538: Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Need Momentum — He Needs To Win These States

[hack89]

Here are the latest numbers. I must emphasize that these are not predictions of what will happen in these states. Instead, they’re estimates of what would happen if the national vote were evenly divided between Sanders and Clinton (which it isn’t yet). In other words, they tell us whether each state is Sanders-leaning or Clinton-leaning relative to the national average. Sanders will need to beat these targets to have a shot at the nomination, especially since a tie would probably go to Clinton because of superdelegates. As you can see, however, Sanders is currently running behind these benchmarks in states with recent polling.

Sanders trails in polls of Oklahoma (narrowly) and Tennessee (badly), however, when he probably needs to win those states too. Meanwhile, he’s losing states such as Georgia by a wider margin than our benchmarks suggest he can afford. The Democrats’ delegate allocation is quite proportional, so these margins matter; underperforming his targets on Super Tuesday would mean that Sanders would have to make up more ground later on with less time left on the clock.

But the March 15 states don’t look great for Sanders either: He trails Clinton in Ohio when that’s a state where he should be able to fight her to a draw. There’s less polling for the contests beyond March 15, but the states where we have recent numbers, such as Pennsylvania, are fairly discouraging for Sanders also.

So Sanders is doomed? If he doesn’t beat these polls, then probably yes — Sanders is not going to win the Democratic nomination if he’s losing Ohio by 13 percentage points. And if Clinton has a really good night on Super Tuesday — by winning Massachusetts, for instance — that would take almost all the suspense out of the race.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-doesnt-need-momentum-he-needs-to-win-these-states/

[Orsino]

1. Sanders has been playing catch-up.

His polling now is not his polling a month from now. He'll sink or swim based on his message and the canvassing of his supporters.

Time is still on his side, as long as we use it wisely. This isn't 2008, but once again we are running a relatively unknown candidate with a transformative message against a celebrity. I'm still sanguine about Sanders' chances.