fivethirtyeight--2020-02-18--Impeachment Didn’t Change Minds — It Eroded Trust

Before last year , Willa Engel , 65 , had never thought of herself as an especially political person .
But the impeachment process changed that .
As the House Democrats ’ investigation rolled forward through the late fall , she found herself glued to the television , watching witness after witness testify about President Trump ’ s behavior .
“ I got a little addicted to it , ” she said .
“ I believe I watched about 90 percent of it.
” But there were moments in the hearings when Engel , a Democratic-leaning independent , got so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Sometimes when the White House counsel or the Republicans were on TV , I had to mute it .
It was too much , ” she said .
The hearings did convince Engel that Trump had committed an impeachable offense , but now that it ’ s over , she tries not to think about it .
“ I get so angry , ” she said .
“ I try to block it out of my mind.
” For a little over three months , we tracked over 1,100 Americans on how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surveying respondents like Engel every few weeks via Ipsos ’ s KnowledgePanel to find out whether their views on impeachment were changing .
But there was remarkably little movement .
The share of Americans who thought Trump committed an impeachable offense hovered between 55 and 58 percent in six separate surveys .
Respondent after respondent told us that their belief of Trump ’ s innocence or guilt was just reinforced by the process .
“ The Democrats put up a flimsy case , ” said Alan Satow , 60 , a Republican .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ but they weren ’ t presenting facts .
It was just a lot of hearsay.
” The impeachment process might not have shifted anyone ’ s view about Trump , but it did drive Americans further into their partisan camps — and in the process , unraveled their already frayed sense of trust in the political system .
When we spoke to them after the Senate trial had concluded , our respondents had few kind words for either party .
Instead , they saw impeachment as a stark and painful example of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The way I see it is , we seem to be in a place where our politicians don ’ t really make decisions for themselves — they just say , ‘ Well I belong to this party and so that ’ s how I ’ m going to vote , ’ ” said Emily Underwood , 29 , a Republican-leaning independent .
“ We ’ re divided .
We ’ re stuck .
I knew that before impeachment , but it ’ s even clearer to me now.
” When news of Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Zelensky hit the headlines in late September , Richard Scruggs , 31 , had an inkling that the allegations against Trump were grave enough to be impeachable .
But as the Democrats began to present their case against the president in a series of televised hearings in November , he grew even more certain that Trump had done something seriously wrong .
( Scruggs said in our survey that he leans toward the Democrats . )
“ The Trump presidency does a number on what seems normal , ” said Scruggs .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the allegations until he started to read about the lengths to which Trump ’ s allies had gone to strong-arm the Ukrainian government into probing the Bidens , including efforts to push out the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and the discussion of investigations in high-level meetings with Ukrainian and American diplomats .
“ The idea of putting pressure on foreign governments to investigate your rival seems kind of definitionally a high crime or misdemeanor , ” said Scruggs .
Scruggs wasn ’ t alone .
By November , when we fielded the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of Democrats said they were already convinced that Trump had committed an impeachable offense .
That means many Democrats may already have had a change of heart on impeachment by the time our survey began , since according to our tracker of impeachment polls , the biggest shift among Democrats happened in late September , around the release of a call summary of Trump and Zelensky ’ s conversation .
John Stokes , 73 , wasn ’ t fully on board with impeachment at first .
But he said he was convinced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was their responsibility to hold Trump accountable .
And by the end of the process , he said it was clear to him that Trump had committed an impeachable offense .
“ [ Trump ] was trying to bribe a foreign country , ” he said .
But even as Democrats in our survey became more convinced that Trump ’ s actions were impeachable , some also started to have nagging concerns that the impeachment process might have inadvertently helped Trump .
Throughout the process , a small but substantial chunk of Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that even though they thought Trump had committed an impeachable offense , the voters — not Congress — should decide his fate in the 2020 election .
The share of Democrats who thought impeachment was a bad use of Congress ’ s time rose , too , from 23 percent at the beginning of the Senate trial to 37 percent when it was over .
After the trial , a smaller sharer of Democrats said that senators were impartial jurors than the share that thought senators would be impartial .
And perhaps most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the last wave of our survey that impeachment was likely to help Trump win reelection — up from 12 percent just three weeks earlier .
Some panelists told us they thought impeachment was necessary , but they were also worried it might backfire at the polls in November .
“ I never felt impeachment was the right way to go because it wasn ’ t going to pass the Senate , ” said Alan Simsovic , 62 .
“ My biggest concern was that this was going to galvanize Trump supporters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what has happened.
” Others , like Maria Alleyne , 53 , said they were alarmed that this could further embolden Trump .
“ This is not a man whose personality is to learn things and regret his actions , ” she said .
Instead , Alleyne told us , she thought he ’ d continue to act in the same way .
And she also feared he would “ be very vindictive ” against the people who were part of the process and “ just go after them as hard as he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters like Simsovic weren ’ t wrong to worry that impeachment may have knit Trump ’ s Republican base more tightly to him .
Our surveys showed that as impeachment wore on , rank-and-file Republicans did become more supportive of the president and of Republicans more broadly .
And that ’ s saying something , because Republicans had a pretty high opinion of Trump going into the impeachment process .
But by the end of the trial , 63 percent of Republicans approved of the way Trump was handling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent back in November .
Ordinary Republican voters also increasingly approved of the way Republicans in Congress handled impeachment as it played out .
Why did Republicans rally around Trump ?
Part of it may be that relatively few Republicans were ever convinced that Trump had committed an impeachable offense , and the impeachment process did little to change their minds .
For instance , over the course of our survey , a majority of Republicans agreed that Trump did ask Zelensky to investigate the Bidens , but only about 25 to 30 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conditioned aid on those investigations or had tried to cover up his actions .
Glenn Bossmeyer , 71 , thought the request to Zelensky had been handled clumsily , but he didn ’ t see a problem with Trump asking for a probe into Hunter Biden ’ s business relationships in Ukraine while his father was vice president .
“ It was a stupid thing to do , because it gave the Democrats more fodder to go after him , ” Bossmeyer said .
“ But whether Hunter Biden ended up in his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ influence — I thought it was a fair question to ask.
” Republicans growing more comfortable with Trump ’ s behavior wasn ’ t an obvious outcome — at least during the first couple of waves of our survey , when the Democrats publicly presented evidence against the president .
For instance , the share of Republicans who believed Trump tied Ukraine ’ s aid to the investigations rose slightly after former EU ambassador Gordon Sondland explicitly linked Trump to a quid pro quo in public testimony in late November .
But ultimately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this kind of behavior was simply politics as usual and didn ’ t condemn Trump ’ s actions .
The share of Republicans who said that it was inappropriate to condition aid on an investigation into the Bidens actually went down between November and February , as did the share of Republicans who said a cover-up would be inappropriate .
“ It just didn ’ t come to much , ” said Esra Sander , 46 .
She didn ’ t like the idea of heads of state trading favors for political leverage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saw it as a part of the dirty underbelly of politics that Trump , with his bull-in-a-china-shop tendencies , had simply exposed .
“ Has it happened before ?
Will it happen again ?
The answer to both is yes , ” she said .
“ Under Trump it ’ s just more visible.
” There was one thing in our surveys that united ordinary Republicans and Democrats : a sense of anger that for four months , their elected leaders had relentlessly jabbed at the country ’ s gaping partisan wound .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ pick up their newspapers or turn on the TV each day .
Very few of the respondents we talked with felt triumphant about how impeachment ended .
Instead , they mostly thought the two parties had fought to a messy draw .
“ The Democrats were bullies , but the Republicans were just as bad , ” said Megon Burkit , 43 , who identifies as a Republican .
“ They didn ’ t have a strong defense .
I think everyone is blowing smoke up our butts.
” The price of this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a loss of trust in public institutions — Congress , the news media , the presidency , you name it .
A majority ( 65 percent ) of Americans said their level of trust in the American political system had decreased because of the impeachment process .
“ Democrats , Republicans — it ’ s starting to feel like nobody has ordinary working people ’ s interests at heart , ” said Alleyne .
( She said in our survey that she leans toward the Democrats . )
“ They ’ re not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re just fighting .
Nothing seems to be coming together.
” It also left both Republicans and Democrats with an even more bitter impression of their political rivals .
By the time the trial was over , 71 percent of Republicans strongly disapproved of how Democrats in Congress were handling impeachment ( approximately the same percentage as in November ) .
Sixty-five percent of Democrats felt the same way about congressional Republicans , up from 49 percent in November .
People who identified as Republican or leaned Republican told us they thought the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to score political points at Trump ’ s expense .
“ I just thought it was a publicity play by the Democrats , trying to grab the limelight , ” said Robert Wehner , 70 .
Democrats , for their part , saw the Republicans as equally mercenary .
“ The way they lied , how their story kept changing — it ’ s disturbing , ” said Evan Smith , 46 .
“ I don ’ t know how they can look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.
” But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they felt lost in the increasingly vast no-man ’ s-land between the two parties .
“ It ’ s like there ’ s a war in Washington , one side against the other , and everyone has to toe the party line , ” said Eric Boggis , 61 , an independent who said he doesn ’ t lean toward either party .
He doesn ’ t like Trump and said he didn ’ t vote for him in 2016 .
But he thought the Democrats ’ efforts were a “ long shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially with the presidential election looming on the horizon .
“ [ The Democrats ] were never going to get rid of him through impeachment , ” Boggis said .
“ Let the voters have their say , and he ’ ll probably be gone in a year anyway .
”

Before last year, Willa Engel, 65, had never thought of herself as an especially political person. But the impeachment process changed that. As the House Democrats’ investigation rolled forward through the late fall, she found herself glued to the television, watching witness after witness testify about President Trump’s behavior. “I got a little addicted to it,” she said. “I believe I watched about 90 percent of it.”
But there were moments in the hearings when Engel, a Democratic-leaning independent, got so upset she had to turn away. “Sometimes when the White House counsel or the Republicans were on TV, I had to mute it. It was too much,” she said. The hearings did convince Engel that Trump had committed an impeachable offense, but now that it’s over, she tries not to think about it. “I get so angry,” she said. “I try to block it out of my mind.”
For a little over three months, we tracked over 1,100 Americans on how they felt about the impeachment process, surveying respondents like Engel every few weeks via Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel to find out whether their views on impeachment were changing. But there was remarkably little movement. The share of Americans who thought Trump committed an impeachable offense hovered between 55 and 58 percent in six separate surveys.
Respondent after respondent told us that their belief of Trump’s innocence or guilt was just reinforced by the process. “The Democrats put up a flimsy case,” said Alan Satow, 60, a Republican. “They had all these witnesses, but they weren’t presenting facts. It was just a lot of hearsay.”
The impeachment process might not have shifted anyone’s view about Trump, but it did drive Americans further into their partisan camps — and in the process, unraveled their already frayed sense of trust in the political system. When we spoke to them after the Senate trial had concluded, our respondents had few kind words for either party. Instead, they saw impeachment as a stark and painful example of the country’s partisan stalemate.
“The way I see it is, we seem to be in a place where our politicians don’t really make decisions for themselves — they just say, ‘Well I belong to this party and so that’s how I’m going to vote,’” said Emily Underwood, 29, a Republican-leaning independent. “We’re divided. We’re stuck. I knew that before impeachment, but it’s even clearer to me now.”
Democrats worry impeachment will backfire
When news of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hit the headlines in late September, Richard Scruggs, 31, had an inkling that the allegations against Trump were grave enough to be impeachable. But as the Democrats began to present their case against the president in a series of televised hearings in November, he grew even more certain that Trump had done something seriously wrong. (Scruggs said in our survey that he leans toward the Democrats.)
“The Trump presidency does a number on what seems normal,” said Scruggs. He wasn’t sure what to make of the allegations until he started to read about the lengths to which Trump’s allies had gone to strong-arm the Ukrainian government into probing the Bidens, including efforts to push out the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and the discussion of investigations in high-level meetings with Ukrainian and American diplomats. “The idea of putting pressure on foreign governments to investigate your rival seems kind of definitionally a high crime or misdemeanor,” said Scruggs.
Scruggs wasn’t alone. By November, when we fielded the first wave of our survey, 88 percent of Democrats said they were already convinced that Trump had committed an impeachable offense. That means many Democrats may already have had a change of heart on impeachment by the time our survey began, since according to our tracker of impeachment polls, the biggest shift among Democrats happened in late September, around the release of a call summary of Trump and Zelensky’s conversation.
John Stokes, 73, wasn’t fully on board with impeachment at first. But he said he was convinced by the Democrats’ argument that it was their responsibility to hold Trump accountable. And by the end of the process, he said it was clear to him that Trump had committed an impeachable offense. “[Trump] was trying to bribe a foreign country,” he said.
But even as Democrats in our survey became more convinced that Trump’s actions were impeachable, some also started to have nagging concerns that the impeachment process might have inadvertently helped Trump. Throughout the process, a small but substantial chunk of Democrats (around 13 percent) told us that even though they thought Trump had committed an impeachable offense, the voters — not Congress — should decide his fate in the 2020 election. The share of Democrats who thought impeachment was a bad use of Congress’s time rose, too, from 23 percent at the beginning of the Senate trial to 37 percent when it was over. After the trial, a smaller sharer of Democrats said that senators were impartial jurors than the share that thought senators would be impartial. And perhaps most crucially, 30 percent of Democrats thought in the last wave of our survey that impeachment was likely to help Trump win reelection — up from 12 percent just three weeks earlier.
Some panelists told us they thought impeachment was necessary, but they were also worried it might backfire at the polls in November. “I never felt impeachment was the right way to go because it wasn’t going to pass the Senate,” said Alan Simsovic, 62. “My biggest concern was that this was going to galvanize Trump supporters, and I do believe that’s what has happened.”
Others, like Maria Alleyne, 53, said they were alarmed that this could further embolden Trump. “This is not a man whose personality is to learn things and regret his actions,” she said. Instead, Alleyne told us, she thought he’d continue to act in the same way. And she also feared he would “be very vindictive” against the people who were part of the process and “just go after them as hard as he can.”
Republicans became more supportive of Trump
Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters like Simsovic weren’t wrong to worry that impeachment may have knit Trump’s Republican base more tightly to him. Our surveys showed that as impeachment wore on, rank-and-file Republicans did become more supportive of the president and of Republicans more broadly. And that’s saying something, because Republicans had a pretty high opinion of Trump going into the impeachment process. But by the end of the trial, 63 percent of Republicans approved of the way Trump was handling the impeachment process, compared with 51 percent back in November. Ordinary Republican voters also increasingly approved of the way Republicans in Congress handled impeachment as it played out.
Why did Republicans rally around Trump? Part of it may be that relatively few Republicans were ever convinced that Trump had committed an impeachable offense, and the impeachment process did little to change their minds. For instance, over the course of our survey, a majority of Republicans agreed that Trump did ask Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, but only about 25 to 30 percent said that they thought Trump had conditioned aid on those investigations or had tried to cover up his actions.
Glenn Bossmeyer, 71, thought the request to Zelensky had been handled clumsily, but he didn’t see a problem with Trump asking for a probe into Hunter Biden’s business relationships in Ukraine while his father was vice president. “It was a stupid thing to do, because it gave the Democrats more fodder to go after him,” Bossmeyer said. “But whether Hunter Biden ended up in his position because of his father’s influence — I thought it was a fair question to ask.”
Republicans growing more comfortable with Trump’s behavior wasn’t an obvious outcome — at least during the first couple of waves of our survey, when the Democrats publicly presented evidence against the president. For instance, the share of Republicans who believed Trump tied Ukraine’s aid to the investigations rose slightly after former EU ambassador Gordon Sondland explicitly linked Trump to a quid pro quo in public testimony in late November.
But ultimately, many Republicans accepted the argument that this kind of behavior was simply politics as usual and didn’t condemn Trump’s actions. The share of Republicans who said that it was inappropriate to condition aid on an investigation into the Bidens actually went down between November and February, as did the share of Republicans who said a cover-up would be inappropriate.
“It just didn’t come to much,” said Esra Sander, 46. She didn’t like the idea of heads of state trading favors for political leverage, she told us — but she saw it as a part of the dirty underbelly of politics that Trump, with his bull-in-a-china-shop tendencies, had simply exposed. “Has it happened before? Will it happen again? The answer to both is yes,” she said. “Under Trump it’s just more visible.”
People were left angered and disillusioned
There was one thing in our surveys that united ordinary Republicans and Democrats: a sense of anger that for four months, their elected leaders had relentlessly jabbed at the country’s gaping partisan wound. For some, it became exhausting to pick up their newspapers or turn on the TV each day. Very few of the respondents we talked with felt triumphant about how impeachment ended. Instead, they mostly thought the two parties had fought to a messy draw.
“The Democrats were bullies, but the Republicans were just as bad,” said Megon Burkit, 43, who identifies as a Republican. “They didn’t have a strong defense. I think everyone is blowing smoke up our butts.”
The price of this anger and disillusionment appears to have been a loss of trust in public institutions — Congress, the news media, the presidency, you name it. A majority (65 percent) of Americans said their level of trust in the American political system had decreased because of the impeachment process. “Democrats, Republicans — it’s starting to feel like nobody has ordinary working people’s interests at heart,” said Alleyne. (She said in our survey that she leans toward the Democrats.) “They’re not trying to help us. They’re just fighting. Nothing seems to be coming together.”
People say their trust in political institutions has decreased Share of respondents in the sixth wave of a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll who said their trust in the American political system had increased, decreased, or remained the same, by party Political system Decreased Increased No change All 65.4% – 5.1% – 26.5% – Democratic 72.6 – 4.7 – 20.7 – Republican 59.0 – 4.8 – 34.5 – 1,104 people responded to all six waves of the survey; this wave was fielded Feb. 5 to Feb. 9.
It also left both Republicans and Democrats with an even more bitter impression of their political rivals. By the time the trial was over, 71 percent of Republicans strongly disapproved of how Democrats in Congress were handling impeachment (approximately the same percentage as in November). Sixty-five percent of Democrats felt the same way about congressional Republicans, up from 49 percent in November.
People who identified as Republican or leaned Republican told us they thought the Democrats were mainly looking for a chance to score political points at Trump’s expense. “I just thought it was a publicity play by the Democrats, trying to grab the limelight,” said Robert Wehner, 70. Democrats, for their part, saw the Republicans as equally mercenary. “The way they lied, how their story kept changing — it’s disturbing,” said Evan Smith, 46. “I don’t know how they can look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.”
But there were also respondents who told us they felt lost in the increasingly vast no-man’s-land between the two parties. “It’s like there’s a war in Washington, one side against the other, and everyone has to toe the party line,” said Eric Boggis, 61, an independent who said he doesn’t lean toward either party. He doesn’t like Trump and said he didn’t vote for him in 2016. But he thought the Democrats’ efforts were a “long shot” and a waste of time, especially with the presidential election looming on the horizon. “[The Democrats] were never going to get rid of him through impeachment,” Boggis said. “Let the voters have their say, and he’ll probably be gone in a year anyway.”


fivethirtyeight--2020-02-18--Does Sanders Have A Ceiling? Maybe. Can He Win Anyway? Yes.

The Bernie Sanders rally that I attended on the evening before the New Hampshire primary drew a reported 7,500 people — about twice as many as his actual 3,867-vote margin of victory in the primary the next day .
I say that not to endorse crowd sizes as an alternative to the polls .
( Despite the large crowds , Sanders slightly underperformed his polls in New Hampshire , in fact .
Nor do I mean to imply that Sanders won in New Hampshire because of the rally .
( It was held before a largely student audience at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were already likely to vote for Sanders . )
But it does go to show how razor-thin the margins have been so far in the primaries .
The voters who pushed Sanders past Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire could fit within half a college hockey rink .
But the rally was also impressive .
It was full of star power , including speakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , former Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner , actress Cynthia Nixon and political activist Cornel West — all of whom were introduced to the crowd like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by The Strokes .
In between the big names , Sanders organizers gave students detailed voting instructions .
Everything was tightly scripted .
It was a show of force .
What the rally largely lacked , though , were attempts to persuade voters who weren ’ t already aboard the Sanders train .
On the contrary , the emphasis was on turning out the faithful , and the faithful were all presumed to be on board with Sanders ’ s lefty platform .
Nixon , for instance — who earlier had drawn a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Hillary Clinton , which she quickly shushed — said that nominating a moderate candidate would ensure that nobody showed up on Election Day .
This was despite the fact that moderates had once been a source of strength for Sanders .
Four years ago , Sanders won voters who identified as moderate by 20 points in New Hampshire , about the same as his overall margin of victory in the state over Clinton .
But this time , Sanders finished third among moderates , getting 16 percent of the moderate vote compared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Amy Klobuchar .
So , let ’ s talk about the ‘ c ’ word : ceiling .
Does Sanders have a ceiling on his support ?
I shudder to ask the question in part because of bad memories from four years ago , when theories about Donald Trump having a ceiling were a big reason that people like me initially dismissed his chances in the primaries .
In Trump ’ s case , though , there was at least some polling-driven evidence of a ceiling .
He tended to lose ground in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against other Republicans , for instance .
And his favorability ratings among Republican voters were quite low for someone who was leading the field .
There isn ’ t much evidence of this for Sanders .
On the contrary , his favorability ratings are roughly as good as any other Democrat ’ s — and often the best in the field , depending on which poll you look at .
It ’ s also worth mentioning that Sanders gets a lot of support from younger African Americans and Hispanics , making his coalition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Granted , he does have very little support from voters over the age of 65 , but of all demographic deficiencies , that may be one of the easier ones to overcome .
There are plenty of young voters in every state , provided you can turn them out .
Additionally , a set of YouGov polls last week showed Sanders winning in hypothetical head-to-head matchups against every other Democrat — narrowly beating Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren while more clearly defeating Buttigieg , Klobuchar and Michael Bloomberg .
( There are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Buttigieg and Klobuchar still have fairly low name recognition , and earlier polling that tested head-to-head matchups hadn ’ t shown Sanders doing so well , especially against Biden . )
But if you look at the actual behavior of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire — and the most recent polling from upcoming states on how voters are reacting to the Iowa and New Hampshire results — then there are a few troubling signs for Sanders , including some evidence of what you might call a ceiling on support .
In no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both Iowa and New Hampshire , Sanders did relatively poorly among late-deciding voters .
In New Hampshire , he got 17 percent of the vote among voters who decided in the last few days , as compared to 35 percent among voters who decided before then .
And in Iowa , he got just 13 percent of late-deciders , versus 28 percent of early-deciders .
These numbers are a potential hallmark of a campaign that emphasizes turnout over persuasion .
They identify their voters early , and they turn them out .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of voters drift into their orbit late in the race .
• In Iowa , where voters could realign to second choices if their candidate didn ’ t clear the viability threshold ( usually 15 percent in their precinct ) , Sanders gained relatively little from this process , going from 24.7 percent on the first-alignment vote to 26.5 percent on the final alignment — a gain of 1.8 percentage points .
( By contrast , Buttigieg added 3.8 percentage points to his vote total via this realignment process despite starting out with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) Sanders ’ s gains were considerably less than our model expected , too .
It thought that if Sanders had around 25 percent of the initial vote , he would have wound up with about 30 percent of the vote after realignment .
This realignment process doesn ’ t take place in most states — although it does occur in Nevada and a few states later on that have ranked-choice voting — but it ’ s nonetheless a negative sign for Sanders as it would seem to indicate that he is relatively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means he might not stand to gain as much as other candidates when opponents drop out or fall in the polls .
• Based on the evidence we have so far , Sanders has gotten relatively little bounce in the polls from his outright win in New Hampshire and popular-vote win in Iowa .
In our national polling average , he is at 22.9 percent , only slightly higher than he was in our final average before Iowa , when he was at 21.7 percent .
• Even in fairly liberal states like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a more moderate candidate in the abstract .
Nearly two-thirds of voters in the New Hampshire exit poll said they preferred a candidate who could beat Trump to one who agreed with them on the issues .
( Although , note that a lot of voters see Sanders as being electable , and he polls pretty well in head-to-head polls against Trump . )
And 50 percent of voters said Sanders ’ s positions were too liberal .
Meanwhile , the combined vote shares for Buttigeig , Klobuchar and Biden ( 52.6 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Warren ( 34.9 percent ) .
No , it ’ s not quite as simple as there being two distinct lanes ( left and moderate ) with no overlap between them .
But as the primary has evolved , the electorate has behaved more and more as the lanes theory might predict — Buttigieg and Bloomberg have gained ground as Biden has declined in national polls , for instance .
• Finally , turnout in the first two states has been a mixed bag .
Turnout in Iowa was 176,000 people , about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ below 2008 and what most observers expected .
Turnout in New Hampshire — about 300,000 voters in the Democratic primary — did end up being record-breaking .
The Iowa numbers probably weren ’ t as bad as they looked , though .
The caucuses did not receive their typical amount of media attention , thanks to a busy news calendar involving impeachment , the Super Bowl and other stories .
Also , Iowa has drifted red , so there are simply fewer Democratic voters in that state than there once were .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as bad as they looked for Democrats , the New Hampshire ones weren ’ t as good as they seemed .
Democrats were not going up against a competitive Republican primary as they were in 2008 or 2016 , which helped boost turnout in a state where independents can vote in either primary .
Nor was turnout particularly high as a share of registered voters as the number of registered voters has grown since 2008 .
So overall , while Demcoratic turnout has been just fine , it has not exactly been revolutionary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even be that the Sanders campaign — if it has a highly loyal but relatively fixed number of voters — prefers lower turnout overall , since that means its base will make up a higher share of the electorate .
In Iowa , with its relatively low turnout , 24 percent of voters were under 30 .
In New Hampshire , meanwhile , under-30 voters were just 13 percent of the electorate , down from 19 percent in 2016 .
Think less about ceilings — and more about volatility Over the course of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I grew less skeptical of Sanders ’ s chances .
In fact , our model is now quite bullish on Sanders , having him as by far the most likely Democrat to win a majority of pledged delegates — although the most likely scenario is that no one wins a majority ( meaning a contested convention is possible ) .
Ideally , working on a model helps you to see a race with a fresh set of eyes and to reexamine premises that might be outdated based on the most recent evidence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that endorsements had less predictive power than they had once had , no doubt in part because adding data from 2016 ( when Trump won the GOP primary and Sanders was competitive against Clinton despite receiving little support from party insiders ) undermined the “ Party Decides ” theory of the race .
Conversely , we found that fundraising was more predictive than we had previously assumed .
I don ’ t want to go overboard here : The media probably still ovestates the importance of money overall , and for the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate ’ s position in the race is simply his or her polls .
Nonetheless , Sanders ’ s lack of endorsements is only a marginal reason to be worried about his chances , while his excellent small-donor fundraising is a reason to be optimistic .
We also found in building the model that the concept of “ ceilings ” and “ floors ” tends to be a rather fuzzy one ; like “ electability , ” it ’ s something that would benefit from more precise specification .
For instance , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frequently cited in polls as voters ’ second-choice picks were more likely to grow their support than ones who weren ’ t .
( Although that data is hard to come by for previous election cycles , so I wouldn ’ t take that conclusion as definitive . )
But we did find that candidates who carved out their own space and have few close substitutes see their polling behave differently than those who have a lot of competition .
To categorize candidates , we rate them along four dimensions : • how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy ; • how leftist or centrist they are on economic policy ; • whether they portray themselves as “ insiders ” or “ outsiders ” ; • and whether they tend to be technocrats ( who mostly appeal to elites and college-educated voters ) or populists ( who mostly draw support from the working class ) .
And in this conception , Sanders is somewhat of an island unto himself .
Warren is close to Sanders on the issues , but she is less anti-establishment and more reliant on support from college-educated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the major candidates apart from Warren are very close to Sanders at all .
This means someone like Sanders has few direct competitors , and as such , his polling swings tend to be smaller .
If things are going poorly , there are fewer places for his voters to go because there isn ’ t a clear alternative for his supporters .
But someone like Sanders also tends to pick up less support from other candidates when things are going well because he ’ d represent a big leap for , say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Conversely , a candidate like Buttigieg — or Kamala Harris before she quit the race — can experience more polling booms-and-busts .
In trying to be an acceptable choice to everyone , these candidates have high upside potential , but because they may be relatively few voters ’ first choice , they can also have a low floor .
To put it another way , instead of thinking of hard ceilings , it ’ s probably best to think of candidates as being either low or high volatility based on the amount @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s also best to think of this as being a dynamic status that can evolve over the course of the race .
For example , Biden once seemed to have little direct competition , but the growth in support for Bloomberg , Buttigieg and Klobuchar has suddenly made the moderate/establishment lane far more crowded .
As to whether you ’ d prefer to be a low-volatility or high-volatility candidate , that depends on a lot of different factors .
But being a low-volatility candidate definitely helped Sanders during a rough stretch of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the polls and he took a break from the trail following a heart attack .
At the time , I thought some of his support would jump ship to Warren , perhaps putting her in the overall driver ’ s seat for the nomination .
Instead , Sanders ’ s base largely stuck with him , and he received endorsements from Ocasio-Cortez and others .
And by late November , Sanders had overtaken Warren and reclaimed second place in national polls .
It was an impressive feat of loyalty from his supporters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to think in terms of ceilings instead of volatility , know that ceilings imply the existence of floors — and low ceilings and high floors generally go together .
Having a high floor can be helpful , too , especially in a multi-candidate race where the support of 20 or 25 percent of voters can be enough to lead polls and win states .
Sanders has several ways to win To state the obvious , no one knows with much certainty how the Democratic race is going to turn out .
But Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost no matter what : If everything stays the same , Sanders could win the nomination with a plurality of pledged delegates .
It remains quite possible that some candidate — whether it ’ s Sanders or someone else — will have some kind of polling surge in the race soon , making the top of the field less crowded .
But suppose that doesn ’ t happen and the race muddles along roughly as it is now , with Sanders at around 25 percent of the vote and several moderate candidates with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually be a pretty nice scenario for Sanders .
He ’ d get delegates almost everywhere , whereas the moderate candidates sometimes wouldn ’ t , depending on whether they hit the threshold required to win delegates in particular states and districts .
So you could go into the convention with a scenario like : Sanders has 40 percent of pledged delegates , one of the moderates ( Biden , Bloomberg , Buttigieg or Klobuchar ) has 30 percent , while another moderate candidate has 25 percent , and Warren has 5 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sanders the nomination when he had a fairly clear plurality ?
I don ’ t know .
( Our forecast model doesn ’ t try to predict the outcome of a contested convention . )
It would be a heck of a story to cover .
Sanders certainly would have a decent shot , though .
And if Sanders had a very clear purality — say , 47 percent of the delegates , while the next-closest competitor had 28 percent — his chances would be stronger still .
As the rest of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increase his vote share just enough to win a narrow majority .
Even if the moderate lane consolidated to just one or two alternatives later on in the race — say , at some point in March or April — Sanders would still be in a pretty decent position .
He would probably have a head start on the competition by having won a lot of delegates on Super Tuesday and in the first four states while the rest of the field sorted itself out .
Contests up to and including Super Tuesday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delegates , so this matters a lot .
Also , even if there is some upward resistance to Sanders ’ s numbers — more than there might be for the average candidate — it isn ’ t likely to be absolute resistance .
Case in point : Sanders improved his support from 15 percent in national polls for much of last year to the low-to-mid 20s now .
Without those gains , Sanders might be in the fairly difficult position that Warren now finds herself in , following third- or fourth-place finishes in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling gains was roughly the path that Trump followed in 2016 to win the Republcian nomination , too .
True , Trump had one major advantage that Sanders didn ’ t : the presence of winner-take-all states , especially later on in the race .
( All Democratic states use proportional delegate allocation above the 15 percent threshold . )
Still , Trump gained ground later in the race once Republican voters realized that they faced a choice between Trump and a contested convention ( which might nonetheless have resulted in his nomination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Maybe a voter would prefer Buttigieg to Sanders in the abstract , but if a Buttigieg win would require a contested convention , while a Sanders win would not , she might feel differently .
Sanders could easily win a one-on-one race .
Finally , suppose that we do wind up with a two-candidate race fairly soon ; Biden loses South Carolina , for instance , and quits the race , and the large majority of delegates on Super Tuesday go to either Sanders or Bloomberg .
This seems to be the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I talk to are rooting for .
But it could also fairly easily lead to a Sanders nomination .
Say that Sanders ’ s main opponent was Bloomberg , for instance .
He ’ d play perfectly into Sanders ’ s messaging about the corrosive influence of money on the democratic process .
Bloomberg also has a lot of baggage that has been somewhat untested because of his late entry into the race .
Against Buttigieg or Klobuchar , meanwhile , Sanders would probably have the more diverse coalition , and he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ someone like Klobuchar , who is only now starting to raise serious money .
I don ’ t know who would be favored in a head-to-head matchup between Sanders and another Democratic candidate , especially a resilient Biden , or if it somehow came down to Sanders against Warren .
( As the YouGov polling shows , these are potentially tougher matchups for Sanders . )
But the bottom line is this : Even if Sanders is far from the textbook nominee — and even if he ’ s likely to have some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — all of the other candidates have a lot of problems too .
Sanders is in the strongest position for now , and he has a high floor of support that should win him delegates almost everywhere , while the rest of the field is a mess behind him .
Ceiling or not , that ’ s why you ’ d rather be in his position than anyone else ’ s .

The Sen. Bernie Sanders rally that I attended on the evening before the New Hampshire primary drew a reported 7,500 people — about twice as many as his actual 3,867-vote margin of victory in the primary the next day. I say that not to endorse crowd sizes as an alternative to the polls. (Despite the large crowds, Sanders slightly underperformed his polls in New Hampshire, in fact. ) Nor do I mean to imply that Sanders won in New Hampshire because of the rally. (It was held before a largely student audience at the University of New Hampshire — people who were already likely to vote for Sanders.) But it does go to show how razor-thin the margins have been so far in the primaries. The voters who pushed Sanders past former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire might only halfway fill a college hockey rink.
[Our Latest Forecast: Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary?]
But the rally was also impressive. It was full of star power, including speakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, actress Cynthia Nixon and political activist Cornel West — all of whom were introduced to the crowd like heavyweight boxers — along with a concert by The Strokes. In between the big names, Sanders organizers gave students detailed voting instructions. Everything was tightly scripted. It was a show of force.
What the rally largely lacked, though, were attempts to persuade voters who weren’t already aboard the Sanders train. On the contrary, the emphasis was on turning out the faithful, and the faithful were all presumed to be on board with Sanders’s lefty platform. Nixon, for instance — who earlier had drawn a round of boos for a brief reference to Hillary Clinton, which she quickly shushed — said that nominating a moderate candidate would ensure that nobody showed up on Election Day.
But moderates were once a source of strength for Sanders. Four years ago, Sanders won voters who identified as moderate by 20 points in New Hampshire, about the same as his overall margin of victory in the state over Clinton. This time around, Sanders finished third among moderate voters, getting 16 percent of the moderate vote compared with 27 percent for both Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
So, let’s talk about the “c” word: ceiling.
Does Sanders’s support have a ceiling?
I shudder to ask the question in part because of bad memories from four years ago, when theories about Donald Trump’s ceiling were a big reason that people like me initially dismissed his chances in the primaries.
In Trump’s case, though, there was at least some polling-driven evidence of a ceiling. He tended to lose ground in polls that asked about hypothetical head-to-head matchups against other Republicans, for instance. And his favorability ratings among Republican voters were quite low for someone who was leading the field.
There isn’t much evidence of this for Sanders. His favorability ratings are roughly as good as any other Democrat’s — and often the best in the field, depending on which poll you look at.
It’s also worth mentioning that Sanders gets a lot of support from younger African Americans and Hispanics, making his coalition among the most diverse in the race. Granted, he does have very little support from voters over the age of 65, but of all demographic deficiencies, that may be one of the easier ones to overcome. There are plenty of young voters in every state, provided you can turn them out.
Additionally, a set of YouGov polls last week showed Sanders winning in hypothetical head-to-head matchups against every other Democrat — narrowly beating former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren while more clearly defeating Buttigieg, Klobuchar and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. (There are some qualifications to that YouGov poll: Buttigieg and Klobuchar still have fairly low name recognition, and earlier polling that tested head-to-head matchups hadn’t shown Sanders doing so well, especially against Biden.)
But if you look at the actual behavior of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire — and the most recent polling on how voters in the next states to vote are reacting to the Iowa and New Hampshire results — there are a few troubling signs for Sanders, including some evidence of what you might call a ceiling. In no particular order:
So overall, while Democratic turnout has been just fine, it has not exactly been revolutionary. It may even be that the Sanders campaign — if it has a highly loyal but relatively fixed number of voters — prefers lower turnout overall, since that means its base will make up a higher share of the electorate. In Iowa, with its relatively low turnout, 24 percent of voters were under 30. In New Hampshire, meanwhile, voters under 30 accounted for just 13 percent of the electorate, down from 19 percent in 2016.
Think less about ceilings, more about volatility
Over the course of building our primary model late last year, I grew less skeptical of Sanders’s chances. In fact, our model is now quite bullish on Sanders, having him as by far the most likely Democrat to win a majority of pledged delegates — although the most likely scenario is that no one wins a majority (meaning a contested convention is possible).
Ideally, working on a model helps you to see a race with a fresh set of eyes and reexamine premises that might be outdated. Relevant to Sanders, we found that endorsements had less predictive power than they had once had, no doubt in part because adding data from 2016 (when Trump won the GOP primary and Sanders was competitive against Clinton despite receiving little support from party insiders) undermined the “Party Decides” theory of the race. Conversely, we found that fundraising was more predictive than we had previously assumed.
I don’t want to go overboard here: The media probably still overstates the importance of money overall, and for the most part, the best indicator of a candidate’s position in the race is simply his or her polls. Nonetheless, Sanders’s lack of endorsements is only a marginal reason to be worried about his chances, while his excellent small-donor fundraising is a reason to be optimistic.
We also found in building the model that the concept of “ceilings” and “floors” tends to be rather fuzzy; like “electability,” it’s something that would benefit from more precise specification. For instance, we found no evidence that candidates who were frequently cited in polls as voters’ second-choice picks were more likely to increase their support than ones who weren’t. (Although that data is hard to come by for previous election cycles, so I wouldn’t take that conclusion as definitive.)
But we did find that for candidates who carved out their own space and had few close substitutes, the polling behaved differently than it did for those who had a lot of competition.
To categorize candidates, we rate them along four dimensions:
How liberal or moderate they are on social policy.
How leftist or centrist they are on economic policy.
Whether they portray themselves as “insiders” or “outsiders.”
Whether they tend to be technocrats (who mostly appeal to elites and college-educated voters) or populists (who mostly draw support from the working class).
And in this conception, Sanders is something of an island unto himself. Warren is close to him on the issues, but she is less anti-establishment and more reliant on support from college-educated voters than he is. None of the other major candidates are very close to Sanders at all.
This means someone like Sanders has few direct competitors, so his polling swings tend to be smaller. If things are going poorly, there are fewer places for his voters to go because there isn’t a clear alternative to him. But someone like Sanders also tends to pick up less support from other candidates when things are going well because he’d represent a big leap for, say, a college-educated, moderate Klobuchar supporter.
Conversely, a candidate like Buttigieg — or Sen. Kamala Harris, before she quit the race — can experience more polling booms and busts. In trying to be an acceptable choice to everyone, these candidates have high upside potential, but because they may be relatively few voters’ first choice, they can also have a low floor.
To put it another way, instead of thinking of hard ceilings, it’s probably best to think of candidates as being either low or high volatility based on the amount of competition they face. It’s also best to think of this as being a dynamic status that can evolve over the course of the race. For example, Biden once seemed to have little direct competition, but the growth in support for Bloomberg, Buttigieg and Klobuchar has suddenly made the moderate/establishment lane far more crowded.
As to whether you’d prefer to be a low-volatility or high-volatility candidate, that depends on a lot of factors. But being a low-volatility candidate definitely helped Sanders during a rough stretch of the campaign in early October when Warren was surging in the polls and he took a break from the trail following a heart attack.
At the time, I thought some of his supporters would jump ship to Warren, perhaps putting her in the overall driver’s seat for the nomination. Instead, Sanders’s base largely stuck with him, and he received endorsements from Ocasio-Cortez and others. And by late November, Sanders had overtaken Warren and reclaimed second place in national polls. It was an impressive show of loyalty from his supporters.
So even if you do want to think in terms of ceilings instead of volatility, know that ceilings imply the existence of floors — and low ceilings and high floors generally go together. Having a high floor can be helpful, too, especially in a multicandidate race where the support of 20 or 25 percent of voters can be enough to lead polls and win states.
Sanders has several ways to win
To state the obvious, no one knows with much certainty how the Democratic race is going to turn out. But Sanders will likely have some paths to victory available almost no matter what:
If everything stays the same, Sanders could win the nomination with a plurality of pledged delegates. It remains quite possible that some candidate — whether it’s Sanders or someone else — will have some kind of polling surge in the race soon, making the top of the field less crowded. But suppose that doesn’t happen and the race muddles along roughly as it is now, with Sanders at around 25 percent of the vote and several moderate candidates with around 15 percent each.
That would actually be a pretty nice scenario for Sanders. He’d get delegates almost everywhere, whereas the moderate candidates sometimes wouldn’t, depending on whether they hit the threshold required to win delegates in each state and district. So you could go into the convention with a scenario like: Sanders has 40 percent of pledged delegates, one of the moderates (Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigieg or Klobuchar) has 30 percent, while another moderate candidate has 25 percent, and Warren has 5 percent.
Would convention delegates try to deny Sanders the nomination when he had a fairly clear plurality? I don’t know. (Our forecast model doesn’t try to predict the outcome of a contested convention.) It would be a heck of a story to cover. Sanders certainly would have a decent shot, though. And if Sanders had a very clear plurality — say, 47 percent of the delegates, while the next-closest competitor had 28 percent — his chances would be stronger still.
As the rest of the field slowly consolidates, Sanders could gradually increase his vote share just enough to win a narrow majority. Even if the moderate lane narrowed to just one or two alternatives later on in the race — say, at some point in March or April — Sanders would still be in a pretty decent position. He would probably have a head start on the competition by having won a lot of delegates on Super Tuesday and in the first four states while the rest of the field sorted itself out. Contests up to and including Super Tuesday account for 38 percent of all pledged delegates, so this matters a lot.
Also, even if there is some upward resistance to Sanders’s numbers — more than there might be for the average candidate — it isn’t likely to be absolute resistance. Case in point: Sanders improved his support from 15 percent in national polls for much of last year to the low-to-mid 20s now. Without those gains, Sanders might be in the fairly difficult position that Warren now finds herself in, following third- or fourth-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Making slow-but-steady polling gains was roughly the path that Trump followed in 2016 to win the Republican nomination, too. True, Trump had one major advantage that Sanders didn’t: the presence of winner-take-all states, especially later on in the race. (All Democratic states use proportional delegate allocation for candidates who clear the 15 percent threshold for getting any delegates.) Still, Trump gained ground later in the race once Republican voters realized that they faced a choice between Trump and a contested convention (which might nonetheless have resulted in his nomination). Democratic voters might act similarly. Maybe a voter would prefer Buttigieg to Sanders in the abstract, but if a Buttigieg win would require a contested convention while a Sanders win would not, she might feel differently.
Sanders could easily win a one-on-one race. Finally, suppose that we do wind up with a two-candidate race fairly soon; Biden loses South Carolina, for instance, and quits the race, and the large majority of delegates on Super Tuesday go to either Sanders or Bloomberg.
This seems to be the outcome that a lot of moderates I talk to are rooting for, but it could also fairly easily lead to a Sanders nomination. If Sanders’s main opponent was Bloomberg, for instance, he’d play perfectly into Sanders’s messaging about the corrosive influence of money on the democratic process. Bloomberg also has a lot of baggage that has been somewhat unscrutinized because of his late entry into the race. Against Buttigieg or Klobuchar, meanwhile, Sanders would probably have the more diverse coalition, and he’d also have an organizational advantage against someone like Klobuchar, who is only now starting to raise serious money.
I don’t know who would be favored in a head-to-head matchup between Sanders and another Democratic candidate, especially a resilient Biden, or if it somehow came down to Sanders and Warren. (As the YouGov polling shows, these are potentially tougher matchups for Sanders.) But the bottom line is this: Even if Sanders is far from the textbook nominee — and even if he’s likely to have some trouble winning new voters to his side — all of the other candidates have a lot of problems too. Sanders is in the strongest position for now, and he has a high floor of support that should win him delegates almost everywhere, while the rest of the field is a mess behind him. Ceiling or not, that’s why you’d rather be in his position than anyone else’s.


fivethirtyeight--2020-02-18--Election Update: Bloomberg’s Super Tuesday Gamble May Be Paying Off

It ’ s been a good 24 hours for Michael Bloomberg .
Early this morning , on the brink of the deadline to do so , the former New York City mayor qualified for Wednesday ’ s Democratic presidential debate thanks to a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College poll that gave him 19 percent of the national primary vote .
He ’ s up to 16.3 percent in our national polling average — essentially tying him with former Vice President Joe Biden for the first time .
However , he ’ s still 9 points behind front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — it will be a couple weeks before we know how much actual voter support Bloomberg has .
That ’ s because Bloomberg has decided not to contest the first four states on the primary calendar ( Iowa , New Hampshire , Nevada and South Carolina ) , instead focusing his massive financial resources on the 15 states and territories that vote on Super Tuesday .
Since he declared he was running in November , Bloomberg has built out a number of impressive field organizations and has aired millions of dollars ’ worth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we got a handful of state polls that suggest that investment may pay off .
To wit : • Monmouth University , one of the best pollsters in the biz , found Bloomberg in a virtual tie for first place in Virginia .
He and Sanders each received 22 percent support , while Biden grabbed 18 percent .
Former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg got 11 percent , Sen. Amy Klobuchar got 9 percent and Sen. Elizabeth Warren got 5 percent .
• The excellent SurveyUSA produced very similar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Carolina for WRAL News .
Bloomberg and Sanders netted 22 percent each , Biden received 20 percent , Buttigieg got 11 percent , Warren got 8 percent and Klobuchar got 5 percent .
That said , SurveyUSA has some small house effects to consider , so our model interprets this more like a poll that showed Sanders and Bloomberg at 21 percent and Biden at 17 percent .
• Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates also released an Oklahoma poll that gave Bloomberg 20 percent of the vote among likely Democratic primary voters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden at 12 percent , Buttigieg at 11 percent , Warren at 8 percent and Klobuchar at 6 percent .
However , the sample size was only 172 likely voters , which is smaller than we like to see ; accordingly , the margin for error is very high .
But Bloomberg may not want to let his Super Tuesday expectations get too high .
We also got polls of two Super Tuesday states in which he was not doing so hot : • SocialSphere polled Maine on behalf of Colby College and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; Sanders led with 25 percent , followed by Buttigieg at 16 percent .
Meanwhile , Biden got 12 percent support , Warren 9 percent and Klobuchar 4 percent .
When adjusting this poll for house effects , however , Sanders has a slightly smaller lead : 22 percent to 17 percent over Buttigieg .
• Finally , Braun Research ( polling on behalf of Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS ) unsurprisingly found that Sanders has a huge lead in his home state of Vermont .
He nabs 51 percent of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent , Warren at 9 percent … and only then comes Bloomberg at 7 percent .
Biden got 5 percent , and Klobuchar 4 percent .
It ’ s probably not a huge deal that Bloomberg trails in the two New England states ; they are worth only 40 pledged delegates , compared with 246 for the three other states .
But it shows that he may not run the table on Super Tuesday , and that other candidates — namely , Sanders , who also held a share of first place in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may do even better .
That ’ s a big part of why our primary model still thinks that Sanders and even Biden are likelier than Bloomberg to win the most pledged delegates .
While we are forecasting Bloomberg to receive a hefty 812 pledged delegates , on average , after every state and territory has voted , his chances of winning a majority of pledged delegates are just 1 in 12 ( 8 percent ) .
Sanders has a 2 in 5 ( 40 percent ) chance of doing so , while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 10 ( 10 percent ) chance .
And as has been looming for a while , there is still a 2 in 5 ( 38 percent ) chance that no one gets a majority of pledged delegates , which could lead to a contested convention .

It’s been a good 24 hours for Michael Bloomberg. Early this morning, on the brink of the deadline to do so, the former New York City mayor qualified for Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate thanks to a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College poll that gave him 19 percent of the national primary vote. He’s up to 16.3 percent in our national polling average — essentially tying him with former Vice President Joe Biden for the first time. However, he’s still 9 points behind front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders, and — by Bloomberg’s own design — it will be a couple weeks before we know how much actual voter support Bloomberg has.
[Our Latest Forecast: Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary?]
That’s because Bloomberg has decided not to contest the first four states on the primary calendar (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina), instead focusing his massive financial resources on the 15 states and territories that vote on Super Tuesday. Since he declared he was running in November, Bloomberg has built out a number of impressive field organizations and has aired millions of dollars’ worth of TV ads — and on Monday, we got a handful of state polls that suggest that investment may pay off. To wit:
Monmouth University, one of the best pollsters in the biz, found Bloomberg in a virtual tie for first place in Virginia . He and Sanders each received 22 percent support, while Biden grabbed 18 percent. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg got 11 percent, Sen. Amy Klobuchar got 9 percent and Sen. Elizabeth Warren got 5 percent.
. He and Sanders each received 22 percent support, while Biden grabbed 18 percent. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg got 11 percent, Sen. Amy Klobuchar got 9 percent and Sen. Elizabeth Warren got 5 percent. The excellent SurveyUSA produced very similar results in a poll of next-door North Carolina for WRAL News. Bloomberg and Sanders netted 22 percent each, Biden received 20 percent, Buttigieg got 11 percent, Warren got 8 percent and Klobuchar got 5 percent. That said, SurveyUSA has some small house effects to consider, so our model interprets this more like a poll that showed Sanders and Bloomberg at 21 percent and Biden at 17 percent.
for WRAL News. Bloomberg and Sanders netted 22 percent each, Biden received 20 percent, Buttigieg got 11 percent, Warren got 8 percent and Klobuchar got 5 percent. That said, SurveyUSA has some small house effects to consider, so our model interprets this more like a poll that showed Sanders and Bloomberg at 21 percent and Biden at 17 percent. Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates also released an Oklahoma poll that gave Bloomberg 20 percent of the vote among likely Democratic primary voters, followed by Sanders at 14 percent, Biden at 12 percent, Buttigieg at 11 percent, Warren at 8 percent and Klobuchar at 6 percent. However, the sample size was only 172 likely voters, which is smaller than we like to see; accordingly, the margin for error is very high.
But Bloomberg may not want to let his Super Tuesday expectations get too high. We also got polls of two Super Tuesday states in which he was not doing so hot:
SocialSphere polled Maine on behalf of Colby College and put Bloomberg at only 14 percent support; Sanders led with 25 percent, followed by Buttigieg at 16 percent. Meanwhile, Biden got 12 percent support, Warren 9 percent and Klobuchar 4 percent. When adjusting this poll for house effects, however, Sanders has a slightly smaller lead: 22 percent to 17 percent over Buttigieg.
on behalf of Colby College and put Bloomberg at only 14 percent support; Sanders led with 25 percent, followed by Buttigieg at 16 percent. Meanwhile, Biden got 12 percent support, Warren 9 percent and Klobuchar 4 percent. When adjusting this poll for house effects, however, Sanders has a slightly smaller lead: 22 percent to 17 percent over Buttigieg. Finally, Braun Research (polling on behalf of Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS) unsurprisingly found that Sanders has a huge lead in his home state of Vermont. He nabs 51 percent of the vote, followed by Buttigieg at 13 percent, Warren at 9 percent … and only then comes Bloomberg at 7 percent. Biden got 5 percent, and Klobuchar 4 percent.
It’s probably not a huge deal that Bloomberg trails in the two New England states; they are worth only 40 pledged delegates, compared with 246 for the three other states. But it shows that he may not run the table on Super Tuesday, and that other candidates — namely, Sanders, who also held a share of first place in the Virginia and North Carolina polls — may do even better.
That’s a big part of why our primary model still thinks that Sanders and even Biden are likelier than Bloomberg to win the most pledged delegates. While we are forecasting Bloomberg to receive a hefty 812 pledged delegates, on average, after every state and territory has voted, his chances of winning a majority of pledged delegates are just 1 in 12 (8 percent). Sanders has a 2 in 5 (40 percent) chance of doing so, while Biden is clinging to a 1 in 10 (10 percent) chance. And as has been looming for a while, there is still a 2 in 5 (38 percent) chance that no one gets a majority of pledged delegates, which could lead to a contested convention.


fivethirtyeight--2020-02-18--Politics Podcast: Can Michael Bloomberg Win?!

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has surged to 16 percent in our national polling average .
In this installment @ @ @ @ @ , the crew discusses Bloomberg ’ s chances of winning the Democratic nomination .
They @ @ @ @ @ Sanders is a lock to win the Nevada caucuses .
You can listen to the @ @ @ @ @ play ” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes , @ @ @ @ @ favorite podcast platform .
If you are new to podcasts , learn how to listen @ @ @ @ @ publishes Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a @ @ @ @ @ .
Have a comment , question or suggestion for “ good polling vs. bad polling @ @ @ @ @ by email , on Twitter or in the comments .

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has surged to 16 percent in our national polling average. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses Bloomberg’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination. They also debate whether Sen. Bernie Sanders is a lock to win the Nevada caucuses.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: Can Bloomberg Win?
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirtyeight--2020-02-18--6 Candidates Have Made The Nevada Debate — Including Bloomberg

For the first time this cycle , Michael Bloomberg will participate in a Democratic presidential primary debate — and it promises to be scrappy .
The former New York mayor qualified for the Nevada Democratic presidential primary debate just in the nick of time , getting the last poll he needed just before tonight ’ s deadline .
Five other candidates will join him on the stage on Wednesday night : former Vice President Joe Biden ; former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg ; Sen. Amy Klobuchar ; Sen. Bernie Sanders ; and Sen. Elizabeth Warren .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the debate , according to rules set by the Democratic National Committee .
First , a candidate could qualify by getting 10 percent or more in four national , Nevada or South Carolina polls conducted by DNC-approved pollsters and released between Jan. 15 and 11:59 p.m. Tuesday .
Alternatively , a candidate could qualify by getting 12 percent or more in just two Nevada or South Carolina polls from approved pollsters .
Finally , a candidate could have also qualified simply by picking up at least one pledged delegate in Iowa or New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling support to make the stage this time around , one barrier to qualification has been removed : The DNC controversially decided to scrap the requirement that a candidate must have raised money from a certain number of individual donors .
This opened the door for Bloomberg , who is not accepting campaign donations , to make the stage , which he did by hitting 10 percent or more in four national surveys .
The other five participants all got at least one pledged delegate ( although all of them except Klobuchar also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Our Latest Forecast : Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary ? ]
One of the candidates on the outside looking in is philanthropist Tom Steyer .
He hasn ’ t won any pledged delegates so far , and the polling standards were much tougher to meet this time around : Not only were the thresholds roughly twice as high as in the last debate ( after months of incremental increases ) , but the window in which qualifying polls could be released was also only about a month long — much shorter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ However , Steyer will have another shot at qualifying for the debate stage in the near future .
On Saturday , the DNC announced how candidates can qualify for the next debate , which will take place in South Carolina just six days after this week ’ s Nevada debate .
The criteria are essentially the same as the Nevada debate , except for the obvious difference that Nevada polls won ’ t count but Nevada delegates will ( since the debate will take place after Nevada has already voted ) .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be released is even shorter : Feb. 4-24 .
That means that , so far , only five candidates are slated to appear at the South Carolina debate — the ones who have qualified via delegates : So far , only three qualifying polls have been published during the new qualifying period , and with one week to go there isn ’ t much time for many more to be released .
But Bloomberg has cleared the 10 percent threshold in all three , so he needs just one more good poll to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Steyer has a longer path , but he could make it , especially if more qualifying South Carolina polls are released , as he ’ s historically posted strong numbers there .
He also has a shot at nabbing a delegate out of Nevada , which would automatically qualify him .
But there is also a good chance that the two upcoming debates — especially the one in Nevada — will be limited to just six candidates .
If so , they will tie the Iowa debate for the smallest 2020 debates @ @

For the first time this cycle, Michael Bloomberg will participate in a Democratic presidential primary debate — and it promises to be scrappy. The former New York mayor qualified for the Nevada Democratic presidential primary debate just in the nick of time, getting the last poll he needed just before tonight’s deadline. Five other candidates will join him on the stage on Wednesday night: former Vice President Joe Biden; former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Sen. Amy Klobuchar; Sen. Bernie Sanders; and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Six candidates have made the Nevada debate Democratic presidential candidates by whether they’ve qualified for the Nevada debate, as of Feb. 18 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern QUALIFYING POLLS MET THRESHOLD FOR … CANDIDATE National, NV, SC ≥10% NV, SC ≥12% POLLS 1+ IA/NH DELEGATES QUALIFIED Biden 8 1 ✓ ✓ ✓ Sanders 8 1 ✓ ✓ ✓ Warren 8 1 ✓ ✓ ✓ Buttigieg 4 0 ✓ ✓ ✓ Bloomberg 4 0 ✓ ✓ Klobuchar 1 0 ✓ ✓ Steyer 1 0 Gabbard 0 0 To qualify for the Nevada debate, a candidate must reach 10 percent support in at least four national, Nevada or South Carolina polls, or 12 percent support in at least two Nevada or South Carolina polls from qualifying polling organizations. Separately, candidates can also qualify if they won at least one national delegate via the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary. Sources: Polls, ABC News
There were three ways to qualify for the debate, according to rules set by the Democratic National Committee. First, a candidate could qualify by getting 10 percent or more in four national, Nevada or South Carolina polls conducted by DNC-approved pollsters and released between Jan. 15 and 11:59 p.m. Tuesday. Alternatively, a candidate could qualify by getting 12 percent or more in just two Nevada or South Carolina polls from approved pollsters. Finally, a candidate could have also qualified simply by picking up at least one pledged delegate in Iowa or New Hampshire.
Although candidates need much more polling support to make the stage this time around, one barrier to qualification has been removed: The DNC controversially decided to scrap the requirement that a candidate must have raised money from a certain number of individual donors. This opened the door for Bloomberg, who is not accepting campaign donations, to make the stage, which he did by hitting 10 percent or more in four national surveys. The other five participants all got at least one pledged delegate (although all of them except Klobuchar also met the polling standard).
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One of the candidates on the outside looking in is philanthropist Tom Steyer. He hasn’t won any pledged delegates so far, and the polling standards were much tougher to meet this time around: Not only were the thresholds roughly twice as high as in the last debate (after months of incremental increases), but the window in which qualifying polls could be released was also only about a month long — much shorter than all of the previous debates.
However, Steyer will have another shot at qualifying for the debate stage in the near future. On Saturday, the DNC announced how candidates can qualify for the next debate, which will take place in South Carolina just six days after this week’s Nevada debate. The criteria are essentially the same as the Nevada debate, except for the obvious difference that Nevada polls won’t count but Nevada delegates will (since the debate will take place after Nevada has already voted). But the window in which qualifying polls can be released is even shorter: Feb. 4-24.
That means that, so far, only five candidates are slated to appear at the South Carolina debate — the ones who have qualified via delegates:
Five candidates have made the South Carolina debate so far Democratic presidential candidates by whether they’ve qualified for the South Carolina debate, as of Feb. 18 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern QUALIFYING POLLS MET THRESHOLD FOR … CANDIDATE National, SC ≥10% SC ≥12% POLLS 1+ IA/NH/NV DELEGATES QUALIFIED Biden 3 0 ✓ ✓ Sanders 3 0 ✓ ✓ Warren 3 0 ✓ ✓ Buttigieg 2 0 ✓ ✓ Klobuchar 0 0 ✓ ✓ Bloomberg 3 0 Gabbard 0 0 Steyer 0 0 To qualify for the South Carolina debate, a candidate must reach 10 percent support in at least four national or South Carolina polls or 12 percent support in at least two South Carolina polls from qualifying polling organizations. Separately, candidates can also qualify if they won at least one national delegate via the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary or the Nevada caucuses. Sources: Polls, ABC News
So far, only three qualifying polls have been published during the new qualifying period, and with one week to go there isn’t much time for many more to be released. But Bloomberg has cleared the 10 percent threshold in all three, so he needs just one more good poll to earn his spot on the debate stage. Steyer has a longer path, but he could make it, especially if more qualifying South Carolina polls are released, as he’s historically posted strong numbers there. He also has a shot at nabbing a delegate out of Nevada, which would automatically qualify him.
But there is also a good chance that the two upcoming debates — especially the one in Nevada — will be limited to just six candidates. If so, they will tie the Iowa debate for the smallest 2020 debates yet.
Geoffrey Skelley contributed research.