The Mad World of Donald Trump

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

Maybe it'll be Trump vs Sanders:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/bernie-sanders-could-still-win-the-democratic-nomination----no-seriously_b_9898436.html

The argument being that, if Sanders does well enough in the remaining primaries, the superdelegates may change their mind and plump for him instead. Mmmmm.

I'd suggest at having a look at the 538 primary tracker.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/

It's interesting because what 538 did was use demographics to estimate the level of candidate supportin each state,
and then adjusted them proportionally so that the final result was tied. It's clearly not supposed to be a prediction, but another hand, it is very good at predicting the results. For example, they had Indiana down as 39-44 to Sanders, and that's exactly what happened. They have Sanders down as winning every state there is left with the exception of NJ and DC. (They don't know about the VI and PR, lack of data I think). But even if he does, Hilary will still have a clear majority of delegates.

The other point would be that, because Sanders successes have tended to be in low-turnout caucus states, Clinton has an even bigger lead in terms of the popular vote. In fact her lead is so big, that she would still be ahead in terms of the popular vote, even if Sanders managed to do get scrape a draw in terms of the delegate count.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-is-even-further-behind-in-votes-than-he-is-in-delegates/

Personally, I think the chances of the superdelegates changing their mind and going for Sanders is somewhere between nil and zero.

michaels

Will they base their decision on democratic primary votes or Xxx vs Trump polls?

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Will they base their decision on democratic primary votes or Xxx vs Trump polls?

AIUI, the Superdelegates are meant to be The Voice of The Establishment at the Democratic Party conference. They are there to tip the balance.

Generali

antrobus wrote: »

The argument being that, if Sanders does well enough in the remaining primaries, the superdelegates may change their mind and plump for him instead. Mmmmm.

I'd suggest at having a look at the 538 primary tracker.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/

It's interesting because what 538 did was use demographics to estimate the level of candidate supportin each state,
and then adjusted them proportionally so that the final result was tied. It's clearly not supposed to be a prediction, but another hand, it is very good at predicting the results. For example, they had Indiana down as 39-44 to Sanders, and that's exactly what happened. They have Sanders down as winning every state there is left with the exception of NJ and DC. (They don't know about the VI and PR, lack of data I think). But even if he does, Hilary will still have a clear majority of delegates.

The other point would be that, because Sanders successes have tended to be in low-turnout caucus states, Clinton has an even bigger lead in terms of the popular vote. In fact her lead is so big, that she would still be ahead in terms of the popular vote, even if Sanders managed to do get scrape a draw in terms of the delegate count.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-is-even-further-behind-in-votes-than-he-is-in-delegates/

A very interesting piece, thank you for linking to it.

antrobus wrote: »

Personally, I think the chances of the superdelegates changing their mind and going for Sanders is somewhere between nil and zero.

I make no claim either way. Time, as always, will tell.

michaels

Generali wrote: »

AIUI, the Superdelegates are meant to be The Voice of The Establishment at the Democratic Party conference. They are there to tip the balance.

Generally the party establishment are the ones who put democratic success above ideology aren't they?

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Generally the party establishment are the ones who put democratic success above ideology aren't they?

That's how I believe that it works.

The super delegates, I believe, came out of the Carter fiasco.

Filo25

michaels wrote: »

Will they base their decision on democratic primary votes or Xxx vs Trump polls?

I would say there is a fair concern that Sanders polling advantage compared to Hillary against Trump may prove to be temporary, and reflects the fact that a lot of the general population know a lot less about him than Clinton or Trump, when the proper attack ads get going from the Republican side that is likely to change.

michaels

Then again it appears there are a lot of votes out there for an 'anti-govt' figure whereas Hilary is obviously the most inside of insiders so whilst Clinton vs Rubio might have made sense perhaps Sanders vs Trump is also the best play?

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

That's how I believe that it works.

The super delegates, I believe, came out of the Carter fiasco.

I think what happened was that, back in the good old days, the party machine largely controlled the appointment of delegates, because only a minority of states ran primaries. So in 1968 despite the fact that McCarthy had 'won' the primary contest, (*) the Democrats picked Hubert Humphrey, who hadn't even bothered contesting them. Humphrey duly lost to Nixon.

So the Democrats decided to change the system, and give the voters a much bigger say. They ended up choosing McGovern. And McGovern lost to Nixon by a humongous margin.

So the Democrats decided to change the system again, and appoint some party grandees as 'superdelegates' in order to make sure that they never again picked some radical left-wing lunatic who would lead the party to such an electoral humiliation. Or something like that.

(* His main opponent was, of course, killed during the process. Which helped.)

HornetSaver

antrobus wrote: »

(* His main opponent was, of course, killed during the process. Which helped.)

Try telling that to John Ashcroft.