Friday, February 01, 2008

Obama Surges, Loses Delegates

I have revised my poll-based delegate prediction, and despite a rally by Obama, he actually loses delegates because we now have better polling data from the indispensible Pollster. (However, it's too early to tell what Edwards' pull-out means, except to say that he won't get any of these delegates.) Where possible, I have used their aggregate trend, which also hurts Obama--but more on that in a moment. First the predictions. Based on these data, and using the same methodology (minus Edwards), I arrive at these numbers:
Delegate Count on February 6, 2008
Obama: 1020
Clinton: 1182
In my earlier calculation, Clinton had a lead of 143 delegates, and this current total puts her at 162.

Caveats and things to look for: This is a conservative estimate. Since there's scanty state polling in the 2/5 primary states, Pollster's aggregates reflect older voter preferences. I will release on more of these predictions on Monday or Tuesday, and I'll get a little bolder about adjusting for trends. Below is the revised chart.


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Methodology
I calculated the proportion each candidate would receive based on these totals. (All Democratic primaries are proportional.) In some cases where earlier polling was available and a trend was evident, I adjusted accordingly.Unlike the major media outlets, I excluded Superdelegates, which are highly unpredictable (see here) and mutable.

9 comments:

Chuck Butcher said...

Still old polls and as such, old news. I still think Hillary fatigue is going to hurt her, she just doesn't wear well with other than Hillfans.

So much for any campaigning to persuade people that Dems don't want to grab guns. Both are as bad on that one as it gets in anything like mainstream politics. Hopefully the Supremes will just yank that one right out of their reach.

crallspace said...

I personally don't know any Hilary fans. ANY!

Where are they? Everyone on the right and left hate her! That will be the worst strategy the DEMS have put forth yet, should she get the nomination!

Jeff Alworth said...

Chuck, I will do a final tally on Monday or Tuesday to update these. I recognize they don't capture the current trends, but since it's such a crazy year, predicting trends state-by-state has the feel of a fool's errand. At least this way I can blame the polls.

Crallspace, this may be a function of sampling bias. There are Hillary fans out there, legions of 'em. They're harder to find in certain liberal enclaves of the west coast, though.

Chuck Butcher said...

Well harder to find on the blogosphere...

Jeff, buddy,
Today on CNN, nationwide Obama 49 Hill 46.

You know, one of these days my good liberal friends are going to decide to listen to me...

It's too early for "I told you so"

Make sure you archive this:

Liberal/Moderate Republicans in Congress take a bloodbath

Obama buries McCain

Hardcore safe Rs are more obnoxious than ever, rhetoric up 10x

Views 2 yrs post election, I want to see the campaign first & SCOTUS in v DC.

Kari Chisholm said...

Ah but, Jeff... your "all primaries are proportional" misses a whole lot of richness in the rules and the data.

In most Democratic states, only 35% of the delegates will be allocated proportionally by statewide popular vote. 65% of the vote will be allocated proportionally by the popular vote in each congressional district.

It gets weirder. Not every congressional district is equal. The delegates themselves are allocated by the performance of that district in the most recent presidential election. So, some congressional districts might have, say, only 2 delegates - while others could have 5, 6, 7, or even 8 delegates.

And then there's the way the proportions break down:

In a 2-delegate district, a 51-49 vote gets you a 1-1 split. But in a 3-delegate district, a 51-49 vote gets you a 2-1 split.

4 delegates? 2-2. How big a win do you need to get a 3-1 split in a 4-delegate district? 62.5% or better (because that rounds up to 75%, rather than down to 50%.)

You're on a fool's errand, my friend, because no one - not even the campaigns - have congressional district level polling.

Kari Chisholm said...

p.s. Kudos to Dana Milbank on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann for explaining all that tonight.

Chuck Butcher said...

you know what's really cool? Wayne Kinney explained that a year ago.

Kari Chisholm said...

Wayne Kinney is a genius.

Also, it was David Shuster, not Dana Milbank.

Jeff Alworth said...

Kari, the definition of a blog like this is "fool's errand," so tell me something I don't know. Worse, I botched it by including superdelegates in the total, even though I said I wasn't and worse yet--polling is so volatile that it's very difficult to make an argument stick that it has anything to do with voter mood.

But still, I pick up my lance as we speak--expect my latest version of this chart later today... there are windmills to slay!