Preview of April

The GOP: The Democratic race is much closer than the Republican, but the Republicans have winner take all races in many states while the Democrats do not. April has three such high stakes contests, Wisconsin's 42 delegates being decided this Tuesday and winner take all primaries in Delaware (16 delegates) and Maryland (38 delegates) three weeks later on the 26th. There are also two big states, New York on April 19th for 95 delegates and Pennsylvania on the 26th for 71 delegates. Pennsylvania can be winner take all, but I do not know what the threshold for that is.

Recent polling in Wisconsin favors Ted "The Snake" Cruz. There are four polls from late this month and Cruz leads in three, while Trump is the favorite in the other. The most interesting progression in he polls is from the Marquette Law School poll, which has polled the state six times since last August. Here are the leader and second place candidates in those polls.

August 2015: Walker 25, Carson 13
September 2015: Trump 20, Rubio 20
November 2015: Carson 22, Rubio 19, Trump 19
January 2016: Trump 24, Rubio 18
February 2016: Trump 30, Rubio 20
March 2016: Cruz 40, Trump 30

I should note that Cruz was in third place in the earlier polls this year, but the numbers look like nearly all of Rubio's support switched over to Cruz when Rubio quit.

The Dems: There are also four polls from late March dealing with the Wisconsin race. Bernie Sanders leads in three and Hillary Clinton leads in the other. All the Democratic races are proportional, so unless his margin of victory is much larger than it currently looks at around 5 points, he will gain some press and momentum but precious few delegates. After that, the Democrats have a caucus in Wyoming on the 9th, a style contest that usually favors Sanders, then the big prize of New York on the same date as the Republican contest, April 19th.

I will report again before the New York contest.

The New Hampshire Primary:Warming up the leftovers

My work schedule did not allow me time to discuss the numbers earlier today, but waiting nearly 24 hours after the tabulations has some advantages.

The Democrats: Bernie's win was about the size the polls expected, but folks watching the upcoming primaries suggest that his win was not big enough.  I'm not going to nitpick numbers with these folks, but I do expect some momentum for Sanders after New Hampshire. Hillary has problems of her own, most notably the investigation of the e-mail server stuff, so I certainly can't say it's a lock for either candidate. The national polls on average say Hillary is still the favorite, but the next few weeks will tell how much of a favorite.

The GOP: Let's review some of the stuff I though would be surprises in my preview on Monday.

Trump's margin of victory: Completely in line with what was predicted by the polls when you factor out the none of the above.

No more than a five point spread between second and fifth: Kasich is 5.2% above Rubio, so that's a mild surprise.

Jeb:( in fifth, Christie in sixth: Bush actually caught and passed Rubio, which is a real surprise. The polls after the debate did not give a clue to how much the dissatisfaction with Rubio's debate performance would matter, and I know a lot of people who think this is his doom.  I'm not going there just yet, but a few weeks of sinking polls and bad performances in the rest of the February contests in South Carolina and Nevada should sink him.

Let's also look at some non-surprises that count as news.

Fiorina and Christie call it quits: Christie had promised he would go to South Carolina no matter what happened in New Hampshire, but he's lied before. While neither of them really ever had a chance, they do represent about six points now up for grabs.  I expect that will help the Establishment Trio - Kasich, Jeb:( and Rubio - more than it will help the Nihilist Twins, Trump and Cruz. Carson is only holding on because someone think he can still make money on his book tour by being in the debates.  It should also be noted he is still in fourth place in the national polls, but given his stank performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, that just can't last.

Scrutiny for Kasich: To call Kasich a moderate is to declare words no longer have meanings, but of the Establishment Trio, he's the one that hasn't shown disastrous campaigning skills.  This may only be due to his lack of exposure. It's a given that lack of exposure ends as of yesterday.

There are a lot of factors now, more than I can sort out as a hobbyist. A lot of pundits now think Trump is inevitable. I will reserve judgment on that. A lot of people think Kasich is doomed because he has so little money. That is a very minor problem in the post Citizens United era. All he needs is one billionaire who has had enough with Rubio or Jeb:( and his money problems are a thing of the past. I will say that Trump losing in February in South Carolina or Nevada will be real trouble for his campaign, and my crystal ball is currently on the fritz when trying to look as far ahead as Super Tuesday.

My view is that no one should buy any champagne yet. It's still a long slog and the favorites are nowhere near inevitable yet.

The New Hampshire polls:Final post before tomorrow's election

 The GOP: If the polls are anywhere near accurate, both the Republican and Democratic races for first place will have no drama and the media will have to invent any drama out of whole cloth. On the other hand, the race for second and the allocation of delegates in the Republican primary could have some drama.

Political junkies such as myself are still flapping our gums about Rubio's bad showing at the weekend's debate, but so far the tracking polls are not showing any significant downward movement on his part. While this average of polls puts him in second, it wouldn't really be an upset if either Kasich or Cruz catches Rubio. As long the spread between second and fourth is no more than five points and if all of them are over 10%, no one can claim victory. That said, if Kasich wins second, the press will pay him much more attention than they have so far.

While Jeb:( averages less than 10% this month, the size of the None of the Above gives him a good chance to be over the threshold if those people stay home or their votes break just about evenly, which means he'll get some delegates. It will definitely be an interesting story if he is not fifth, either by passing one of the people above him or getting caught by Chris Christie, who peaked in December then went right back into the invisible crowd.

As for moral victories, if the second place candidate is within ten points of Trump, that won't be good news for America's Favorite Birther™, whose national poll numbers slipped after his second place showing in Iowa last week.

The Dems: Here it is ALL expectation games. If Bernie wins by 20% or so, any positive spin from the Clinton is just hooey. I would set a 15% loss for Hilary as the Beat Expectations threshold, and a 25% win by Sanders brings us into the ass-whuppin' territory.

Wednesday: back with the post-mortem.

New Hampshire polls: The last week of January

The Dems: The story on this side is simple. It's a two-person race and Sanders appears to be pulling away. His median lead in all January polls is 11 points and that increases to 16 points when looking at the five polls in the last week. I'm sure the press will play down a victory in New Hampshire for Bernie, but it looks like it will be a comfortable win a week out.

The GOP: As I said last week, the drama in New Hampshire is not for first place, but for finishing over 10%, the threshold for delegates. I Apologize for how difficult it is to read the log jam for second place, but right now its Kasich at 11.9% and Cruz and Rubio tied at 11.6%.

Numbers I think are more relevant is how many times in January these five candidates polled above 10%, which tells a slightly different story. Each of the five candidates will be list with two numbers, the percent of the polls in January where their numbers were over 10%, and the same question, but only taking into account the polls in the past week.

Ted 'The Snake' Cruz: 79% for the month, 80% past week
Marco Rubio: 71% for the month, 40% past week
John Kasich: 64% for the month, 60% past week
Jeb:(: 29% for the month, 40% past week
Chris Christie: 29% for the month, 0% past week

These numbers would suggest Ted 'The Snake' Cruz is most likely to stay over the 10% threshold and Chris Christie is in serious trouble. We have one more week of polls before votes are cast on the 9th, so I will have another update next week.

Tomorrow: post-mortem in Iowa!

New Hampshire polls:Third week of January

The Dems: Sanders still has a comfortable lead in New Hampshire. The average for January is a 10.2 point lead, the median poll says 9 points. The Confidence of Victory method would give Bernie a 98% chance to come in first, but historically New Hampshire splits the delegates proportionally in both the Democratic and Republican contests; for the Democrats, the threshold to get delegates is 15%. For the Republicans, it is 10%. On the Democratic side, this means Martin O'Malley is shit out of luck. 15% for him would be a miracle.

The GOP: There is no drama for the first place finish like there is in Iowa, but the second through sixth contest has drama because of the 10% threshold. If the polling data is a fair indication, Rubio, Kasich and Cruz will have enough with Jeb:( and Christie will coming up short. But there is the idea of the confidence interval (or as it is known colloquially, the margin of error) and every one of the five guys in this pack has a measurable chance to succeed or fail.

I will admit that I always thought Trump would have faded by now, but he plays the media like a violin and his voters have not been turned off by anything he has said or done so far. Chuck Grassley introduced him to a crowd in Iowa, and though Grassley didn't endorse him, if the old school Republicans will be seen on the same stage with him, it's a sign the establishment is moving forward in its stages of grief. Bob Dole made a statement condemning Ted 'The Snake' Cruz - it looks like the 'nobody likes him' meme isn't an overstatement - and said Trump would be better than Cruz.

Here's a tiny piece of math the establishment could cling to. In this polling data, the two main outsiders add up to 41.9% and the four establishment Republicans add up to 41.8%. (I'm not counting Fiorina and Carson anymore, as their campaigns show no signs of life.) The thing is no one has really mounted an Anyone But Trump campaign effectively, so even when people drop out - and I expect several people to drop out after Iowa and New Hampshire - even voters whose first choice was someone traditional might switch over to Trump or Cruz, the least palatable candidates in the eyes of the establishment.

To quote Nassim Taleb, a writer I intensely dislike, this does look like a Black Swan event.

The New Hampshire polls:Second week of January

The Dems: It was a good week for Bernie Sanders, two new polls both showing him with a lead in New Hampshire. So far there have been five polls of the Democratic race in the Granite State in January and four of them say Sanders is leading. Because it is a two person race, my Confidence of Victory method can be used on the median poll to say Bernie would have an 80% chance of winning if the election were held on the day the poll was taken. Of course, these numbers can change as we get closer to election day.

The GOP: On the Republican side, all the interesting horse race stuff is the battle for second through sixth.  The worst poll numbers for Trump this month give him 25% support, the best numbers for anybody else are two polls that give Rubio 15%. Those two polls give the Florida senator a strong hold on second, but the most recent polls are showing a surge for John Kasich, now in third passing Ted 'The Snake' Cruz. The other notable movement is a slump for Jeb:(, who can't get anything right this campaign. Unless there is a miracle turnaround in the next few weeks, and Jeb:( is just not a miracle kind of guy, I would expect the people who gave serious cash to Jeb:( will want a partial refund by the time the New Hampshire results are tallied.

Tomorrow: the national polls.

The New Hampshire Polls:First week of January

 The Dems: It is the prejudice of an old man for me to think New Hampshire is more important than Iowa, but if I may defend my position, Iowa will be a test of the most committed campaign's ability to get out their loyalists, while New Hampshire is about getting out a substantial percentage of the voting age population.

There were only five New Hampshire polls in December and so far, there are only three in January. The story hasn't changed much since the change from November. Bernie Sanders holds a small but steady lead over Hillary.

The GOP: Just as the press is giving more coverage to the Republican race, and of course Donald Trump in particular, there were more polls of their contest in December and in January than there were polls of the Democratic race.

The race for first place has no drama at all, but there is a fierce competition for second through sixth. Right now, Marco Rubio is alone in second at 13.3% in an average of four polls, while four candidates - Ted 'The Snake' Cruz, Jeb:(, Chris Christie and John Kasich - are all within spitting distance of one another at around 10%. I am breaking the rules I set for myself to mention everyone above None of the Above, but the crowd between 3% and 5% - Rand Paul, The Completely Sane and Honest Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina - don't show any signs of gaining any traction.

Tomorrow: The earliest polls from Iowa.

The New Hampshire polls:Fourth Week of December

 The GOP: As December winds down, the big change in this graph is the disappearance of The Completely Sane and Honest Ben Carson and the appearance for the first time of John Kasich, marked in light green. As you can see, he hasn't made a big advance, but is now in fifth place and above None of the Above for the time being. Jeb:( is in sixth and might make an appearance next month if his numbers get a little better. Carson is in seventh now and his only good news is that nobody below him looks primed for a run.

The Dems: Only one new polls since the last time the info was posted and it showed Hillary with a small lead. Sanders still has the lead in the polling average for the month.

Tomorrow: the monthly averages from Iowa polling.