How Bernie Can (Still) Win and how "Northeast" Tuesday could make or break that effort

After Hillary's resounding win in the New York Primary, the Bernie Campaign's viability is on the ropes. And the upcoming Primaries on Tuesday, April 26th could all but eliminate Bernie as a viable contender. His campaign has long used the argument that the upcoming liberal blue Northeast and West Coast states will be where his greatest strength lies- and the five upcoming primaries on Tuesday all fit that heavy blue description.

News outlets are saying Bernie must win 59% of the remaining delegates to win the majority of Pledged Delegates- this is a roughly correct assessment. It will not be easy. The Sanders campaign has acknowledged that they will need Super (Unpledged) Delegates to agree to support their campaign in order to win.

For a quick review, Pledged Delegates are awarded based on the popular vote of each state, representing 85% of the total delegates to the Democratic convention. Super or Unpledged Delegates are party officials and represent 15% of the total delegates to the convention. Because the contest between Hillary and Bernie is so close, BOTH campaigns will almost certainly need the help of Super Delegates to clinch the nomination.

In the previous post, I made the case that Super Delegates behave as fail-safes in the event of a close contest (like this one) to prevent the Party from fracturing and give the nomination to the candidate with the mandate from the voters. In 2008 they did just that: despite Hillary Clinton being the Party insider (and originally endorsed by the large majority of Super Delegates), once Barack Obama pulled ahead Supers defected to his campaign. In summation of that previous post, here's what it would take (in two steps) for Bernie to earn Super Delegate support and replicate Barack Obama's 0.1% victory over Hillary in 2008. The first hurdle that he must overcome is to get a majority of pledged delegates. The second is far MORE difficult: earn the highest share of the popular vote. For more, please read the previous post.

Now that Wisconsin, Wyoming, and New York have voted, I did some deep number crunching to offer below the contest-by-contest targets (based on fivethirtyeight's demographic model) that Bernie MUST make in order to win the majority of Pledged Delegates and the majority of the popular vote.

How to read the following: CT 58% (32)     +115,000
For the contest in Connecticut Bernie needs to win 32 delegates representing roughly 58% of the vote in order to be on track to get a majority of Pledged Delegates. To be on track to win the popular vote he must get 115,000 MORE votes than Hillary in that state.

CT 58% (32)      +115,000

DE 55% (11)      +29,000

*MD 51% (48)   +65,000

*PA 58% (110)  +390,000

RI 62% (15)       +67,000

*IN 61% (50)      +210,000

GU 57% (4)         Caucus**

*WV 67% (19)   +107,000
*KY 58% (32)    +115,000

OR 69% (42)      +252,000

VI 57% (4)          Caucus**

*PR 57% (34)     Caucus**

CA 58% (275)    +934,000

MT 71% (15)      +92,000

*NJ 55% (70)     +197,000

NM 61% (21)     +86,000

SD 69% (14)      +80,000

ND 70% (13)      Caucus**

DC 46% (9)       -4,000

Total: 58.43% (818) Delegates +2,735,895 Popular Votes
*Key contests that I believe to be particularly unlikely to render the accompanying result.
**The remaining caucuses have negligible numbers of votes remaining, due to the low turnout at caucus sites.

The first five contests all take place this Tuesday (tomorrow) and represent about a quarter of the remaining delegates available, and about a quarter of the delegates Bernie would need to win. If Bernie loses all or most of them, his chances of winning the majority of pledged delegates becomes very slim indeed, perhaps needing a 30+ point victory in California or some other miracle to put him back on track. In fact, using this model, the only contest Bernie can "afford to lose" is the District of Columbia.

Remember: Bernie Sanders is undoubtedly favored in several of the remaining states- particularly out west: the Dakotas, Montana and Oregon. But at this point he needs to win those states by landslide margins in addition to netting the other wins to be on track for the nomination. As far as this Tuesday is concerned, it will not be enough to squeak out wins in Connecticut or Rhode Island while major Delegate hauls in Pennsylvania go for Hillary. Anything other than significant wins (except in Maryland) this Tuesday will be a strong signal that the support for Bernie is simply not high enough in most of the bluest of blue states. If so, it would undermine Bernie's central argument that once northern blue states start voting, he'll do much better. 

Without significant wins tomorrow, every win in the remaining contests can constitute a moral victory for his campaign, but it will almost certainly not be enough to claim a mandate from the voters.

Still, Bernie has made it clear that he will continue to fight until the final votes are cast, particularly in California where he is hoping for a moral victory. His influence at the convention could be relative to how well he performs in the remaining states, and the movement that he started may win significant concessions in the official Democratic Party Platform which will be developed at the convention. Even if Bernie is eliminated as a viable contender for the mandate from voters, he could have tremendous sway in the Democratic Party- especially if his energized base continue to be motivated to vote for him. The contest of ideas will go on far past this contest of personalities. Voting will be a part of that, but for those who are interested in keeping the Bernie or Birdie movement alive, the fight may soon have to shift away from the Democratic Nomination.

Election Morning Analysis

When all's said and done, Democrats have done better in the Senate than expected, at this point favored to win 53 total seats with their two caucusing independents, and worse in the House, where they are expected at this point to lose about 65 total seats. 

My predictions held up well! That's another piece of good news for this fledgling blogger. In the House, I predicted that Dems would lose between 30 and 80 seats. I also noted in my forecast that since Renee Ellmers DID win in NC-02, knocking off Bob Etheridge, you could expect greater than 54 seats gained in the House by Republicans. And Heath Shuler held out against his opponent in NC-11, as did Price in NC-04, which indicated that Republicans were not destined for an overwhelming victory, and were likely to stay under 70 seats won. This isn't good news for Democrats, and the likely makeup of the new House will be something like 245(R)-190(D). For perspective, this is a huge turn-over, largest in a century. Also for perspective, before this election the House was apportioned like this: 180(R)-255(D). So for all practical purposes the Democrats and Republicans switched places.

In the Senate, all of the races I called turned out as expected. The four races I did not call ended up being the closest of the evening: Washington, Colorado, Illinois, and Nevada. Well there are actually two exceptions to that point. First, as I hinted at in my Senate forecast, Angle's(R) numbers in Nevada were being overstated by polls. Still, I don't think anyone predicted Harry Reid would win so handily, and we'll be wondering for awhile exactly why that occurred in defiance of the +2 or +3 point victory polls were predicting for Angle. Illinois leaned toward Kirk, as expected and Washington looks good for Dems right now, also as expected. In the last week, Colorado seemed to be leaning toward Buck in the polls, but I felt dubious about predicting that he would win, since the Governor's race was likely to depress Republican turnout. It has been suggested by various pundits that Nevada, and perhaps Colorado (not yet, but looking promising) Democratic victories would point to a successful turnout of the Latino populations in those areas. Perhaps that's true.

Overall Dems will end up with 52 or 53 seats in the Senate, it's looking like. This is 1 seat greater than I thought, but then again, that's how coin-flips manifest themselves. I also admittedly gave myself some wiggle room with disclaimers, but overall it was a good night for forecasting.

The biggest surprise for me besides Nevada was the Senate race in Pennsylvania. Democrats had long thought this battle was promising for them, with a strong voter contact and turnout operation, but I never really thought Joe Sestak(D) had a chance in this one. The eventual margin of Toomey(R) +2 is much narrower than most polls were showing, and frankly much narrower than I expected, considering how confident I was that Pennsylvania would go the other way. Everyone seems to be talking about Nevada, but I hope to be able to answer the question of why Sestak performed so well soon in the future.

And in Alaska, we shall soon see if Murkowski can pull it out in the end. Defying the write-in stigma.

John Boehner will be the new Speaker of the House. This will set up an interesting dynamic between him, Reid, and Obama. But for now it'll be interesting to see what Democrats do with the Lame Duck Session.

(11/2) Election Forecasts 2010: Senate

I'm not going to do a Governor race forecast, but don't think they're not important. I just don't have the resources. Watch Connecticut to see if Foley(R) will have a come-from-behind win, watch Ohio to see if Strickland(D) can hold his ground and RI, CO, and ME will be interesting. Among others.

In the Senate I've been watching Washington, California, Nevada, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, and Illinois-- these were the "competitive" races. Since my last forecast, some polls have diverged, and some polls have tightened; some haven't moved at all.

Remember that Republicans almost certainly will gain 3 Senate seats from Democrats to begin with. North Dakota, Arkansas, and Indiana. But one Republican seat is being added to the "competitive" list. Thus, Republicans need to win 8 more from the competitive list in order to take control of the Senate. Therefore we will begin with a baseline of 42 Republican seats and 48 Democrat seats; I see almost no viable way that either party could end up with less than this number of seats.

I have some hesitancy about this, but given a recent poll out of Alaska, I have re-evaluated the race in a post a few hours ago, and on the virtue of it being a 3-way race, I'll add it to the competitive list.

I will now note very likely Republican gains from the competitive list. I predict with confidence that these three races will end up in Republican hands. Florida (Rubio), Wisconsin (Johnson), and Pennsylvania (Toomey). You can tell your Democratic friends that these races are pretty much a lost cause.

And very likely Democratic gains include California. You can confidently tell your Republican friends that California is basically out of their hands.

That leaves us with a new baseline of 45 Republicans and 49 Democrats.

Here's how the rest break down. I wouldn't make a bet on this, but evidence points to these results: Republicans gain Alaska (Murkowski or Miller). Democrats gain West Virginia (Manchin).



The final four races are just too hard to predict from my standpoint. Republicans are favored in Illinois, Nevada, and Colorado albeit by small percentages. Democrats are favored in Washington. I think it's just as reasonable to allocate these seats 3-1 as it is to allocate them 2-2. They all might be very close.

I tend to want to call Washington to Murray(D) and Illinois for Kirk(R). Nevada and Colorado are even harder for me. Nevada's polling option to select "none of these candidates" may end up helping Reid(D), or... Angle(R). Angle may win, but if so, I think there's a good chance it'll be more narrowly than about 2 points, as polls now show. Democrats are going to be desperate to win Nevada as a symbolic victory, though I think politically it would help them to have a change in the face of leadership. I tend to think Tancredo's rise in Colorado might un-motivate more moderate Republican voters, which might help Bennet(D). But all of this is conjecture.

I think Dems will end up with 51 or 52 seats. This is consistent with my other forecasts. The margin will be between 50D-50R and 54D-46R (worst and best case scenarios, depending on your position). Thus, I confidently predict Democrats will retain the Senate absent a defection or two from more moderate Democratic caucus members.

On the other hand, Democrats will very likely lose in between 5 and 9 seats, probably closer to the latter number.

I want to make a quick note about the NC Senate race as well. Watch Burr's(R) winning margin. Marshall(D) has run a weak campaign, but Burr hasn't run much of a campaign at all. If Burr wins by less than 11 points then it will be a sign that Democrats may be doing better than expected. If he wins by much more, brace for significant Democratic losses in NC and elsewhere.

(11/2) Election Forecasts 2010: House

This will represent my final election projection of the 2010 Midterms, and I'll make it brief.

In the House of Representatives, Democrats will likely lose between 30 and 80 seats. It will either be deafening or reasonably significant, but either way, Dems are in for it. I'm not going to make specific number projections because there just isn't enough robust polling on which to make accurate predictions. Generic House Ballots range from R+15 to R+0 and it's probably somewhere in between. I think most pollsters are beginning to settle on in between 50 and 70 seats lost for the Democrats. Which, if true, would make this the most significant turnover in 100 years.  

I like watching NC races for many reasons, so I want to direct your attention to three different contests in NC that I think will represent indicator contests for what kind of gains Republicans are probably going to make in the House. We'll begin to know what these look like starting at 7:30 when polls close. I make these predictions partially with the help of Fivethirtyeight's own House indicators.

In NC-02 (Raleigh suburbs and east), Incumbent Democrat Bob Etheridge is facing what I consider to be a poor Republican opponent and a Libertarian. Recent polling has Republican Renee Ellmers up, but I find a win by her to be unlikely. If Ellmers wins by anything but the slimmest of margins, expect 55+ gains in the House by Republicans. I think Etheridge has about a 65% chance of victory.

In NC-11 (Mountains), Incumbent Democrat Heath Shuler is facing what I consider to be a very generic and relatively inexperienced opponent. If Jeff Miller were to squeak out a win, expect 70+ gains in the House by Republicans. I think Shuler has about an 80% chance of victory 

And in NC-04 (Durham, Chapel Hill and west Raleigh), Incumbent Democrat David Price is facing what I consider to be a circumstantially spirited campaign by (C4L endorsed) William Lawson. But if Lawson were to overturn this formidable Incumbent, expect total chaos in the House, upwards of 80 seat turnover. I think Price has about a 95% chance of victory. If all three of these races go south for Dems, we could be looking at up to 100 seats changing hands.

Now if none of these Incumbents is taken out, Republicans could still be on their way to a strong finish, but I expect it to be under 55 seats. Remember, I'm not a professional, and I wouldn't bet anything substantial on any of what I have written above.

(10/21) Election Forecasts 2010: Senate and House

In a previous post on 9/29 I developed my election forecasts for the 2010 Senate Election; this is an update to that post. But first, let's talk the U.S. House.

For those of you who are tuning in late to politics, remember that there are 435 House seats, apportioned to states according to population; all 435 seats are up for election every 2 years. This makes the House a volatile and sometimes rapidly changing group of people. Unlike other major forecast sites, (see CQ Politics, Cook Political Report, Real Clear Politics, Pollster, Fivethirtyeight/NYT, etc) I don't have the resources to make forecasts on individual House races. But I do have the time to make general statements about the House based on these forecasts, where it's likely Democrats will lose somewhere between 25 and 75 "net" seats. That may seem like a huge margin of error, but there are substantial issues with forecasting House races this year, as has been mentioned and reiterated almost constantly by Nate Silver; his argument is hard to refute. Still, Republicans need to take 40 seats from their current position to obtain a majority, which seems increasingly likely. Of the 150 or so House seats that are being "seriously" contested this election, 90% are Democratic incumbents or Democratic seats. This really gives some perspective on why Democrats have such a problem this year in the House; it may turn out to be the greatest turnover of House seats in history.


The Senate race actually tells us a slightly different story. Democrats are actually well positioned in the Senate comparative to the House, meaning that they are at this time very unlikely to lose control of the Senate chamber.  Again, for those of you who are coming into politics late, remember, each state gets 2 Senate seats, each Senator serves for a 6 year term, and only 1/3 of the Senate gets elected every 2 years. Thus only 2/3 of states have senate elections every 2 years, in this case there are 37 Senators being elected (2 from NY). Republicans now at 41 seats, need to have a net gain of 10 seats in order to be reasonably confident of taking control of the Senate with 51 seats. (In the case of a tie, 50-50, Democrats would still be considered "in control" because Vice President Joe Biden would cast any tie-breaking votes).

In the coming paragraphs, I use the term "competitive" to mean that either party has a chance of winning, and the term "almost certain" to mean that I am as certain as is possible, under the circumstances of prediction. I use the term "tossup" to mean that based on polling, spending, and state specifics it is virtually impossible to predict a winner- it might as well be a coin toss. In this update, Democrats have made some slight gains since my last forecast; let's take a look.

Last time I pointed out that Democrats "almost certainly" will not take any Republican-held seats (Florida is a possible exception that I will discuss at the end), so every "competitive" seat is Democratically held (Democrats have everything to lose, nothing to gain this election). This factor is unchanged. Moreover, I pointed out that Republicans were "almost certainly" going to win North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, turning those states Red. Pennsylvania has been removed from this column in this update. This leaves us with a baseline of 48 Democrats and 43 Republicans. I am "almost certain" that Democrats will not have less than 48 seats, and that Republicans will not have less than 43 seats after this election.  

Last time I also established that there were 9 seats that I considered "competitive", where either party has a notable chance of winning. These seats were Washington, California, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Florida, and Connecticut. Since that time, Connecticut has proven non-competitive; an apparent surge by Republican Linda McMahon has evaporated (it may have just been coincidental polling noise, media attention, or a temporary effect of McMahon's sizable personal contributions to her own race), leaving Democrat Richard Blumenthal with a commanding lead.

Meanwhile, as mentioned earlier, I would like to add 1 new state to the "competitive" list: Pennsylvania, which was formerly an "almost certain" win by Republicans.This leaves us with 9 "competitive" Senate seats.

Washington and California have been polling Democratic, so we'll put them in the D column. Florida, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have been polling Republican, so we'll put them in the R column. This leaves Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, and West Virginia as "tossups". I gave Republicans a 2/3 edge amongst the tossups last time; this time, coin-flips as these races are, I'll assign these seats half and half for this forecast. This leaves us with 52 Democrats and 48 Republicans, a one-seat gain for Democrats since my last forecast. Remember, though, I still think there is a reasonable margin of error with this forecast of four seats, which means the numbers could range from 50D-50R to 54D-46R. This good news for Democrats, but not great news- still, it seems highly unlikely that Republicans will take control of the Senate at this time. 

I want to make an additional note on a few individual races.

First, Wisconsin has shown stronger and stronger polling for Russ Feingold's (D) opponent Ron Johnson (R). If Johnson continues in this fashion, I will remove Wisconsin from the "competitive" races, despite my tendency to give an incumbent Senator the benefit of the doubt.

Second, Pennsylvania has shown some very good numbers recently for Democratic candidate Joe Sestak. Since Pat Toomey (R) has held such a strong lead for so long, I am dubious about these numbers. I'll be paying close attention to this race in the future.

Third, Kentucky's race has seemed to be tightening recently. Kentucky is the one Republican-held seat that might seriously be vulnerable this year, besides Florida which I'll discuss below. Despite Rand Paul's (R) libertarian-leaning positions on a lot of issues, I have remained highly skeptical that conservative Democrat Attorney General Jack Conway can beat him. While RCP continues to consider Kentucky to be a tossup, and other forecasters say it only leans Republican, I haven't been convinced by the polling or the other dynamics of the race. Thus I still do not consider Kentucky in my list of "competitive" races. The same remains true for my forecast on Missouri, which is considered by most to be less close than Kentucky, but still in the running. I am not convinced by Robin Carnahan's (D) numbers either.

Fourth, Colorado, California, and Washington have consistently shown very close numbers. Despite some reservations, I have moved Colorado into the "tossup" section because the race seems to have tightened even further. California and Washington's numbers are not so different from Colorado, but due to the incumbency effect, deep respect for Fivethirtyeight's methods, and some local dynamics like, say, Prop 19 in California, and mail-in voting in Washington, I have retained these West coast states' positions on the D side.

Fifth, and finally, Florida has shown a consistent double-digit lead for Republican Marco Rubio for many weeks now. Florida's race is interesting because popular incumbent Republican Governor Charlie Crist has entered the race as an Independent. Crist (I) has been polling around 30%, Rubio (R) around 40% and Kendrick Meek, the Democrat at around 20%. Polls have shown that at this point Crist is getting a lot of his support from Democrats, rather than Republicans, with about 50% of Democrats supporting him, and only 10% of Republicans. Three-way races are hard to predict, as people tend to vote strategically, rather than with their conscience, and it's hard to reflect this in polls. Also with three-way races, just a little gain at the expense of one candidate can cause another candidate to spring, suddenly, into the lead. It is for these reasons that I have kept Florida on the list of possible Democratic takeovers. It is highly unlikely that Meek can beat Rubio, but Crist still might be able to beat Rubio if a lot of Meek voters defect from him at the last moment and vote for Crist in order to keep Rubio, seen as an ultra-conservative, from winning. It's hard to know if, and to what degree, this might happen. Right now it doesn't look likely. But if it were to happen, and Crist won, he would have to decide to caucus with the Democrats or the Republicans. Since, at that point, it would have been Democrats who had propelled him into office, I think there's a good chance that Crist would caucus with the Democrats, thus sending Florida into the D column. There are a lot of "what-ifs" in this scenario, which is why I keep Florida on the "competitive" list, but I also still assume it'll go Republican for now, since the chances are slim.

Election Forecasts 2010: Senate

I will be, over the next several days and weeks, producing my own forecasts for the new makeup of the U.S. Senate. I will admit, I rely on my own research and instincts for different races, but I also rely on Nate Silver's calculations over at Fivethirtyeight.com, polling calculations provided by Real Clear Politics, and other varied sources. I AM NOT a statistician, nor a polling professional, but I do have a reasonably astute understanding of the political environment. Eventually I'll be attaching maps of these races.

There are 37 seats up for election; only 15 to 20 are considered to be "in play". The Republicans need to win a minimum of 9 seats of those 15 or so in order to win control of the Senate, and this is if Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I) from CT decides to caucus with the Republicans (unlikely). Therefore to be reasonably assured of Senate control, Republicans should make sure at least 10 seats are in their column. At this time, there is not evidence to support that case.

At this time there are only 9 seats that I would consider to be competitive, they are as follows: WA, CA, NV, CO, IL, WI, WV, FL, CT. If you don't live in these states, sorry, the election's pretty much been closed out. Only one of these seats, Florida, is currently a Republican-held seat.

That means that the remainder of the seats are relatively safe. Given this assumption, Republicans will almost certainly win (overturn) 4 Democratic seats in the Senate; ND, AR, PA, and IN. So it is almost certain that our baseline makeup of the Senate is 47 Democrats and 44 Republicans. This means that there will not be less than 47 Democrats or less than 44 Republicans.

According to my understanding of the races, it is likely that WA, CA, and CT will go to the Democrats. It is also likely that CO, WI, and FL will go to the Republicans. That brings our (reasonably confident) baseline to 50D to 47R.

That leaves 3 races that are too close to call: WV, IL, and NV. I think one way or another they'll probably break 2-1 for the R's. That leaves us with a forecast of 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans. This is within the consensus of most political analysts. It should be noted though that my own forecast carries a swing of three seats. I think it's possible that the Senate could end up like this: 53D to 47R, or like this: 50D to 50R.

The good news for the Democrats in this is that it is highly UNLIKELY that Republicans will manage to retake the Senate. Even if there is a tie, VP Joe Biden can cast a tie-breaking vote. The bad news for Democrats is that if they had trouble getting things accomplished with 59 seats, they'll certainly find themselves in gridlock with only 51 seats. Couple that with the significant possibility that Republicans DO take over the House, and you can expect our government to come to a screeching halt this January.  

I'll have a closer look at some of these races in the future, particularly the 9 races I've focused on for this post.