Seth Abramson corrects the record. In NV, Bernie got 34% of the raw vote -- not 47%.

[pnwmom]

In other words, his number of raw votes was in the same general range he had been getting in other events. It is only the peculiar caucus method of assigning delegate equivalents that made it appear that he'd had a sudden leap in popularity.

Just like in 2016, Bernie's success in the setting of party caucuses -- which 2 of the 3 events have been -- is being used to vastly overstate his overall popularity. He hasn't suddenly taken fire. He's just doing well in the usual places he has done well -- caucuses, and nearby NH.

But this time around, instead of 13 caucuses there will be only 6. They're doing a victory dance now because they want everyone else to bow to the inevitable. But they know they didn't really get 47% of voters in NV -- they got 34%. And the path to a majority will still be very difficult.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1231986590488178690.html

Just as it's wrong each time the GOP says "Americans voted for Trump," because they didn't—the Electoral College elected him, the raw vote favored Clinton—you can't talk about "who Nevada voters voted for" using delegate counts rather than raw vote totals.

PS/ A lot of people, in and out of media, are playing games with data, and it's tiresome. If you want to talk about Sanders' delegate haul in Nevada, the number is 46.8%. If you want to talk about *how people voted*, the number for Sanders is 34.0%. Anything else is a lie—period.

SNIP

PS8/ In the raw vote totals, we see Warren 4.7% out of second place in Nevada. We also know that 75% of Nevadans voted early—and something like that number made up their minds on who to vote for weeks (not days) before the caucus. The "days before" data is dramatically different.

PS9/ So if someone is a well-paid contributor at CNN or MSNBC and they're giving viewers *delegate counts* as a sign of a candidate's *current* popularity—or information from *people who made up their mind when the race was in the state it was weeks ago*—they're misinforming you.

PS13/ But even those numbers, which would suggest that (say) raw-vote-total late deciders went "between 33% and 25% for Sanders" and "between 13% and 19% for Warren"—skewing toward the latter number in each case—aren't fully predictive, as media reporting must also be figured in.

PS14/ That is, because media reports wrongly equated delegate counts with candidate popularity—then compounded the error by not distinguishing between early and late deciders in discussing *a current snapshot of the race*—future voters may be influenced by such erroneous reports.

[honest.abe]

1. I hate caucuses. They are so undemocratic.

Damn shame the first 2 out of 3 were caucuses.

[sweetloukillbot]

2. It is still a bump though

Only about 9% and not 20%.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. Is this why there was a blast of "drop out now!" posts on here?

[DanTex]

4. Great! Glad to see anti-Bernie people using first-alignment vote totals as the key metric.

Which means we can now all agree that Bernie won IA, NH, and NV.

[Cal Carpenter]

6. lol

This parsing does nobody any good.

And if people will just be patient and wait a week or so, we will have lots of new numbers to parse!

[pnwmom]

15. Which means that he's done well in the places he's ALWAYS done well -- caucuses

and the neighboring state of NH.

But there will only be 6 caucuses this time -- not 13. And they are all in smaller states and won't contribute much to his popular vote total.

[TwilightZone]

18. He's not using it as the first metric.

He's noting that the claims of 47% that many have been throwing around were false.

[lapfog_1]

5. only people with a lot of time on their hands

can participate.

The casual member of the Democratic party will likely just skip it.

And before anyone jumps on me, I understand that there was "early voting" allowed in Nevada for the caucus (some sort of weird hybrid primary / caucus).

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Yup,thanks for the truthful update.

The Media in their lazy reporting ran with the 47 which was some lame-ass number from some Precinct Caucus on the Strip.

[squirecam]

25. People here sure did

I posted on the error multiple times, in multiple threads.

[Wellstone ruled]

26. Everyone that I spoke to

or asked questions about this report said they knew it was wrong,and the Media refused to correct their mistake. As a reporter from one of the local TV Stations about this Saturday,he just said,we ran with the AP report,and Station Management has not told us to make a correction.

[PatSeg]

8. Perception can affect upcoming primaries

If some voters see Bernie as the clear front-runner, somehow unstoppable, it could affect their vote. On the flip side, the perception that any other candidate is finished (after just three states), there are people who will change their vote.

[rzemanfl]

11. +1. Disinformation sucks. n/t

[PatSeg]

20. Yes

And information can be essentially correct, but misleading at the same time. It is naive to think that after just three states, we have a clear winner, but the narrative benefits Sanders' campaign and could hurt other campaigns.

[Iliyah]

22. And it is a whole lot of it . . .

[dumptrump1]

9. by this logic he won iowa

If we are suddenly using the popular vote to determine a candidate's performance. But he didn't win iowa by 3% like the popular vote said, he lost it by .1%. If we are going to be fair and use the same method for determining a winner as Iowa, we need to attribute the same method as we did in Iowa.

[pnwmom]

12. And he still leads with a minuscule number of voters compared to what's ahead.

But his supporters are trying to influence people into thinking these caucus results, and his neighboring state result, are predictive of what's ahead.

To be fair, he's never gotten above the mid-thirties in raw vote totals in any event. That's not going to get him the majority of delegates needed to win in the primaries.

[dumptrump1]

17. if delegates are all that matters, he will be able to manipulate the system

And pull in the delegates needed while maintaining the minuscule lead. This is why Bloomberg's billions will be helpful at stunting his momentum on super Tuesday.

[thesquanderer]

28. re:" mid-thirties...not going to get him the majority of delegates needed to win in the primaries."

Actually, mid thirties CAN get you the majority of delegates in a primary.

* If no other candidate hits 15%, then mid-thirties gets you 100% of the delegates

* If only one other candidate hits 15%+ but still has less than someone in mid 30s, then the candidate with mid-30s gets the majority (more than half) of the delegates.

* If two other candidates hit 15%+ but, combined, they are still below the candidate in mid 30s, then the candidate with mid-30s gets the majority (more than half) of the delegates.

Also... re:

he's never gotten above the mid-thirties in raw vote totals in any event.

Two points about that...

1. People used to say he wouldn't get outside 20-25 and his "ceiling" keeps creeping up... for some reason, many seem to assume that whatever his best result is so far must be his ceiling, and so far, it has never turned out to be true.

2. The "second alignment" is actually still a raw total... they are actual people's votes after less well supported candidates became unviable... which is similar to the kind of thing we'd see as primaries go on and the less well supported candidates drop out. In that vote tally, he topped 40%, which included grabbing votes from unviable moderates.

[LiberalFighter]

30. Yep! He has an insurmountable number of delegates.

2.16% of what is needed.

[George II]

10. Sanders is also running around telling people he "won" Iowa, when he got less delegates....

....than Buttigieg, and that he "won" New Hampshire when he got the same number of delegates as Buttigieg.

In reality, in the two states of Iowa and New Hampshire, he got 1/2 of a win, not the 2 wins he's claiming.

Makes one wonder, doesn't it?

[dumptrump1]

13. technically he is winning 47% of all the national delegates

And has a double digit lead on both of his closest rivals so far. When Bloomberg enters the race, that will change because clearly the other candidates aren't able to beat a socialist.

[George II]

19. He has 47% (actually 45%) of only 2.6% of the delegates, or 1.2% of all national delegates....

As of today (for some reason there's still one Iowa delegate to be assigned), here's the number of delegates the five current contenders need:

Sanders 1946
Biden 1976
Buttigieg 1966
Warren 1983
Klobuchar 1984

Bloomberg still needs 1991.

In the big picture there's not much separating any of them.

[dumptrump1]

21. true but the early states are a test of those candidates performance

Super tuesday will show their strengths and Bloomberg's, and his billions of dollars will proves why Democrats need him. He has billions in ad time being aired, easily diluting Bernie's message. Bloomberg will win because he can buy what he needs.

[Celerity]

14. here are the final numbers plus the actual delegates awarded (Bernie 24, Biden 9, Pete 3)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/22/us/elections/results-nevada-caucus.html



https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-presidential-delegates-tracker/?sref=QZXE7aNg

[Vogon_Glory]

16. Take heart, we are now voting in primaries

We’re about to find out if Bernie is the Great Oz, or an old man behind the curtain who can’t deliver what he’s promising.

I invoked my inner Toto. I went down to an early-voting polling place, voted early, and bit down on some fabric for to pull away.

[Tom Rinaldo]

23. Your conclusion is inaccurate

You wrote:

"In other words, his number of raw votes was in the same general range he had been getting in other events. It is only the peculiar caucus method of assigning delegate equivalents that made it appear that he'd had a sudden leap in popularity."

Sanders got 24.7% of the popular vote in Iowa

Sanders won 25.6% if the total vote in NH

Sanders won 34% of the popular (first count) vote in Nevada.

These aren't polls, there is no margin of error, these are final results. Sanders rose 9.3% between Iowa and NV. That's not "generally the same" for a 6 person+ contest. That's going from the mid 20's to the mid 30's.

[pnwmom]

27. You're right, I was lumping his popularity in with that stated in past polls. He's never broken

the mid 30 range in polls.

[LiberalFighter]

31. In 2016...

Sanders got 49.9% of the popular vote in Iowa.
Sanders got 60.1% of the popular vote in New Hampshire.
Sanders got 47.3% of the delegates in Nevada (Unable to find popular votes)

[Pacifist Patriot]

24. Great thread, but even Seth is using language imprecisely.

When he says "We also know that 75% of Nevadans voted early..." he's really saying "We also know that 75% of the registered Democratic voters in Nevada who cast ballots voted early." Necessary short hand - especially on Twitter, but an important distinction.

Caucus turnout is notoriously lower than general election turnout. Yes, caucus turnout determines the delegate count and contributes to selection of the party's nominee. But we need to use caution in relying on that as a prediction of how that candidate would have done in a primary situation verses a caucus and how the candidate will appeal to party and non-party voters in the general election.

Personally, I'm very curious to see what happens in caucus states that have switched to primaries since 2016. Maine is part of Super Tuesday when things should still be very much in play for most of the remaining candidates, and Washington is just a week later.

[pnwmom]

29. The state of Washington has already demonstrated the caucus effect.

In our caucuses Bernie won with 74%. In our primaries, with almost 4 times as many voters, Hillary won with 53%.

ALL of our delegates were distributed according to the caucus rules. The primary didn't assign any delegates.

This year for the first time ever Washington voters will get to choose our candidate in a primary. The party leadership finally saw the light.

[LiberalFighter]

32. That was strange when I saw that back in 2016.

[ahlnord]

33. worried

I am concerned about the open primaries, which allow anyone to cross over and meddle in the Democratic Party selection of its nominee. Trump has no challengers (to speak of) and there is no motivation for the right wing to stay in their own lane. I have no confidence that the results of the open primaries reflect the will of the Democratic grass roots. I believe Bernie is being artificially boosted by right-wing meddlers.

[LizBeth]

34. Interesting. Thank you.