by Cliston Brown | Feb 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
Hillary Clinton’s projected victory in Nevada today is huge for her. With a very favorable calendar coming up, she now has the opportunity to string together a number of important victories and get out to a big delegate lead over Bernie Sanders.
But I don’t think today’s result was all bad news for Sanders, either. If the current numbers hold up, it looks like he’s going to end up within about five percentage points of Clinton, which means he probably had to do relatively well among Latinos/Latinas. He started out way behind with Latinos/Latinas nationally, so if he is making inroads there, that could end up being huge in states like California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, among others. If he continues to make up ground among Latinos/Latinas, he may be in a position where he could remain competitive even if Clinton does put together a string of victories over the next few weeks.
by Cliston Brown | Feb 19, 2016 | Uncategorized
Polling of tomorrow’s South Carolina GOP primary gives Donald Trump a clear lead, so it looks very likely that he will win the Palmetto State. The key question is margin: does he win big, or does he underperform (or even overperform)?
The more interesting race on the Republican side is for second place. The last couple of polls show Marco Rubio overtaking Ted Cruz for second place. This is probably going to be close, but with the recent endorsement of Rubio by Gov. Nikki Haley, I think he does slip past Cruz to take second. Rubio likely will be assisted by the continuing fade of Jeb Bush and the fact that John Kasich appears unable to build on his second-place finish in New Hampshire.
If the South Carolina Republican primary plays out as expected, then it will put Rubio back in front of the establishment pack and probably mark the moment when the Bush and Kasich campaigns begin seriously reassessing the point of staying in the race. Both are polling in the low-double digits to high-single digits, and their prospects continued viability will not look hopeful if, as expected, they end up in a battle for fourth place, far behind the top three finishers. Whoever finishes the lowest between these two may hang around long enough to roll the dice at next Tuesday’s Republican caucuses in Nevada, but the loser (especially if it’s Kasich, who doesn’t have Bush’s financial wherewithal) is probably out shortly thereafter. Whoever performs better in this two-man race likely hangs in, just in case Rubio falters again, but the fifth-place finisher is all but certainly going to be out of the race in a matter of days.
Ben Carson, of course, has no chance to be the nominee; at this point and going forward, he can only hurt other candidates. If he places ahead of Bush and/or Kasich tomorrow, it might well do enough damage to whomever he defeats as to end either or both campaigns right away. More importantly, he now remains the only impediment to Cruz in the evangelical lane. Carson has raised a shocking amount of money, so he may stay in regardless of his performance tomorrow, but if he does, it benefits Trump and Rubio.
My predictions, based on the recent polls and trends:
- Trump
- Rubio
- Cruz
- Bush
- Kasich
- Carson
In the Nevada Democratic caucuses, there has been very little reliable polling, and polling tends to be off for the Nevada caucuses at any rate. I expect Hillary Clinton to win a narrow victory over Bernie Sanders, but honestly, this is an educated guess. There just isn’t much data there. If Sanders has gained significant ground among Latinos, he could certainly prevail. There’s just no reliable way to tell yet.
by Cliston Brown | Feb 8, 2016 | Uncategorized
Last week in Iowa, even vaunted pollster Ann Selzer got it wrong, missing Ted Cruz’s win over Donald Trump, and nearly getting hung with an L in the Democratic caucuses as well. It just goes to show that polling remains an unreliable guide.
This is the key lesson I take from Iowa as I look ahead to New Hampshire tomorrow. Yes, all polling shows Trump way ahead on the GOP side, and Bernie Sanders way ahead on the Democratic side. Both are clearly likely to win, but that isn’t going to be the key story.
On the Democratic side, the key question is the final margin. Hillary Clinton has unquestionably been cutting into Sanders’s lead. I suspect the final margin will probably hover right around 10 points–a good, solid win for Sanders, but compared to his huge polling margins, a win that might feel a bit like a loss.
On the GOP side, the key question is who places second and third. If it’s Trump, Rubio, Cruz, in any order, that’s significant, because that’s probably the end for everyone else. But after Marco Rubio’s disastrous debate performance on Saturday, the door is now open for John Kasich to run strongly. Kasich probably doesn’t have the persona or the raw ability to make a real run, but the longer he, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie can delay Rubio’s consolidation of the vaunted GOP establishment, the better it is for Trump and Cruz.
Given the fact that the most interesting action is on the GOP side, I expect the bulk of independents and moderates to vote in the Republican primary. That probably benefits Sanders, who will benefit from a more liberal Democratic electorate, and also Kasich.
Therefore, I expect Sanders to defeat Clinton by about 10 percentage points, and Trump to win a closer-than-expected victory over Kasich, followed by Cruz and Rubio. I expect Bush, Christie, Carson, Fiorina and Gilmore to fill out the field, in that order.
by Cliston Brown | Feb 1, 2016 | Uncategorized
I know better than to question Iowa super-pollster Ann Selzer, so I predict that Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic caucuses tonight and Donald Trump wins on the GOP side. Not only does Selzer have one of the best track records in the business, but the preponderance of polls in Iowa are in concord with her final polling released Saturday.
I will, however, offer one caveat: turnout.
All polling shows that Bernie Sanders and Trump tend to do better among those who have not caucused previously. If turnout is high tonight, they both stand to benefit. If it is lower, a win for Clinton is assured, and Ted Cruz could overtake Trump on the GOP side.
Additionally, on the GOP side, I expect the performances of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum to be tepid enough that both will drop out in the coming days. Both would need to do well in the evangelical-dominated Iowa caucuses to have a path forward, but clearly there is more competition for evangelicals this year, and this is diluting their share of those votes. We’ll need to wait and see on Carly Fiorina.
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