While the Summer of Bern has been impressive, Hillary Clinton is still firmly in the pole position to win the democratic nomination for President in 2016. The analysis I present here is in anticipation of a two person race between Hillary and Bernie. If VP Biden decided to run, my opinion (and I think the polls that have suggested this) is that he would mainly draw support from Hillary. While this would complicate the delegate math for Hillary Clinton, his entering the race would still leave Hillary as the favorite, even if a diminished one. I say that I doubt the Vice President would run because he himself has said he doesn't know if his heart would be in a third run for the presidency, and because according to Hillary Clinton's team, she has privately secured the commitments of 440 (out of a possible 714) superdelegates - 130 of whom have made their support public. I strongly suspect that her team announced this level of private support in order to send a message to the VP that the party's establishment had already settled on their preferred candidate.
So, I anticipate that the 2016 Democratic Primary will almost entirely be a two person race. Below the fold I explain why I think Hillary is in such a strong position even after a very bad summer for her.
Beyond the day to day horse race of the election (and I suspect Hillary will do very well in the upcoming debate on Oct. 13 and Benghazi committee hearing on Oct. 22), democratic party elections are won by accumulating a majority of delegates. There are estimated 4483 delegates available to be won, of that total about 714 are superdelegates, which are mainly elected officials such as governors, senators, representatives as well as DNC and state party officials, who are free to give their support to any candidate they prefer. For an overview of superdelegates, see Nate Silver's excellent piece from 2008. The remaining 3769 delegates are so-called "pledged" delegates that are to be assigned to candidates based on primary and caucus results.
If as I suspect, this nomination race will be a two person race, it is only natural to look to previous recent two-person races, especially the last two-person nomination race which involved one of the candidates this time around. In 2008, the under dog Barack Obama defeated the highly favored Hillary Clinton to become the democratic nominee.
Lessons from 2008
As a keen observer (and Obama supporter) in 2008, I believe the main reasons Obama was able to win the nomination were:
- He was able to take advantage of the intensity of his support to run up his delegate advantage in the caucuses, which are usually low turn out affairs in which only the most dedicated supporters turn out to caucus.
- He was able to build base from a coalition of various socioeconomic demographics that was greater and more intense than Hillary Clinton's base. Among Obama's strongest supporters were African-Americans, well educated liberals (so called wine track liberals) and young people. While Clinton's strongest supporting groups were women, older voters, Latinos and blue collar workers (beer track liberals). With Obama's dominance among African-Americans, he was able to run up big victories across the south.
- Hillary Clinton's campaign was caught flatfooted after Super Tuesday in 2008. They never planned for the nominating contest to be a protracted one and so neglected to build campaign infrastructure in the contests in February 2008 immediately following Super Tuesday. Furthermore, Clinton's campaign was near broke after Iowa, leaving it unable to invest in contests after Super Tuesday. The Obama campaign, knowing that a protracted campaign was their only shot at winning, wisely planned ahead for these contests and took advantage of the favorable formats (many were caucuses) and demographics (such as Southern states) to reel off 10 straight wins. What was essentially a tie in the pledged delegates after Super Tuesday became a race with Obama approximately 150 pledged delegates ahead. That 150 delegate lead might seem small, but it proved insurmountable as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama essentially fought to a draw during the remaining months of the primary season. That 150 delegate vote lead built in that February when Clinton's campaign was in disarray, proved to be the decisive edge for Barack Obama's campaign.
Can this playbook be repeated to deny Hillary Clinton the democratic nomination for President a second time?
One of the lessons learned by observers of the 2008 primary was how much demographics matter. Nate Silver was able to adequately predict the results of almost every primary contest to an astonishing degree after Super Tuesday 2008 using his statistical model. States that had a high proportion of black voters, such as Virginia, or white, high income liberals, such as Wisconsin, went for Barack Obama, while states with a high Latino population, such as Arizona, or those with a high percentage of beer track liberals, such as Pennsylvania, went for Hillary Clinton. In the end, each contest turned out to be a gambit to see which side could maximize their delegate allotment, but the candidate who would get the most votes was fairly predictable. To that end, Hillary Clinton has hired Barack Obama's chief delegate counter from 2008.
The 2016 Primary Contest
It is with that in mind that I looked at the 2016 Democratic Primary contest as it currently stands. One of the things that I noticed is that two contests that were caucuses in 2008 are now primaries - Kansas is now a primary and Texas no longer has the two step primary-caucus, but instead just a primary.
Another thing that stood out to me, is that the primary season isn't as front loaded as it was in 2008. Where in 2008, contests totaling almost half of the pledged delegates available had concluded on February 5th - Super Tuesday, in 2016 by the end of Super Tuesday on March 1, 2016 less than a third of all pledged delegates will have been won.
The first of these things is good for the front runner, while the latter is probably good for the under dog.
Given that demographics are so important in determining contest winners, and that caucuses will hand an advantage to the insurgent candidate with a higher intensity of support, I think it is fairly easy to say who should be viewed as the favorite in each of the 2016 primary contests. Of course, this may change with time, but from the polls we have seen, Bernie Sanders' base is wine track liberals as well as young people. It is possible he may make in-roads into the beer track liberal demographic, i.e. working class white people, especially union members. But it is too early to say for sure that Bernie's brand of liberalism will be able to carry primaries in Appalachia or the rust belt, almost all of which went for Hillary Clinton in 2008. There is evidence that Barack Obama's struggles in these primaries were not so much due to his weakness among these voters, but to Clinton's strength. Of course, this may change once we get polls closer to the primaries from states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, but for now I think it's fair to assume that Hillary Clinton will start off with strong support among this demographic as she did in 2008. I also assume Hillary will retain her strength among Latino voters and that she will not suffer the huge drop off among black voters like she did in 2008. Courtesy of 538, Hillary had an approximately 20 point lead over Obama among black voters in Oct 2007, today, even with polls that generate headlines like "Hillary Clinton's support among blacks plunges" Hillary's lead over Bernie among blacks is greater than 20 points. I think it is fair to say that blacks started to vote overwhelmingly for Obama because, in addition to having policies that found widespread support among the black community, he demonstrated that he had the skill and ability to be the first African American president. I do not foresee a dramatic collapse (from +20 to -80 at the end of the primaries) in Hillary Clinton's support among blacks as happened in 2008.
Taking these demographic leanings into account, as well as the assumption that Bernie is the favorite in caucus contests and that he has a geographic advantage in New England states, I have labeled the favorite for each contest.
My Thinking on Favored Candidates in Each Contest
2008 Democratic Primary Results
2016 Democratic Primary Favorites as I see it
This
spreadsheet contains information about contest types and dates, as well as my reasoning for assigning a favorite to each state. Here I assume that fundraising is not an issue for either candidate, since both have shown to be prolific fundraisers and because Hillary is planning beyond Super Tuesday this time around. The important thing to note is that
I see Hillary as favored in 31 contests which have 2930 delegates while Bernie is favored in 26 contests that carry 839 delegates. The pledged delegates will be awarded based on proportions of the vote that each candidate receives, so while it may seem that Hillary has an overwhelming advantage, if Bernie were to run up the score sufficiently among contests he is favored in, and kept his losses small among contests Hillary is favored in, he could amass a majority of pledged delegates. This is what Obama was so successful at doing in 2008.
But what's a fair guess at what percentage of delegates each candidate could get in states they are favored in? As a proxy, and perhaps a poor proxy since the race in 2016 has subtle differences from 2008, I looked at the percentage of pledged delegates that Hillary amassed in contests she won in 2008 after it became a two person race (from Super Tuesday onward) and did a similar exercise for the percentage of delegate her opponent (Obama) received in contests he won. In contests she won, Hillary's campaign was able to get 57% of the pledged delegates available. In contests Obama won (including the caucuses where he ran up the score against an unprepared Clinton) he got 63% of the contested delegates available. Applying those percentages to the contests in 2016, leaves Hillary with 1981 pledged delegates, and Bernie with 1788 pledged delegates.
What's more, because the states immediately following Super Tuesday favor Hillary Clinton (many Southern states, Ohio, Florida, Texas), by the end of mini Super Tuesday on March 15, Hillary could have a pledged delegate lead of about 130 delegates (about 1070 for Hillary and 942 for Bernie). This lead would be very close to the ~150 delegate lead that Barack Obama had at the end of February 2008 that proved insurmountable. To put this another way, Bernie will have to run up the score more among caucuses against a prepared Hillary Clinton in 2016, than Barack Obama did against a math challenged Clinton campaign in 2008.
Superdelegates
But what about the superdelegates? In 2008, Barack Obama's rise put a freeze on the amount of superdelegates Hillary Clinton could garner but he didn't surpass her total until May 2008. As the chart below shows, it is a myth that superdelegates immediately switched to Obama once he started winning. It was only when it was abundantly clear that Obama could not be overtaken in the pledged delegate race that they switched (and even then some didn't). It is important to note that Obama started the primary season with almost 70 superdelegate commitments. As of now, Bernie Sanders has none.
Superdelegate support from 2008. Image from fivethirtyeight.com
If in fact, Hillary already has the commitment of
440 superdelegates, then that is more than enough to secure the nomination with her anticipated pledged delegate totals. Of course, superdelegates are free to change their mind, but, if as I anticipate, Hillary Clinton gets out to a pledged delegate lead by mid-March 2016, it is hard for me to see superdelegates deciding to abandon her. In fact, but the end of March 2016, Bernie might face pressure to end his campaign if Hillary does have that significant pledged delegate lead.
Does this mean that the race is over? Of course not. Bernie could make real in-roads among beer track liberals and do better in the industrial Midwest than I anticipate. Bernie may indeed be able to outperform Barack Obama in caucus states. Or, the protracted primary season might give Bernie a chance to recover from an early Hillary lead in a way Hillary had little chance of recovering from in 2008. In fact, the largest delegate prize in California is not until June 2016, and while I think Hillary will win California, its allotment of 408 pledged delegates might be enough to convince Bernie to keep campaigning until the end of the primary season.
Conclusion
This has been a long diary and thank you for reading until the end. While I expect a rigorous primary battle between Bernie and Hillary, the math seems to be on Hillary's side this time around because of her anticipated strength in the south and because there are fewer caucus delegates available in 2016 than in 2008. If Bernie is unable to make significant in-roads among Hillary's demographic strengths from 2008 such as beer track liberals and Latinos, Hillary should be the candidate with the pledged delegate lead for most of the campaign season.
If 2016 does turn out to be a protracted primary race like 2008, Hillary Clinton is likely to be the Barack Obama who uses a small, but significant, pledged delegate lead to hold off a determined challenger.