fivethirtyeight--2020-02-20--The Debate Exposed Bloomberg’s Downside — But It Was There All Along

On Wednesday , I was working on a story about how our primary forecast was handling former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg when other things got in the way .
Truth be told , I ’ m glad I got distracted , because a mildly bearish case on Bloomberg — roughly how I ’ d describe our model ’ s current position on him — is a lot easier to explain after Bloomberg ’ s difficult debate performance last night .
That ’ s not to say the model has handled Bloomberg perfectly .
His odds of winning a majority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too low initially because Bloomberg is an unusual case .
But those odds have also improved a lot in recent days .
As of Thursday afternoon — before any post-debate polling was in — he had a 9 percent chance of winning a majority of pledged delegates and an 18 percent chance of getting a plurality of delegates in our forecast .
At the same time , the hype about Bloomberg — a candidate who had yet to compete in any states , to participate in any debates , or to face sustained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — had probably gotten out of hand .
Prediction markets have his chances cut almost in half as a result of the debate , from about 30 percent before the debate on Wednesday to only around 15 percent as of early Thursday afternoon .
That ’ s an awfully big correction after a single debate for which we don ’ t yet have any polling .
It may reflect the fact that these markets — and by extension the conventional wisdom generally — had overestimated Bloomberg ’ s chances to begin with .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ propositions about Bloomberg : • Bloomberg is unusual because of his money — but also his late start .
That makes him hard to predict .
There has understandably been a lot of attention paid to the unprecedented amount of money that Bloomberg has spent on his campaign , especially on television advertising .
And even if the evidence is mostly on the side of self-funded candidates not performing well , Bloomberg is spending so much money that he tests the boundaries of any potential equation involving campaign spending .
But Bloomberg is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to his campaign , which he launched on Nov. 24 , as well as for his skipping the first four states .
( He was actually eligible to receive votes in Iowa , but he didn ’ t campaign there . )
In general , starting late has been a bearish indicator for presidential candidates — think about actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson , who flamed out after a lot of hype in 2008 , or about former Massachusetts Gov .
Deval Patrick , who also entered the race in November but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of the vote in New Hampshire .
“ Not competing ” in early states has also been bearish — think about former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani skipping Iowa in 2008 and how that turned out .
Often , “ not competing ” has just been an excuse that candidates offer to lower expectations in states that they figure they ’ re going to lose .
Somehow , though , the combination of these factors allowed Bloomberg to continue gaining in the polls despite not contending in the early states .
Both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” media — cable news and social media love talking about him ( see point No .
2 below ) — kept him in the conversation even when he wasn ’ t on the ballot .
So when former Vice President Joe Biden cratered in the polls after Iowa , the biggest gainer was Bloomberg — not one of the candidates who had actually performed well in Iowa , namely former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders .
• Bloomberg ’ s recent polling surge is at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That opens him up to a “ discovery , scrutiny , decline ” cycle .
Bloomberg had risen slowly but somewhat steadily in the polls since his campaign launch , climbing from 3.6 percent in our national polling average on Dec. 1 to 8.8 percent on Feb. 3 .
That isn ’ t bad — a 5.2 percentage-point gain in 64 days — although it was short of the pace he ’ d need to be seriously competitive on Super Tuesday .
If you had extrapolated out Bloomberg ’ s rate of increase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( see point No .
3 ) — he would have reached 11.2 percent in the polls by Super Tuesday , short of the usually 15 percent threshold that Democrats require a candidate to clear in order to receive state or district delegates .
Instead , Bloomberg had an abrupt , nonlinear surge in our polling average , climbing from 8.8 percent on Feb. 3 to 15.4 percent on Feb. 13 , just 10 days later .
He has since somewhat stalled out , for what it ’ s worth , having risen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ afternoon .
This increase also happened to coincide with a big spike in news coverage of Bloomberg .
I looked at how often candidates ’ names appeared in headlines at Memeorandum , a site that aggregates which political stories are gaining the most traction , and found that from the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3 through Thursday afternoon ( Feb. 20 ) , Bloomberg was the subject of 80 headlines at Memorandum , slightly trailing Sanders ( 84 ) but well ahead of Biden ( 53 ) , Buttigieg ( 32 ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( 15 ) .
Now , not all of these headlines have been positive for Bloomberg , especially in recent days .
But that ’ s sort of the point .
It ’ s not uncommon for candidates to undergo what political scientists Lynn Vavreck and John Sides call a “ discovery , scrutiny , decline ” pattern in the polls , where an initial spark triggers a surge in media attention and a rise in the polls , but storylines turn more negative as the candidate gets more scrutiny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ match the newfound hype .
Candidates such as businessman Herman Cain and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich underwent this cycle in 2012 .
Sen. Kamala Harris and former Rep. Beto O ’ Rourke did so this year .
• Be wary of assuming there ’ s momentum in polls .
Bloomberg may keep rising , or he may have already peaked .
Let ’ s pause for breath here .
There ’ s no evidence yet that Bloomberg is about to enter the decline phase of a discovery-scrutiny-decline cycle .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a higher floor than other candidates because he ’ s running so many ads .
Still , it ’ s a huge mistake to assume that just because a candidate is rising in polls now , he or she will continue to do so .
Empirically , polls come much closer to what statisticians call a “ random walk ” than to , say , an object in flight that gains or loses momentum .
That is to say , if a candidate rises from say 9 percent to 16 percent , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revert back to basically where they were before ( to , say , 11 percent ) as they are to continue rising ( to , say , 21 percent ) .
Or their numbers could flatten out .
There are some qualifications to this .
Candidates can gain momentum from winning states , and candidates who fall in the polls are at risk of dropping out .
But to a first approximation , political observers vastly overrate the importance of momentum in the polls .
There are plenty of examples of that this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ O ’ Rourke but also Warren , whose summerlong rise in the polls abruptly turned into a decline in November , and Buttigieg , who has had several rises and falls in national polls .
• Bloomberg needs to improve his position by Super Tuesday to be a front-runner for the nomination .
That ’ s possible , but it ’ s not a great bet .
But suppose Bloomberg doesn ’ t decline in the polls .
Instead , he holds steady .
After the reviews his debate got last night , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that .
The problem is that merely holding steady in the polls through Super Tuesday would result in Bloomberg treading water in the delegate count .
Here , as of early Thursday , are our model ’ s projected delegate counts after Super Tuesday , along with a high ( 90th percentile ) and low ( 10th percentile ) range for each candidate .
Note , again , that these numbers don ’ t yet reflect any post-debate polling .
If everyone exactly hits their averages , then after Super Tuesday , Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the delegates that had been awarded to that point , Biden and Bloomberg would have about 20 percent each , and the rest would be scattered between the remaining candidates ( mostly Buttigieg and Warren ) .
Of course , we probably won ’ t wind up with those exact results .
Candidates may rise and fall in the polls as a result of last night ’ s debate , or as a result of the voting outcomes in Nevada and South Carolina .
One or more candidates could even drop out by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all pledged delegates will have been handed out after Super Tuesday , so having only about a fifth of the delegates awarded to that point would make it nearly impossible for Bloomberg to get a majority of delegates later on .
And it would be highly difficult for Bloomberg to even get a plurality with Sanders having about twice as many delegates as the former mayor .
His chances at that point would probably depend on a contested convention .
But Bloomberg ’ s 90th percentile scenario , in which he winds up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who had been handed out through Super Tuesday , would leave him in a much better position .
He ’ d certainly have a good shot at winning the plurality of pledged delegates , for instance .
A majority would require some more work , though it could be plausible depending on which of his opponents dropped out and how much he gained in the polls as a result of his Super Tuesday performance .
And pending that post-debate polling , those upside scenarios are still on the table .
By definition , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chance that Bloomberg hits or improves on his 90th percentile forecast .
Far more unlikely things have happened .
But the downside cases are equally likely .
And as the debate exposed , if Bloomberg has some unique strengths as a candidate — his money , a smart team behind him , and a slightly Trumpian ability to command media attention — he also has some unique weaknesses .
These include : his lack of polish as debater and public speaker , his past as a Republican , his status as a billionaire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his lack of practice as a candidate because of his campaign ’ s late start , New York ’ s use of the stop-and-frisk policy during his time as mayor and his relationship to black voters , his age ( 78 ) , and the lewd comments he has allegedly made toward and about women .
On top of that , we don ’ t know anything yet about how Bloomberg ’ s support in polls will translate into actual votes ; as compared with most other Democrats , his voters are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t firmly committed to a candidate .
These are some big liabilities , and ones the media should have paid more attention to amidst the hype surrounding Bloomberg ’ s rise but for now we ’ ll just have to wait and see what the post-debate polls say .

On Wednesday, I was working on a story about how our primary forecast was handling former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg when other things got in the way. Truth be told, I’m glad I got distracted, because a mildly bearish case on Bloomberg — roughly how I’d describe our model’s current position on him — is a lot easier to explain after Bloomberg’s difficult debate performance last night.
That’s not to say the model has handled Bloomberg perfectly. His odds of winning a majority or plurality of pledged delegates were probably too low initially because Bloomberg is an unusual case. But those odds have also improved a lot in recent days. As of Thursday afternoon — before any post-debate polling was in — he had a 9 percent chance of winning a majority of pledged delegates and an 18 percent chance of getting a plurality of delegates in our forecast.
At the same time, the hype about Bloomberg — a candidate who had yet to compete in any states, to participate in any debates, or to face sustained scrutiny from the media and other candidates — had probably gotten out of hand. Prediction markets have his chances cut almost in half as a result of the debate, from about 30 percent before the debate on Wednesday to only around 15 percent as of early Thursday afternoon. That’s an awfully big correction after a single debate for which we don’t yet have any polling. It may reflect the fact that these markets — and by extension the conventional wisdom generally — had overestimated Bloomberg’s chances to begin with.
So let me advance a few interrelated propositions about Bloomberg:
Bloomberg is unusual because of his money — but also his late start. That makes him hard to predict.
There has understandably been a lot of attention paid to the unprecedented amount of money that Bloomberg has spent on his campaign, especially on television advertising. And even if the evidence is mostly on the side of self-funded candidates not performing well, Bloomberg is spending so much money that he tests the boundaries of any potential equation involving campaign spending.
But Bloomberg is also unusual for his very late start to his campaign, which he launched on Nov. 24, as well as for his skipping the first four states. (He was actually eligible to receive votes in Iowa, but he didn’t campaign there.) In general, starting late has been a bearish indicator for presidential candidates — think about actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson, who flamed out after a lot of hype in 2008, or about former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who also entered the race in November but who quit last week after getting 0.4 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. “Not competing” in early states has also been bearish — think about former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani skipping Iowa in 2008 and how that turned out. Often, “not competing” has just been an excuse that candidates offer to lower expectations in states that they figure they’re going to lose.
Somehow, though, the combination of these factors allowed Bloomberg to continue gaining in the polls despite not contending in the early states. Both his paid media and his “earned” media — cable news and social media love talking about him (see point No. 2 below) — kept him in the conversation even when he wasn’t on the ballot. So when former Vice President Joe Biden cratered in the polls after Iowa, the biggest gainer was Bloomberg — not one of the candidates who had actually performed well in Iowa, namely former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Bloomberg’s recent polling surge is at least partially driven by news coverage. That opens him up to a “discovery, scrutiny, decline” cycle.
Bloomberg had risen slowly but somewhat steadily in the polls since his campaign launch, climbing from 3.6 percent in our national polling average on Dec. 1 to 8.8 percent on Feb. 3. That isn’t bad — a 5.2 percentage-point gain in 64 days — although it was short of the pace he’d need to be seriously competitive on Super Tuesday. If you had extrapolated out Bloomberg’s rate of increase — decidedly not a safe assumption! (see point No. 3) — he would have reached 11.2 percent in the polls by Super Tuesday, short of the usually 15 percent threshold that Democrats require a candidate to clear in order to receive state or district delegates.
Instead, Bloomberg had an abrupt, nonlinear surge in our polling average, climbing from 8.8 percent on Feb. 3 to 15.4 percent on Feb. 13, just 10 days later. He has since somewhat stalled out, for what it’s worth, having risen only to 16.1 percent as of Thursday afternoon.
This increase also happened to coincide with a big spike in news coverage of Bloomberg. I looked at how often candidates’ names appeared in headlines at Memeorandum, a site that aggregates which political stories are gaining the most traction, and found that from the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3 through Thursday afternoon (Feb. 20), Bloomberg was the subject of 80 headlines at Memorandum, slightly trailing Sanders (84) but well ahead of Biden (53), Buttigieg (32), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (19) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (15).
Now, not all of these headlines have been positive for Bloomberg, especially in recent days. But that’s sort of the point. It’s not uncommon for candidates to undergo what political scientists Lynn Vavreck and John Sides call a “discovery, scrutiny, decline” pattern in the polls, where an initial spark triggers a surge in media attention and a rise in the polls, but storylines turn more negative as the candidate gets more scrutiny and their actual performance doesn’t match the newfound hype. Candidates such as businessman Herman Cain and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich underwent this cycle in 2012. Sen. Kamala Harris and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke did so this year.
Be wary of assuming there’s momentum in polls. Bloomberg may keep rising, or he may have already peaked.
Let’s pause for breath here. There’s no evidence yet that Bloomberg is about to enter the decline phase of a discovery-scrutiny-decline cycle. And even if he does, he may have a higher floor than other candidates because he’s running so many ads.
Still, it’s a huge mistake to assume that just because a candidate is rising in polls now, he or she will continue to do so. Empirically, polls come much closer to what statisticians call a “random walk” than to, say, an object in flight that gains or loses momentum. That is to say, if a candidate rises from say 9 percent to 16 percent, that candidate is about as likely to revert back to basically where they were before (to, say, 11 percent) as they are to continue rising (to, say, 21 percent). Or their numbers could flatten out.
There are some qualifications to this. Candidates can gain momentum from winning states, and candidates who fall in the polls are at risk of dropping out. But to a first approximation, political observers vastly overrate the importance of momentum in the polls. There are plenty of examples of that this year, involving not only Harris and O’Rourke but also Warren, whose summerlong rise in the polls abruptly turned into a decline in November, and Buttigieg, who has had several rises and falls in national polls.
Bloomberg needs to improve his position by Super Tuesday to be a front-runner for the nomination. That’s possible, but it’s not a great bet.
But suppose Bloomberg doesn’t decline in the polls. Instead, he holds steady. After the reviews his debate got last night, his campaign might be happy to take that.
The problem is that merely holding steady in the polls through Super Tuesday would result in Bloomberg treading water in the delegate count. Here, as of early Thursday, are our model’s projected delegate counts after Super Tuesday, along with a high (90th percentile) and low (10th percentile) range for each candidate. Note, again, that these numbers don’t yet reflect any post-debate polling.
Sanders leads in projected delegates after Super Tuesday Projected delegate averages and those delegate totals as a percentage of delegates awarded through Super Tuesday, according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecast as of Feb. 20 Projected delegates after Super Tuesday Candidate Average Pct. Low Pct High Pct. Sanders 590 39% 313 21% 856 57% Biden 296 20 15 1 584 39 Bloomberg 287 19 56 4 521 35 Buttigieg 138 9 27 2 324 22 Warren 115 8 9 1 292 19 Klobuchar 59 4 10 1 118 8 Steyer 14 1 0 0 29 2 Gabbard 0 0 0 0 0 0 “Average” reflects the mean of 10,000 simulations. The “low” and “high” columns reflect the 10th and 90th percentile outcomes for each candidate, respectively.
If everyone exactly hits their averages, then after Super Tuesday, Sanders would have won about 40 percent of the delegates that had been awarded to that point, Biden and Bloomberg would have about 20 percent each, and the rest would be scattered between the remaining candidates (mostly Buttigieg and Warren).
Of course, we probably won’t wind up with those exact results. Candidates may rise and fall in the polls as a result of last night’s debate, or as a result of the voting outcomes in Nevada and South Carolina. One or more candidates could even drop out by then.
Still, 38 percent of all pledged delegates will have been handed out after Super Tuesday, so having only about a fifth of the delegates awarded to that point would make it nearly impossible for Bloomberg to get a majority of delegates later on. And it would be highly difficult for Bloomberg to even get a plurality with Sanders having about twice as many delegates as the former mayor. His chances at that point would probably depend on a contested convention.
But Bloomberg’s 90th percentile scenario, in which he winds up with about 35 percent of the delegates who had been handed out through Super Tuesday, would leave him in a much better position. He’d certainly have a good shot at winning the plurality of pledged delegates, for instance. A majority would require some more work, though it could be plausible depending on which of his opponents dropped out and how much he gained in the polls as a result of his Super Tuesday performance.
And pending that post-debate polling, those upside scenarios are still on the table. By definition, there’s a 1 in 10 chance that Bloomberg hits or improves on his 90th percentile forecast. Far more unlikely things have happened.
But the downside cases are equally likely. And as the debate exposed, if Bloomberg has some unique strengths as a candidate — his money, a smart team behind him, and a slightly Trumpian ability to command media attention — he also has some unique weaknesses. These include: his lack of polish as debater and public speaker, his past as a Republican, his status as a billionaire in the age of Sanders and Warren, his lack of practice as a candidate because of his campaign’s late start, New York’s use of the stop-and-frisk policy during his time as mayor and his relationship to black voters, his age (78), and the lewd comments he has allegedly made toward and about women. On top of that, we don’t know anything yet about how Bloomberg’s support in polls will translate into actual votes; as compared with most other Democrats, his voters are more likely to say they haven’t firmly committed to a candidate.
These are some big liabilities, and ones the media should have paid more attention to amidst the hype surrounding Bloomberg’s rise but for now we’ll just have to wait and see what the post-debate polls say.


fivethirtyeight--2020-02-20--Biden Has Been Losing Black Voters. Will Bloomberg’s Bad Debate Change That?

After poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire , Joe Biden ’ s campaign is pinning its hopes on South Carolina — in particular , the black vote there .
The rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the polls has corresponded with a Biden decline , but South Carolina will be the first state to vote where most of the electorate is black , and black voters have disproportionately supported the former vice president for most of the campaign ( before people actually started to vote ) .
So two questions : How @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters in the wake of the first two contests ?
And how much could the debate on Wednesday night in Las Vegas , which seemed to go poorly for Bloomberg , shift the race in the last few days before Nevada and South Carolina vote ?
Two answers : Not particularly well .
And maybe quite a bit .
In an average of national polls , Biden ’ s support among black voters has dropped about 12 percentage points from before the Iowa caucuses to the post-New Hampshire period .
Conversely , during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( the two other candidates averaging double-digit support among black voters in recent national polls ) each gained 10 points among black voters .
And recent polls show Biden dropping fast among all voters while Sanders and Bloomberg are gaining ground .
So if the Nevada debate really hurt Bloomberg , Biden stands a decent chance of winning back a lot of voters .
Not only are he and Bloomberg both running in the same “ moderate ” lane , but it appears that a lot of voters left Biden for Bloomberg after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s 12-point drop among black voters is particularly bad considering how much his nomination hopes rest on support from that voting bloc .
Black voters account for about one-fifth of the national Democratic primary electorate but make up a disproportionately large share of Biden ’ s potential electoral coalition — about a third , most likely .
Indeed , Biden has dropped 10 points in our national polling average since the Iowa caucuses — from being the national polling leader to finding himself behind Sanders and in a battle with Bloomberg for second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slide is likely due to his drop among black voters specifically .
Proportionally , Biden has actually lost more white support than black support , but he still lost around one-fourth of his support among black voters nationally since Iowa voted .
Biden ’ s diminished support among black voters matters in Nevada too , where Biden is currently running second to Sanders by about 12 percentage points in our polling average of all the state ’ s voters .
Nevada is more racially and ethnically diverse than Iowa or New Hampshire , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s largest nonwhite voting group , there are a fair number of black voters in the Silver State , too — 13 percent of the 2016 caucus electorate was black , according to the 2016 entrance poll .
But Biden ’ s standing among black voters matters especially in South Carolina , where 61 percent of Democratic primary voters were black in 2016 .
Often referred to as a “ firewall ” for the Biden campaign , the former vice president basically has to win South Carolina — maybe even “ win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find itself on its last legs .
Indeed , some recent South Carolina polls , though not all , have shown a similar trend to the national polls .
Right before Iowa , East Carolina University found Biden leading with 37 percent overall , including 44 percent support among black voters .
But in ECU ’ s latest poll , conducted after New Hampshire , Biden slipped to 28 percent overall ( still leading ) , with 36 percent support among African American primary voters .
Another South Carolina survey from The Welcome @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it found Biden tied for first overall with Sanders at 23 percent , and Biden leading among black voters with 33 percent .
Unlike the ECU polls , this wasn ’ t much of a change for Biden compared to Change Research ’ s previous South Carolina survey just before Iowa that found Biden at 25 percent overall — 5 points ahead of Sanders — and at 30 percent support among black voters .
Meanwhile , another new poll from UMass Lowell found that even if Biden ’ s black support holds up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be enough to get him the big win his campaign is hoping for — the survey found him ahead of Sanders by just 2 points overall even though 43 percent of black voters backed Biden , double Sanders ’ s 20 percent support .
Biden doesn ’ t have to worry about Bloomberg in South Carolina because Bloomberg is not on the ballot there , but there ’ s another billionaire who may be hurting Biden ’ s chances of consolidating support among black voters in the Palmetto State : Tom Steyer .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Change Research and UMass Lowell put Steyer at 17 percent , 31 percent and 19 percent among black voters .
Indeed , Steyer ’ s place in the South Carolina race is somewhat analogous to the way Bloomberg may be complicating Biden ’ s ability to retain support among black voters in Super Tuesday states with sizable African American electorates , as recent polls of North Carolina and Virginia have suggested .
There are reasons to think much of Bloomberg ’ s rise in the polls among black voters came specifically at Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of both candidates ’ support comes from voters who describe themselves as more moderate , a group that includes many black voters .
Of course , it ’ s hard to say how much Bloomberg ’ s gains are about Biden ’ s poor performances and how much they ’ re about Bloomberg ’ s campaign successfully cutting into Biden ’ s support — both likely play a role .
But Bloomberg is pushing hard for black support among both rank-and-file voters and party elites .
He ’ s holding events with African @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on advertising , which could help win over older black voters , a demographic group that watches a lot of television .
Since Iowa voted , Bloomberg has received more elite backing than Biden , according to FiveThirtyEight ’ s endorsement tracker , with nine black endorsers backing Bloomberg compared to three for Biden .
This includes multiple black members of Congress and mayors in big Super Tuesday states ( Houston and Charlotte , North Carolina ) .
This movement toward Bloomberg could reflect some of the changes we ’ re seeing among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s gains , meanwhile , likely have less to do with Biden ’ s struggles .
Instead , Sanders ’ s uptick in African American support is likely spurred by his early wins in the primary .
Sanders started the campaign with essentially a tie in Iowa and a narrow win in New Hampshire .
So his positive performances are helping him capture new supporters from lots of demographic groups .
Sanders may also have benefited at the margins from the departure of tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang , who had a modicum of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more likely to pick Sanders as their second choice than any other candidate .
Unlike Bloomberg , Sanders doesn ’ t have any recent endorsements from black leaders in our tracker , but that certainly hasn ’ t stopped him from winning over some African American voters .
Now the question is whether Biden can maintain enough support among black voters to get a win in South Carolina .
The fact Steyer failed to make the Nevada debate could help the former vice president there , and more broadly any erosion in Bloomberg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the debate could help Biden win back black voters across the country .
And a Biden victory in South Carolina might produce a “ comeback ” narrative that could dramatically shift the tone of media coverage surrounding Biden ’ s campaign and help him remain competitive in the larger nomination race .
If Biden ’ s falling support is mostly about his poor performances in the first couple states , a respectable showing in Nevada and a win in South Carolina could turn things around .
And if Biden ’ s slide has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Bloomberg ’ s overwhelming advertising firepower and his effort to win over black elites and voters , the former vice president might not be able to recover even if he has a solid performance in South Carolina later this month — unless , of course , the Wednesday night debate really cuts into Bloomberg ’ s standing .
Regardless , Biden ’ s current trajectory among black voters is a serious problem for his campaign , so he absolutely needs something to change for the better .

After poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, Joe Biden’s campaign is pinning its hopes on South Carolina — in particular, the black vote there. The rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the polls has corresponded with a Biden decline, but South Carolina will be the first state to vote where most of the electorate is black, and black voters have disproportionately supported the former vice president for most of the campaign (before people actually started to vote).
So two questions: How well is Biden holding up among black voters in the wake of the first two contests? And how much could the debate on Wednesday night in Las Vegas, which seemed to go poorly for Bloomberg, shift the race in the last few days before Nevada and South Carolina vote?
Two answers: Not particularly well. And maybe quite a bit.
In an average of national polls, Biden’s support among black voters has dropped about 12 percentage points from before the Iowa caucuses to the post-New Hampshire period. Conversely, during the same period, Bloomberg and Sanders (the two other candidates averaging double-digit support among black voters in recent national polls) each gained 10 points among black voters. And recent polls show Biden dropping fast among all voters while Sanders and Bloomberg are gaining ground. So if the Nevada debate really hurt Bloomberg, Biden stands a decent chance of winning back a lot of voters. Not only are he and Bloomberg both running in the same “moderate” lane, but it appears that a lot of voters left Biden for Bloomberg after Iowa and New Hampshire.
Biden’s 12-point drop among black voters is particularly bad considering how much his nomination hopes rest on support from that voting bloc. Black voters account for about one-fifth of the national Democratic primary electorate but make up a disproportionately large share of Biden’s potential electoral coalition — about a third, most likely. Indeed, Biden has dropped 10 points in our national polling average since the Iowa caucuses — from being the national polling leader to finding himself behind Sanders and in a battle with Bloomberg for second — and roughly a quarter of that slide is likely due to his drop among black voters specifically. Proportionally, Biden has actually lost more white support than black support, but he still lost around one-fourth of his support among black voters nationally since Iowa voted.
Biden’s diminished support among black voters matters in Nevada too, where Biden is currently running second to Sanders by about 12 percentage points in our polling average of all the state’s voters. Nevada is more racially and ethnically diverse than Iowa or New Hampshire, and while Hispanic voters form the state’s largest nonwhite voting group, there are a fair number of black voters in the Silver State, too — 13 percent of the 2016 caucus electorate was black, according to the 2016 entrance poll.
But Biden’s standing among black voters matters especially in South Carolina, where 61 percent of Democratic primary voters were black in 2016. Often referred to as a “firewall” for the Biden campaign, the former vice president basically has to win South Carolina — maybe even “win big” — or his campaign could find itself on its last legs.
Indeed, some recent South Carolina polls, though not all, have shown a similar trend to the national polls. Right before Iowa, East Carolina University found Biden leading with 37 percent overall, including 44 percent support among black voters. But in ECU’s latest poll, conducted after New Hampshire, Biden slipped to 28 percent overall (still leading), with 36 percent support among African American primary voters. Another South Carolina survey from The Welcome Party/Change Research dropped on Wednesday, and it found Biden tied for first overall with Sanders at 23 percent, and Biden leading among black voters with 33 percent. Unlike the ECU polls, this wasn’t much of a change for Biden compared to Change Research’s previous South Carolina survey just before Iowa that found Biden at 25 percent overall — 5 points ahead of Sanders — and at 30 percent support among black voters. Meanwhile, another new poll from UMass Lowell found that even if Biden’s black support holds up in South Carolina, it might not be enough to get him the big win his campaign is hoping for — the survey found him ahead of Sanders by just 2 points overall even though 43 percent of black voters backed Biden, double Sanders’s 20 percent support.
Biden doesn’t have to worry about Bloomberg in South Carolina because Bloomberg is not on the ballot there, but there’s another billionaire who may be hurting Biden’s chances of consolidating support among black voters in the Palmetto State: Tom Steyer. The post-New Hampshire polls from ECU, Change Research and UMass Lowell put Steyer at 17 percent, 31 percent and 19 percent among black voters. Indeed, Steyer’s place in the South Carolina race is somewhat analogous to the way Bloomberg may be complicating Biden’s ability to retain support among black voters in Super Tuesday states with sizable African American electorates, as recent polls of North Carolina and Virginia have suggested.
There are reasons to think much of Bloomberg’s rise in the polls among black voters came specifically at Biden’s expense. A large share of both candidates’ support comes from voters who describe themselves as more moderate, a group that includes many black voters. Of course, it’s hard to say how much Bloomberg’s gains are about Biden’s poor performances and how much they’re about Bloomberg’s campaign successfully cutting into Biden’s support — both likely play a role. But Bloomberg is pushing hard for black support among both rank-and-file voters and party elites. He’s holding events with African American groups and spending millions of dollars on advertising, which could help win over older black voters, a demographic group that watches a lot of television. Since Iowa voted, Bloomberg has received more elite backing than Biden, according to FiveThirtyEight’s endorsement tracker, with nine black endorsers backing Bloomberg compared to three for Biden. This includes multiple black members of Congress and mayors in big Super Tuesday states (Houston and Charlotte, North Carolina). This movement toward Bloomberg could reflect some of the changes we’re seeing among black voters at large.
Sanders’s gains, meanwhile, likely have less to do with Biden’s struggles. Instead, Sanders’s uptick in African American support is likely spurred by his early wins in the primary. Sanders started the campaign with essentially a tie in Iowa and a narrow win in New Hampshire. So his positive performances are helping him capture new supporters from lots of demographic groups. Sanders may also have benefited at the margins from the departure of tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who had a modicum of black support and whose supporters were far more likely to pick Sanders as their second choice than any other candidate. Unlike Bloomberg, Sanders doesn’t have any recent endorsements from black leaders in our tracker, but that certainly hasn’t stopped him from winning over some African American voters.
Now the question is whether Biden can maintain enough support among black voters to get a win in South Carolina. The fact Steyer failed to make the Nevada debate could help the former vice president there, and more broadly any erosion in Bloomberg’s support in the wake of the debate could help Biden win back black voters across the country. And a Biden victory in South Carolina might produce a “comeback” narrative that could dramatically shift the tone of media coverage surrounding Biden’s campaign and help him remain competitive in the larger nomination race.
If Biden’s falling support is mostly about his poor performances in the first couple states, a respectable showing in Nevada and a win in South Carolina could turn things around. And if Biden’s slide has as much or even more to do with Bloomberg’s overwhelming advertising firepower and his effort to win over black elites and voters, the former vice president might not be able to recover even if he has a solid performance in South Carolina later this month — unless, of course, the Wednesday night debate really cuts into Bloomberg’s standing. Regardless, Biden’s current trajectory among black voters is a serious problem for his campaign, so he absolutely needs something to change for the better.


fivethirtyeight--2020-02-21--Increased Voter Turnout Could Benefit Republicans Or Democrats In 2020

Welcome to Pollapalooza , our weekly polling roundup .
Most polls survey people who are either registered — or at least likely — to vote , but a new Knight Foundation poll interviewed over 12,000 people who don ’ t vote .
These are people who are eligible but not registered to vote , or who are registered but rarely vote .
Nonvoters make up a sizable percentage of the eligible voting-age population , too — about 100 million people , or 43 percent .
But they ’ re kind of a mystery .
We know a fair bit about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young , less educated and a bit poorer than the electorate — but they could be hugely influential if they actually turned out .
After all , the share of voters who didn ’ t vote in 2016 was larger than the share of voters that voted for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton .
It ’ s not entirely clear , though , which party would benefit if they did vote in 2020 .
“ Conventional wisdom has been that if all nonvoters turned up to vote there would be an overwhelming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said Evette Alexander , a director at the Knight Foundation who participated in the survey design .
“ But I think what we ’ re seeing in the survey is that both parties can and should try to engage .
There is room for both parties to engage nonvoters and to both have turnout increase.
” Here are some insights into who these nonvoters are : 1 .
Nonvoters are less white , less educated , poorer , younger and more likely to be women than those who do vote .
So based @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a large pool of potential Democratic voters , as Democrats tend to skew younger and more racially diverse than Republicans .
But this doesn ’ t account for how the makeup of nonvoters can vary pretty dramatically from state to state .
A New York Times Upshot/Siena College poll conducted in six battleground states last fall found , for instance , that less educated white voters were overrepresented among nonvoters in battleground states and were more likely to vote for Trump .
The Times also found in that survey that while black voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats , those who hadn ’ t voted in recent elections weren ’ t necessarily likely to vote Democratic .
The Knight Foundation survey provided further evidence that Democrats may not hold an edge in reaching nonvoters , as it found that factors like education and income were more important in predicting whether someone was a nonvoter than factors like race and gender , and those factors worked in Trump ’ s favor in the last presidential election .
2 .
Nonvoters lean slightly Democratic overall , but they favor President Trump in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked nonvoters who they would vote for if they were to vote , and found they were almost evenly split — 33 percent say they would vote for the Democratic nominee , 30 percent say they would vote for Trump and 18 percent say they would vote for someone else .
However , this breakdown varied quite a bit in battleground states , which Knight sampled heavily .
Nevada ’ s “ chronic nonvoters , ” for example , split evenly , but those in Pennsylvania and Florida skewed heavily toward Trump while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they all voted .
3 .
It ’ s possible that some of these nonvoters will vote in 2020 .
A large majority of nonvoters ( 71 percent ) say they plan to vote in 2020 , and 55 percent express “ absolute certainty ” that they will vote this year .
Of course , even though enthusiasm is relatively high in 2020 , that doesn ’ t mean everyone who says they ’ re interested in voting will ultimately cast a ballot .
Alexander told FiveThirtyEight that the question was intended only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turnout .
She explained that most nonvoters were probably still unlikely to turn out , but the fact that so many expressed an interest shows that there is a group — especially among those who follow news more closely , are more educated and have higher incomes — that could be persuaded .
4 .
Many nonvoters say the main reason they don ’ t vote is because they feel disengaged .
While some chronic nonvoters could turn out , the Knight Foundation poll also asked an open-ended question about why nonvoters choose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ common responses were nonvoters don ’ t like the candidates ( 17 percent ) or they think their vote doesn ’ t matter ( 12 percent ) .
Among those who are not registered to vote , a plurality ( 29 percent ) said that they ’ re simply not interested or don ’ t care .
Reaching nonvoters could be difficult as well .
Seventy-three percent of voters said they actively seek out news and information , while only 56 percent of nonvoters said so .
The rest said that they “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ they ] do other things or hear about it from others.
” The results of the poll indicate that an overall increase in turnout may not be an overwhelming benefit to either side , but either Trump or the Democratic nominee could benefit from finding ways to activate the nonvoters who are more likely to vote for them .
Activating nonvoters could be a difficult and expensive venture for campaigns , though , and many nonvoters may still ultimately not turn out , but if 2020 is an especially close election , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ matter a whole lot .
If both parties work to reach disengaged Americans and convince people that their vote matters , that would be a “ win for democracy , ” said Alexander .
• Democrats in Nevada will be caucusing on Saturday , and FiveThirtyEight ’ s primary forecast gives Sen. Bernie Sanders a 3 in 4 chance of winning the most votes .
Sanders also leads in FiveThirtyEight ’ s polling average with 27 percent support , but Nevada is a notoriously difficult state to poll and recent polls are scarce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from February , Sanders has anywhere from a double-digit margin to a 6-point deficit in a poll in which billionaire Tom Steyer leads the pack .
• Sen. Susan Collins of Maine could face a competitive race this fall , according to a Colby College poll of registered voters in the state .
Forty-two percent of respondents said they would vote for Collins , while 43 percent said they would vote for Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon , a Democrat challenging Collins for her seat .
• In Wednesday ’ s debate , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exception ) subtly and not-so-subtly argued that nominating someone who identifies as a Democratic socialist could spook general election voters .
And while 50 percent of Democrats have a favorable impression of socialism , according to a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll , only 27 percent of registered voters do .
A whopping 60 percent do not have a favorable view of socialism , so this could be an issue for Sanders moving forward .
• Roger Stone , a former Trump advisor , was sentenced on Thursday to more than three years in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statements to Congress and witness tampering during a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election .
And perhaps unsurprisingly , given how split Republicans and Democrats were on the merits of special counsel Robert Mueller ’ s investigation into the 2016 election , views about the conviction were split along party lines .
Fifty-eight percent of Republicans said Stone ’ s trial and conviction was more a case of “ political prosecution ” than proper law enforcement , compared with 12 percent of Democrats , according to a poll from The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Research Center survey , Americans are now just as likely to say that the president and Congress should make protecting the environment a top priority ( 64 percent ) as they are to say building a strong economy ( 67 percent ) .
Both Democrats and Republicans seem to be driving this change , too .
Eighty-five percent of Democrats and 39 percent of Republicans say protecting the environment should be a top concern , up from 62 percent and 28 percent , respectively , in 2016 .
• The Houston Astros dropped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ favorability among all 30 MLB teams in a Morning Consult poll .
The poll surveyed adults before and after the league released a report last month outlining how the team had been cheating for years by using electronics to steal pitchers ’ signs in violation of MLB rules .
Your humble correspondent has roots in Houston , but condemns cheating in sports .
• 57 percent of registered voters in Georgia say they prefer Chick-fil-A over other fast-food chicken restaurants , according to a University of Georgia poll .
Just 19 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and 14 percent Popeyes .
Democrats and Republicans both preferred Chick-fil-A over the other restaurants , too , but there was still a partisan split with 70 percent of Republicans putting Chick-fil-A as their No .
1 choice compared with only 46 percent of Democrats .
• Iranian parliamentary elections will be held on Friday .
Public opinion polls for the elections are scant , but the ones we did find , including one poll from the Iranian Students Polling Agency conducted in January , hint that turnout may be low in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a powerful body currently dominated by conservative politicians , has disqualified thousands of candidates , including 92 sitting lawmakers , from running in the election .
Some Iranians have called for a boycott , labeling the election a sham .
According to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential approval tracker , 44.0 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president , while 51.5 percent disapprove ( a net approval rating of -7.5 points ) .
At this time last week , 43.9 percent approved and 51.8 percent disapproved ( for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One month ago , Trump had an approval rating of 41.9 percent and a disapproval rating of 53.9 percent , for a net approval rating of -12.0 points .
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot , Democrats currently lead by 6.4 percentage points ( 47.7 percent to 41.3 percent ) .
A week ago , Democrats led Republicans by 5.7 points ( 47.2 percent to 41.5 percent ) .
At this time last month , voters preferred Democrats by 5.7 points ( 46.9 percent to 41.2 percent ) @

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll of the Week
Most polls survey people who are either registered — or at least likely — to vote, but a new Knight Foundation poll interviewed over 12,000 people who don’t vote.
These are people who are eligible but not registered to vote, or who are registered but rarely vote. Nonvoters make up a sizable percentage of the eligible voting-age population, too — about 100 million people, or 43 percent. But they’re kind of a mystery. We know a fair bit about these nonvoters demographically — they’re young, less educated and a bit poorer than the electorate — but they could be hugely influential if they actually turned out. After all, the share of voters who didn’t vote in 2016 was larger than the share of voters that voted for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
It’s not entirely clear, though, which party would benefit if they did vote in 2020. “Conventional wisdom has been that if all nonvoters turned up to vote there would be an overwhelming win for the Democratic Party,” said Evette Alexander, a director at the Knight Foundation who participated in the survey design. “But I think what we’re seeing in the survey is that both parties can and should try to engage. There is room for both parties to engage nonvoters and to both have turnout increase.” Here are some insights into who these nonvoters are:
1. Nonvoters are less white, less educated, poorer, younger and more likely to be women than those who do vote. So based on demographics alone, nonvoters sound like a large pool of potential Democratic voters, as Democrats tend to skew younger and more racially diverse than Republicans. But this doesn’t account for how the makeup of nonvoters can vary pretty dramatically from state to state. A New York Times Upshot/Siena College poll conducted in six battleground states last fall found, for instance, that less educated white voters were overrepresented among nonvoters in battleground states and were more likely to vote for Trump. The Times also found in that survey that while black voters are a huge source of support for Democrats, those who hadn’t voted in recent elections weren’t necessarily likely to vote Democratic. The Knight Foundation survey provided further evidence that Democrats may not hold an edge in reaching nonvoters, as it found that factors like education and income were more important in predicting whether someone was a nonvoter than factors like race and gender, and those factors worked in Trump’s favor in the last presidential election.
2. Nonvoters lean slightly Democratic overall, but they favor President Trump in some key states. The poll also asked nonvoters who they would vote for if they were to vote, and found they were almost evenly split — 33 percent say they would vote for the Democratic nominee, 30 percent say they would vote for Trump and 18 percent say they would vote for someone else. However, this breakdown varied quite a bit in battleground states, which Knight sampled heavily. Nevada’s “chronic nonvoters,” for example, split evenly, but those in Pennsylvania and Florida skewed heavily toward Trump while those in Georgia would skew Democratic if they all voted.
Nonvoters lean toward Trump in some key states Vote preference for nonvoters (people eligible to vote but are not registered, and those who are registered but have voted only once in the last six national elections) State President Trump Democratic Nominee Lean Alabama 34% 25% R+9 Pennsylvania 36 28 R+8 Florida 36 31 R+5 Virginia 35 31 R+4 New Hampshire 30 29 R+1 Minnesota 29 29 0 Nevada 33 33 0 Michigan 31 32 D+1 Wisconsin 31 33 D+2 Georgia 29 34 D+5 The survey did not distinguish between nonvoters who plan to vote in the 2020 general election and those who do not. Source: Knight Foundation
3. It’s possible that some of these nonvoters will vote in 2020. A large majority of nonvoters (71 percent) say they plan to vote in 2020, and 55 percent express “absolute certainty” that they will vote this year. Of course, even though enthusiasm is relatively high in 2020, that doesn’t mean everyone who says they’re interested in voting will ultimately cast a ballot. Alexander told FiveThirtyEight that the question was intended only to measure enthusiasm, not to predict turnout. She explained that most nonvoters were probably still unlikely to turn out, but the fact that so many expressed an interest shows that there is a group — especially among those who follow news more closely, are more educated and have higher incomes — that could be persuaded.
4. Many nonvoters say the main reason they don’t vote is because they feel disengaged. While some chronic nonvoters could turn out, the Knight Foundation poll also asked an open-ended question about why nonvoters choose not to vote. The two most common responses were nonvoters don’t like the candidates (17 percent) or they think their vote doesn’t matter (12 percent). Among those who are not registered to vote, a plurality (29 percent) said that they’re simply not interested or don’t care. Reaching nonvoters could be difficult as well. Seventy-three percent of voters said they actively seek out news and information, while only 56 percent of nonvoters said so. The rest said that they “mostly bump into news and information as [they] do other things or hear about it from others.”
The results of the poll indicate that an overall increase in turnout may not be an overwhelming benefit to either side, but either Trump or the Democratic nominee could benefit from finding ways to activate the nonvoters who are more likely to vote for them. Activating nonvoters could be a difficult and expensive venture for campaigns, though, and many nonvoters may still ultimately not turn out, but if 2020 is an especially close election, who doesn’t turn out could matter a whole lot. If both parties work to reach disengaged Americans and convince people that their vote matters, that would be a “win for democracy,” said Alexander.
Other Polling Bites
Trump Approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 44.0 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 51.5 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -7.5 points). At this time last week, 43.9 percent approved and 51.8 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -7.9 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 41.9 percent and a disapproval rating of 53.9 percent, for a net approval rating of -12.0 points.
Generic Ballot
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 6.4 percentage points (47.7 percent to 41.3 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 5.7 points (47.2 percent to 41.5 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 5.7 points (46.9 percent to 41.2 percent).


fivethirtyeight--2020-02-21--Is Nevada More Wide-Open Than We Realize?

Welcome to a special edition of FiveThirtyEight ’ s weekly politics chat .
The transcript below has been lightly edited .
sarahf ( Sarah Frostenson , politics editor ) : Just what is going on in Nevada ?
On Wednesday , we had maybe our most spirited debate of the primary cycle yet , but what isn ’ t clear is how it did — or didn ’ t — affect the race .
( Remember , despite capturing many , many headlines , former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn ’ t actually on the ballot there . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Nevada is actually quite clear .
Of the few recent polls we do have , Sen. Bernie Sanders sits atop nearly all of them , and according to our primary forecast , he has a 75 percent chance of winning the most votes there .
Our model still gives former Vice President Joe Biden a 1 in 9 chance of pulling off an upset victory , former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg a 1 in 15 shot and Sen. Elizabeth Warren a 1 in 20 shot .
( Philanthropist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s odds are a bit more underdog-ish , at 1 in 50 and 1 in 100 , respectively . )
But as we know from New Hampshire , debates can matter .
And Nevada is just a really hard state to poll , so what should we be keeping an eye on heading into the caucuses on Saturday ?
clare.malone ( Clare Malone , senior political writer ) : I ’ m reticent to say that the Nevada polls give us a clear picture of the race .
I feel like it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more collective open mind , while acknowledging that Sanders is the front-runner numerically .
micah ( Micah Cohen , managing editor ) : Yeah , I ’ d be very cautious with our Nevada forecast at the moment .
It can only work with the polls it has , and there obviously haven ’ t been any post-debate polls yet .
It ’ s always hard to predict these things but I ’ d bet that debate could swing the polls by a lot .
sarahf : Right , there are only five @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I hear you .
That said , Sanders has consistently done pretty well .
micah : But would anyone be surprised by a last-minute Warren surge in Nevada ?
Akin to Klobuchar ’ s in New Hampshire ?
clare.malone : That ’ s one thing I ’ ve been turning over in my head , Micah .
Is Warren a really good cultural fit for Nevada ?
And by cultural fit I mean : She ’ s originally from Oklahoma and her professional work is inextricably linked with the housing crisis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s got the kind of working class background that could potentially resonate in a state whose caucuses are union-dominated .
So maybe Nevada is a potential comeback state for her ?
sarahf : I could definitely see a Warren comeback .
One wild card , though is that this the first time Nevada has offered early voting , and so that means there were already nearly 75,000 votes cast before the debate last night .
It ’ s an important reminder that this is already happening in a number of Super Tuesday states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the biggest delegate prize .
I ’ m not sure it ’ ll matter , but I am intrigued by how it factors in .
clare.malone : Yes , I mean , I think the big roadblock for a potential Warren surge is what you say , Sarah — her poor showing in the first two states and a ream of voters who have already made up their minds .
And I will say , the fact that Nevada is union-dominated could DEFINITELY work against her in the sense that the unions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least seem to prefer a more traditionally Democratic mainstream choice .
micah : Agreed .
But , and Nate pointed this out on the podcast , most people who vote early are people who already have their minds made up .
That is , there are still plenty of voters who haven ’ t voted , and those voters are more likely to be ones who Warren would presumably have a chance to win over because they ’ re undecided .
But going back to the “ Is Warren a good fit for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shared characteristics/experiences Clare highlights are dead on .
But also … hmmm , how do I say this … I wonder how voters in Nevada will react to a forceful debate strategy by a female candidate .
That is , do voters consciously or subconsciously view Warren ’ s performance through a sexist/gendered lens ?
Most likely , right ?
sarahf : Why Nevada more so than any other state ?
perry ( Perry Bacon Jr. , senior writer ) : Right , that might apply to all 50 states .
micah : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also has a smaller share of college-educated adults than the average state .
clare.malone : I think Nevada is a state that ’ s got a lot of Democratic primary voters who haven ’ t been as tuned-in to the primary process as those in Iowa or New Hampshire , which makes it a more useful barometer .
And I think Micah ’ s point is perhaps that some of those people might be more likely to have an unvarnished response to Warren and won ’ t have seen their response to her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The smart thing I think she did in her closing remarks at the debate was to say , I ’ ve been in politics for the least amount of time of anyone up here .
micah : Actually , I take some of this back : It looks like Nevada has a decent record of electing women … clare.malone : I ’ m always skeptical of how people react to female presidential candidates , though … But point well taken .
micah : Totally agree — is the presidency different ?
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t know that in a research sense . )
perry : I tend to think that Warren ’ s performance increased her chances of being one of the candidates who gets to 15 percent in several Super Tuesday states .
She will get more media coverage out of this debate — I am still fairly bearish on that prospect .
sarahf : That certainly seems reasonable to me .
She did have a strong debate performance , and as we saw with Klobuchar in New Hampshire , it really could impact voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ … I ’ m not sure I agree with this take from journalist Peter Hamby , but it did give me pause about Bloomberg ’ s performance and what that could mean for how Warren is perceived .
Which brings us to the million dollar question of Wednesday ’ s debate : Did Bloomberg ’ s performance shake things up ?
micah : I think that Hamby take is wrong ( and he ’ s super smart ) .
The key difference : This is a primary .
That was a general .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ election is typically mollified , in terms of its impact on the vote , by partisanship .
In a primary , voters are much more likely to switch between candidates .
See Marco Rubio , New Hampshire , 2016. sarahf : More than say , Warren , Clare ?
clare.malone : Well , I think Bloomberg and Biden are inextricably linked .
Bloomberg ’ s entire rise is premised on Biden ’ s fall .
When Bloomberg falls , Biden rises .
Bloomberg was meant to be seen as the more effective moderate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ showing … and then Bloomberg had a mediocre showing .
micah : Yeah , I agree with that .
If Bloomberg falls , it both directly and indirectly helps Biden .
It helps him in terms of actual voters available , it helps Biden seem more liberal , it does a lot !
The question on Warren feels somewhat more separate , although she ’ s certainly competing with Bloomberg for press attention .
perry : If Bloomberg had been great , that would have hurt basically everyone .
There are a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote for someone and aren ’ t that moderate or liberal or ideologically committed .
So Bloomberg ’ s lackluster debate performance was good for Biden but also Buttigieg , Klobuchar — really , all of them .
But there ’ s another debate on Tuesday and Bloomberg ’ s ads run everywhere all of the time .
I don ’ t think this precludes him from doing well on Super Tuesday .
clare.malone : I agree with that .
I ’ m not entirely sure nervous Democratic voters will be ready to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take from that series of Pete Hamby tweets is : Sometimes it ’ s hard to tell what voters will tolerate !
sarahf : 2016 shook my confidence in understanding what voters want .
LOT GOING ON THERE .
micah : It doesn ’ t preclude Bloomberg from doing well on Super Tuesday , but it weirdly complicates the path for Sanders before then .
Sanders is sitting atop national polls , atop Nevada polls and in a close second in South Carolina polls .
As long as the Biden-Bloomberg-Buttigieg-Klobuchar lane was muddled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe .
Basically , he can win states with 25 to 30 percent of the vote .
But if Biden can get some momentum off of a Bloomberg decline ( and maybe also Buttigieg and Klobuchar as they didn ’ t do much to help themselves ) , maybe Biden can … win Nevada ?
!
?
!
Or crush it in South Carolina ?
sarahf : Speaking of Biden … he really needs to finish second ( or first ! )
in Nevada , right ?
Granted , it ’ s still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but it ’ s the first one that isn ’ t 90 percent white , so it ’ s also sort of an important litmus test for candidates who have struggled to build diverse coalitions .
( Warren , Buttigieg , Klobuchar — really everyone except Biden and Sanders , right ? )
What should we be looking for there on Saturday ?
Currently , Sanders seems to hold an edge among Latino voters , but it ’ s not insurmountable as Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Nathaniel Rakich wrote on Thursday : clare.malone : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make up a lot of ground in Nevada and South Carolina in order to save face ( and save his campaign ) .
micah : Totally .
My hunch is that Biden could have sold the media on “ Iowa and New Hampshire aren ’ t representative — wait for Nevada and South Carolina.
” But his campaign seemed to be selling “ Iowa and New Hampshire aren ’ t representative — wait for South Carolina .
( Nevada ?
Oh , don ’ t worry about that . )
” And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party , as Perry has written .
So that was a hard sell .
clare.malone : If he makes a weak showing in Nevada , I think that could have them worried about his gold-standard state , South Carolina .
micah : I think he needs to do “ well ” in Nevada .
micah : Maybe he needs to finish above all the other candidates in the moderate lane ?
Or does he also need to finish above Warren ?
perry : I think I have in my head something like this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Warren , Buttigieg , Steyer , Klobuchar , with the last four kind of bunched up in high single digits and low teens .
That ’ s just my assumption from seeing the various polls .
If Biden is below second , I think there will be more super-negative coverage of him .
And that can make South Carolina harder to win too .
sarahf : I agree that anything other than a second-place finish for Biden in Nevada is hard to spin if part of your explanation for doing poorly in New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t representative .
Plus , and as Micah said , Nevada is actually more representative of the Democratic Party than South Carolina .
And 13 percent of the 2016 caucus electorate was black , according to the entrance polls , so if Biden ’ s pitch is I can win over black voters and build a diverse coalition , a lot is on the line for him there .
micah : Yeah , and as Geoffrey Skelley has written , Biden has lost a lot of support since Iowa and New Hampshire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also black voters .
In other words , black voters aren ’ t some kind of special firewall for Biden .
So if Biden claws some of that back , it would help him in Nevada as well as South Carolina .
IDK , I just feel like this is a moment in the campaign when we might see a ton of volatility .
clare.malone : And if he loses South Carolina he might have to drop out .
perry : I think Super Tuesday is so close now that I don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Early voting is already happening in some of those states .
I ’ m not predicting what Biden will do , but he should not drop out after South Carolina if Super Tuesday is three days later .
micah : Biden could finish fourth in Nevada and lose in South Carolina and drop out and that would not at all surprise me .
Biden could win Nevada ( or finish in a strong second ) , run away with South Carolina and be leading in national polls by the time we reach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surprise me .
clare.malone : But I think if Biden can ’ t prove viability in South Carolina , it would be pretty humiliating .
perry : So in most of these states and the Democratic primary overall , I think the plurality of voters are white voters who do not support Sanders .
So I think Micah is right — that speaks to the potential volatility of the race .
Super Tuesday has a lot of states with black/Latino populations larger than Iowa and New Hampshire , but still some states where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That ’ s why I think a Buttigieg or Klobuchar can win , say , Virginia if they perform well among college-educated white voters in particular and white voters overall .
sarahf : But if , as you say , Perry , there is a plurality of white voters who are on Team Anyone But Sanders , wouldn ’ t it behoove someone from the moderate lane who had disappointing finishes in Nevada and South Carolina to drop out ?
I wouldn ’ t put it past at least someone dropping out after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t know what you get from dropping out .
micah : This isn ’ t based on anything in particular , but I would expect a couple dropouts before Super Tuesday .
You get to avoid humiliation .
sarahf : Also , potentially you avoid a messy contested convention , which I think has to factor into some of this ?
Or , if the storyline that many party insiders oppose his nomination is to be believed , I can imagine some members of the party pressuring candidates to drop out so there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perry : If the moderate lane was coordinating to avoid Sanders winning , yes , one or two of them should drop out .
Bloomberg ’ s campaign sent out a memo yesterday saying exactly that .
It would be smart for some moderate bigwig ( like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ) to encourage this .
micah : This is why I think the Nevada debate wasn ’ t great for Sanders .
I thought Sanders had a fine debate on Wednesday night .
Certainly we would expect his support to at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he was leading in Nevada and rising in South Carolina and leading in a lot of Super Tuesday states .
The BLOOMBERG BOMBS storyline just introduces a ton of potential volatility — particularly in terms of how the moderate lane does or does not consolidate — and because the status quo was pretty great for Bernie .
Volatility is potentially bad for him .
But maybe the party won ’ t actually move to fight a Sanders nomination .
perry : At this point , I just don ’ t see a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are being realistic about their chances or are focused on boosting one member of that group , as opposed to themselves .
micah : It ’ s certainly hard to imagine Buttigieg and Klobuchar and Bloomberg cooperating with each other at the moment !
perry : The big question is whether that has to happen before Super Tuesday .
What the Bloomberg people were saying is that the coordination needs to happen now .
micah : Mathematically it kinda does , right ?
sarahf : What is it , 38 percent of delegates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Like of course Klobuchar drops out after Super Tuesday , but they need her to drop out now .
sarahf : I think there is an incentive for moderate Democrats who are hand wringing over Sanders to consolidate ASAP .
micah : Yeah .
This is why our forecast has such a high chance of no one winning a majority of pledged delegates : sarahf : To bring it home … does this mean Nevada might actually be really important this year ?
It feels as if the media often kind of skips @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
perry : If Nevada results in one of these candidates packing it in , then yes , it matters .
clare.malone : It matters more because of the failures of the earlier states .
The field is just muddled in this way that feels unusual .
perry : Sanders winning three states in a row will be big no matter what .
And another candidate winning Nevada would be huge .
So I think Nevada matters hugely .

Welcome to a special edition of FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Just what is going on in Nevada? On Wednesday, we had maybe our most spirited debate of the primary cycle yet, but what isn’t clear is how it did — or didn’t — affect the race. (Remember, despite capturing many, many headlines, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn’t actually on the ballot there.)
To some extent, the polling picture in Nevada is actually quite clear. Of the few recent polls we do have, Sen. Bernie Sanders sits atop nearly all of them, and according to our primary forecast, he has a 75 percent chance of winning the most votes there. Our model still gives former Vice President Joe Biden a 1 in 9 chance of pulling off an upset victory, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg a 1 in 15 shot and Sen. Elizabeth Warren a 1 in 20 shot. (Philanthropist Tom Steyer and Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s odds are a bit more underdog-ish, at 1 in 50 and 1 in 100, respectively.)
But as we know from New Hampshire, debates can matter. And Nevada is just a really hard state to poll, so what should we be keeping an eye on heading into the caucuses on Saturday?
clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): I’m reticent to say that the Nevada polls give us a clear picture of the race. I feel like it’s perhaps better to come with a more collective open mind, while acknowledging that Sanders is the front-runner numerically.
micah (Micah Cohen, managing editor): Yeah, I’d be very cautious with our Nevada forecast at the moment. It can only work with the polls it has, and there obviously haven’t been any post-debate polls yet. It’s always hard to predict these things but I’d bet that debate could swing the polls by a lot.
sarahf: Right, there are only five polls of Nevada for all of February. I hear you.
That said, Sanders has consistently done pretty well.
micah: But would anyone be surprised by a last-minute Warren surge in Nevada? Akin to Klobuchar’s in New Hampshire?
clare.malone: That’s one thing I’ve been turning over in my head, Micah. Is Warren a really good cultural fit for Nevada?
And by cultural fit I mean: She’s originally from Oklahoma and her professional work is inextricably linked with the housing crisis, which hit Nevada hard. She’s got the kind of working class background that could potentially resonate in a state whose caucuses are union-dominated. So maybe Nevada is a potential comeback state for her?
sarahf: I could definitely see a Warren comeback. One wild card, though is that this the first time Nevada has offered early voting, and so that means there were already nearly 75,000 votes cast before the debate last night.
It’s an important reminder that this is already happening in a number of Super Tuesday states, too — including California, which is the biggest delegate prize. I’m not sure it’ll matter, but I am intrigued by how it factors in.
clare.malone: Yes, I mean, I think the big roadblock for a potential Warren surge is what you say, Sarah — her poor showing in the first two states and a ream of voters who have already made up their minds.
And I will say, the fact that Nevada is union-dominated could DEFINITELY work against her in the sense that the unions seem to prefer Biden, or at least seem to prefer a more traditionally Democratic mainstream choice.
micah: Agreed. But, and Nate pointed this out on the podcast, most people who vote early are people who already have their minds made up. That is, there are still plenty of voters who haven’t voted, and those voters are more likely to be ones who Warren would presumably have a chance to win over because they’re undecided.
But going back to the “Is Warren a good fit for Nevada?” question, all the shared characteristics/experiences Clare highlights are dead on. But also … hmmm, how do I say this … I wonder how voters in Nevada will react to a forceful debate strategy by a female candidate.
That is, do voters consciously or subconsciously view Warren’s performance through a sexist/gendered lens? Most likely, right?
sarahf: Why Nevada more so than any other state?
perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): Right, that might apply to all 50 states.
micah: True. But Nevada’s population also has a smaller share of college-educated adults than the average state.
clare.malone: I think Nevada is a state that’s got a lot of Democratic primary voters who haven’t been as tuned-in to the primary process as those in Iowa or New Hampshire, which makes it a more useful barometer.
And I think Micah’s point is perhaps that some of those people might be more likely to have an unvarnished response to Warren and won’t have seen their response to her filtered through a months-long primary process lens.
The smart thing I think she did in her closing remarks at the debate was to say, I’ve been in politics for the least amount of time of anyone up here.
micah: Actually, I take some of this back: It looks like Nevada has a decent record of electing women …
clare.malone: I’m always skeptical of how people react to female presidential candidates, though … But point well taken.
micah: Totally agree — is the presidency different? (I think yes, but we don’t know that in a research sense.)
perry: I tend to think that Warren’s performance increased her chances of being one of the candidates who gets to 15 percent in several Super Tuesday states. She will get more media coverage out of this debate — I am still fairly bearish on that prospect.
sarahf: That certainly seems reasonable to me. She did have a strong debate performance, and as we saw with Klobuchar in New Hampshire, it really could impact voters who are still deciding. That said … I’m not sure I agree with this take from journalist Peter Hamby, but it did give me pause about Bloomberg’s performance and what that could mean for how Warren is perceived.
The Bloomberg commentary tonight reminds me of this from the second Trump/Hillary debate in 2016 🔽 https://t.co/0llnmwf4Bu — Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 20, 2020
Which brings us to the million dollar question of Wednesday’s debate: Did Bloomberg’s performance shake things up?
micah: I think that Hamby take is wrong (and he’s super smart). The key difference: This is a primary. That was a general. A bad debate performance in a general election is typically mollified, in terms of its impact on the vote, by partisanship. In a primary, voters are much more likely to switch between candidates. See Marco Rubio, New Hampshire, 2016.
clare.malone: I think Bloomberg’s performance definitely helped Biden.
sarahf: More than say, Warren, Clare?
clare.malone: Well, I think Bloomberg and Biden are inextricably linked. Bloomberg’s entire rise is premised on Biden’s fall. When Bloomberg falls, Biden rises.
Bloomberg was meant to be seen as the more effective moderate option, given Biden’s mediocre showing … and then Bloomberg had a mediocre showing.
micah: Yeah, I agree with that. If Bloomberg falls, it both directly and indirectly helps Biden. It helps him in terms of actual voters available, it helps Biden seem more liberal, it does a lot! The question on Warren feels somewhat more separate, although she’s certainly competing with Bloomberg for press attention.
perry: If Bloomberg had been great, that would have hurt basically everyone. There are a lot of Democrats who are going to just vote for someone and aren’t that moderate or liberal or ideologically committed.
So Bloomberg’s lackluster debate performance was good for Biden but also Buttigieg, Klobuchar — really, all of them.
But there’s another debate on Tuesday and Bloomberg’s ads run everywhere all of the time. I don’t think this precludes him from doing well on Super Tuesday.
clare.malone: I agree with that. I’m not entirely sure nervous Democratic voters will be ready to count him out.
One thing I take from that series of Pete Hamby tweets is: Sometimes it’s hard to tell what voters will tolerate!
sarahf: 2016 shook my confidence in understanding what voters want.
clare.malone: Lol
LOT GOING ON THERE.
micah: It doesn’t preclude Bloomberg from doing well on Super Tuesday, but it weirdly complicates the path for Sanders before then. Sanders is sitting atop national polls, atop Nevada polls and in a close second in South Carolina polls. As long as the Biden-Bloomberg-Buttigieg-Klobuchar lane was muddled, Sanders’s position is extra safe. Basically, he can win states with 25 to 30 percent of the vote.
But if Biden can get some momentum off of a Bloomberg decline (and maybe also Buttigieg and Klobuchar as they didn’t do much to help themselves), maybe Biden can … win Nevada?!?! Or crush it in South Carolina?
sarahf: Speaking of Biden … he really needs to finish second (or first!) in Nevada, right? Granted, it’s still only the third state to vote, but it’s the first one that isn’t 90 percent white, so it’s also sort of an important litmus test for candidates who have struggled to build diverse coalitions. (Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar — really everyone except Biden and Sanders, right?)
What should we be looking for there on Saturday? Currently, Sanders seems to hold an edge among Latino voters, but it’s not insurmountable as Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Nathaniel Rakich wrote on Thursday:
Sanders is highly favored by Latino voters in Nevada Top Democratic candidates’ support among poll respondents who identified as Hispanic or Latino (depending on the poll), in six polls conducted since Feb. 9 Pollster Sanders Biden Steyer Warren Buttigieg Klobuchar Data for Progress 66% 7% 8% 5% 4% 7% WPA Intelligence 50 13 9 11 9 0 Beacon Research* 33 16 18 14 7 3 Univision 33 22 12 6 8 1 Mason-Dixon 31 34 3 6 7 5 Point Blank Political 20 8 29 8 12 4 *Internal poll for the Steyer campaign. Source: Polls
clare.malone: Yeah, I think that Biden needs to make up a lot of ground in Nevada and South Carolina in order to save face (and save his campaign).
micah: Totally. My hunch is that Biden could have sold the media on “Iowa and New Hampshire aren’t representative — wait for Nevada and South Carolina.” But his campaign seemed to be selling “Iowa and New Hampshire aren’t representative — wait for South Carolina. (Nevada? Oh, don’t worry about that.)” And Nevada is actually more representative of the party, as Perry has written. So that was a hard sell.
clare.malone: If he makes a weak showing in Nevada, I think that could have them worried about his gold-standard state, South Carolina.
micah: I think he needs to do “well” in Nevada.
“Well” = “whatever the media decides ‘well’ equals”
clare.malone: Win/place/show?
Or just win/place?
sarahf: No more fourth-place finishes.
micah: Maybe he needs to finish above all the other candidates in the moderate lane?
Or does he also need to finish above Warren?
perry: I think I have in my head something like this for Nevada: Sanders, Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Steyer, Klobuchar, with the last four kind of bunched up in high single digits and low teens. That’s just my assumption from seeing the various polls. If Biden is below second, I think there will be more super-negative coverage of him. And that can make South Carolina harder to win too.
sarahf: I agree that anything other than a second-place finish for Biden in Nevada is hard to spin if part of your explanation for doing poorly in New Hampshire and Nevada is that they aren’t representative. Plus, and as Micah said, Nevada is actually more representative of the Democratic Party than South Carolina. And 13 percent of the 2016 caucus electorate was black, according to the entrance polls, so if Biden’s pitch is I can win over black voters and build a diverse coalition, a lot is on the line for him there.
micah: Yeah, and as Geoffrey Skelley has written, Biden has lost a lot of support since Iowa and New Hampshire — among people of all races but also black voters. In other words, black voters aren’t some kind of special firewall for Biden.
So if Biden claws some of that back, it would help him in Nevada as well as South Carolina.
IDK, I just feel like this is a moment in the campaign when we might see a ton of volatility.
clare.malone: And if he loses South Carolina he might have to drop out.
Just sayin’
perry: I think Super Tuesday is so close now that I don’t think any candidate should drop out.
Early voting is already happening in some of those states. I’m not predicting what Biden will do, but he should not drop out after South Carolina if Super Tuesday is three days later.
micah: Biden could finish fourth in Nevada and lose in South Carolina and drop out and that would not at all surprise me.
Biden could win Nevada (or finish in a strong second), run away with South Carolina and be leading in national polls by the time we reach Super Tuesday, and that would not surprise me.
clare.malone: But I think if Biden can’t prove viability in South Carolina, it would be pretty humiliating.
perry: So in most of these states and the Democratic primary overall, I think the plurality of voters are white voters who do not support Sanders. So I think Micah is right — that speaks to the potential volatility of the race.
Super Tuesday has a lot of states with black/Latino populations larger than Iowa and New Hampshire, but still some states where it’s not that high. That’s why I think a Buttigieg or Klobuchar can win, say, Virginia if they perform well among college-educated white voters in particular and white voters overall.
sarahf: But if, as you say, Perry, there is a plurality of white voters who are on Team Anyone But Sanders, wouldn’t it behoove someone from the moderate lane who had disappointing finishes in Nevada and South Carolina to drop out? I wouldn’t put it past at least someone dropping out after Nevada.
Is that misguided?
perry: I don’t know what you get from dropping out.
micah: This isn’t based on anything in particular, but I would expect a couple dropouts before Super Tuesday.
You get to avoid humiliation.
sarahf: Also, potentially you avoid a messy contested convention, which I think has to factor into some of this? Or, if the storyline that many party insiders oppose his nomination is to be believed, I can imagine some members of the party pressuring candidates to drop out so there can be an alternative to Sanders.
micah: I think that’s right.
perry: If the moderate lane was coordinating to avoid Sanders winning, yes, one or two of them should drop out. Bloomberg’s campaign sent out a memo yesterday saying exactly that. It would be smart for some moderate bigwig (like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) to encourage this.
micah: This is why I think the Nevada debate wasn’t great for Sanders. I thought Sanders had a fine debate on Wednesday night. Certainly we would expect his support to at the very least not go down. But he was leading in Nevada and rising in South Carolina and leading in a lot of Super Tuesday states.
The BLOOMBERG BOMBS storyline just introduces a ton of potential volatility — particularly in terms of how the moderate lane does or does not consolidate — and because the status quo was pretty great for Bernie. Volatility is potentially bad for him.
But maybe the party won’t actually move to fight a Sanders nomination.
perry: At this point, I just don’t see a lot of evidence that the moderate lane candidates are being realistic about their chances or are focused on boosting one member of that group, as opposed to themselves.
micah: It’s certainly hard to imagine Buttigieg and Klobuchar and Bloomberg cooperating with each other at the moment!
perry: The big question is whether that has to happen before Super Tuesday.
What the Bloomberg people were saying is that the coordination needs to happen now.
micah: Mathematically it kinda does, right?
sarahf: What is it, 38 percent of delegates are awarded by then?
perry: Like of course Klobuchar drops out after Super Tuesday, but they need her to drop out now.
sarahf: I think there is an incentive for moderate Democrats who are hand wringing over Sanders to consolidate ASAP.
micah: Yeah. This is why our forecast has such a high chance of no one winning a majority of pledged delegates:
sarahf: To bring it home … does this mean Nevada might actually be really important this year? It feels as if the media often kind of skips over Nevada in preparation for South Carolina.
perry: If Nevada results in one of these candidates packing it in, then yes, it matters.
clare.malone: It matters more because of the failures of the earlier states.
The field is just muddled in this way that feels unusual.
micah: It is unusual!
perry: Sanders winning three states in a row will be big no matter what. And another candidate winning Nevada would be huge. So I think Nevada matters hugely.


fivethirtyeight--2020-02-21--What Makes Nevada Voters Unique?

What Makes Nevada Voters Unique?

Nevada is the third state in the nation to vote in the primaries .
Early states can have a lot @ @ @ @ @ a party ’ s nomination .
So it ’ s worth taking a look at @ @ @ @ @ , since this week ’ s caucuses could influence the rest of the race .

Nevada is the third state in the nation to vote in the primaries. Early states can have a lot of sway over who wins a party’s nomination. So it’s worth taking a look at what makes a Nevada voter, since this week’s caucuses could influence the rest of the race.