538 Democratic primary model is up

[Sorenroy]

I know this is no longer the map, but, to the same basic point of Fubart/DCS, it feels like 538's strive for an average leads to a scenario that has a zero percent chance of happening. Is there really a world in which, after winning 44 of the 46 state races, Biden isn't even hitting 40% in any of the final states (barely in DC)? The strive for "he's either dropped out or is at 70%" means that we get a projection of a future that has no chance of happening. Maybe the model clears up after a few of the early races, but it feels unusable at this point for specific numbers.

[Sorenroy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeunWvAkjqM

538 mentioned on their most recent podcast that the debate is factored into the model as the equivalent of 6 days of campaigning. So, it is saying there are 10 days in campaign time between yesterday and the New Hampshire primary. Now that we're past the debate, the polls done will be much more aggressively factored into the model.

[Sorenroy]

I was actually working on updating my prediction last night, so I have a pre- and post-adjustment map. Map shows the odds of the leading candidate winning the state, not the percentage they are expected to get. Green = Sanders; Blue = Biden; Purple = Klobuchar. Since I was just looking to use these for my own purposes, I did not record Puerto Rico's percentage in the first map.


Pre-Issue:

Post-Issue:

[Sorenroy]

Given Biden's rise in South Carolina and Sanders's across the board fall, I decided to make an update of the map by state. Shown are the odds of the current leading candidate winning, not their share of the vote. Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada are shown as the odds when the model was frozen before results started coming in.

Map as of Thursday, February 27th at 1:33 PM.

[Sorenroy]

I decided to restart something I did in 2016 and look at the delegate race from the perspective of the percentage of remaining delegates needed for a majority for each candidate. Below is the current race as of today:


Percent Needed:
Sanders — 50.18%
Buttigieg — 50.67%
Biden — 50.95%
Warren — 51.13%
Klobuchar — 51.16%
Everyone Else — 51.34%


Additionally, I decided to use 538's projections to find what this race might look like moving forward:



Every candidate but Biden and Sanders have no path to a majority after March 17th (Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and Arizona), and both Biden and Sanders lose their path on April 28th (New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware). Hypothetically, if only one candidate ended a day with a path to a majority, we could see a late rally around the leader effect to avoid a convention, but with both Biden and Sanders missing the mark on the same date it's harder to envision. Of course, it's likely that most of the minor candidates drop out once they hit a rough Super Tuesday and remove their small continued collection of delegates from the process. Again, an issue with following 538's model where candidates might be winning by 50 points or have dropped out at a given point in the race.

[Sorenroy]

The model has been updated post Klobuchar dropout.

Majority:
No one — 69%
Sanders — 17%
Biden — 14%
Bloomberg — 0.1%

Plurality:
Sanders — 54%
Biden — 45%
Bloomberg — 2%
Warren — 0.1%

Klobuchar is still the second most likely candidate to win Minnesota. She has a 23% chance to win outright and is projected to get 16% of the vote and 12.2 pledged delegates.

[Sorenroy]

It's interesting, the fact that 538's model freezes on the morning of each election day means that we get a map that's not dissimilar to predictions here on the Atlas (in the sense that they have previous states baked in). Anyway, here's an update of what the model shows as of their pre-March 10th results freeze. Shown are the odds of the leading candidate winning, not the percentage they are expected to get.