Super Tuesday was a watershed night in American
politics. Each party all but crowned a
polarizing figure who would be, in his or her own way, a historic nominee. Hillary Clinton, of course, would be the
first woman to top a ticket, and Donald Trump, well, how shall we say
this? Never has a major party been so
completely rejected by its rank and file, who are on the verge of nominating a real
estate mogul and reality show superstar to lead the party, a man with little
dignity, few policies, and no principles at all.
But if Super Tuesday was thusly epic, the aftermath may be
even wilder. The math suggests that both Clinton and Trump will now sail to the
nomination, Clinton more easily than Trump, but both still in the fast
lane. But it is a long way to the
conventions, much less Election Day, and both candidates may face threats that
are unprecedented in modern times.
Hillary Clinton is under investigation by the FBI, and it is almost
impossible for anyone to have an objective point of view on what they might
find, and when. Donald Trump, on the
other hand, could be sabotaged by his own party, if any of their frantic
machinations materialize into an Idea, something creative, something – anything
- that could be implemented in time to deny him the nomination.
Super Tuesday itself went more or less according to
plan. Clinton won eight races to Sanders' four, sweeping the six Southern states by an average margin of – can it be? --
39 points. She took home 496 delegates to 332 for
Sanders, and her lead in delegates swelled to 1,054 to 427. She is 44% of the way to the 2,382 needed for
the nomination, and such a lead is virtually impossible for Sanders to
overtake. This is largely due to the
fact that delegates in Democratic primaries are usually awarded proportionately
(rather than winner-take-all), meaning that Sanders has to grind out a series
of wins by roughly the same margin as he won New Hampshire (60/39), without the
natural advantages he had in New Hampshire, a neighbor state for him that has
fewer minorities than any state save West Virginia. Clinton won the South on the strength of
colossal margins among African-Americans, approximately 80/20.
On the GOP side, Donald Trump won seven states, a
validating night for him in races that were largely held in what was once
thought to be Ted Cruz country. Trump’s
good fortune did not end there. Though Cruz
had a far better night than Marco Rubio, winning three states to Rubio’s one,
including his home state of Texas, there was not enough “separation” between
the two for Rubio to drop out (or even remotely consider it). And John Kasich put up a decent showing in a
few states (Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia), so he will hang around as
well, at least until his home state Ohio on March 15. Only Ben Carson was totally crushed, and he
finally dropped out today.
Trump picked up 237 delegates, Cruz 209 (including 99 from
Texas) and Rubio only 110. Rubio was
hurt by barely missing the 20% “threshold” in Texas as well as Alabama and
Massachusetts. Overall, Trump has 319
delegates to 226 for Cruz and 110 for Rubio, with Kasich 25 and the newly-departed
Carson with a mere seven. Those numbers
would seem to suggest a hearty race is underway that can last for months. That, in my view, will not prove to be
true. Instead, I see a race that is
close merely by the coincidence of Cruz winning Texas and gaining a huge
delegate coup, but that is an outcome that is not easily replicable – and thus
the race could be more or less over in just two weeks.
How? Well, simply
stated, Trump is well ahead in the polls in every consequential state in play on
March 8 and March 15. The March 8 races
are proportional allocations, thus even if Cruz won them all he would likely
pick up only a handful of delegates.
But, more to the point, Trump leads Kansas and Mississippi by a 2:1
margin, and Michigan by 18 points.
When you get to March 15, you have five big states and the
races flip to winner-take-all. In those
five states, Trump is up by double digits in Florida (Rubio’s home state),
Illinois and North Carolina. He is up by
five points over Kasich in the latter’s home state of Ohio. (There is no polling in Missouri.) And all this polling is before the further momentum for Trump created by the glowing Super Tuesday headlines. One would have to anticipate a bump for Trump in most if not all of these states.
So, it is possible
for Cruz or Rubio to win most of these states and make it a real race. But it is simply not likely. Not at all likely. I’ve speculated that the only thing Trump
could do that would really go “too
far” would be something like blurting the “n-word” right out loud. Well, he has not done that, but he did the
next worse thing in failing to renounce the Ku Klux Klan’s David Duke. This flap dominated several news cycles right
before Super Tuesday. And he still won
seven states.
What can the GOP
do at this point to derail him? Finally
convince Kasich to drop out? Not nearly meaningful
enough to matter, and he’s hanging in until Ohio anyway. Cruz?
Highly unlikely when he has twice as many delegates as Rubio. How about Rubio? Not before Florida.
Perhaps Cruz and Rubio will somehow join forces, right now, before it is too late? What are they going to do, flip a coin to see who veeps for who? Very hard to imagine, especially when "Mr. Next in Line" status is at stake, and Cruz has that delegate lead over Rubio.
How about encouraging a Mitt Romney independent run? A page out of the Teddy Roosevelt playbook,
although Teddy was a former president (as opposed to a former loser) when he
ran as a Bull Mooser in 1912, against GOP successor and sitting President
William Howard Taft. Roosevelt and Taft
split the GOP and Democrat Woodrow Wilson won easily in the wake of that
mess. But could Romney actually beat
Hillary and Trump? Hard to imagine he
would do any more than repeat TR’s fate.
I’m not sure what else the GOP elites have up their sleeve,
but they’ll keep thinking. In their
minds, a Trump candidacy threatens their hold on the Senate, maybe even their
tight grip on the House. They will try
anything to keep that from happening.
HOW DID WE DO?
We made 79 separate predictions of candidates’ percentages
and rank by state (12 Democratic races with two contenders plus 11 GOP races
with five contenders). For these 79
predictions, we were off on average by four points per candidate (excluding
Minnesota, it was just three points off.)
We were correct on 57 out of 79 rankings, or 72%.
This is not far from the standard we set in the first 8
races, when we were 8 for 8 in picking winners and off by less than three
points per candidate. But we were better
on the rankings, with that 72% correct just ahead of the 67% we achieved with
those first 39 candidate predictions in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and
Nevada.
So onward! If you
want to look at how we did on all 79 predictions, take a look below!
State
|
Party
|
Candidate
|
Predict.
|
Actual
|
Abs. Diff
|
Pred. Rank
|
Act. Rank
|
Abs Rk Diff
|
Super T
|
DEM
|
5.0
|
0.2
|
|||||
ALAB
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
73
|
78
|
4.8
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
27
|
19
|
7.8
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
|
AmSo
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
65
|
68
|
3.4
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
35
|
26
|
9.3
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
|
ARK
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
70
|
66
|
3.7
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
30
|
30
|
0.3
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
|
COL
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
51
|
40
|
10.6
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
49
|
59
|
9.9
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
|
GA
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
72
|
71
|
0.8
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
28
|
28
|
0.3
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
|
MAS
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
53
|
50
|
2.7
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
47
|
49
|
1.5
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
|
MN
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
60
|
38
|
21.7
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
40
|
62
|
21.7
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
|
OK
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
48
|
42
|
6.5
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
52
|
52
|
0.1
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
|
TN
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
68
|
66
|
1.9
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
32
|
32
|
0.4
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
|
TX
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
69
|
65
|
3.8
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
31
|
33
|
2.2
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
|
VT
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
13
|
14
|
0.6
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
87
|
86
|
0.8
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
|
VA
|
Dem
|
Clinton
|
67
|
64
|
2.7
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
Dem
|
Sanders
|
33
|
35
|
2.2
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
|
State
|
Party
|
Candidate
|
Predict.
|
Actual
|
Abs. Diff
|
Pred. Rank
|
Act. Rank
|
Abs Rk Diff
|
Super T
|
GOP
|
3.5
|
0.3
|
|||||
ALAB
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
45
|
43
|
1.6
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
ALAB
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
18
|
21
|
3.1
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
ALAB
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
22
|
19
|
3.3
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
ALAB
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
10
|
10
|
0.2
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
ALAB
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
5
|
4
|
0.6
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
ALSK
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
40
|
34
|
6.5
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
ALSK
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
30
|
36
|
6.4
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
ALSK
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
20
|
15
|
4.9
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
ALSK
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
6
|
11
|
4.9
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
ALSK
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
4
|
4
|
0.1
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
ARK
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
34
|
33
|
1.3
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
ARK
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
33
|
31
|
2.5
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
ARK
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
26
|
25
|
1
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
ARK
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
5
|
6
|
0.7
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
ARK
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
2
|
4
|
1.7
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
GA
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
42
|
39
|
3.2
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
GA
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
28
|
24
|
4.4
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
GA
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
22
|
25
|
2.5
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
GA
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
6
|
6
|
0.2
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
GA
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
2
|
6
|
3.6
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
MASS
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
46
|
49
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
MASS
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
21
|
18
|
3.1
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
MASS
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
18
|
18
|
0.1
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
MASS
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
11
|
10
|
1.4
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
MASS
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
4
|
3
|
1.4
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
MN
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
44
|
21
|
22.8
|
1
|
3
|
2
|
MN
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
23
|
37
|
13.8
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
MN
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
21
|
29
|
7.9
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
MN
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
6
|
6
|
0.2
|
4
|
5
|
1
|
MN
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
6
|
7
|
1.2
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
OK
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
36
|
28
|
7.7
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
OK
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
27
|
34
|
7.4
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
OK
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
24
|
26
|
2
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
OK
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
8
|
6
|
1.8
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
OK
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
5
|
4
|
1.4
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
TN
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
43
|
39
|
4.1
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
TN
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
24
|
25
|
0.7
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
TN
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
23
|
21
|
1.8
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
TN
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
7
|
8
|
0.6
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
TN
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
3
|
5
|
2.3
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
TX
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
42
|
44
|
1.7
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
TX
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
31
|
27
|
4.2
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
TX
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
20
|
18
|
2.3
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
TX
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
4
|
4
|
0.2
|
4
|
5
|
1
|
TX
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
3
|
4
|
1.3
|
5
|
4
|
1
|
VT
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
42
|
33
|
9.3
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
VT
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
22
|
19
|
2.7
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
VT
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
19
|
30
|
11.4
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
VT
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
13
|
10
|
3.3
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
VT
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
4
|
4
|
0.2
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
VA
|
GOP
|
Trump
|
42
|
35
|
7.3
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
VA
|
GOP
|
Rubio
|
28
|
32
|
3.9
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
VA
|
GOP
|
Cruz
|
20
|
17
|
3.1
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
VA
|
GOP
|
Kasich
|
6
|
9
|
3.4
|
4
|
4
|
0
|
VA
|
GOP
|
Carson
|
4
|
6
|
1.9
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
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