Is Hillary still inevitable?

[Chichiri]

First of all, forget the polls. Completely ignore the polls, the projections, the predictions, the pundits, the partisans, in fact ignore all the P's. I'm not even going to use the letter P from here on out. Just ignore it.

Look at the margins and the demos.

FiveThirtyEight, working with David Wasserman of the Cook organization, assigned two target numbers to each state which reflect the demo factors in each state, and assuming the national average was 50-50. For instance, if Hillary has 50% of the vote nationwide, we would not think her to get 50% of the vote in South Carolina -- it's largely black, largely rural, and largely conservative. Similarly, a 50% national vote for Bernie would not translate to a 50% statewide vote in Vermont, for obvious reasons.

Here are a list of the states that have voted so far, along with how far off the target each state has been, and to whose advantage that offset was.

Iowa: 5 off, Hillary.
NH: Dead on.
Nevada: 3 off, Hillary.
South Carolina: 7 off, Hillary.
Alabama: 9 off, Hillary.
American Samoa: 1 off, Hillary.
Arkansas: 4 off, Hillary.
Colorado: 2 off, Bernie.
Georgia: 9 off, Hillary.
Massachusetts: 5 off, Hillary.
Minnesota: 1 off, Hillary.
Oklahoma: 1 off, Bernie.
Tennessee: 11 off, Hillary.
Texas: 22 off, Hillary.
Vermont: 2 off, Bernie.
Virginia: 10 off, Hillary.
Kansas: 4 off, Bernie.
Louisiana: 4 off, Hillary.
Nebraska: Dead on.
Maine: 1 off, Bernie.
Michigan: Dead on.
MS: 9 off, Hillary.

Hillary has come in ahead of target in 14 contests, Bernie in 5, and three contests were right on target. Do we see any structure here?

There are two could-be reasons for this data. First, the models are wrong. Second, Hillary is decisively winning. Which should we believe?

Let's look more closely the data.

One thing that stands out is Hillary's advantage above target in the true south states. But she has also come in ahead in states like Massachusetts, Minnesota, Iowa, Nevada, et cetera. Bernie, as you might guess, does his best work in white, liberal states like Colorado and Maine.

But there are two other things: First, Bernie has not met or beaten his target in a single state which did not already favor him in the demos; conversely, Hillary has beaten her target in five Bernie-favoring states. Second, Bernie's "wins" have all been by four delegates or less; Hillary regularly falls ahead by high single digits and even double digits. (One double digit state was Tennessee, a state which slightly favored Bernie.) Most of these big wins were in the south, where she was highly favored anyway. However, there is no similar thing on Bernie's side. Iowa and Massachusetts favored Bernie by six and nine delegates. Bernie lost them both.

So the model is balanced, in that all the targets sum to the same figure of 2,026. The margins in the targets also match what we'd think to see. We should see Hillary advantaged in minority-heavy, less liberal states, Bernie in white-heavy, more liberal states. We do see that. So there's not much reason to think that the model is wrong.

Conversely, the results and margins are more or less what we'd think to see if Hillary was winning the race nationwide: Bernie winning (in the sense of beating his target rather than absolute numbers) a few states by small margins, Hillary winning more states by larger margins. Moreover, there is outside evidence for this in the form of national surveys. Right now, the average is Clinton 51.9, Sanders 37.6. If undecideds are distributed evenly, Hillary would have about 57.2% of the vote -- and right now, she has 58.4% of all awarded delegates.

So Hillary is winning by any and all objective metrics. But is that lead insurmountable?

Most states after March 15 favor Bernie, albeit by small margins. Future states which Bernie has a five-or-more-delegate advantage are Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Washington*, Wisconsin*, Indiana, West Virginia, Oregon*, and Montana. Only states with asterisks give him double-digit advantages. Thus far, Bernie's margin of victory in states which he's "won" is 2 delegates. If we increase that to 10 delegates in the asterisked states above, and maintain the average in all other states, Bernie regains 42 delegates on his 90-delegate deficit. If we double the above numbers, he regains 84 delegates on his 90-delegate deficit. This does not account for any ground that Hillary gains on him.

So the answer is, if we continue to work our hearts out to get Hillary into office, then yes, she is inevitable. If we slack off, then it's a different story. But we're not going to do that, are we?

[Lucinda]

1. No slacking!

[SharonClark]

2. Good analysis

I could be wrong but did anyone in the Clinton campaign every say that she was inevitable? The only time I heard 'inevitable' was from talking heads or anti-Hillary folks who used to gin up other anti-Hillary folk.

[Chichiri]

3. Robby Mook recently started to im_ly it by looking at delegate math.

See my thread on Robby Mook.

[Thinkingabout]

4. She is ahead, and ahead in her projections, we will not sit back and accept one state as determining

the outcome of this race. She split the delegates, she was already ahead and we will continue to add the numbers to her delegate count, this is the number which counts. She is already half of the required delegates and several states coming up in her favor, we will get the delegate count. There are still some undeclared super delegates, I think she will get a number of those, we are winning.

[Cha]

5. Thank you, Chi!

[fleabiscuit]

6. That put me on stable footing. Thanks. K&R!

[Ratty]

7. Thanks for talking me down

Starting to listen to some of the noise and it was getting to me.

[BlueCaliDem]

8. Reading your OP, it appears that commercial polls are trying to make Hillary voters complacent

as they've successfully done in MI. This should be a wake-up call to all Democrats NOT to give in to outrageous poll numbers.