FiveThirtyEight: Tonight's win is not likely to help Sanders

[flpoljunkie]

@FiveThirtyEight
Tonight's win is not likely to help Sanders

Right now, Sanders looks like he’ll earn about five to 10 more delegates than Clinton in Indiana. That means Clinton will have an elected delegate lead by the end of the evening of around 280 to 285 delegates. In order to catch Clinton in the elected delegate count, Sanders would need to win over 65 percent of the remaining elected delegates. That’s actually higher than it was before Indiana voted.

Perhaps as importantly, there’s not anything in the Indiana result that should make one think that Sanders has dramatically changed the result. According to a demographic model published last week by Nate, Sanders was expected to win the state of Indiana by 7 percentage points. That’s about the size of his lead right now. Indeed, you can look at the exit polls and see that Clinton is holding onto the demographic groups she usually wins. For instance, she is beating Sanders among black voters by 52 percentage points. That’s actually slightly better than she did among black voters in New York.

I know that some people will think tonight’s polling error in favor of Sanders could be predictive of errors to come. As I pointed out in a different post, it’s actually par for the course so far in this primary. It’s nothing like the Michigan polling error we saw earlier in the campaign. Sanders will need far larger polling errors going forward to have a shot at the nomination.

As I said at the top, Sanders will continue to fight on, and he will win votes. He looks like the favorite in the West Virginia primary, for example, which is coming up next. He’ll also do well in the remaining states in the middle of the country. Still, it looks like Clinton and Trump are going to be the nominees of their party.

https://twitter.com/FiveThirtyEight/status/727675319646334977

[dchill]

1. Wrong again. It ALREADY helped him.

[LonePirate]

8. How did it help him?

[casperthegm]

9. Momentum?

Momentum and buzz definitely has an effect. And money. I just donated again. Feel the Bern

[LonePirate]

15. Momentum in this campaign has been less reliable than polling. It changes from week to week.

Buzz seems to be stable or constant but momentum changes too frequently for it to be a gauge of anything.

[mythology]

21. What momentum?

As the article points out the demographics didn't change.

And the gain in delegates wasn't enough to offset the reduction in available remaining delegates.

[casperthegm]

23. Momentum, as in media coverage creates(or at least potentially creates)

Sanders loses, as many expected, then momentum remains flat. He unexpectedly wins and there is the potential to gain momentum as more people talk about it and him. The delegate math is what it is- not disputing that (unless someone wants to start another stupid super delegate discussion).

[dubyadiprecession]

30. Momentum won't help BS....

She only needs less than 200 delegates to win the nomination. She can easily get those from california alone.
Bernie doesn't have a ghost of a chance to win.

He might as well hold a joint press conference with kasich to quit.

[GreatGazoo]

18. +1

538 is propaganda pretending to be accurate polling

[dchill]

19. That is indeed the case.

[COLGATE4]

31. Yep. It helped him to get farther behind. nt

[Goblinmonger]

2. Didn't Nate say 90% chance Clinton wins Indiana?

Didn't he? But now Sanders winning is what was expected?

This guy just needs to go away. He had a good run 4 years ago. He just looks silly now.

[bvf]

10. Yep. The OP has "Squirrel!!" written all over it. n/t

[Adrahil]

25. No, actually, he didn't say that.

That wasn't Silver looking into his crystal ball. That was what the POLLS showed, along with his likelihood model. If you look at his assessment of what the state SHOULD do, and lo and behold, that assessment was pretty much exactly right.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/

But don't let me rain on the "let's ignore the actual evidence" crowd. You folks remind me of climate deniers and creationists. ANYTHING to reach your predetermined outcome, the actual evidence be damned.

[Goblinmonger]

28. So his "likelihood model" is crap, then.

Got it.

[Adrahil]

29. Well, only if you think 90%=100%

His models have actually done pretty well through the primary season. But the thing about predictions is that they can be wrong. And if there is a 90% chance of something occurring, there is a 10% it won't.

[CentralCoaster]

3. LOL 538! Filled with fail, part of the HRC campaign.

[CrowCityDem]

4. Nate's right. Bernie needed 64% remaining yesterday, 65% remaining today. He lost ground.

[pandr32]

7. And Hillary's campaign didn't spend a dime

She ran no ads, or anything--basically leaving him to have at it. Why? Because it doesn't make any difference--she's got it! She won a bunch more delegates and is even closer to clinching the nomination before the convention.

Bernie is preaching to the choir, but let's face it--he loves to, even though he is hurting the nominee. Then he plans to use that argument at the convention for them to take the nomination from HC and give it to him. "See, I have smeared her so much that it will be a piece of cake for Trump to pick up where I left off, so I should get the nomination instead."

[Stuckinthebush]

24. He can use this "win" to raise more money

He and Jane will need it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Lately, Nate has been right about as often as Bill Kristol.

[FlatBaroque]

12. Below the belt!

[Cobalt Violet]

6. This doofus has no credibility

[frylock]

11. There's a 92% chance that tonight's win is not likely to help Sanders.

[litlbilly]

13. Nothing Nate can say to fix his total fuckup this time. 0 credibility going forward

I hope he cashed his check from the Hill camp, or it might bounce.

[Garrett78]

14. Nate Silver didn't write the article.

Even if he had, though, the article would still be correct. Sanders is actually in a bigger hole following last night's primary, and it's not hard to understand why. It's basic math/logic. The percentage of remaining delegates that he now needs is *greater* than it was before yesterday.

[Dem2]

16. Shhhh, he's the new boogieman

Yep. A guy who averages polling data - a math guy - is now under the bus.

Along with Rachel Maddow, Howard Dean, Paul Krugman, the NAACP, Al Franken, Bill de Blasio and any other Democrat that doesn't fall in line.

[Garrett78]

22. The amount of utter nonsense on display is staggering.

From the Clinton-Red State meme to 'there were no headlines about Sanders winning Indiana' to 'Sanders can easily win the nomination' to 'white men are key to victory in November', I'm constantly flabbergasted by the stuff I read here at DU. It's bothersome on the one hand but equally fascinating on the other.

[Gothmog]

17. The nomination fight is over and Sanders lost

[John Poet]

20. Well, "tonight's victory" didn't help you either, Nate Silver.

There's a 99% chance that people will stop citing you as some kind of infallible polling god.

[JimDandy]

26. This wasn't a caucus state. No more excuses are left now for fucking up, Nate Silver.

538 "gold standard" is now as good as lead water.

[TM99]

27. Typical Clinton surrogate.

He made a big mistake. Instead of owning up to that and acting like a true non-partisan and non-biased observer and scientist (and I use that term loosely!), he allows a member of his staff to act like a petulant child. Well, Sanders may have won, but it didn't really help him. Nah!

What a non-entity this man and his 538 needs to become!

[Scurrilous]

32. K & R

[bjo59]

33. Just unrelenting. You'd think the guy would get bored with himself.