After months and months of endless fascination with Iowa and New Hampshire, the bulk of the primary season will be contested over just the course of a single month. Between Feb. 20 and March 5, a whopping 37 states and territories will hold at least one party’s nominating contest, many […] Read more »
Bernie Sanders’s Path To The Nomination
How much trouble will Hillary Clinton be in if she loses in Nevada, where Democrats will caucus on Saturday? How close does Bernie Sanders need to come in South Carolina, which votes a week later? And which states are really “must-wins” for Sanders in March, April and beyond? We can […] Read more »
Bernie-Mania’s Barrier: Democratic Delegate Math
In the wake of new Iowa and New Hampshire polls showing Bernie Sanders gaining, some say it’s time for Hillary Clinton to hit the panic button. “Clinton should ABSOLUTELY be nervous about the state of the race with less than three weeks before voters in Iowa head to the caucuses,” […] Read more »
GOP Nomination Rules Tilt the Playing Field toward Donald Trump
… The Republican Party’s nomination process has a simple, basic premise: If any candidate arrives at the July convention in Cleveland with a majority of the delegates, he (it’s going to be a he this year) can win the nomination on the first ballot. Delegates are assigned, however, through a […] Read more »
The predictive value of GOP presidential polls
… Two Nates (Silver and Cohn) have come out with essays arguing that we still can’t extract much predictive value from opinion polls. For the detailed kind of analysis they like, this may be true. However, a slightly different approach has suggestive implications about who is likely to be the […] Read more »
The GOP’s Primary Rules Might Doom Carson, Cruz And Trump
… There are plenty of reasons to be cautious of national polls that show Trump and Carson leading. They may fail to screen out casual voters, for instance, and leaders at this point in past years have eventually tanked. But perhaps the biggest reason to ditch stock in these polls […] Read more »