Election 2016 Republican Presidential Primary Predictions

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Date of Prediction: 2016-02-22 Version:15

Prediction Map

Confidence Map

Prediction States Won

		26 \|	52 \|
Kasich	0
Bush	0
Rubio	1
Cruz	2
Trump	15
Carson	0
Other	34

Confidence States Won

		26 \|	52 \|
Kasich	0
Bush	0
Rubio	0
Cruz	1
Trump	4
Carson	0
Other	0
Tossup	47

Analysis

Analysis for this prediction can be found in the comments below due to the lack of support for multiple paragraphs.

Prediction History
Prediction Graph

Comments History - show

Version History

Member Comments

By: darthpi (D-PA) 2016-02-22 @ 19:34:51
Tomorrow, the race for the Republican nomination transitions from the early states to the rest of the country after Nevada casts its votes. We will be in probably the single most important week of the campaign, as it is quite likely that after the Super Tuesday states vote on March 1, we are going to be able to say with a fair degree of confidence whether or not Donald Trump is going to steamroll to the Republican presidential nomination, or if there is going to be a long, drawn-out fight between Trump and one of his competitors.

By: darthpi (D-PA) 2016-02-22 @ 19:35:01
As was the case in my last detailed analysis, from January 15, Donald Trump appears to be the most likely candidate to win the Republican presidential nomination, but there is still some question as to exactly how strong a favorite he is. He has shown that his supporters will turn out to vote, something that was previously considered questionable, and that has delivered wins for him in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and a fairly close second-place finish in Iowa. The biggest question Trump's candidacy faces at this point is whether or not the wins in those states will lead to him gaining bandwagon support nationally, as has generally been the case for previous candidates who did well in the early states. If the national polls in the next week show that his support has begun to increase, growing from the mid-to-upper 30s to the lower 40s, then it is quite likely that he will win the nomination with ease, as that would demonstrate that speculation about him having a low support ceiling was wrong. If, however, we don't see any meaningful movement in his national support, that would lend credence to the view that his support does have a ceiling. He may still be able to win the nomination in this sort of scenario, but he would probably require the current multi-candidate field to remain in place, allowing him to win some states where he might otherwise fall short. If the field ever consolidated to a one-on-one race in a low-ceiling scenario, Trump at that point would quite possibly be considered the underdog. A low-ceiling scenario for Trump would also be much more likely to be one that results in a brokered convention, an outcome that is, quite frankly, probably almost pointless to try to game out this early on in the cycle. My current view that Trump is the most likely nominee, but not necessarily an overwhelming favorite, is based on roughly splitting the difference between the high-ceiling and low-ceiling scenarios.

By: darthpi (D-PA) 2016-02-22 @ 19:35:14
What has changed significantly since January is the relative position of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. While Cruz did win in Iowa, it seems to have provided very little in terms of momentum to his campaign, due to the perception that he used dirty tricks to win there. With his third-place finish in South Carolina, it appears that his chances have severely diminished, as his entire strategy was built around performing well across the South. While it is possible he finds some way to turn this around, he is rapidly running out of time to do so. He will probably still win his home state of Texas, and possibly a few highly-evangelical Midwestern states, like Kansas and Missouri, but there is a strong likelihood that he will not find much success elsewhere. Marco Rubio, meanwhile, has at least begun the process of consolidating establishment support within the party. While John Kasich's continuing presence in the race remains a frustration for Rubio, he is at least in a better position than he was in January, when it looked as though he would possibly finish in a distant third or worse in all of the early states. However, Rubio's position is still fairly precarious. I have a fairly strong view that Super Tuesday is essentially a make-or-break day for his candidacy: if he can actually win some states that day, the long grind campaign that I outlined in my January 15 analysis remains plausible. On the other hand, if he flops and doesn't win anywhere, I think the entire premise of his candidacy - the idea that he is the most electable candidate - will probably collapse. Right now, I am only willing to predict a narrow win for him in Minnesota on Super Tuesday, but wins in Virginia and a few other Super Tuesday states remain possible, particularly if Trump does have a low ceiling. Additionally, if he were to pull off an upset win in Nevada, that would potentially indicate that he could do well in Wyoming and Colorado. I'm not sure how meaningful wins in those states would be, since those caucuses are only electing delegates with no actual presidential preference vote, but at this point anything that can be spun as a win is good for him.

By: darthpi (D-PA) 2016-02-22 @ 19:35:26
I was not originally going to classify Nevada as anything other than a tossup state, but I have decided to change my stance on that. While polling there has always been considered especially difficult, it does look like pollsters are getting a better handle on the state than previously. The polls in 2012, while not great, were at least significantly better than the polls in 2008, and the polls in the Democratic race this year were even better, with only low single-digit errors. While I am not willing to classify this as a Strong Trump state, as there is at least the potential that the problems we saw in previous years could re-emerge, I think it would probably be a bit disingenuous for me to call it a tossup. If, however, someone were to get an upset victory over Trump there, it would probably be Marco Rubio, rather than Ted Cruz.

By: darthpi (D-PA) 2016-02-22 @ 19:35:37
I'm not going to go too much into detail about the rest of the states here, as these initial predictions are mostly based more on my perception of how the race is likely to play out generally, rather than anything specific to these states. I have most of them listed as tossups for now, because I am still accounting for the low-ceiling Trump scenario, but that could quite possibly change if the polling evidence discredits that view of the race. One important thing I will remark on is the three caucus states that are not holding presidential preference polls: Colorado, North Dakota, and Wyoming. The predictions in those states merely reflect the candidate I view as most likely to win the most delegates, and the percentages there should be viewed as essentially meaningless. Indeed, I'm not even sure what contest we are predicting in North Dakota, which seems to be voting over several weeks right now, with the state convention taking place in April.

User's Predictions

Prediction Score	States	Percent	Total	Accuracy	Ver	#D	Rank		#Pred
2024 President	/56	/56	/112	%					246
2022 Senate	32/35	25/35	57/70	81.4%	6	1	124	T	305
2022 Governor	34/36	29/36	63/72	87.5%	6	1	11	T	272
2020 President	52/56	39/56	91/112	81.3%	18	6	359	T	684
2018 Senate	32/35	23/35	55/70	78.6%	26	1	67	T	483
2018 Governor	32/36	23/36	55/72	76.4%	26	3	122	T	372
2016 President	51/56	33/56	84/112	75.0%	37	1	87	T	678
2014 Senate	34/36	26/36	60/72	83.3%	11	4	21	T	382
2014 Governor	31/36	17/36	48/72	66.7%	6	3	73	T	300
2012 President	56/56	45/56	101/112	90.2%	30	1	77	T	760
2012 Senate	32/33	22/33	54/66	81.8%	7	1	40	T	343
2012 Rep Primary	45/52	19/52	64/104	61.5%	42	-	25	T	231
2010 Senate	35/37	30/37	65/74	87.8%	26	1	5		456
2010 Governor	34/37	27/37	61/74	82.4%	6	1	29	T	312
2008 President	52/56	44/56	96/112	85.7%	19	1	74	T	1,505
2008 Dem Primary	37/52	19/52	56/104	53.8%	15	-	58	T	271
Aggregate Predictions	589/649	421/649	1010/1298	77.8%

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