Super Tuesday Open Thread (including my predictions)

Looking at last minute polling, it looks like Clinton polling well in Massachusetts, and may well take the state.

Clinton in Minnesota:

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2016/02/29/hillary-clinton-to-make-last-m…

Both Sanders and Clinton beat Trump, but not necessarily the other GOPs, in general election, according to (limited value) early match-up polls.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/01/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton…

Just guessing, I think Clinton will win most if not all states over Sanders.

I think Hillary will win all today's states but for Vermont and Trump will win all the states but for Texas where Cruz will win.

I'd love to be wrong especially about Trump and Id loev tothink Kasich and Rubio would do better because Trump or Cruz are both nightmares but that seems unlikely to me.

FWIW I think its now 95% certain that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic party nominee and 85% certain that Trump will be the Republican one. I'd give Cruz a 10% chance of beating Trump for that and Rubio only a 5% possibility there despite thinking Cruz is actually worst of the trio. Kasich and Carson? No chance.

Then again, I must point out that I got it very badly wrong a few months ago thinking Jeb! would be the Republican nominee although I certainly wasn't alone in that as for example The Young Turks and their yew tube elimination contests here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O1fnKNRgUU

right at the start ..

Must admit I also thought Scott Walker and Rand Paul among others would do better.

Oh & Cenk Uygur's final result.

Yep. A lot can change in a six months or so.

And the actual main event election is still what .. nine months away.

D'oh!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWGmhEX0o-Y&list=PLTpcK80irdQjvV77AZhLO…

Way past my bedtime. Sorry.

CO and MN are caucus states, so they come down to which campaign does the better job of turning out their people. OK is a toss-up. Those three plus VT (where Bernie is a favorite son) are the only places I would give Bernie a chance of winning. And if Hillary wins everywhere but VT, I'd say it's all over but the shouting.

On the Republican side, Cruz has a shot at Texas, but the polls favor Trump everywhere else. Though I'm hearing that in CO the GOP rigged the rules so that the actual voters don't count, so Rubio might get a de facto win there.

I'm not surprised that Rand is out of it at this point, though I expected him to hold on through the NH primary. I expected Walker and Jeb to do better. I also expected Trump to have flamed out by now, but I realized some months ago that only Trump could beat Trump for the GOP nomination--none of the other candidates could do it.

Well, Massachusetts isn't looking good for Sanders unless younger people show up at rates approaching twice what they did in 2008. Not likely.

Sanders needs to absolutely crush Clinton there. And he won't. To bad. Massachusetts has long been a kind of lefty bellweather for Democrats (along with Wisconsin and Minnesota).

Oh well. I'd have thought the neighboring state effect would be larger, and the large number of college campuses would help. But clearly people in the suburbs are going to vote their class as it were.

I could be wrong (and would like to be) but...

Eric Lund, Colorado is a caucus state for the Democratic party. For the Republicans, not so much.

http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_29563108/colorado-gop-blundered…

Jesse: Massachusetts isn't necessarily that friendly with Vermont ever since that war with New York back before the Revolution!

Well, there is that.

More seriously, I do hope my old home state goes for Sanders. If you want to see a place that was just killed by 40 years of neoliberal policy, Massachusetts is one. The headlines go to Detroit, but my old home (Lynn) never really recovered from the first big recession in the 80s. Massachusetts is a rust belt state no matter how you slice it, and Boston is very much an example of what happens when you go to a FIRE economy (as is New York City).

But oh well. I think Sanders will move the debate leftward. But he isn't getting the nomination unless something pretty out of left field happens.

Just got back from caucusing. In my precinct, Sanders won over Clinton close to 2:1.

Many newcomers to the process. At least one Republican (who intended to vote in both primaries, so a Voter Fraudster, but he backed off on that idea). Lots of old timey Democrats voted for Sanders, I think, but there was also a large group of young to middle age white males who had previously not been engaged in the process before and weren't overwhelmingly happy about certain core Democratic issues (like health insurance for trans procedures, reparations/apologies for Native Americans/African Americans, etc. etc. ... the usual But-But-Bro-Why-Would-You-Say-That stuff). Mind you, al but one either voted in favor of the resolutions each time or kept their mouths shut (in Minnesota one rarely votes no, just get quite), but they had clearly never encountered these pretty standard liberal issues before.

I've got no information on other precincts.

Pretty good turnout, close to 2008, I suspect.

Rubio came to My Fair City earlier today and told Minnesotan Republicans, a group overlapping considerably with those who elected Jesse Ventura, that Trump was like Ventura and thus a great embarrassment. I think he might have been booed.

Clinton's big victories have mainly taken place in states that have no significance for Democrats in the general election. Despite her impressive performance in for example Alabama, Clinton will not win the state's electoral votes, and in America's primitive electoral system that's all that counts. Sanders did better in states that Democrats will win or have a good chance of winning. This seems to confirm the Sanders campaign view that he'll do better in the coming primaries.

I still think that Clinton will be the party's nominee, but also that the party will benefit from a prolonged campaign. Where the Republican race has been characterized by juvenile taunts and insults that have reduced the party and its candidates, the Democratic one has been respectful, much more substantive, and has made both candidates stronger. The extent and passion of Sanders's support has moved Clinton to the left, and I'm not so sure that her move is simply a matter of cool calculation. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the Sanders campaign has given her an excuse to move where she feels more comfortable. In any case, the Democratic race has moved the party's debate to the left and strengthened its progressive wing. Cynically ignoring that would lose many of the voters Sanders has inspired. If Sanders wins, I think the civility of the Democratic race, the basic agreement between the candidates, and the recognition of what's at stake would enable the great majority of Clinton supporters to support him.

The important thing is that the party unite around its nominee, no matter who that nominee is. A Republican victory must be avoided.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2016/02/28/whom-should-i-vote-for-cli…

Donald Trump

"I'm going to get along great with Congress. Paul Ryan, I don't know him well, but I'm sure I'm going to get along great with him," the front-runner for his party's nomination said during his Super Tuesday speech. "And if I don't, he's going to have to pay a big price."
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/271433-trump-rya…

Give him an offer he can't refuse.

It seems that the liberal revolution is limited to liberal states, which will give Clinton the nomination. Hillary will win liberal states in the general, but I wouldn't count on a lot of revolutionary voters showing up for an establishment candidate. The authoritarian revolution seems more broad-based, with Trump and Cruz getting about 60% almost everywhere, which is not overwhelming, but enough. Again, hard to say whether establishment Republicans will hold their noses and vote Trump (or Cruz), hold their noses and cross over to a centrist, establishment Clinton, or just stay home. I still think both candidates are going to be weak.

This is working off cosmicomics comment, but anyone who wants to provide a rational explanation is encouraged to do so.

There's this meme now that I see constantly about "Hillary wins big in states that will go Republican in the general, so..."

I have two problems with it:

1. I honestly, and in no way from a partisan perspective, cannot figure out what the reasoning is for drawing any conclusion based on that observation.

2. It isn't freakin' true!

Please note: Oklahoma hasn't voted for a Democrat in about 50 years. But Bernie torched the results with some enormous margin.

Also, at a more detailed level-- go to the NYT maps on the front page and click on Massachusetts. All the Bernie victories are in consistently Republican areas, and around Boston, the liberal bastion, and full of college kids, went for Hillary.

Anyone?

OK did go to Sanders. It seems that the liberal revolution is also possible in very white states that have suffered in the oil price collapse. OK also went for Cruz followed closely by Trump, so apparently they're hurting enough to vote revolutionary all around.

#19
Clinton's biggest victories have occurred in southern states that have been voting Republican. This is a fact. In Democratic or swing states, Sanders has done better than in states that generally vote Republican, sometimes beating Clinton. This too is a fact, and Oklahoma doesn't change that, and neither does breaking states down into districts or neighborhoods. This is a little like arguing that one cold year or one cold region negates the warming trend. Secondly, I'm not drawing any conclusions from that. As previously stated, I believe that Clinton will be the nominee, I'm inclined to believe that she'd be more electable, and I don't believe that Sanders's domestic agenda would be appreciably different from Clinton's. The enthusiasm of a limited number of young people doesn't make for a political revolution, especially in the face of Republican obstruction and Democratic ambivalence. Again, what's important is a Democratic victory. If the Republican standard bearer is Donald Trump, I believe that either Democrat would win. The Republicans would not be able to unite behind him, and they would also find it hard to unite behind Ted Cruz. Nonetheless, my fear that the Republicans could be successful in tarring Sanders remains.

The problem with the idea of breaking down states by what will happen in the general is that for this to be meaningful, Clinton voters have to refuse to vote for Sanders, and visa versa.

The information from countless polls indicates that the fast majority of voters like them both and will vote for either in the general election.

Putting this another way, when forced to chose between two candidates, everyone chooses exactly the same number of candidates: one. Obviously. Meanwhile, the candidates are interchangeable. So, the argument totally falls apart.

This argument is part of the denial phase of campaign death. Or maybe the bargaining phase.

Yeah, probably bargaining phase.

Correction: my last comment was to #20.

#18
"...the liberal revolution..."

An oxymoron if there ever was one!

"I wouldn’t count on a lot of revolutionary voters showing up for an establishment candidate."

Which mainly seems to be evidence of the political immaturity of those voters. If they don't get what they want (and they wouldn't, even if Sanders was elected) they'd teach the country a lesson it would never forget! And in the process they'd say fuck you to any action against climate change and make their own very special contribution to the fossil fuel establishment. When Donal speaks, Exxon ejaculates oil.

#21
"OK did go to Sanders. It seems that the liberal revolution is also possible in very white states that have suffered in the oil price collapse."

The moronic naïveté of some young Sanders supporters defies belief. Sanders received less than 30% of the "establishment" vote – Republicans + Clinton. (Unless, of course, you accept that Clinton voters don't see such a large difference between the two Democrats and would feel comfortable voting for Sanders.)

#23
Please note that Sanders would not be able to carry out his policies, and that in practice there would be almost no difference between the two. Sanders is a reformist, not a revolutionary. So is Clinton. There are differences of quantity, not of quality. The main difference is that Sanders stands for a more restrained foreign-policy.

Oops
...if ever there was one!

cosmicomics 22,

I am in agreement with everything you are saying, except that this meme is part of the divisiveness that we both would like to avoid, and is being used by what are likely Republican trolls as well-- they go far beyond your comment.

You did say "that's all that counts", though, and that is not helpful. And if we're trying to do a sophisticated analysis, we do indeed have to take into account things like (virtually) open primaries (MA and OK at least, but I haven't looked at others).

Bernie will do better where there is not a large minority population, and will do better in caucuses perhaps. I am objecting to linking with the general election history/potential rather than more fundamental factors. That Bernie hasn't fired up African-Americans and Hillary has is an important fact.

cosmicomics #25,

OK, strike what I said about both of us wanting to avoid divisiveness.

Ah, nothing convinces me to believe someone like ad hominem arguments.

Greg #24 (and others),

Just go look at the NYT comments. The completely irrational "States that go R in the general election don't count" meme frequency is remarkable.

Sorry to sound conspiratorial, but much of this must be part of the Republican trolling strategy.

Somehow, as you say, Blue states are going to go Red if Hillary is the nominee?? Makes no sense at all.

In Long Island, a vote for Clinton is a vote for Trump, at the moment.

http://projects.newsday.com/politics/2016-siena-college-poll/

First, a clarification. The term liberal revolution can be legitimate in a historical context. It makes no sense in relation to what Sanders is trying to accomplish. Sanders is a reformist in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, but unlike Roosevelt there's nothing innovative about what he wants to do. He wants to reconnect to a tradition that's been pushed aside since the Reagan years. The domestic changes he's proposing aren't more radical than those that were enacted under Richard Nixon. Tax rates were higher then than what Sanders is proposing. When asked to name someone he admired, he named FDR and Winston Churchill. Churchill was a great wartime leader, but he was also a supporter of British colonialism. He didn't name Eugene V. Debs or anyone from the socialist tradition. He sometimes mentions Denmark as an example. Denmark is not a socialist country. Denmark has a capitalist free market economy and a well developed social welfare system. I would say that Denmark is more advanced than the U.S., has a far better electoral system, and a better form of government, but it isn't radically different. And, to the best of my knowledge, Sanders isn't proposing an amendment that would change America's antiquated system of representation – only getting money out of politics. In other words, Sanders is proposing a return to a less corrupt time, a less unequal time: Eisenhower without McCarthy and the Cold War, but with healthcare.

#27
" That Bernie hasn’t fired up African-Americans and Hillary has is an important fact."

Yes, it is, but in a state by state winner takes all system the end result is determined by electoral votes, not popular votes. So the American system has repeatedly enabled the loser to win, most recently George W. Bush. And it's in the interest of the Republican Party to preserve that system.

#28
I've already seen at least three comments from Sanders supporters saying that they or people like them wouldn't vote if Clinton is the nominee. I don't vote in American elections and I'm not particularly focused on who the Democratic nominee is. But I am focused on the negative consequences of an American government dominated by the Republican Party. I am indignant at the foolhardy purity of persons who would risk that if their political demands aren't met. The American election affects the entire world.

#31
"In Long Island, a vote for Clinton is a vote for Trump, at the moment."

That's not what the link shows. Also, it tells us nothing about how Long Islanders normally vote.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2016/03/02/super-tuesday-what-does-it…