I'm a data junkie. Even more specifically I'm also a political data junkie. It's why I frequent 538.com. But when presented with huge amounts of data, it's helpful to use a few techniques. A few months a go they used Venn Diagrams to try and understand the crowded GOP field, and developed the following chart:
This lead me to thinking could a similar diagram be developed for the Democratic party? Knowing the Daily Kos primary wars would eventually heat up, I decided to develop one (I petition 538 to do so numerous times) and then try and place candidates where I think they would sit. First of all here is my Democratic party Venn diagram chart:
The Democratic circles are:
Liberals: Self describe liberals
Populist: Pro-union, fair traders, economic progressives
Moderates: Social moderates, economic moderates
Civil Rights Voters: Discrimination. immigration, LGBT issues, feminism
Establishment: Major fundraiser, elected officials, etc
Each circle represents a group of issues that is the "most important" to each group of voters. The reason the circles overlap is that most voters fall in more than one circle. For example many black church goers are big on civil rights, populism, but are social moderates (not socially liberal), same with many Latino Democratic church goers (immigration, populism, but are moderates). A big NYC fundraiser may be both a moderate and support of the establishment. There are lots of examples (socially moderate trade unionist, socially liberal gay equality activist, etc).
Conversely the circles from some groups don't touch for obvious reason. Hard to be both a self described liberal and self described moderate, there are also few ways to be both a member of the establishment while being a populist. Not saying it's not possible, but the plausibility of such, and populations of such members is small enough to be ignored for my purposes
Now comes the subjective part. I tried to place each candidate on the charts based on a few factors; where their primary support appeared to be coming from, where their campaign's appeared to be concentrating their efforts, my opinion on where each candidate's strength lie, etc. This isn't a measure on how I believe each candidates' positions, policies, or "heart" lies, rather it's a pure "pundit-like" analysis of where I see the candidate's campaigns are today. This also isn't an attempt to advocate or disparage any candidate within the primary and caucus races.
The chart above is where I would place each candidate based on where their campaigns are currently positioned. Clinton is running with the strongest support of the Democratic establishment, voters who rate and vote highly on civil rights issues (especially blacks and Latinos), and moderates. Sanders is running strongly with, self described liberals and economic progressives. O'Malley is trying to run in the same space as Sanders. Webb is running as a populist social moderate. I tried to place Chafee, who seems to be running on the environment and social liberalism, in the liberal circle.
Lastly based on their national poll numbers I gave each candidate 1 font point for each percentage point in the national polls (yes this leaves most candidates with font sized that you would need a magnify glass to see).
Now because this is currently a "two person race" between Clinton and Sanders I will concentrate on them. Sanders currently has a strong base of support with two groups liberals and economic progressives. Clinton has strong support coming from moderates, establishment dems, and civil rights voters (especially blacks and Latinos). This leaves Clinton with an advantage as she is pulling support from three groups to Sanders' two. For Sanders to overtake Clinton he will need to either; "break into" one of the other circles (by appealing to those voters), or "push" Clinton out of one of the circles (by going negative making her unacceptable to that groups).
I'm thinking of doing a follow up that will measure each early state's (Iowa, NH, South Carolina, and Nevada) approximate composition of each voting group, by changing the size of the circles. That's my two cents on where the race currently stands.