Delegate Proj #3: Sanders first lead if he wins IA. How Sanders can survive Super Tuesday and win.

The barrage of polling this week has had an effect on the delegate projection.  For the first time Sanders has taken the lead in the projection if he wins Iowa. 

 Democrats

		Current Polling			If Sanders wins Iowa
		Clinton	Sanders		Clinton	Sanders
Delegates before Super Tuesday	156	103	53		78	78
Delegates On Super Tuesday	980	704	276		538	440
Deep South	715	517	162		422	306
Other	250	153	97		116	134
Total - Before March 2nd	1136	807	329		616	518
Total - states after March 2	2916	1848	1068		1389	1526
Total	4052	2655	1397		2005	2044

The estimate with the current polling under-estimates Sanders because in several states he is below 15 (Ala eg).  This is from poling taken in the September time frame, and I doubt Sanders is below 15 in any state. 

What about Iowa?

No, we don’t know who is going to win Iowa.  I wrote an article at Bleeding Heartland (which got a tweet from the people at Chrystal Ball) about Iowa polling.  Here is what to know:

1.  People are really just starting to focus on the race.  As I noted in the last delegate projection, nearly 30%  of Iowa voters didn’t decide in the last week in 2008, and 42% didn’t decide until the last week in 2004.

2.  Historically, polling 15 days out is no better than 3 days out.  And polling three days out is pretty bad — in one third of contested Iowa races the leader 3 days out lost Iowa.

3.  I have seen various odds on Iowa floating around.  I do not think those numbers go far enough back in time to fully account for volatility that exists. It’s close.  Beyond that we know nothing more.

What about the South?

For Sanders the schedule is not good.  If he wins Iowa and New Hampshire my guess is Nevada becomes a tossup. There is no reason, though, to think South Carolina will.  To say Sanders is a bad fit in the South is a deep understatement.

The Clinton people are counting on the South as their firewall for four reasons:

1.  South Carolina will allow them to stop the Sanders momentum

2.  Of the 12 states that vote on Super Tuesday, 9 would appear to be friendly to Clinton: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.  I am sure the Clinton people are counting on the perception that these wins will be regarded as ending the race.

3.  From a raw delegate perspective, Clinton right now looks to net about 350 delegates.  This is a significant lead that will be difficult to overcome.

4.  The fourth reason really is behind the other three: there is no evidence that Sanders will be able to appeal to Southern African Americans.

How Sanders can survive Super Tuesday?

I suspect no question more troubles the Sanders people than this one. Here is my guess:

1.  Win the non-southern states.  Colorado, Massachusetts,  Minnesota and Vermont should be good states for Sanders.  Winning them will allow them to argue that they can win the nomination as the schedule turns to more friendly turf.  Really if he doesn’t win these states it will be difficult to avoid the media from concluding that the race is essentially over.

2. Resurrect the Michael Dukakis strategy from 1988. A generation ago another New England Democrat faced a Super Tuesday very much like the current one. In response the Dukakis people targeted their resources in CD’s where they thought they could win.  Since most delegates are awarded at the CD level, Dukakis was able to win far more delegates than he should have given the state totals.   Sanders should concentrate resources in places like Northern Virginia, some of the Atlanta suburbs and RTP in North Carolina.

3. FIGHT FOR TEXAS

222 of the 980 delegates at stake on Super Tuesday. But Texas is very different in makeup from most of the other states as can be seen below.  If Sanders wins Iowa, in my opinion the deciding factor in the Democratic Nomination will be the Latino vote.  There are reasons to think Sanders can win that vote.  In National Polling Sander’s approvals are  higher than Clinton’s among Hispanics.  The one recent poll from a state, California, suggested Bernie already had significant support.

Post-Super Tuesday

By March 8th almost all of the South will have voted.  The calendar become more friendly to Sanders.  The question really is one of media perception.  Bounces fade, and should Bernie win Iowa and New Hampshire his may fade as well.  He will almost certainly be trailing after Super Tuesday in delegates.  But candidates have lost Super Tuesday before and lived to fight again — most notably Walter Mondale in 1984 and Michael Dukakis in 1988. 

Ultimately Sanders will benefit later in the schedule.  The last California poll had him down 11 — and California alone will has 12% of all the delegates.  One other thing to note: delegates are allocated based on how Democratic a state is. Most of the states in the deep south have fewer delegates than they would otherwise. 

Texas Electorate: 2008 Primary

White	35%
African American	16%
Latino	32%

Sample Southern Polling

State	Pollster	date	clinton	sanders	%VOTE African american	PROj If sanders wins Iowa	cURRENT dELEGATE mARGIN	dELEGATE mArGIN IF SANDERS WINS ia
AL	News 5/Strategy Research	8/11	78	10	51	Clinton 53, Sanders 20	52	24
FL	FAU	11/16	66	22	20	Clinton 46, Sanders 44	104	36
ga	SurveyUSA	10/26	73	16	51	Clinton 51, Sanders 24	66	36
LA	Claurus	9/23	57	7	48	Clinton  41, Sanders 18	51	20
NC	PPP (D)	12/7	60	21	34	Clinton 42, Sanders 30	47	17
tn	VANDERBILT	11/23	48	25	29	Clinton 34, Sanders 31	23	3
TX	UT/Texas Tribune	11/8	61	30	16	Clinton 43, Sanders 32	111	32
va	University of Mary Washington	11/9	63	27	29	Clinton 45, Sanders 34	38	13

Methodology

Explanation of Democratic Model from Previous Diary

These are for elected delegates only.  There are 713 Super Delegates, and Clinton has a lead among them. 

The only way to do a decent delegate projection is to model the results AT EVERY CD.  Democratic delegates are in two ways:

1.  Delegates awarded based on state results

2.  Delegates awarded based on CD results

The second becomes important because of how results are rounded.   This leads to unexpected results, which usually benefit the front runner.

So where do the Sanders numbers come from if he wins Iowa? How do you know?

This model builds on work that I did in 2007, and that was subsequently cited by Nate Silver.  This is a pretty significant upgrade both of his and my work, in part because the polling data behind it is significantly more robust.   The polling detail is here.

There are 13 instances since 1976 in which a front runner or someone tied for the lead has been beaten in Iowa in NH. I have excluded a couple (eg 1976 Democratic) for a variety of reasons (in ‘76 the front runner did not contest NH)  If you run a linear regression comparing their national polling before and after the front runner is beaten, you get the following results:

Linear Regression Results

Intercept	5.903613917
Prior National Poll	0.614479111
Won either Iowa, NH or both (either yes or no)	16.28478719

What the hell does that mean?  Well, it means you can model the result of a front runner by multiplying the follows

Current national Poll * .61	Add 16.2 IF thE Candidate UPsets the front runner	Add 5.9

Using that information, we can estimate the effect of a Sanders win in Iowa as follows:

	Current National Polling	Projected
Clinton	56	40.4
Sanders	30	40.6

What if Sanders loses Iowa, but wins New Hampshire?

This is a complicated question, and I will explore this in a later post.  Bottom line Iowa’s effect on New Hampshire is not as simple as win or lose —  exceeding expectations matters greatly as well.  The best example of this is Gary Hart, who beat exceptions by 10 but still lost Iowa by 49-16.  However, beating expectations gave him a bounce that led to his New Hampshire victory 8 days later. Here are some examples of front runners winning Iowa and the follow on effect in NH:

Front Runners who won Iowa

		Pre-Iowa NH Polls	Iowa Result	Pos-IA NH Polls	Final NH Result
84 Dem	Mondale	36.75	48.9	37.75	27.9
	Hart	7.53	16.5	23.25	37.3
‘96 GOP	Dole	24.3	26	24.4	26
	Buchanan	13.6	23	23.7	27
‘00 GOP	Bush	34.8	41	31.4	30.3
	McCain	38.2	4.67	37.2	48.5
‘00 Dem	Gore	43	62.8	50.2	49.7
	Bradley	44.57	36.3	42.4	45.6

it is worth noting the results in 2000.  Gore destroyed Bradley in NH, and did see a bounce in NH that subsequently partially receded.  Bush won Iowa decisively, but it had little impact on New Hampshire as his win was expected. 

If Iowa is close, I suspect Bernie will benefit.  The problem, though, is that losing Iowa may cause the press to focus on the GOP race more than the Democratic race (this happened in 2000).