Pre-Labor Day Reflection: The State of the Presidential Race — Democratic Primary

Presidential primary races follow a somewhat predictable path.  We are nearing the end of the first stage of the race for both parties — the stage in which candidates enter the race or decide not to enter the race (or leave the race when their initial efforts as a candidate prove underwhelming).   Time is starting to run out for candidates to enter the race as the last time a candidate won their party’s nomination while skipping the early primaries is 1968.

Right now the field can be split into three tiers.  In tier one, there is Secretary Clinton.  Even in the most unfavorable polls, she is getting near 50% of the vote nationally (roughly the same numbers that she got in 2008).  As long as Secretary Clinton is getting near 50%, it will be very difficult for another candidate to win the nomination given the Democratic proportionality rules.

In the second tier, you have Senator Sanders and Vice-President Biden.  Both are polling well enough that they will get some delegates.  Senator Sanders is more the anti-Clinton candidate and appeals to those who think that the party needs to run a more liberal candidate.  Vice-President Biden is more the not Clinton candidate, appealing to those who think that Secretary Clinton has too many vulnerabilities to win the general election.  Of course, Vice-President Biden has not yet entered the race.  If he decides not to run, some significant portion of those currently supporting him will decide to hold their noses and support Secretary Clinton.  While it is too early to project individual states, Senator Sanders appears to be competitive in Iowa and New Hampshire.  His problem is that both states are likely to be narrow wins.  While there are some other early states that Senator Sanders might narrowly win (although he may comfortably win Vermont on March 1), Secretary Clinton is favored to win other states by large margins.  Vice-President Biden does not currently have any early states that appear to be places where he can win.  Slightly over half (2,050 out of 3,760) of the pledged delegates come from states that hold their first tier (either a primary or local caucuses) by March 15.  While delegate counts from the caucus states are tentative, if Secretary Clinton is at or over 1,000 delegates, and neither of the other two candidates is over 800 delegates, there will be pressure for Senator Sanders and Vice-President Biden to suspend their campaigns.

In the third tier, you have Governor O’Malley, Senator Webb, and Governor Chafee.  None of these three candidates has gotten much attention or support so far.  Each of the three has a different idea about how they can get to viable candidate status, but all three essentially need Vice-President Biden to decide not to run, Secretary Clinton’s support to collapse, and Democrats to decide that, however much they might agree with some of Senator Sanders’s ideas, that picking a nominee who describes himself as a Democratic Socialist would be a mistake.  At this point, all three look likely to be gone before the March 1 primaries.  (There are also 26 other people who have filed papers with the FEC as candidates for the Democratic nomination, none of them have held federal or state-wide office and none have any name recognition.  In other words, they will be on the ballot in some states but are unlikely to win more than a handful of delegates as “protest” votes.).

In short, unlike 2008 when then-Senator Clinton was merely the solid frontrunner at this point of the race, it looks like this race is Secretary Clinton’s race to lose.  One factor contributing to this current state of play is the composition of the Democratic Party.  Roughly speaking the Democratic Party has three roughly equal factions — the white Progressive faction (significant in the northern farm belt and New England), people of color (significant in the South, Southwest, and the rust belt), and the Moderate/Establishment faction.  To win a candidate typically needs the support of two of the three factions.  While Secretary Clinton is more liberal than her husband, the Moderate/Establishment faction remembers the Clinton presidency as generally positive (despite the personal flaws of the Clintons).  Similarly, people of color generally have positive feelings towards the Clintons and would have supported Secretary Clinton in 2008 against any candidate other than Barack Obama.  Any candidate who wants to beat Secretary Clinton needs to break her hold on one (or both) of these two groups.  If not, Secretary Clinton will have the support of enough pledged delegates and superdelegates by the end of April (over 2900 delegates tentatively allocated) to be the nominee.  (Currently, it takes 2,242 total delegate votes and there are 714 superdelegates.  If Secretrary Clinton reaches 1,600 delegates with a lead of over 400 delegates, my hunch says that we will see a very quick tide of endorsements from the superdelegates to end the process.)

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3 thoughts on “Pre-Labor Day Reflection: The State of the Presidential Race — Democratic Primary

  1. Statistikhengst

    Good, solid analysis.

    I would also note that the Clinton/Sanders/Biden polling and even to some extent, the Trump/Carson/Bush/Huckabee polling looks very, very reminiscent of Bush 41 1987 polling against Dole, Robertson, Kemp and DuPont, with Bush 41 slightly under 50 and about +28 over the next guy.

    The Clinton team is saying that it already has a bevy of superdelegates and is about 20% to the nomination. Since these things are usually matters of private conversations until the Supers themselves come out and endorse, I am not sure if this is for real or just the Clinton team showing dominance at a time when Vice President Biden is considering a run.

    Considering what is at stake as of January 20, 2017, we Dems need to keep our house in order. Just imagine the kind of SCOTUS judges a President Trump would nominate…..

  2. joe.giannasio

    I was trying to describe to someone how the delegates are by district not state, and as I was explaining I got to thinking if the 2010 republican gerrymander would affect the voting power of people of color? Any thoughts on that?

    1. tmess2 Post author

      To some degree, although that is mostly a state-by-state issue. I think 538 did an analysis of the impact of minorities in districts on the chances of minorities being elected. Going by memory, up to 20%, the exact number of minorities has a negligible impact. The minorities have no voting power and any minority candidate needs to appeal to white voters. From 20% up to 30%, an increase in minority vote actually reduces the chances of a minority being elected. As the percent of minorities in the district increases from 30% to 55%, the chances of a minority increases gradually with a minority win becoming more likely as the number breaks 55%. Finally, once the number of minorities breaks 65% or so, additional minorities in the district have no impact on the likelihood of a minority being elected.

      In the last round of redistricting, in many states, the Republicans packed as many minorities into districts as possible, in some cases going well beyond 70% in some districts to prevent minorities from potentially having influence in other districts (or getting to a critical share in more districts than the minimum necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act). We are still four years after most of the lines were drawn and there are still cases pending in several states that used to be subject to preclearance.

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