I’ve been working on a model to predict primary outcomes for the Democratic selection process, and generally, the model has proved very effective. After each set of primaries I’ve adjusted the model to try to do a better job of predicting the upcoming contests. The most important adjustment is the one that affects the current model.

The model assumes that we can predict voting behavior by ethnicity. Given this assumption, the distribution of potential Democratic participants by ethnic group then gives the final likely division among primary voters or caucus goers across the two candidates, then this translates directly into the division of committed delegates for that state. The estimates of within-group voting are made from exit polls.

The most recent revision divides states into “Southern” (meaning deep south) and “Not Southern,” and uses different sets of numbers for each of the two kinds of states.

To date, about 32% of the committed delegates have been assigned, with 769 for Clinton and 502 for Sanders. Next Tuesday, March 15th, an additional 691 delegates will be committed to the two candidates. So, almost exactly 50% of all the delegates for the entire process will be committed. (None of this counts uncommitted delegates, sometimes called “Super Delegates.”)

If Clinton and Sanders each do about as well as they have done in the past, this will leave Sanders with a significant gap to close, and he probably can’t win the nomination. If Clinton does better, that closes the door to Sanders even more firmly. But, if Sanders does well, that may help close the gap and considering Sanders as a possible nominee is reasonable.

The current model, which has the interesting dual property of giving Sanders more delegates than the polls currently predict, but also, according to my own evaluation of my own model, probably underestimates Sanders’ performance, suggests that Clinton will earn more delegates than Sanders, but not by too much. So, if the underperformance of the model is strong enough, they could come close to a tie. At present, here are my predictions for the outcome of Tuesday’s set of primaries:

Florida: Clinton will win but by less than expected. The outcome will be so close that I can’t rule out a Sanders win here.
Illinois: Sanders will win, but this may be close to a tie.
Missouri: Sanders may win by a small margin. However, keep in mind that it is very difficult to classify Missouri as a “Southern” vs. “not-Southern” state. I picked “Not-Southern” for this prediction. But we’ll see. If Missouri goes all “Southern” then Clinton wins there.
North Carolina: Clinton will win by a very large margin (70-something to 30-something delegates).
Ohio: Sanders will win by a small margin.

UPDATED

Here is the output of the model indicating the expected number of committed delegates to be awarded on Tuesday to the two Democratic candidates:

If these numbers are close to what happens, or if Sanders does better, then Sanders is still in the race, though with a tough road ahead of him. If, in contrast, the polls turn out to be right, it would indicate that Sanders’ over performance in earlier contests may have been temporary, and the chance of him winning the primary is very small. At present the polls show Clinton way ahead in Florida, Clinton barely ahead in Illinois, a near tie in Missouri, Clinton way ahead in North Carolina, and Clinton a little ahead in Ohio. In other words, I’m suggesting that Sanders will win three out of the five races, while the polls suggest he will one or may be two.

Let’s look at the FiveThirtyEight predictions to see how they compare.

FiveThirtyEight gives Florida to clinton (nearly 100% chance of wining). They predict a strong Clinton finish in the state, about 2:1.

For Illinois, FiveThirtyEight says about the same, a better than 2:1 projected result, with Clinton carrying away a lot of the delegates.

For Missouri, FiveThirtyEight has Clinton probably winning, but not by too much, so only a small pickup for her.

For North Carolina, FiveThirtyEight has Clinton winning just shy of 2:1 over sanders.

For Ohio, FiveThirtyEight predicts a Clinton win, and a fairly strong one.

So we can see that there is a huge difference between FiveThirtyEight’s prediction and mine, and the two methods are very different. Both of the methods used by FiveThirtyEight rely on some combination of opinion or support-related information, while my method uses none of that. For this reason it is not surprising that the two methods produce very different results.

The point of going over the FiveThirtyEight predictions is that they do a very good job of representing the polling data, which overall strongly suggest that Clinton will run away with the nomination. The problem is, these data have been suggesting this since Iowa, and generally speaking, Sanders has far outperformed those estimates.

The final outcome in terms of delegates from all five races will be approximately:

Clinton: ca 364 delegates

Sanders: ca 326 delegates

This will mean that, at the end of the day Tuesday, Hillary Clinton will have about 56% of the committed delegates, to Sanders’ 44%, with about 50% of the committed delegates assigned.

However, in comparing all of the candidates in polls asking people across the country which Republican they would vote for, Romney is NOT a clear winner. In fact, Gingrich tends to score a couple of points ahead of Romney. In one recent poll (NBC/Wall Street Journal) Gingrich was 9 points ahead. In the most recent poll (Gallup Tracking) Gingrich was just 2 points ahead.

But the preference for Gingrich does not align with national polls comparing the various republican candidates with Obama. In these polls, Romney tends to come closer to Obama’s lead than does Gingrich, who tends to get his ass whupped by the President, with Barack Obama showing a double-digit lead over the hapless and blithering ex-speaker.

But a lot can change in two days. Gingrich is on the attack against Romney, and his main point of attack seems to be to point out how Romney is on the attack against Gingrich. I don’t expect this to change the outcome of the Florida Primary. Romney will win there, although is it always possible that he will win by less than the current polls suggest. But what may happen over the longer term is a shift in the overall view of Gingrich and Romney by Republican voters in general. I expect there to be a downgrading of support for both “Front Runners” as they continue to slam each other. Santorum will come out a minor winner over the medium term, possibly even taking a state or two if his strategy is managed effectively and his money holds out.

Just for fun here’s Ron Paul’s attack ad ad d d attack attack ack ack ad d against Gingrich:

And here’s a video about Mitt Romney (this one’s been around a while):

And in Otter Matters:

Polling data from RealClearPolitics.

The “Date” is the approximate mid point of the polling period, and this crosses several polls summarized at Real Clear Politics. Notice that Santorum and Paul are a) sharing the same pole position in the polls. Last. That is what we expect of Paul and it is of no importance in his case because he is utterly irrelevant. But for Santorum, this is more interesting because he is a candidate that could move into a position of relevancy, and whom I will not rule out as a factor yet in this race. Still, he is in a holding pattern.

Gingrich’s move forward prior to the South Carolina primary seems to be holding; He is giving Romney a run for his money. It is not clear who will win this primary but if the final polling numbers are roughly like those in these polls, then neither candidate can really claim a clear victory, a sense of momentum, or any sort of dominance.

But a lot can happen in just under one week (to Florida) and in the time between now and the first Tuesday in March (Super Tuesday).

It has been pointed out (summarized by Ed Brayton) that the Republican Establishment is very worried about Gingrich running for President. There are two numbers that underlie this particular fear: 100 and 60. The second is Gingrich’s unfavorability number. It is a high number and it is solid. Unless he rescues a baby from a burning building and then stops himself from ruining it by talking about it, that number will not go down, though it could possibly go up. The first number is his name recognition. This is a huge problem. If his name recognition was lower he could try to shore up his dislikable-ness among those who have not learned to despise him yet (good luck with that, Newt!) but since everybody already knows him, and a strong majority of people dislike him, there is no chance of that happening. It is important to note at this time that Obama’s likability rating is much better than Gingrich’s.

If Newt Gingrich runs for the Republican Party, they will surely lose. If anyone else runs, they will probably lose as well, but if Gingrich Runs, they will defiantly, really, for sure lose.

For this reason, we can expect sabotage.

Ironically (and I chose that word because it is New’s favorite word … have you noticed that?) Romney is very likely to falter as the race continues for the very reason that Gingrich is the better candidate. Gingrich represents the Republican Party better than Romney does because Gingrich is a stupid hateful hypocrite who is as mean spirited as a rabid dog, and a racist shit. Romney, on the other hand, is merely stupid and hypocritical. More importantly, Gingrich has spent a lot less time acting like a Democrat than Romney has. When people around the country get to compare what is bad (from the point of view of a Teabagger or other Republican) about each candidate, they will be forced to admit that Gingrich is more like them, and represents their views, better than Romney.

Over time, Gingrich could actually turn his temporary lunge forward into a regular lead and defeat Romney.

Here’s the thing: Gingrich is likely to falter because he opens his mouth. Romney is likely to falter because he wont. Gingrich will say things that will get him in trouble, while Romney will refuse to address his changes in positions or his tax and income problems or Bain. Romney is especially bad at the demagoguery. When he tries it he smarm-overloads even the most cynical Right Winger.

So, there are two open questions before us, aside from that of the question of when it will all happen: 1) Which of the two current front runners will stumble clumsily into the mud on this track first and most and worst, and 2) will the Santorum, running a steady third place, be able to prance by the two of them in time to get some delegates.

There is no front runner. Santorum could become a contender. And, I’m not ruling out a brokered convention.