useful way to think about elections. Anyways, it does appear that Hillary Clinton has lost a very small amount of ground compared to my original estimate. Here are my final numbers for New York:

Screen Shot 2016-04-18 at 6.22.46 PM

I am expecting Bernie to do a couple of points better than the original outlook for a couple of reasons. First, his Facebook presence has become barely more favorable than it was, settling out at 70.00% of Democrat likes. This is similar to Virginia (70.37%), Florida (69.56%), and Iowa (71.87%). Secondly, his relative search interest on Google is decent; with the three day relative average coming in at about 2.05-2.1. This is in the ballpark of Illinois (2.05), Oklahoma (1.98), and Nebraska (2.02). The demographic makeup of the state, as well as the closed primary contest format still remain the greatest hurdle to any good Sanders performance in New York.

I am somewhat inclined to believe that New York’s unique primary rules will alter the results of tomorrow’s primary more in favor of Hillary. To vote in the Democratic primary, voters had to have been registered a Democrat by the end of 2015. My belief is that this will most certainly disproportionately affect Sanders supporters. A good friend of mine refers to the New York primary as the most closed primary of the season, and it will be interesting to see if that setup produces results that vary widely from the above projection. Thanks for reading.

-Tyler

APRIL DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES: OUTLOOK

/ Tyler Pedigo / 36 Comments

Hello everyone. I’ve been receiving a lot of requests to publish some early numbers for the April states, so I’ve put some preliminary numbers together for you.

I will continue updating this post as new data comes in.

Here are the current projections:

Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 7.56.02 PM

Producing the following delegate allocation:

Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 7.55.26 PM

  • Wisconsin: Bernie should do well here, though I’m not sure that he will do as well as the above numbers indicate. He has a significant presence on social media, and the demographics favor him. Wisconsin is an open primary, however, and the crossover anti-Trump votes by Democrats or Independents that would have otherwise supported him will be damaging. This effect is accounted for in the above numbers, though.
  • Wyoming: Bernie will win Wyoming by a margin somewhere between 25-60 points. Wyoming is a caucus and is only 0.8% African American.
  • New York: Hillary will do very well here. She has a massive social media presence among New Yorkers, and the state has a slightly larger than average percentage of African Americans. New York also has a closed primary.
  • Connecticut: This state is a toss up at the moment. Sanders has a fair social media presence here, but Connecticut has a closed primary. He has lost every fully closed primary (not semi-closed) thus far.
  • Delaware: Hillary should win Delaware by 10-40 points. This is because of the closed primary format, as well as the 21.4% African American population.
  • Maryland: Hillary will, more than likely, win Maryland by the biggest margin of any of the April primaries. This is because of the 29.8% African American population (more than Alabama, and effectively the same as Louisiana) and the closed primary format.
  • Pennsylvania: Because it is still several weeks until Pennsylvania votes, I can still see this one going either way, though it is clearly leaning Hillary. Pennsylvania has a closed primary as well, though Bernie has a decent social media presence in the state.
  • Rhode Island: It will be a while before Rhode Islanders vote, but it is currently leaning Bernie. Rhode Island has a semi-closed primary, which Sanders has done relatively well in so far (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, North Carolina) compared to closed primaries. Rhode Island is 5.7% African American, but Bernie has only an average social media presence in the state. I would classify Rhode Island as a toss up.

As you can see, even if Bernie does remarkably well in Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Rhode Island, the delegate deficit he will pick up in Maryland alone will more than cover those surpluses. Hopefully the Sanders campaign campaigns intensively in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland to try to control the damage. Bernie’s campaign may, in fact, be mathematically better off forgetting Wyoming and Rhode Island altogether if (for example) a couple of points of over-performance in New York means that he offsets twenty delegates worth of deficit he would have otherwise incurred; though outright wins are without a doubt important.

As always, thank you everyone for the interest. I am truly honored that so many people enjoy and look forward to my work.

-Tyler