The numbers after Super Tuesday

[cos]

Enough states have voted that the end is getting clearer.

TL;DR: Probably President Clinton. Well, it was already the most probably outcome before any primaries happened, but it's getting kinda close to near-certain now. Here's how I see the numbers...

Comments

[vvalkyri]

So...whether or not Sanders should keep going, do you think he will?
And how do you deal with the Sanders or bust people? I have one on my flist on FB who went so far as to post that anybody supporting Clinton should defriend him now.

[cos]

Yes, I think Sanders will keep going.

As for people like that, I'd just humor them for now. This is the stage of the primaries where people are prone to get the bitterest. I understand the feeling, and I'm really unhappy that Clinton is getting this nomination, and want to make it as hard for her as possible, but I also think it's important to defeat the Republican nominee and I think most people like the one you describe will come around to that. Except for some of the ones who never would've supported the Democrat in the first place, if Sanders hadn't run (and to be fair Sanders is attracting a good number of such people).

[vvalkyri]

Also, any change after Michigan?

[cos]

I'm excited and happy to see how well he did in Michigan compared to the polls. But he gained 8 delegates in Clinton in Michigan while she gained 28 on him in Mississippi, and we're now 166 delegates closer to the end. Overall he's lost ground since Super Tuesday, not just in that Clinton's lead is a little bigger, but more importantly in terms of what percentage of remaining delegates he needs to win

[barodar]

Hey, you'd be a good person to ask. What is your opinion about superdelegates? It makes me deeply uncomfortable that some people's votes count for more than other people's votes.

[cos]

My view is that superdelegates don't matter in selecting the nominee, as I explained in this post. So on that level, their votes don't count at all.

However, they do count in setting media perception at the start of a primary season, so it would be nice to whittle down their voting power to the point where it didn't have that effect. On the other hand, there are so many other things that set media perception in counterproductive ways, that superdelegates aren't that big a deal on that front.

[barking_iguana]

I think there are advantages and disadvantages to having superdelegates, but the "some people's votes count more than others" argument, which I've heard before in those exact words, is misleading, IMO.

At the convention, your vote doesn't count for anything directly. It only counts in that you helped select people whose votes do count. Some of those you helped select by being part of the presidential primary electorate, others you helped select by being part of the electorate that elected your senator, or whatever office makes someone a superdelegate.

[cos]

I don't buy that framing for a moment.

Pledged delegates are put up by the presidential campaign. When you vote for them, you get exactly what you're voting for: national convention votes for the candidate you want. Superdelegates were selected before it's even known how the candidates are going to be, and make up their own mind, so even if you *wanted* to vote for, say, US Representative based on which presidential candidate they'd support for nomination at the convention, you couldn't do it. Not only that, but a majority of superdelegates aren't even people holding current elected office. Most of them are DNC members and state party chairs and the like; the house + senate + governors makes up less than half.

If superdelegates' votes really did matter in the same way as pledged delegate votes when selecting the nominee, then yes, absolutely it would be a case of some people's votes counting more than others. A lot more.

[drwex]

I think Sanders' one chance of unseating Clinton is NY. Not because he'll mathematically narrow the count by that much (I agree with you there) but because if he does to her in NY what he did in Michigan it will make her look like a much weaker general-election candidate. If he does beat her there AND superdelegates start to move toward him (I agree this has to happen pre-convention because they will surely close ranks at the convention) THEN he has life going into California which he would also need to win, and by more than 2%. Those are some long odds, but they are not zero

[cos]

I Sanders beats Clinton in NY that would indeed be a big deal and change the race significantly, but Massachusetts tells me he won't. I should've just ignored the polls and gone based on what I said I was going by, which is the voting patterns evident from actual voting results so far. Midwestern states should be a little bit better for Sanders than MA, which the rest of the mid-Atlantic and southern New England states should be a little worse for him, and in NY Clinton has the additional home state effect. Michigan was a surprise based on the polls, but totally consistent with what I would predict without those polls, and Clinton winning NY is consistent with that

[pseydtonne]

Begging your pardon, because otherwise I loved this write-up. Your political analysis keeps getting better and is rooted in a good ground-up process -- from people canvasing to patterns arising therefrom

[cos]

Oooh, you're right! That paragraph was supposed to say "Colorado", not "Oklahoma". He had a nice solid win in the Oklahoma primary but the really big wins were CO and MN. I'll correct the post.

Regarding the P.S., though: I don't see anywhere I even slightly implied that Oklahoma (or Colorado, once I correct the post) is southern. Clinton is sweeping the south with big wins; Neither Oklahoma nor Colorado is part of that, obviously. If Sanders had actually won a southern state, that would've been huge news and figured really prominently in my post.

[pseydtonne]

Oh, you're right. Sorry. I misread the Southern part. My bad.