Polls show Hillary closing the gap on Obama in Wisconsin. I haven't seen a poll for Hawaii. I'll say Obama gets a narrow win in Wisconsin and a landslide win in Hawaii. I can't say I remember an election where Hawaii mattered. Of course, the Clinton campaign will say it doesn't matter, but that's only because she'll lose the state. But without polling it's hard to know. Maybe Clinton can pull out a win there and make the state matter. Oh, McCain will win both states in a landslide.
Update: Oops. The Republicans aren't voting in Hawaii. But they are voting in Washington. Again. This time it's a primary, instead of a caucus. Apparently, Washington wants to compete with Texas for the Weirdest Primary System award. McCain will win Washington narrowly.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Chessie Primary
Obama wins Virginia comfortably. He'll get a close win in Maryland. And he'll win in a landslide in DC. Hillary has got to be concerned by now. And she is.* There will be no Obama/ Clinton ticket, by the way. Obama needs someone like Wes Clark on the ticket. Oh, and McCain wins all but Virginia comfortably, and gets a narrow win in Virginia.
*From Vox: "Said one superdelegate: 'She has to win both Ohio and Texas comfortably, or she’s out. The campaign is starting to come to terms with that.'"
*From Vox: "Said one superdelegate: 'She has to win both Ohio and Texas comfortably, or she’s out. The campaign is starting to come to terms with that.'"
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Maine
Forgot the Maine caucus. Obama will win narrowly. I had a bad prediction day yesterday. I was under the mistaken impression that Republicans would accept their fate and vote for McCain. I guess not. Obama had a much stronger showing than I would have thought. I knew he'd win, but the margins were astounding. I don't think he can win the nomination without the super delegates, but if he can have a strong showing in Ohio and Pennsylvania, he might come pretty close. He'll get crushed in Texas, but he'll have a lot of strong wins in other states. By the way, when was the last time Pennsylvania mattered? 1984 maybe?
Saturday, February 9, 2008
More Primaries
Almost forgot. McCain and Obama win them all today. McCain by large margins, Obabma by small.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
A Wave of Predcitions
Okay, it's time for my Super Duper Fat Tsunami Tuesday from Hell predictions!
First, this will be a good day for McCain. Not only does he have a substantial polling lead, but he was blessed by the delegate rules. The Republicans have very inconsistent delegate rules, with some states being proportional, some winner take all by district, and some winner take all by state. McCain is leading in all the winner take all states except Utah. To add insult to injury, Romney will get about 80% of the Utah vote, thereby minimizing the winner take all advantage. So McCain will come out a clear leader in delegates. The consensus is that he will wrap up the race today, but I'm not buying that. He still needs a majority of delegates at the end of the primary season, and Huckabee might prevent that (he'll have some strong second places in proportional states today). McCain may need Huckabee's delegates to win the nomination and Huckabee might not grant them (or might give them to Romney). If Huckabee drops out, McCain will get the nomination. But he might stay in and force a brokered convention. It's possible that Huckabee's support will decline enough to allow McCain to get an outright win in the end, but there are plenty of Republicans who want a brokered convention so they can get a new candidate. So they have an incentive to vote for Huckabe as kingmaker.
On the Democratic side, there will be no clear winner but Clinton will likely get more delegates. But I'm confident that Obama will end the day within 100 delegates of Clinton. Everyone talks about California as the big prize, but with proportional representation in the delegate awarding, it could easily come out a draw (and therefore no prize at all). In fact, because of the quirks of districts with an odd number of delegates, Obama might pull off a repeat of Nevada and lose the overall popular vote and still come out with more delegates. The key here is the rural 3 delegate districts. With 51% of the vote, he can get 67% of the delegates. And Obama usually beats Clinton in rural districts. This effect is not limited to California and will happen across the country. I tend to think that because of this, Obama's delegate count will be a little higher than the popular vote numbers would suggest.
As a result, Obama will be close enough to continue the campaign. His numbers are rising and he has more money the Clinton, so he can pull ahead in the post Feb 5 elections. For Obama time is really on his side. If he can stay close, he really has a good chance ending the primary season with more delegates. But not the nomination. The Democrats use a sytem with 10% of the delegates being unelected "super delegates." These delegates are political office holder and party officials and they are not bound to a candidate (although Bill Clinton will surely vote for his wife). Because the election will be so close, they will be able to swing the election either way. Traditionally, they have given near- unanimous support to the candidate leading the delegate race. But that may not happen this year. There won't be a brokered convention, but there will probably be a small super delegate convention to get the super delegates pledged before the real convention. That way, the candidate will win on the first ballot and keep the convention peaceful. This super delegate pre-convention will not be a physical gathering; it will be a long series of conference calls, emails, and internet horse- trading. We won't even know it's happening. Or what will the result will be.
So here it is, state by state (biggest states first):
Democtrats: (Clinton a slight winner, Obama within 75 delegates)
California: Obama wins by a hair
New York: Clinton wins in a landslide
Illinois: Obama wins in a landslide
New Jersey: Clinton wins by a hair
Massachusetts: Clinton wins by a hair
Georgia: Obama wins comfortably
Missouri: Clinton wins by a hair
Minnesota: Obama wins comfortably
Tennessee: Clinton wins comfortably
Colorado: Obama wins comfortably
Arizona: Clinton wins by a hair
Connecticut: Obama wins by a hair
Alabama: Obama wins by a hair
Oklahoma: Clinton wins comfortably
Arkansas: Clinton wins in a landslide
Kansas: Obama wins comfortably
New Mexico: Clinton wins by a hair
Utah: Obama wins by a hair
Idaho: Obama wins by a hair
Delaware: Clinton wins by a hair
North Dakota: Obama wins by a hair
Alaska: Obama wins comfortably
Republicans: (McCain a clear winner, but doesn't lock it up*)
California: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
New York: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Georgia: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Illinois: McCain Romney First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Missouri: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Tennessee: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Arizona: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
New Jersey: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Alabama: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Colorado: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Massachusetts: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Oklahoma: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Minnesota: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Utah: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Arkansas: Huckabee First, McCain second, Romney third
West Virginia: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Connecticut: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Alaska: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
North Dakota: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Montana: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Delaware: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
*unless Huckabee drops out tonight.
There it is, if I get 3/4 of this right, I'll be surprised. I'd also add that there is a theory that Huckabee steals almost all his votes from Romney. That is somewhat true, but not entirely. About a third of evangelical voters will not vote for a Mormon under any circumstance. And the proportion is probably higher in Huckabee's camp. If Huckabee is out, most of his voters will go to Romney, but about a third will opt for McCain. That will be enough to keep Romney competitive, but it will also be enough to push McCain over the top. He only needs a little help at this point. If Huckabee drops out tonight, McCain's lead will be insurmountable.
Update: for the purpose of grading my picks, "wins by a hair" will be a win by 4% or less. So a 52-48 win will be a win by a hair. A win of 20% or more will be a landslide win. Everything else is a "comfortable win." For the Democrats, I'll give one point for the win and one point for the margin. For the Republicans, I'll give one point for a correct first place prediction and one point for a correct second place. So there's 42 points on the Republican side and 44 on the Democratic side (86 total). As for delegates, I'll call it 865 for Hillary and 816 for Obama. I'm not going there on the Republican side, their rules are too complicated. But McCain will beat Romney by more than 160 delegates.
Update 2: What's up with Huckabee? Yeah, he's only won in The South, but he's won more than Arkansas. And after hearing his speech (well timed, by the way), he's obviously staying in. His answer to Chris Matthews about the vote switching in WV was almost Clintonesque in avoiding the issue. Just admit cooperating with McCain damn it! It was a smart move by both camps. The only one who should be embarrassed is Romney, who didn't do the proper horse-trading to get his delegates. You'd think a CEO would know that. But I guess neither George Bush or Ken Lay could have figured that out. But those aren't exactly good CEO's are they? Yeah, I know, Ken Lay was only briefly CEO, and not when the problems happened. But he was always (well, before the fall) championed as an expert in executive leadership. Anyway, Huckabee is surely strong enough to stay in the race. And Obama is doing well enough to to seriously challenge Hillary as the primaries go on. Romney is looking like the only loser tonight.
Update 3: Wow, I did really bad in California. I tried not to get caught up in the poll trend lines, but I guess I did for California. Apparently, Romney is having a "frank" discussion with his staff. I can't imagine he's withdrawing, but he certainly knows he's doomed.
Mini update: from TPM:
"Sort of makes you wonder, can you imagine Mitt Romney having a frank discussion."
Update 4: While Guiliani has clearly won the all-time contest for most money spent for a single delegate ($51M- woohoo!), Romney is competitive in the most money per delegate for a candidate with multiple delegates. He's at $1.16M per delegate now, still well behind Phil Gramm's $2.5M per delegate. But if Romney goes on, he could take that crown. Reach for it Mitt! It's already in you, you just have to see it.
I'll note that the Democrats use more delegates (~80%) and usually (but not recently) have less money, so the Democrat record on this is certainly much lower. But I'm guessing on that , I don't really have the stats. Although I do know that Guiliani's record holds for both parties. At least he'll always have 911 to delude himself about. I'm pretty sure that that's the last dig I can get in on Rudy. He's already too irrelevant to be worth joking about. When the comedians give up on you, you're history.
First, this will be a good day for McCain. Not only does he have a substantial polling lead, but he was blessed by the delegate rules. The Republicans have very inconsistent delegate rules, with some states being proportional, some winner take all by district, and some winner take all by state. McCain is leading in all the winner take all states except Utah. To add insult to injury, Romney will get about 80% of the Utah vote, thereby minimizing the winner take all advantage. So McCain will come out a clear leader in delegates. The consensus is that he will wrap up the race today, but I'm not buying that. He still needs a majority of delegates at the end of the primary season, and Huckabee might prevent that (he'll have some strong second places in proportional states today). McCain may need Huckabee's delegates to win the nomination and Huckabee might not grant them (or might give them to Romney). If Huckabee drops out, McCain will get the nomination. But he might stay in and force a brokered convention. It's possible that Huckabee's support will decline enough to allow McCain to get an outright win in the end, but there are plenty of Republicans who want a brokered convention so they can get a new candidate. So they have an incentive to vote for Huckabe as kingmaker.
On the Democratic side, there will be no clear winner but Clinton will likely get more delegates. But I'm confident that Obama will end the day within 100 delegates of Clinton. Everyone talks about California as the big prize, but with proportional representation in the delegate awarding, it could easily come out a draw (and therefore no prize at all). In fact, because of the quirks of districts with an odd number of delegates, Obama might pull off a repeat of Nevada and lose the overall popular vote and still come out with more delegates. The key here is the rural 3 delegate districts. With 51% of the vote, he can get 67% of the delegates. And Obama usually beats Clinton in rural districts. This effect is not limited to California and will happen across the country. I tend to think that because of this, Obama's delegate count will be a little higher than the popular vote numbers would suggest.
As a result, Obama will be close enough to continue the campaign. His numbers are rising and he has more money the Clinton, so he can pull ahead in the post Feb 5 elections. For Obama time is really on his side. If he can stay close, he really has a good chance ending the primary season with more delegates. But not the nomination. The Democrats use a sytem with 10% of the delegates being unelected "super delegates." These delegates are political office holder and party officials and they are not bound to a candidate (although Bill Clinton will surely vote for his wife). Because the election will be so close, they will be able to swing the election either way. Traditionally, they have given near- unanimous support to the candidate leading the delegate race. But that may not happen this year. There won't be a brokered convention, but there will probably be a small super delegate convention to get the super delegates pledged before the real convention. That way, the candidate will win on the first ballot and keep the convention peaceful. This super delegate pre-convention will not be a physical gathering; it will be a long series of conference calls, emails, and internet horse- trading. We won't even know it's happening. Or what will the result will be.
So here it is, state by state (biggest states first):
Democtrats: (Clinton a slight winner, Obama within 75 delegates)
California: Obama wins by a hair
New York: Clinton wins in a landslide
Illinois: Obama wins in a landslide
New Jersey: Clinton wins by a hair
Massachusetts: Clinton wins by a hair
Georgia: Obama wins comfortably
Missouri: Clinton wins by a hair
Minnesota: Obama wins comfortably
Tennessee: Clinton wins comfortably
Colorado: Obama wins comfortably
Arizona: Clinton wins by a hair
Connecticut: Obama wins by a hair
Alabama: Obama wins by a hair
Oklahoma: Clinton wins comfortably
Arkansas: Clinton wins in a landslide
Kansas: Obama wins comfortably
New Mexico: Clinton wins by a hair
Utah: Obama wins by a hair
Idaho: Obama wins by a hair
Delaware: Clinton wins by a hair
North Dakota: Obama wins by a hair
Alaska: Obama wins comfortably
Republicans: (McCain a clear winner, but doesn't lock it up*)
California: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
New York: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Georgia: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Illinois: McCain Romney First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Missouri: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Tennessee: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Arizona: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
New Jersey: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Alabama: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Colorado: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Massachusetts: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Oklahoma: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Minnesota: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Utah: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Arkansas: Huckabee First, McCain second, Romney third
West Virginia: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Connecticut: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Alaska: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
North Dakota: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Montana: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Delaware: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
*unless Huckabee drops out tonight.
There it is, if I get 3/4 of this right, I'll be surprised. I'd also add that there is a theory that Huckabee steals almost all his votes from Romney. That is somewhat true, but not entirely. About a third of evangelical voters will not vote for a Mormon under any circumstance. And the proportion is probably higher in Huckabee's camp. If Huckabee is out, most of his voters will go to Romney, but about a third will opt for McCain. That will be enough to keep Romney competitive, but it will also be enough to push McCain over the top. He only needs a little help at this point. If Huckabee drops out tonight, McCain's lead will be insurmountable.
Update: for the purpose of grading my picks, "wins by a hair" will be a win by 4% or less. So a 52-48 win will be a win by a hair. A win of 20% or more will be a landslide win. Everything else is a "comfortable win." For the Democrats, I'll give one point for the win and one point for the margin. For the Republicans, I'll give one point for a correct first place prediction and one point for a correct second place. So there's 42 points on the Republican side and 44 on the Democratic side (86 total). As for delegates, I'll call it 865 for Hillary and 816 for Obama. I'm not going there on the Republican side, their rules are too complicated. But McCain will beat Romney by more than 160 delegates.
Update 2: What's up with Huckabee? Yeah, he's only won in The South, but he's won more than Arkansas. And after hearing his speech (well timed, by the way), he's obviously staying in. His answer to Chris Matthews about the vote switching in WV was almost Clintonesque in avoiding the issue. Just admit cooperating with McCain damn it! It was a smart move by both camps. The only one who should be embarrassed is Romney, who didn't do the proper horse-trading to get his delegates. You'd think a CEO would know that. But I guess neither George Bush or Ken Lay could have figured that out. But those aren't exactly good CEO's are they? Yeah, I know, Ken Lay was only briefly CEO, and not when the problems happened. But he was always (well, before the fall) championed as an expert in executive leadership. Anyway, Huckabee is surely strong enough to stay in the race. And Obama is doing well enough to to seriously challenge Hillary as the primaries go on. Romney is looking like the only loser tonight.
Update 3: Wow, I did really bad in California. I tried not to get caught up in the poll trend lines, but I guess I did for California. Apparently, Romney is having a "frank" discussion with his staff. I can't imagine he's withdrawing, but he certainly knows he's doomed.
Mini update: from TPM:
"Sort of makes you wonder, can you imagine Mitt Romney having a frank discussion."
Update 4: While Guiliani has clearly won the all-time contest for most money spent for a single delegate ($51M- woohoo!), Romney is competitive in the most money per delegate for a candidate with multiple delegates. He's at $1.16M per delegate now, still well behind Phil Gramm's $2.5M per delegate. But if Romney goes on, he could take that crown. Reach for it Mitt! It's already in you, you just have to see it.
I'll note that the Democrats use more delegates (~80%) and usually (but not recently) have less money, so the Democrat record on this is certainly much lower. But I'm guessing on that , I don't really have the stats. Although I do know that Guiliani's record holds for both parties. At least he'll always have 911 to delude himself about. I'm pretty sure that that's the last dig I can get in on Rudy. He's already too irrelevant to be worth joking about. When the comedians give up on you, you're history.
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