MN is not clear at all. At the moment Clinton seems way ahead among Democrats, but there seems to be strong and growing support for Sanders.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanderss-path-to-the-nomination/

And I would suspect that Sanders will do well in MN as well as WI. Massachusetts, as I’ve said before, is probably a good bet. But in the South he has to hope that he just loses by smaller — much smaller- margins than predicted. And I suspect that PA is *not* going to be all that friendly to Sanders, nor states like New Jersey (which has a heavy influence of the “machine” and simply isn’t good demographics for Sanders).

I think the attack on Sanders’ civil rights activism is designed to raise doubts about him particularly in the African-American community. Unfortunately this type of swiftboating isn’t uncommon anymore in American politics.

Alternet, for instance, headlined their story on the piece ”
How a Washington Post Writer’s Attack on Bernie Sanders’ Civil Rights Record Completely Backfired.’ That’s not likely. I think most people are aware that the original story does damage and the subsequent ‘walk-back,’ even eventual retraction, rarely undoes the original damage.

I can’t remember where I read the article (NYT?) but it discussed the different psychology of Black voters in particular, and perhaps it applies to “Hispanics” as well.

Having been disappointed and taken for granted and so on for…well, forever… they are disinclined to engage in wishful thinking; they do not have high expectations that a “revolution” is suddenly going to make their lives better. If anything, the election of President Obama served to bring out the very strong underlying racism in the US, not get us past it, reinforcing that skepticism.

So, I would say the proposed shift in minority response of the second model is a bit extreme. People without trust funds tend to be more conservative; the downside of a Republican victory matters a whole lot to the disadvantaged and potentially disenfranchised.

Also, I’m not sure why there would be much (potential) local variation. If we saw your projected numbers in a few early states, I think it would be a safe bet that Sanders would eventually be the victor.

Victor, you do have to understand that Bill Clinton is often referred to as America’s *first* black president. That’s an indication of how well-loved he was by the African-American community. And in most southern states the African-American vote is more than 50% of the Democratic Party vote – so success in that demographic group is crucial.

If we go back 8 years, we can find this in the Washington Post:

“Obama has swamped Clinton among black voters in each of the 20 contests that had exit polls and large enough samples of African Americans to be meaningful. Just to put that kind of shutout in perspective, black voters represent the only demographic group that the New York senator has not carried at least once during the Democratic primary campaign. Obama now has such a lock on the loyalties of African Americans — 84 percent of the black vote in Alabama, 87 percent in Georgia, 84 percent in Maryland, and on and on — that the black vote is no longer contestable.”

The problem for Clinton now is: Will they come back to her? They jilted her once — granted for an actual African-American candidate — but jilted her nonetheless. Add to that the fact younger voters don’t remember her husband as President. *BUT* if she can solidly lock up the African-American vote (Greg’s 70-30 ratio) she should win the nomination.