2016 Presidential Primaries Predictions: May 17

Here are my Presidential predictions for the Presidential primaries on May 17 2016.  I will add actual results and post-election commentary later.

As always, the three key factors in a Democratic race are 1. How many of the voters are black, 2. How many of the voters are young, and 3. Whether it’s an open, semi-closed, or closed contest.

Kentucky

Democratic Party

RealClearPolitics Polling Average*	Predictions	Results
Hillary Clinton: 43 percent	Bernie Sanders: 51 percent	Bernie Sanders:
Bernie Sanders: 38 percent	Hillary Clinton: 47 percent	Hillary Clinton:
All others: 19 percent	All others: 2 percent	All others:
Percentage black: 8.2 percent (24th in the nation) Contest type: closed primary The last poll was from early March, and it showed that Clinton was holding a small lead even then.  Would it have killed a pollster to run another poll in Kentucky? Given the demographics and the rural, working-class nature of the state, plus the fact that Sanders’s support in neighboring West Virginia could spread to eastern Kentucky, I’m gonna say Sanders wins here, but his margin is narrowed by the primary being closed.

Oregon

Democratic Party

RealClearPolitics Polling Average*	Predictions	Results
Hillary Clinton: 48 percent	Bernie Sanders: 55 percent	Hillary Clinton:
Bernie Sanders: 33 percent	Hillary Clinton: 43 percent	Bernie Sanders:
All others: 19 percent	All others: 2 percent	All others:
Percentage black: 2.01 percent (41st in the nation) Contest type: closed primary One recent-ish poll (from May 6 to 9) and it shows Sanders trailing Clinton significantly, with a large amount of undecideds.  Almost everything about Oregon favors Sanders: demographics, enthusiasm shown by new voter registration, and the political climate being similar to that of neighboring Washington, where Sanders won big.  There’s one caveat: this is a closed primary, so Sanders can’t count on independents to save him.  This poll notwithstanding, I still sense a Sanders win given all of the above factors, but not by a terribly large margin.  I took the 57 percent Sanders got in Wisconsin, a similarly “I wish Sanders had won bigger here given how liberal it’s supposed to be” state, and knocked off 2 points for it being a closed primary as opposed to Wisconsin’s open one.

Republican Party

RealClearPolitics Polling Average*	Predictions	Results
Donald Trump: 45 percent	Donald Trump: 62 percent	Donald Trump:
All others: 55 percent	All others: 38 percent	All others:
The last poll, which was in the field from May 6 to May 9 (i.e., when Trump’s competitors had all dropped out already) had Trump only hitting 45 percent.  The same poll had Cruz and Kasich tied 14-14; so much for Kasich being the anointed Trump challenger in this state.  Clearly, Trump is not particularly popular here. Last week I overestimated how big Donald Trump would win by given that he no longer faces any challengers in the Republican primaries.  Instead of Trump hitting the 90s, he was more in the 60s and 70s.  Normally, I would say that another week without Republican competition would push his numbers in any given state to high 70s or low 80s.  But Oregon seems particularly averse to Trump, and doesn’t seem inclined to lead the way on the coalescing of the party behind him.  I’m predicting he hits only 62 percent here, which is his share from the last poll if you discount everyone besides Trump, Cruz, and Kasich.

* No RCP average was available, so I put down the results of the most recent poll on RCP instead.

Democratic Primaries Updates, May 10 2016

Here is the Facebook thread for when I followed the West Virginia primaries election results on May 10 2016.

Below, I have reposted just my commentary and analysis from that evening.  All times, unless otherwise noted, are CDT.

---

Kenneth Huang

May 10 at 7:49pm ·

West Virginia, help me celebrate my birthday with a BIG win for Bernie Sanders. YUUUUUGE win.

7 percent reporting, Sanders leads 48-42.

---

 

Kenneth Huang 13 percent reporting, Sanders leads 49-41.

My prediction about the All others percentage being quite high may be right. Some guy named “P. Farrell” is taking 6.5 percent of the vote so far. In fact, my 6 percent prediction for All others may end up being a lowball.

For the gubernatorial primary, with 13 percent reporting, Jim Justice leads Booth Goodwin and Jeff Kessler (my candidate) 49-26-25.

Well, I’m really hungry and I need to get some dinner. Also, my browser is being annoyingly slow right now. So I’ll check in later.

One last side note: West Virginia is really oddly shaped. It’s like a bulb with two things awkwardly stickin out of it. Anyone ever notice that?

Like · Reply · May 10 at 8:05pm

---

 

Kenneth Huang 90 percent reporting, Sanders leads Clinton and All others 51-36-13. The race was called for him long ago.

I’m not sure what to make of this victory. On the one hand, Sanders beat Clinton by a hefty 15 points (so far). On the other hand, the All others vote is considerable here, and much more so than even my own high prediction of 6 percent. In at least one county, Mingo County, Paul Farrell actually beat Clinton and finished second. Had all 13 percent sided with Sanders, he would have gotten to the 64 percent I was predicting. On the other hand, I did underestimate how well Clinton would do; she got 36 percent instead of my predicted 30 percent. Bernie’s win is big, but it’s still not the massive 2008 Clinton-style 41-point blowout I was hoping for. I’m curious as to how the pledged delegates will be split up and whether Farrell and the others will be awarded any.

Over on the Republican side, I underestimated the All others vote there as well. Donald Trump is only at 77 percent, so All others is at 23 percent, instead of the 6 percent I predicted. Maybe his supporters did follow his ridiculous advice to not bother voting in this election? Trump also did worse than I expected in Nebraska, getting 61 percent with 98 percent reporting.

For the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Jeff Kessler lost, which is sad but not unexpected. With 88 percent, Jim Justice leads Booth Goodwin and Kessler 50.5-25.5-24.

Like · Reply · May 10 at 11:38pm

---

 

Kenneth Huang 97 percent reporting, Sanders leads 51-36-13.

Like I said earlier, I have mixed feelings about this victory. I’m glad Sanders won, and I’m glad it wasn’t any closer than it was. But I really did hope that he would break into the 60s, and he may well have if it hadn’t been for the minor Democrats who collectively took 13 percent of the vote. Paul Farrell took 9 percent of the vote, and he should be proud of that given that no one outside of West Virginia knew who he was before Tuesday.

I’ve got exit poll numberrrrs! http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/primaries/WV

17-44 year olds only made up 38 percent of the vote. Even so, Sanders was able to wallop Clinton anyway because of his strength among 45+; Clinton won that age group by a mere point, 44-43. This is normally a group Clinton wins 65-35 or thereabouts. Blacks made up a mere 3 percent of the vote. Independents made up a whopping 34 percent of the vote and they sided with Sanders 58-22.

Sanders won just about every category of voter imaginable. This Politico article (http://www.politico.com/…/5-numbers-that-explain…) highlights how Sanders won across the ideological spectrum: very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, and conservative. Astoundingly, he was able to win voters who wanted the next President to be more liberal than President Obama AND those who wanted the next President to be less liberal!

Finally, Sanders beat Clinton among both coal working households and otherwise, but his margin of victory among coal households was bigger: 55-29. This is somewhat promising in the sense that Sanders’s balancing act of wanting to both reduce fossil fuel usage and transition those currently in the fossil fuel industry seems to have worked. Hopefully this will translate into good results for him next week in eastern Kentucky. The Kentucky primary will be a lot tougher because it’s a closed primary.

 

West Virginia Primary Results: 2016 Election – NBC News

NBCNEWS.COM

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · May 11 at 2:40am

---

 

2016 Presidential Primaries Predictions: May 10

Here are my Presidential predictions for the Presidential primaries on May 10 2016.  I will add actual results and post-election commentary later.

As far as I can tell right now, Daily Kos Elections hasn’t done their usual write-up of these contests.  All they have is this primary preview, which is mostly focused on downballot races.  Speaking of downballot races, I’m supporting Jeff Kessler for Governor of West Virginia.

With Donald Trump’s competitors all out of the race and Republican contests no longer being polled, I’m just going to have to guesstimate how big Trump’s win will be in each state, depending on how inherently pro- or anti-Trump that state is, and how well Trump’s rivals were performing before they dropped out.

As always, the three key factors in a Democratic race are 1. How many of the voters are black, 2. How many of the voters are young, and 3. Whether it’s an open, semi-closed, or closed contest.

West Virginia

Democratic Party

RealClearPolitics Polling Average	Predictions	Results
Bernie Sanders: 46 percent	Bernie Sanders: 64 percent	Bernie Sanders:
Hillary Clinton: 40 percent	Hillary Clinton: 30 percent	Hillary Clinton:
All others: 14 percent	All others: 6 percent	All others:
Percentage black: 3.58 percent (37th in the nation) Contest type: semi-closed primary A poll back in February had Sanders destroying Clinton by a monster 28-point margin, but sadly, the two more recent polls show Sanders leading by modest single-digit margins. Sanders will win, but the question is by how much.  In 2008 Clinton won this state 67-26, with another 7 percent for All others.  Clinton is now deeply unpopular in West Virginia, and this state is far more suited to Sanders anyway.  It’s largely white, largely rural, and very impoverished.  On that last point, Sanders has been campaigning heavily on poverty in the last week, much to my heart’s content.  Clinton campaigned a little in West Virginia, but was dogged by some comments about how she was going to put coal companies out of business (in the context of replacing them with clean energy), and she doesn’t seem to have invested as much effort as Sanders has.  The semi-closed format works further to Sanders’s advantage due to his strength among independents, and Sanders often outperforms the polling in contests where independents can vote. All that said, West Virginia Democrats don’t seem to be enamored with either candidate, which is why I’m predicting a relatively high All others count. (4 other Democratic candidates are going to be on the ballot.) I think Clinton will keep a base of 30 percent.  Which leaves Sanders with 64 percent.  I’d still very much like Sanders to reach Clinton’s 2008 percentage of 67 percent, but 64 would nonetheless be awesome given the current polling, and it would be the highest primary election percentage Sanders has received besides Vermont and Democrats Abroad.

Republican Party

RealClearPolitics Polling Average	Predictions	Results
Donald Trump: 59 percent	Donald Trump: 94 percent	Donald Trump:
All others: 41 percent	All others: 6 percent	All others:
The polling average was for May 2, and Trump already led Ted Cruz at that point by 59-24.  So there’s not much anti-Trump resistance here.  His weird message for West Virginia Republicans to “save their vote” for the general election notwithstanding, I think Trump will easily break into the 90s here.

Nebraska

Republican Party

RealClearPolitics Polling Average	Predictions	Results
No polling available	Donald Trump: 91 percent	Donald Trump:
	All others: 9 percent	All others:
Weirdly enough, RCP has a page set up for the Nebraska Republican primary, but there are no polls listed.  There’s only a header that lists a bunch of candidates, but neither Trump nor John Kasich is among them, so I’m guessing that they had a really old poll (like, before Trump even declared he was running?) and then they took it down.  Anyway, without any polling data, I’m gonna guess that Trump does very well here.  Nebraska’s Senator Ben Sasse is one of Trump’s most strident critics, but like anyone gives a shit.

 

Democratic Primaries Updates, May 3 2016

Here is the Facebook thread for when I followed the Democratic primaries election results on May 3 2016.

Below, I have reposted just my commentary and analysis from that evening.  All times, unless otherwise noted, are CDT.

---

 

Kenneth Huang

May 3 at 5:12pm ·

Here’s the thread for tonight’s Indiana primaries. With a grand total of 826 votes counted, Hillary Clinton currently leads Bernie Sanders 64-36.

---

 

Kenneth Huang 15 percent reporting, Clinton leads 50.4-49.6. Cautionary note: none of Clinton-friendly Lake County has started reporting yet.

Trump got a quick win as usual. He leads Ted Cruz and John Kasich 54-35-9.

Like · Reply · May 3 at 6:29pm

---

 

Kenneth Huang Ladies and gentlemen… 17 percent reporting, the score is:

Bernie Sanders: 50.0
Hillary Clinton: 50.0

Sanders is leading by 27 votes.

Like · Reply · 1 · May 3 at 6:36pm

---

 

Kenneth Huang 40 percent reporting, Sanders leads 52-48.

The bad news is, Lake County hasn’t started reporting at all. Vigo and Tippecanoe Counties are unexpectedly close (Sanders currently leads 51-49 and 53-47, respectively). Sanders has a big 64-36 lead in Monroe County, but it’s already reported 56 percent.

The good news is that Sanders is actually ahead in Marion County so far, 51-49 with 42 percent reporting.

Like · Reply · 1 · May 3 at 7:11pm

---

 

Kenneth Huang We’re at the midway point. 50 percent reporting, Sanders leads 52.5-47.5.

Sanders is still holding on to a narrow lead in Marion County (51-49, 60 percent reporting), and bigger ones in Vigo (54-46, 62 percent reporting), Tippecanoe (60-40, 48 percent reporting), and Monroe Counties (65-35, 77 percent reporting).

Through it all, Lake County STILL hasn’t reported anything yet, and it’s hanging like the Sword of Damocles over our heads. But if Sanders’s lead elsewhere continues to increase, not even a big Clinton win in Lake County may reverse the results.

Like · Reply · 2 · May 3 at 7:41pm

---

 

Kenneth Huang Hello there Lake County. Good of you to join us. With 19 percent reporting, Clinton leads… just 56-44.

For Indiana overall, 65 percent reporting, Sanders leads 53-47.

Like · Reply · May 3 at 8:07pm

---

 

Kenneth Huang 74 percent reporting, Sanders leads 53-47 STILL, and the race has been called for him. He shrugged off the vote dumps from Lake County like Iron Man shrugging off a bullet. In fact, Clinton’s margin in Lake County has only shrunk; she leads 53-47 right now. Good for her.

I’m not sure if anyone else realizes the magnitude of this upset. You know how many polls Sanders led in prior to the election? ZERO. The average Clinton lead was 7 points. Sanders flipped a 7 point deficit to a 6 point (so far) win. This may very well be second only to Michigan in terms of polling misses. Thank goodness for that open primary.

Oh, and Ted Cruz dropped out. Now it’s mano-a-mano between Donald Trump and John Kasich! Finally, the two-man race all the Never Trumpers have been longing for!

Like · Reply · May 3 at 8:43pm

---

 

Kenneth Huang With 98 percent reporting, Sanders’s lead has been whittled to 52.5-47.5. Lake County finished reporting and broke 57-43 for Clinton. Of the counties that are not done reporting yet, Clinton pulled into a 50.4-49.6 lead in Marion, but is losing the other four (one of which is Vigo, where Sanders is leading 55-45). Sanders finished in the 60s for Tippecanoe and Monroe Counties.

Here are the exit poll results: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/primaries/IN I am EXTREMELY impressed with the 17-44 year olds: they made up 46 percent of the vote. That’s the highest I’ve seen in any Democratic contest, the previous record holder being Michigan with 45 percent of the vote. And of course they backed Sanders 68-32. Blacks still supported Clinton 74-26, but they were just 18 percent of the vote, and Sanders won whites 58-42. The two candidates tied among women but Sanders won men 57-43. Finally, Clinton won Democrats 53-47 but lost independents 72-28, and independents helped power Sanders’s win, as they made up 22 percent of the vote. With these exit poll results, it’s a wonder that Sanders didn’t win with an even wider margin than he did. According to Daily Kos, the initial exit polls had Sanders winning 55-45.

All in all, while it would have been great to have an even bigger winning margin, I can’t complain about tonight’s victory given that all the pre-election polling had Clinton winning (by an average of 7 points) and that my own prediction still had Clinton winning by just 51-49. I kinda wish now that I had the boldness to flip it to predicting a Sanders win by that same margin. I’m a little annoyed that this upset isn’t a bigger deal in the media given that it IS a big upset, but I guess all anyone can ever talk about these days is Donald Trump, blah blah blah.

 

Indiana Primary Results: 2016 Election – NBC News

NBCNEWS.COM

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 1 · Yesterday at 3:14am

---

 

2016 Presidential Primaries Predictions: May 3 and 7

Here are my Presidential predictions for the Presidential primaries and caucuses on May 3 and 7 2016.  I will add actual results and post-election commentary later.

Here’s Daily Kos Elections’s write-up of these contests.

As I wrote in last week’s predictions, the three key factors in a Democratic race are 1. How many of the voters are black, 2. How many of the voters are young, and 3. Whether it’s an open, semi-closed, or closed contest.

Indiana (May 3)

Democratic Party

RealClearPolitics Polling Average	Predictions	Results
Hillary Clinton: 50 percent	Hillary Clinton: 51 percent	Hillary Clinton:
Bernie Sanders: 43 percent	Bernie Sanders: 49 percent	Bernie Sanders:
All others: 7 percent	All others: 0 percent	All others:
Percentage black: 9.07 percent (22nd in the nation) Contest type: open primary The polling here has shown a fairly close race between Clinton and Sanders, but always with Clinton ahead.  This seems like a state that Sanders should do well in: pretty rural, low percentage of blacks, lots of industrial working-class people, and an open primary.  The question is whether those factors will be enough for Sanders to overcome this persistent polling deficit.  The open primary format usually allows Sanders to outperform the polls, so we’ll see if it’s enough to take him over the top, but I’m, sadly, still predicting a narrow Clinton victory.  I do think it will be quite close.  No one else is on the ballot, so All others will be zero percent. Pro-Sanders counties: Big college counties (Monroe, Tippecanoe, Vigo) Pro-Clinton counties: Marion, Lake

Republican Party

RealClearPolitics Polling Average	Predictions	Results
Donald Trump: 43 percent	Donald Trump: 49 percent	Donald Trump:
Ted Cruz: 32 percent	Ted Cruz: 37 percent	Ted Cruz:
John Kasich: 15 percent	John Kasich: 13 percent	John Kasich:
All others: 10 percent	All others: 1 percent	All others:
Cruz and Kasich made a widely-publicized/mocked pact where Kasich would step aside for Cruz in Indiana and Cruz would do the same for Kasich in Oregon and New Mexico.  At first I was surprised that Cruz would be considered the more viable stop-Trump candidate in Indiana, seeing as how the state is next door to Kasich’s Ohio and probably share similar demographics.  Then I looked at the polling from mid-April, all of which showed Cruz ahead of Kasich.  In fact, only one poll had Kasich even within single digits; Cruz led him by 9 points.  So I guess it makes sense for Cruz to be the primary Trump fighter in Indiana. With the drubbing he took in last week’s primaries, Kasich has lost his “I can stop Trump in areas where Cruz does poorly!” argument.  And even if there is a contested convention (which is looking more unlikely now), would Kasich really have a chance of winning?  With his assiduous behind-the-scenes delegate collecting, Cruz is far likelier to win on a subsequent round of voting than Kasich is.  I am predicting that at least some Kasich supporters will switch over to Cruz. With the recent primaries in the Northeast, Trump has done something he’s rarely done before in this entire campaign: outperform the polls.  The polling in the Northeastern states had him generally in the low-to-mid 50s, but he ended up blowing those numbers out of the water by finishing in the high 50s-to-mid 60s.  Indiana isn’t the same as New York or Pennsylvania so this effect might not repeat itself, but I am more willing to predict bigger Trump wins where I wasn’t before.  I think, more and more, Republican voters are submitting to the idea that Trump is inevitable.

 

Guam (May 7)

Democratic Party

RealClearPolitics Polling Average	Predictions	Results
No polling available	Bernie Sanders: 53 percent	Bernie Sanders:  percent
	Hillary Clinton: 47 percent	Hillary Clinton:  percent
	All others: 0 percent	All others:  percent
Percentage black: (probably) 0 percent Contest type: closed caucus These contests in far-away territories with no polling or media attention always confound me.  DKE says that these types of contests all come down to organization, so that tells us… nothing.  It’s demographically similar to Hawaii (which Sanders won big) and it is a caucus, which would favor Sanders.  On the other hand, it’s not actually a caucus, but more of a firehouse primary, where voters can still come at any time and cast a secret ballot rather than engage in shouting matches.  Clinton and Barack Obama tied exactly 50-50 in 2008, so I’ll predict a fairly modest victory, this time by Sanders.