Talk Elections

Show me your primary predictions. Bonus for analysis.

Obviously all of ours will be way off from whatever actually happens, but I could see O"Rourke doing well in Iowa and in most of the heartland and western states. Warren would win NH but it would be close and negated by being closer than expected. Booker would do well in SC. Harris might win an early Caucus state or two, but California would keep her afloat for a while despite her and Warren blocking each other and allowing Booker and O'Rourke to establish themselves as the top two leading into a divided convention.

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Biden declines to run in mid-2019 as his polling numbers slide. O'Rourke excitement fizzles quickly and he does the same. Kamala Harris dominates over a large field as the Democratic establishment throws their support behind her. Sanders acts as a weak challenger, vowing to stay on until the convention.

(Switched it to the Atlas-used colour scheme)

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Kamala Harris
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren

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Red - Warren
Blue - Biden
Green - Harris
Yellow - O'Rourke

So basically what I see happening is this turning into a three way race between Harris, Warren, and Biden. I think the early contests are very much decided by single digits, with most candidates in the single digits. Biden's win in Iowa, Warren's in New Hampshire, and Harris' in Nevada and South Carolina early on establish those three as the frontrunners. O'Rourke performs well enough in those primaries (particularly Iowa and Nevada) to stay in the race until a while after Super Tuesday, although his last state wins are on Super Tuesday.

I could see this going to a brokered convention, possibly. In this scenario if Biden doesn't win the number of delegates outright, I think O'Rourke and his delegates may play kingmaker.

I dont have a map, just a comment. Assuming Biden doesn't run and Bernie does, its a 2 way contest between Bernie and Harris, with Bernie getting IA and NH. But the 3rd place finisher in IA is crucial. If its Warren, Harris coasts to victory behind a solid performance in the south. If 3rd place in IA is Gillibrand or Booker, Sanders wins IA and NH and eventually the nomination with Harris unable to consolidate the female and black vote. 

I will do this based solely on candidates who are actually in the race. That means no Biden and no Beto. I looked up the primary schedule for 2020 to finalize this; I think it's fairly solid given the current contenders.

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SANDERS
HARRIS
BOOKER
WARREN
KLOBUCHAR

In Iowa, Warren starts off with a strong showing, barely eking out a win with about 25% of the vote. Sanders places second, closely followed by Harris and Klobuchar. Warren expects to ride this momentum, but as with so many Iowa winners, she will have peaked very early in the race.

Sanders wins New Hampshire, as expected, and Harris wins South Carolina and Nevada. The emerging race is now between Sanders, Harris, and Warren. Gillibrand drops out, as do Gabbard and various minor candidates. Klobuchar and Booker remain in the race, waiting for their home states to vote and hoping this will give them the momentum they need.

On Super Tuesday, California (which has moved up in the order of primaries) and Texas vote for Harris, along with Virginia, Alabama, and North Carolina. Booker splits the black vote in Tennessee, leading to a surprise win for Sanders. Warren and Sanders win their home states, and Sanders takes Oklahoma. Sanders is now very far behind Warren in his delegate count, but he's still waiting for the Midwest states to vote-- and for Warren to drop out.

(As of right now, there is no date for the Minnesota caucus-- but let's say Klobuchar wins it at some point here before dropping out. There's also no date for New York, which wants to move its primary up. If Gillibrand stays in long enough to run for her home state, the vote will be so split that the delegate allocation will be a wash. I'll give it to Bernie just for how far left the state is, though.)

Louisiana holds its primary all alone, and Booker surprises pundits by winning in a very split electorate. Harris and Sanders are too focused on Super Tuesday Part II to care. When the day comes, Sanders gets his much-needed boost by winning three of the four contests-- Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri-- while Harris wins Mississippi. Warren remains in the race, as the New England states haven't voted yet, but the recent drop-outs have benefited Sanders and Harris more than her and Booker.

Harris wins Arizona, Florida, and Illinois, as Hillary Clinton did, due to turnout among black and Latino voters. Sanders, however, wins the symbolically important Wisconsin primary, and goes on to dominate Super Tuesday III. He wins Connecticut and Pennsylvania, while Warren takes Rhode Island and Booker barely manages wins in Delaware and Maryland. With their opportunities running out, Warren bitterly ends her campaign and endorses Sanders, while Booker drops out and endorses Warren. This leaves us with a two-way race.

Now we have bad news for Harris. The next few primaries, in order, are Indiana, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. Of these, I don't see Harris winning anything more than New Mexico, Arkansas, and maybe New Jersey with Booker's endorsement, but even that seems like a stretch. Sanders will win big with the rural/white working class, and people will begin to think he has the most momentum in the race, despite still being behind in delegates.

Most of the remaining primaries don't have dates yet, and they might end up deciding the outcome of the primary depending on who's still in when they happen. This all seems like an eerie repeat of 2016, with the race coming down to Sanders and a woman who has the DNC's backing. I do think Sanders will outperform his 2016 race due to name recognition and other factors, but in the end my money is on Harris. Either way, it will be a very hotly contested race between these two candidates.

I don't understand how Warren wins IA. Detailed policy proposals?! Ha! She's running in the same lane as Sanders with less money, less charisma, and arguably, less electibility. Even the geography doesn't make any sense — Warren poaches a state from one of Sanders's regional strongholds, but wins nothing else apart from MA and RI? I'm not even a Sandernista, but it seems pretty clear to me he's got the leftmost wing of the Party basically sewn up.
  

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Sanders vs Harris

Heres the image on Imgur because I don't have permission to post images or links yet - V4JWhgV.png

Based on currently declared candidates

Kalama Harris wins Iowa with Sanders coming second and Klobuchar coming a semi-close 3rd but Klobuchar's lacklustre results finishes any decent news coverage that she had on a national level. Sanders wins New Hampshire with Warren coming 3rd with only about 8% of the vote signals that she will have a bad campaign. Sanders narrowly misses out on Nevada and loses South Carolina by a small but not thin margin

Super Tuesday is mainly winning for Kalama Harris with Sanders winning Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and obviously Vermont. Warren wins Massachusetts but her only other decent showing is in Oklahoma where she was born. Klobuchar wins Minnesota by a decent margin which keeps her campaign on a lifeline. Harris wins Kansas from her Super Tuesday momentum. Sanders wins Maine while Harris wins Louisiana. Michigan, Missouri and Ohio all surprisingly go for Sanders while Harris wins Mississippi. Arizona and Florida go for Harris while Illinois and Colorado go for Sanders. Come April it was clear the race was going to be between Harris and Sanders.

The first primary of April was Wisconsin where Klobuchar squeezed out the narrowest of victories against Sanders which would be her last real success in the race. April 28th was a sweep for Sanders winning Connecticut, Deleware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island in a very large triumph. After these primaries both Warren and Klobuchar ending their campaign. Warren endorses Sanders while Klobuchar stays quiet.

May started with Indiana which Sanders Won and then West Virginia which sanders won in a landslide. At this point, Harris hasn't won a single primary for 2 months which made her seem like the underdog in the campaign at this point. Sanders supporters at this point would be confident in victory. On the 19th of May Harris was embarrassed again by losing Arkansas where she expected victory. Sanders also won Oregon and Kentucky.

On the 2nd of June Kalama Harris finally won her first primary in 2 and a half months by winning New Jersey along with New Mexico. Sanders won Montana and South Dakota.

I don't know what the delegate count would be after the primary finished on the 16th of June but You would assume that Sanders would have a Majority or a Near Majority of Delegates which would make him the Favourite for the nomination.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) - 36 states + D.C., 53%
Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) - 12 states, 32%
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) - 1 state, 12%
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) - 1 state, 3%

Why does Cory Booker drop out?

You can give it to Klobuchar if you want. I'm just trying to keep with the tradition of Iowa winners burning out fast.

That doesn't make any sense, either. Gore won IA, as did Kerry and Obama and HRC. So the last four Democrats who won the IA caucuses didn't 'burn out' — they were the eventual nominee. Are you at all familiar with political history? I don't know that Klobuchar will win IA, but with Sanders in the race, I know she stands a much better chance than Warren. Klobuchar's kryptonite is Biden, just as Warren's kryptonite is Bernie.

No need to be a condescending wank. I was clearly referring to the primaries in general, not just Democratic ones.

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Warren
Harris
Booker
Sanders
Klobuchar

After a hard slog to get to Iowa, the results are very mixed. With Warren on top but with multiple competitive candidates taking large prizes (Sanders, Harris, Booker, Klobuchar in roughly that order). This does give her enough of a boost to overcome Sanders just barely in New Hampshire, thus beginning of the shift on the left end of the party in her direction. Nevada is won convincingly by Harris after having made it her make or break point of the early states instead of either of the other two, she confidently moves forward. On that super Tuesday, this helps her beat back the strong challenge by Booker in the south (for the most part) and her home state. The vote splits however in Texas and Virginia, yielding a narrow Warren victory in both. Meanwhile Sanders gets his only wins in Oklahoma and Vermont. He continues to fight on for a while until the campaign cash runs out. He's much derided for not endorsing Warren later in the contest after Booker fails to pick up steam again, making it a Warren vs Harris race and doesn't even attend the DNC. Warren eventually gets Booker's endorsement which helps her hit the delegate threshold via New Jersey late in the process.

Explain to me how the predilections of the Christian right have any bearing on the Democratic race. Over the past 20 years, the IA caucuses have been perfectly predictive of the eventual Democratic nominee. There's no state with a better track record, because a better track record isn't even possible. (NH is 1/4, btw.) But on the Republican side, Huckabee and Santorum and Cruz galvanized the theocrat vote, and that's somehow relevant? Forgive my condescension, but you simply don't have a point.

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BUTTIGIEG
DELANEY
GABBARD
WILLIAMSON
YANG

That's not a tradition at all. In fact the only "burnout" was Tom Harkin, who had the home-turf advantage. Whoever wins Iowa is pretty much guaranteed nomination. Even Hillary won it in 2016.

Yup. Iowa usually picks the nominee for Democrats (Kerry, Obama, Clinton).

Bumping this in 2020.

https://uselectionatlas.org/PRED/PRESIDENT/2020D/PREDMAPSP/pe202016255P47.png

Thanks to Horatii for the formatting. I updated my prediction yesterday and honestly I think it's too much of a Biden blowout. I had an overly complex equation to find a result so it wasn't just based on my own opinion, but it lead to a Biden consolidation that just won't happen in the real world. Some opposition candidate will end up coming forward and winning a few states, even if Biden becomes the clear winner.

I decided to go back and update my prediction given Sanders's continued climb in the polls. I think it gives Sanders a little too much of an edge in some states, especially those with large Hispanic constituencies, but the map is much more in line with what I think the race might actually look like. Again, this is based on a rough equation I put together, which is why it doesn't match my exact thinking.

I've noticed that my predictions seem to swing wildly whenever I update them. My first was one of the most Warren-favoring on Atlas (back near the height of her polling), my second, posted almost two weeks ago, was one of the most Biden, and my current one (above) is one of the most Sanders. I doubt that bodes well for the accuracy of my predictions this year.

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Not getting into specific margins.

I'm most iffy about Illinois & New York. However, I'll go bold and say Bernie eeks past both

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Maybe IL and Pa flip too.

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Biggest surprise TX.

Bellwether states: IL, OK, NY, OH, MI, PA and TX

With less than a day left before Iowa, I entered the last of the polls recorded by 538 and updated my model/prediction one last time. Horribly, it threw this back at me: a brokered convention where Biden and Sanders are locked into a fierce competition that leads to a devastating delegate/popular vote split. I can only imagine how insane the convention would get if this were the actual result, as the split and narrowness of the result would likely allow the few remaining Superdelegates to choose Biden on a second ballot.

I'm not quite ready to give up on Biden being the main moderate contender yet, but I do think that Sanders has taken the clear lead. The map is also probably too favorable to both candidates, as strong Buttigieg showings in both Iowa and New Hampshire, plus Bloomberg's strength in later states, probably mean that the field stays divided for longer. My Atlas New Hampshire prediction is locked into >30% Sanders, but I just don't see his room for growth in such a crowded field. Would love to be proved wrong, but with five candidates potentially hitting double digits, and decent Yang + Gabbard campaigns, where does the extra couple of percents come from to push him over that threshold?