[RD] The Democratic Nomination

[onejayhawk]

Midwestern life may be different. That said, while Kasich has not been driven out he is now on the fringe.

J

 

[Bootstoots]

I didn't mean "out of the race" and by "yet" I didn't mean anything recent. Kasich by all indications should have been a casualty in the purges that drove me out, during Dubya's first term. How he got through that is a bigger mystery than how Drumpf got in. Even a RINO is welcome if he can pay the fee.

Kasich is not a RINO; he's pretty solidly mainstream, and among other things has done a really effective job of getting bills passed to block access to abortion in Ohio. He comes across as moderate partly because of the fact that he's not crazy like all the remaining people on the stage, partly because he's trying to win moderate establishment types by portraying himself as a voice of reason, and partly because he's pragmatic enough to do things like accepting free government money to expand Medicaid.

 

[Lexicus]

and among other things has done a really effective job of getting bills passed to block access to abortion in Ohio.

Which is disgustingly evil.

Many of my female friends are quite annoyed that he's being portrayed as moderate.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Kasich is not a RINO; he's pretty solidly mainstream, and among other things has done a really effective job of getting bills passed to block access to abortion in Ohio. He comes across as moderate partly because of the fact that he's not crazy like all the remaining people on the stage, partly because he's trying to win moderate establishment types by portraying himself as a voice of reason, and partly because he's pragmatic enough to do things like accepting free government money to expand Medicaid.

Any one of those things will get you forcibly removed from most state Republican parties. NO COMPROMISE is the only stance accepted.

 

[onejayhawk]

Kasich is not a RINO; he's pretty solidly mainstream, and among other things has done a really effective job of getting bills passed to block access to abortion in Ohio. He comes across as moderate partly because of the fact that he's not crazy like all the remaining people on the stage, partly because he's trying to win moderate establishment types by portraying himself as a voice of reason, and partly because he's pragmatic enough to do things like accepting free government money to expand Medicaid.

Not anymore. Kasich is probably in the leftmost quartile.
J

 

[_random_]

He does have some solid conservative credentials though. There's the abortion stuff talked about above, and the fact that he was the architect of a balanced budget in the house. But then abortion and deficit reduction aren't really issues that come up all that much now. The present state of American conservatism, for better or for worse.

 

[s0nny80y]

hillary is spanish for erie lake

 

[Phrossack]

Went to a Sanders rally. Took forever to get in and for Sanders to arrive. A few Drumpf supporters were wasting their time holding signs.

I'd read of Tulsi Gabbard before, and she gave a good speech. When she criticized Clinton, an audience member yelled out, "She's a whore!", and Gabbard immediately told him that was uncalled for. She's a veteran, a woman, and as liberal as Sanders, so she has a future in the party if she wants it.

Danny DeVito made a brief appearance and introduced Bernie. He was his usual self, and talked about trade deals, avoiding wars, racism, voter turnout, education, and inequality. Pretty good points, and he sure had a motivated crowd. Not sure if I'll actually volunteer to help the campaign, but we'll see.

 

[_random_]

This was the one in St. Louis, yeah?

I've sort of envisioned Gabbard as Secretary of State in a hypothetical Sanders administration, because that's the kinda thing I waste my time thinking about. Of the political figures who've aligned themselves with Sanders, she's definitely got the most foreign policy cred.

 

[Phrossack]

This was the one in St. Louis, yeah?

I've sort of envisioned Gabbard as Secretary of State in a hypothetical Sanders administration, because that's the kinda thing I waste my time thinking about. Of the political figures who've aligned themselves with Sanders, she's definitely got the most foreign policy cred.

It was. There's another tomorrow; I might go there with someone if she wants to.

Gabbard's main weakness is her inexperience--she's only been in Congress for three years. In time, she'll be a very strong candidate for anything. A lot of voters wouldn't like that she's Hindu, but the sorts of people who care strongly about that probably wouldn't vote for her anyway.

 

[Takhisis]

Try watching Yes, Prime Minister. I consider it essential viewing.

But that's British TV.

Sanders is still leading Michigan with 26% of precincts reporting. I doubt he'll actually take it given that it appears Detroit and Flint haven't really reported in yet, but he's still doing much better than expected and dominating the rural areas and small cities of the state.

Yep, he did take it. And now what? Not counting the superdelegates, he's a hundred or so delegates behind already.

Indeed. I'm actually surprised that it's not more contentious than it is. I'm halfway convinced Trump is a harbinger of the mood to come. Let's hold on for 2020! Eventually China will force the perspective to shift again. But given the timing that's going to be our children's war to fight.

What will the Chinese force the war to shift to? Where from?

Not anymore. Kasich is probably in the leftmost quartile.

Erm, no… just no. Pay attention to his actual policies as governor and compare them to Drumpf's proposals.

 

[Bootstoots]

Yep, he did take it. And now what? Not counting the superdelegates, he's a hundred or so delegates behind already.

If you look at my later posts after he did win, you'll see that I was excited for him but still really pessimistic about his overall chances, with odds of winning in the ballpark of 4-6%.

Erm, no… just no. Pay attention to his actual policies as governor and compare them to Drumpf's proposals.

This. He's acting as a moderate, and he is more moderate than the Tea Party types like Crubio. However, his actual policies are well within the Republican mainstream. On balance I would put him to the right of Trump on most issues, with a few exceptions like immigration.

I question the strategy of trying to appear moderate in this race - establishment moderates are a generally disliked and declining breed of Republicans. But it does seem to be good enough in this case for an overall 3rd place finish, assuming he gets Ohio. Not sure if his plan at this point is to be nominated at a contested convention (which I doubt would happen) or just stop Trump from getting an outright majority.

 

[onejayhawk]

Is there anything that will keep Hillary Clinton from effectively ending the race on Tuesday. It looks like a large margin sweep.

J

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Is there anything that will keep Hillary Clinton from effectively ending the race on Tuesday. It looks like a large margin sweep.

J

How confident are you in that "large margin sweep"? If that does happen it does make the math almost impossible and that may be synonymous with "effectively ending the race." However, in the wake of Michigan I am not sure i have a lot of confidence in the large margin sweep.

I also don't know how to define "effectively end the race." Making the math nearly impossible seems like it would qualify. But the math has long been highly improbable at best, so is that really such a change?

I expect much closer results, but with Clinton stretching her already substantial lead, followed by Sanders again saying he has a "fifty state strategy" headed towards the convention.

 

[_random_]

Is there anything that will keep Hillary Clinton from effectively ending the race on Tuesday. It looks like a large margin sweep.

J

PPP has teased at very close polls in Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri coming out tomorrow and YouGov actually had Sanders up by two in Illinois. The Sanders campaign has said internal polling points to a high single-digit margin in Florida of all damn places. Now granted, that's not an unbiased source, but they were right about Michigan when the pollsters were wrong so they could be onto something independent folks aren't. Or not. But I think it's fair to say we'll see in a worst case scenario for Sanders, three narrow losses, not any kind of large margin sweep. And honestly, that would be a very bad scenario and likely kill any momentum from Michigan. But after Tuesday only about half of all pledged delegates will have been allocated, and Sanders will still have a favorable slate of states immediately ahead of him- Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. None of them are huge delegate prizes, but they're likely to narrow the margin no matter what happens Tuesday. Considering that 694 pledged delegates are available on the second-to-last day of primary voting, I don't see any reason for Sanders not to keep this up until June. An actual Sanders victory is unlikely, but a mathematical shutout is basically impossible at this point.

 

[Camikaze]

I decided to have a look at how the prolific/highly rated pollsters have been doing, and see what that says about tomorrow. I'm taking SurveyUSA (S), Public Policy Polling (P) & YouGov (Y) (A, B- and C ratings respectively from 538).

Taking the last poll before each of the contests that 538 lists with these pollsters, we have as follows:

• Alabama, result was C+59 - P (C+28)
• Arkansas C+36 - P (C+25)
• Georgia C+43 - S (C+39), P (C+34), Y (C+28)
• Iowa tie - P (C+8), Y (S+1)
• Louisiana C+48 - P (C+31)
• Mass. C+1 - P (S+7), Y (C+3)
• Michigan S+2 - P (C+10), Y (C+11)
• Miss. C+66 - P (C+34)
• South Carolina C+48 - P (C+21), Y (C+19)
• Tennessee C+34 - P (C+26)
• Texas C+32 - S (C+29), P (C+23), Y (C+24)
• Vermont S+73 - P (S+76)
• Virginia C+29 - P (C+22), Y (C+20)

There could be an infinitely better statistical analysis of those figures, but if you just take the bare average of how far each has been out, you have:

• S - polls were +3.5 in favour of Sanders
• P - polls were +9.7 in favour of Sanders
• Y - polls were +6.7 in favour of Sanders

Of the current polls for tomorrow we have:

• Florida - S (C+31), P (C+25), Y (C+28)
• Illinois - Y (S+2)
• North Carolina - S (C+24), P (C+17)
• Ohio - P (C+21), Y (C+9)

No polls from those polling companies in Missouri.

Very unscientifically adding the average biases and then taking the average, we might expect:

• Florida - C+35
• Illinois - C+5
• North Carolina - C+27
• Ohio - C+23

 

[metalhead]

I think the top-line numbers are kind of meaningless, really. If you look at what happened in MI, the reason it broke for Bernie was that he drove up huge margins with young and independent voters. They make up a bloc that went about 4-1 for him according to the exit polls there. For Bernie to have a shot at winning, he needs similar margins among those groups of voters. According to the weekend polls, he appears to have such margins among independents in IL and MO, but not in OH. Young voters don't appear to be quite as lopsided a group in IL, however.

The problem with the top line numbers is that they are weighted to the projected electorate. MI was off by so much because the pollsters did not anticipate nearly as many young voters showing up, and I'm betting did not anticipate them going so hard for Bernie. It's possible that the real margins showed up in the raw numbers, but the pollsters corrected them downward thinking they weren't realistic. The same thing probably happened in a lot of the Southern states, only in the opposite direction, which is why polls missed the margins badly in many of those states as well.

So the question is, then, how much have the pollsters corrected for the results in MI? Are they over-correcting, under-correcting, or what? The reported PPP margins among Independent voters in the polling they just released seem to be in line with the Michigan results, so it's possible that those latest numbers are fairly accurate.

Some pundits have put forth the theory that turnout among Independents that support Hillary and among Democrats was depressed in MI because her return to "inevitability" after Super Tuesday gave them license to either stay home, or cross over and vote in the GOP sideshow. I don't really buy that argument, but her margins among registered Democrats have been very consistent across the large primary states that have voted so far. So it may be that she really ramps up her GOTV in places like Chicago, where there are a ton of loyal registered Democrats, and a huge turnout machine at her disposal. It may be her key to winning IL

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So, question...

There's about 2700 pledged delegates still available, so a lead of a couple hundred is certainly not insurmountable. After Tuesday there will be about 2000 available. There still won't be a mathematical elimination, since even a 100% Clinton result would only put her ahead by nine hundred and some. But is there some padding of her lead that really says "race over"?

Say she gets a 450/250 split and leads by over 400. Is that effectively too much to make up?

How about 400/300, putting her lead over 300?

 

[metalhead]

I think anything short of Sanders winning more delegates tomorrow is virtually insurmountable.

One thing that has gotten little play so far, but to me looks crucial is the split between registered Democrats and independents. In virtually every non-Southern primary, Hillary has had a 15-20 point lead among registered Democrats, and the polls for tomorrow's contests are showing the same margins. The open primaries in the Midwest have greatly helped Bernie get voters, as independents went 3-1 for him in Michigan, and polls indicate similar margins tomorrow in IL and MO.

However, as we get later in the schedule, many of the primaries are closed, and with registration dates several weeks prior to the date of the primary. Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Kentucky, NY, PA, MD, and DE are all like this. None of these strike me as particularly Bernie-friendly states to begin with excepting perhaps Oregon, and this adds up to a significant number of delegates. Bernie needs to win almost all of these contests, and by significant margins, and he would seem to me to be at a distinct disadvantage and likely to lose most of them. So I don't see where he makes up the ground, I really don't.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I think anything short of Sanders winning more delegates tomorrow is virtually insurmountable.

One thing that has gotten little play so far, but to me looks crucial is the split between registered Democrats and independents. In virtually every non-Southern primary, Hillary has had a 15-20 point lead among registered Democrats, and the polls for tomorrow's contests are showing the same margins. The open primaries in the Midwest have greatly helped Bernie get voters, as independents went 3-1 for him in Michigan, and polls indicate similar margins tomorrow in IL and MO.

However, as we get later in the schedule, many of the primaries are closed, and with registration dates several weeks prior to the date of the primary. Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Kentucky, NY, PA, MD, and DE are all like this. None of these strike me as particularly Bernie-friendly states to begin with excepting perhaps Oregon, and this adds up to a significant number of delegates. Bernie needs to win almost all of these contests, and by significant margins, and he would seem to me to be at a distinct disadvantage and likely to lose most of them. So I don't see where he makes up the ground, I really don't.

I think that you and I have agreed all along that Clinton was going to win handily. So I think I asked the question poorly.

To me, the lead she has right now is insurmountable. As you say, given the way the rest of the primaries stack up they could be dead even right now and that would still amount to an insurmountable lead since it looks like she is just going to get further and further ahead. I think that Sanders himself knows that.

But what does it take for the average Sanders supporter to recognize that Sanders is in it for the message, not the win?