Who won the Wisconsin Democratic Primary? (Final)

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I’ll post the results when they are available, after 8 or 9 PM central, below.

Meanwhile, as of 6PM Central time, early info from Wisconsin suggests that Sanders will do very well in today’s primary.

The good news for Sanders: My prediction of 55 delegates for Sanders and 31 delegates for Clinton appears to be on track.

Bad news for Sanders: The same model that predicts that still says 2096 committed delegates for Clinton and 1747 for Sanders by the end of the primary season.

The Wyoming primary, this Saturday, should be about even for the two candidates.

In the New York primary, which is in about eighteen years from now (counted in Primary years) (April 19th), is predicted to go for Clinton over Sanders (150:97) with Clinton taking 188 of the delegates from today through the 19th, and Sanders taking 159.


Final results:

With 100% reporting, Sanders will clearly win the Wisconsin Primary. He will likely get about 56.5% of the vote, to Clinton’s 43.2%.

Media reports this as Sanders taking 47 delegates and Clinton taking 36 delegates, of the available 86 delegates.

(Pause for the arithmetically inclined to key in.)

Often the number of delegates assigned by the press, from whatever sources they use, are preliminary and will be changed later. I’ve found that calculating the ultimate number of delegates for proportionate representation by using my own math works better. So, given proportionate distribution of 86 committed delegates, this would translate into something close to 49 delegates for Sanders, and 37 for Clinton.

This is quite a bit off my prediction. I predicted Sanders would win, but by more than this. Moreover, my predictions for Sanders in states he’s won in have tended to underestimate his performance. So, this looks like a very weak win for Sanders at a time when he needed a bigger win.

On the other hand, it is only one race, so it does not mean much.

On the third hand, Sanders outspent Clinton by something like 3:1 (I’ve heard, subject to correction if you’ve got one), so that makes the win less impressive again.

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8 thoughts on “Who won the Wisconsin Democratic Primary? (Final)

  1. The discrepancy might well be due to the Supreme Court rolling back the Voter Rights Act, which allowed Gov. Walker to implement some bad voting regs in Wisconsin. I’m sure many voters were surprised today when they showed up to vote, only to find out they didn’t have the proper ID. The new voter rules impact mainly the poor, students, and people of color…just the way Walker and Co. intended it work. The voter fraud that is surfacing so far in AZ (http://www.thenation.com/article/there-were-five-hour-lines-to-vote-in-arizona-because-the-supreme-court-gutted-the-voting-rights-act/), MA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuEMOKSaTk0), and other states is quite troubling. So you might need to build that into your model, Greg.

  2. I don’t think that happened here. I’m pretty sure it is easier to vote in the primaries, though I could be wrong.

    In any event, Sanders outspent Clinton by a large margin. Ieth uniform voret supression, the candidatethat spends 3:1, should have a strong advantage.

    Walker has to go.

  3. Greg,

    Yes, money and time spent greatly differed.

    “It’s the tactics stupid”. (Attributed to the Great Sage zebra, ca. 2016)

    So far, I haven’t been surprised at all on how they are approaching this. The H campaign didn’t think they could deliver a knockout blow by winning, and the B campaign got a good return on their greater investment by maximizing the margin, because they have to keep the “momentum” spin going. Much less convincing had he only won by a few points.

    How Walker got there in the first place, and remains, continues to elude me.

  4. Zebra, I think Sanders can and use this victory as a rallying cry because it looks like a good victory. But according to my model, which treats all contests the same, he underperformed. Again, only one datum point, but, had he over-performed THAT would have been impressive. Underperformance is either bad news or no news, not good news.

  5. Greg,

    Yes, I understand the idea behind your model. I go with the “no news”, because the simplest explanation for the variance we have seen so far (on both sides) is my tactics theory.

    There is no “momentum”, and the basics haven’t changed; we would have to see much bigger differences.

  6. Back when MN had their caucuses you laid out the pros and cons of each candidate and ended up caucusing for Bernie. The NY primary is coming up, and though I’m not in the undecided camp, I’m curious about what tipped the scales for you. Do you think you would still cast your vote the same way if the caucus was held today?

  7. I think the spending issue is nothing more than a Clinton camp excuse. Clinton has near 100% name recognition and very few people don’t know her views or history. Sanders could outspend her 10:1 and not catch up in that regard.

    Wisconsin is not the progressive state I grew up in. It’s closer to Arkansas than NY or CA. Your numbers for WI always seemed skewed to me. Similarly, I think your numbers for NY look skewed as well. I think Sanders will come much closer in NY than your model predicts.

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