Delegate Proj #2: Clinton ahead by 1,346, but only by 25 if Sanders wins IA. Trump dominates GOP.

This is an update to two prior delegate projections, one for the Democrats and one for the Republicans.

Democrats

		Current Polling			If Sanders wins Iowa
		Clinton	Sanders		Clinton	Sanders
Delegates before Super Tuesday	156	103	53		80	76
Delegates On Super Tuesday	980	705	275		538	440
Deep South	715	517	162		422	306
Other	250	153	97		116	134
Total - Before March 2nd	1136	808	328		618	516
Total - states after March 2	2916	1891	1025		1419	1496
Total	4052	2699	1353		2037	2012

Not much change since the last projection.   It is worth looking at a couple of the polls since the last projection. 

Iowa, Marist, taken Jan 2 — Jan 7, Clinton 48, Sanders 45

What makes this projection is the what if: what if Sanders wins Iowa.  It has been really a month since decent polling in Iowa.   This poll is tighter than prior polling.  Marist is a good pollster, but Iowa is VERY hard to poll.  As I wrote for Bleeding Heartland, an Iowa blog, polls in Iowa this far out aren’t very predictive.

Two things to be mindful of regarding Iowa:

1.  People haven’t made up there minds. No, you don’t know who is going to win.

Last Few

Days

Last

Week

last

month

When Iowa voters make up their minds2004 dem2008 Dem2008 Gop2012 Gop

21%	21%	27%
20%	7%	24%
30%	10%	31%
46%		21%

2.  In some polling, 2016 looks like a repeat of 2008 with one exception.

There is in the early states are similarity to 2008.  Sanders strength, the young, independents, is really very similar to Obama’s.  Clinton’s strengths are very similar to her strengths in 2008.

Obama and Clinton were essentially tied among Democrats in Iowa (32-31).  The entirety of Obama’s margin was among independents (he won them 41-17).  WILL THESE INDEPENDENTS VOTE! This is the real question in Iowa and New Hampshire.

California, Field taken Dec 16 to 1/3. Clinton 46 Sanders 35

The top line numbers are less important than the cross-tabs.   The toughest thing to project the reaction among the minority communities to Sanders.  Sanders numbers among African Americans are terrible in the South.  But the data on the Hispanic vote is less clear: Sanders popularity is equal to Clinton’s in favorable unfavorable polling.

Here are the cross tabs by race in California. Honestly “Ethnic Populations” sounds like something from a racist novel.  But these numbers show Sanders with significant support among People of Color, suggesting Sanders may get more of a bounce than we think should he win Iowa.

Sanders Clinton White“Ethnic populations ”

38	38
32	57

GOP Projection

The chart below shows a projection of the GOP race.

This is the table to understand.   The polling is pretty clear, Trump loses most two way races.  But the GOP delegate selection rules after Super Tuesday and in the March 16th winner take all primaries he may build up a very large delegate lead that may make it hard to stop. Right now these numbers are way too optimistic for Trump because in some states he gets all of the delegates because he is the only candidate over 20.  Nonetheless, in my opinion this table shows why the GOP needs to winnow the field fast.  If they don’t, Trump can win.

	Trump	Cruz	Carson	Rubio
Total Before Super Tuesday	78	16	4	12
Total on Super Tuesday	384	104	121	46
Total After Super Tuesday	462	120	125	58
Total on April 1	943	188	271	81
Total on May 1	1195	234	312	85
Total on June 1	1306	247	325	95
Final total	1433	444	325	104

This  shows the projection over time.  Note Carson’s collapse and Cruz’s rise.

Explanation of Democratic Model from Previous Diary

These are for elected delegates only.  There are 713 Super Delegates, and Clinton has a lead among them. 

The only way to do a decent delegate projection is to model the results AT EVERY CD.  Democratic delegates are in two ways:

1.  Delegates awarded based on state results

2.  Delegates awarded based on CD results

The second becomes important because of how results are rounded.   This leads to unexpected results, which usually benefit the front runner.

So where do the Sanders numbers come from if he wins Iowa? How do you know?

This model builds on work that I did in 2007, and that was subsequently cited by Nate Silver.  This is a pretty significant upgrade both of his and my work, in part because the polling data behind it is significantly more robust.   The polling detail is here.

There are 13 instances since 1976 in which a front runner or someone tied for the lead has been beaten in Iowa in NH. I have excluded a couple (eg 1976 Democratic) for a variety of reasons (in ‘76 the front runner did not contest NH)  If you run a linear regression comparing their national polling before and after the front runner is beaten, you get the following results:

Linear Regression Results

Intercept	5.903613917
Prior National Poll	0.614479111
Won either Iowa, NH or both (either yes or no)	16.28478719

What the hell does that mean?  Well, it means you can model the result of a front runner by multiplying the follows

Current national Poll * .61

Add 16.2 IF thE Candidate UPsets the

front runner

Add 5.9

Using that information, we can estimate the effect of a Sanders win in Iowa as follows:

Current

National Polling

Projected

Clinton	56	40.4
Sanders	30	40.6

What if Sanders loses Iowa, but wins New Hampshire?

This is a complicated question, and I will explore this in a later post.  Bottom line Iowa’s effect on New Hampshire is not as simple as win or lose —  exceeding expectations matters greatly as well.  The best example of this is Gary Hart, who beat exceptions by 10 but still lost Iowa by 49-16.  However, beating expectations gave him a bounce that led to his New Hampshire victory 8 days later. Here are some examples of front runners winning Iowa and the follow on effect in NH:

Pre-Iowa

NH Polls

Iowa

Result

Pos-IA

NH Polls

Final

NH

Result

Front Runners who won Iowa 84 Dem‘96 GOP ‘00 GOP ‘00 Dem

Mondale	36.75	48.9	37.75	27.9
Hart	7.53	16.5	23.25	37.3
Dole	24.3	26	24.4	26
Buchanan	13.6	23	23.7	27
Bush	34.8	41	31.4	30.3
McCain	38.2	4.67	37.2	48.5
Gore	43	62.8	50.2	49.7
Bradley	44.57	36.3	42.4	45.6

it is worth noting the results in 2000.  Gore destroyed Bradley in NH, and did see a bounce in NH that subsequently partially receded.  Bush won Iowa decisively, but it had little impact on New Hampshire as his win was expected. 

If Iowa is close, I suspect Bernie will benefit.  The problem, though, is that losing Iowa may cause the press to focus on the GOP race more than the Democratic race (this happened in 2000). 

Sanders, Clinton and the South

By far the biggest challenge facing Sanders is the African American vote.  To account for this, I adjusted the projections in two ways:

1.  Where no state polling is available for southern states, I use the average of SOUTHERN polls, not national polls.

2.  I adjusted the projected bounce Sanders would receive in Southern States by the percentage of vote in that state that was cast by African Americans.   This adjustment is not perfect — there is little empirical date behind it.  But it does ensure the model is accounting for the challenge Sanders faces in the South.

You can see this on this page, where I compute the averages for each state.