The Sanders-Clinton battle for the Democratic nomination is virtually even after one inning. With 44 unpledged delegates to this summer’s National Democratic Convention in Philadelphia up for grabs in this week’s Iowa Caucus, the Sanders-Clinton battle lived up to pundit’s recent expectations.
Clinton received 49.8 percent of the vote. When this total is rounded off to its nearest tenth, she received 50 percent of the ballots cast. Sanders received 49.6 percent, which gives him a 50 percent total too, when rounded off to the nearest tenth.
This is about as close as any race can be at the conclusion of the first inning of play. For her slight edge in Iowa, Clinton will receive 23 delegates and Sanders will receive 21.
According to Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com, Sanders has a 91 percent chance of winning in inning two, which will be played in New Hampshire next Tuesday. Silver bases his projection on results from 65 polls. Based upon the ten most reliable polls, Sanders percentage of victory in New Hampshire will be 56.8 percent of the vote. This will distribute the state’s 24 delegates as follows: Sanders 13 and Clinton 11.
Silver says that Sanders will have to do more than tie Clinton to gain any advantage. Here is why:
If Sanders ekcs out a mere 56.8 percentage point victory, his 13 delegates when added to the 21 he received in Iowa will come to 34. The same number of delegates that Clinton will have coming out of New Hampshire, when her 11 delegates are added to her Iowa total.
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In this event, Sanders-Clinton fight will head to South Carolina deadlocked with 34 delegates each. The winner will need 3,636 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.
South Carolina has a total of 53 delegates who are not pledged to either candidate. According to Silver, Clinton has a 94 percent chance to defeat Sanders in the Palmetto state. Taking an average of the percentage point margin of victory in the top ten polls in the South Carolina contest, Clinton will receive 65.1 percent of the votes. Accordingly, she will receive 34 of the state’s delegates, with 21 going to Sanders.
Given this scenario, Clinton will emerge from inning three with 68 delegates to Sanders 55. This gives her a 13 delegate lead going into the fourth inning Super Tuesday donnybrook .
The Democratic race is coming down to Super Tuesday, more commonly called the SEC Primary because of the number of states who have state universities competing in the Southeastern Conference. This is something that Sanders has been banking on, but not what Clinton had in mind last year, when she launched her inevitable run for the White House.
There are a total of 455 delegates at stake on March 1. The largest contingent of delegates selected this day will come from Georgia with 102, followed by Massachusetts with 91, Minnesota 77, Colorado 66, Alabama 53, Arkansas 32, North Dakota 18 and Alaska with 16.
After March 1, the race for the Democratic nomination should come into clearer focus.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/primary-forecast/new-hampshire-democratic/
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-needs-more-than-the-tie-he-got-in-iowa/