Larry Sabato made a bold Democratic primary prediction today

[Dovidoff]

Larry Sabato (Oxford, U. of Virginia, Princeton) and Kyle Kondik, today predicted,

"If Sanders defeats Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, we still believe that Clinton will be the nominee — though she may limp into the Philadelphia convention if the contest turns into a long, painful slog."

That's bold. I disagree. If Sanders wins both IA and NH, momentum will be humongous and may influence subsequent states greatly.

But Sabato's record is excellent. We will see what happens.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/iowa-at-last/

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. Problem is, I don't see that many Delegates or Superdelegates changing over to Sanders. (And sadly)

[artislife]

7. Yet, Liberal, yet.

These delegates are not the most fearless people, they want to make sure their toast is buttered on the right side. Remember in 2008, it wasn't until they started to believe Obama could actually win that the flips started happening.

[Jarqui]

2. That was an interesting read.

If Sanders defeats Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, we still believe that Clinton will be the nominee — though she may limp into the Philadelphia convention if the contest turns into a long, painful slog. For those who point to national surveys that show Sanders scoring bigger victories than Clinton against the top Republicans, we suggest that Sanders’ novelty has something to do with it. Except in a fractured, multi-candidate field — and maybe not even then — it is very difficult to imagine a 74-year old socialist becoming president of the United States. It is almost as difficult to visualize Democrats choosing a man whose nickname may turn out to be George McGovern. (We say that respecting Sanders and his blunt honesty — and the fact that he has refrained from most negative campaigning.)

However, should Iowa turn into a decisive victory for Sanders, followed by the same in New Hampshire and closer-than-expected Clinton wins in South Carolina and Nevada, there will still be no closing ranks around Sanders. Instead, telephones will ring off the hook in the Biden household. And if the vice president says no, then phones will jingle at whatever hotel John Kerry is staying in around the globe. Kerry still has his White House ambitions after a close 2004 run, and substituting one Obama secretary of state for another makes some sense.

He simply doesn't believe there's any way for Bernie.

One flaw is that he's giving her Nevada. I'm not so sure that one hasn't also tightened up.

A second flaw is the call to Kerry or Biden. After SC, 67% of the electable delegates will be unavailable to Kerry or Biden because they've missed the deadline for those ballots. Clinton would have to stay in the race to keep as many delegates away from Bernie as possible but she'll be ticked off they've brought another candidate in and may want to bail out.

A third flaw is if they try to parachute someone in because Bernie is winning and Hillary is losing ... to circumvent the democratic primary process ... that is not going to go over well. The party could lose some members for life and the general election if they pull that stunt. And Bernie might get his political revolution because the big money brokers would be saying "Bernie was right. We're not a democracy. We're an oligarchy. Take what crumbs we give you and move along."

[SheilaT]

3. You'd think Sabato would be sufficiently familiar

with the process and the realities of the calendar to understand that the Democratic nominee is going to be one of the three currently running. Parachuting someone else in simply can't happen.

The article feels very much like typical Inside the Beltway myopia. There's such a lack of connection with the majority of the people in this country, including all those who support Trump or Carson, not just the front runners.

I do happen to hope he is totally wrong and that Sanders is the next President.

[Jarqui]

8. It is very difficult to parachute someone in

Not just in trying to get enough delegates but the whole notion is to circumvent the outcome of a primary.

This comes back to Wasserman Shultz being stupid. Last spring, Hillary had Benghazi still going on. She has her email scandal under way. And the Clinton Foundation ties to the State Department are peculating. You've got authorities crawling through 55,000 pages of her emails, many more FOIA requests, etc. A full witch hunt is on. And surely, they know as well as we do, that asking Hillary for the truth or how vulnerable she is is an exercise in futility.

So the DNC chair ought to have drafted Joe and John or someone else back then - not now. Then if Hillary got knocked off, they could squeeze out Sanders (who they obviously do not want as their winner). So Debbie proved herself to have a very limited vision. I guess she and Hillary figured the Feds would never find the blue stained dress (which so far they have not) and Bernie would never compete with the mighty Hillary machine (whoops!!).

Now, they're facing a real pickle and Debbie's probably waking up to the fact that she won't be the DNC chair too much longer. If she's this thick, how's she supposed to steer the party through the next general election? Parachuting someone into that job soon makes tons of sense and I think many would appreciate it.

[SheilaT]

11. Wouldn't it be really weird if

the DNC had to accept a nominee chosen by the rank and file? I mean, how awesome would that be?

[Jarqui]

9. I've been checking in the media and for polls

and I'm not sure.

Sanders had 11 offices out there to Hillary's 6-7 and they got out there early last summer. Sanders had nearly twice as many workers 40-22.

In '08, the Clintons had a fight with the union because they endorsed Obama. Then the Clintons got a court order to screw union workers by moving the polling away from where they worked at the casinos (which helped Hillary win the primary). That scrap might go in Bernie's favor this time though the union has maintained it will not endorse until after the primary.

there were two polls
Gravis had Clinton +23 in December (I think Gravis has been poor this cycle - they always have Clinton high)
CNN had Clinton +16 in October (before Benghazi testimony and Biden bump)

Sanders cracks Clinton's Nevada firewall
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-nevada-217432

There isn't a lot to go on. Not many polls - nothing recent. Few articles.

My guess would be roughly Clinton +8 right now

[Jarqui]

12. I didn't see it as an op-ed

It was one of the few recent articles I've seen write by two of Politico's reporters.

I'm not one who tries to keep track of all the "shoot the messenger" stuff around here if that's the issue. I didn't see much sinister in the article. Seemed reasonably balanced and based upon quotes and facts.

[Jarqui]

5. Interesting quote from Nov 2007 by Sabato

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/ljs2007112901/

When recent polls have asked respondents to name the most honest and trustworthy candidates in ’08, Barack Obama and John McCain usually top the list, with Clinton and Giuliani lagging badly. Yet Hillary and Rudy score where it counts: they are judged the most decisive leaders.

[Jarqui]

13. No but I've seen similar stuff this cycle that is dismissive of honesty and trustwothiness.

Yet those who were seen as the most honest and trustworthy in 2008 were the ones who won their primaries over others who were 'judged (where it counts) as the most decisive leaders'

[Gothmog]

14. Nate Silver agrees with Sabato

Even if Sanders wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, it is unlikely that he will be the nominee http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-new-hampshire/

So why do I still think Sanders is a factional candidate? He hasn’t made any inroads with non-white voters — in particular black voters, a crucial wing of the Democratic coalition and whose support was a big part of President Obama’s toppling of Clinton in the 2008 primary. Not only are African-Americans the majority of Democratic voters in the South Carolina primary (a crucial early contest), they make up somewhere between 19 percent and 24 percent of Democrats nationwide. In the past two YouGov polls, Sanders has averaged just 5 percent with black voters. Ipsos’s weekly tracking poll has him at an average of only 7 percent over the past two weeks. Fox News (the only live-interview pollster to publish results among non-white voters in July and August) had Clinton leading Sanders 62-10 among non-white Democrats in mid-July and 65-14 in mid-August. Clinton’s edge with non-whites held even as Sanders cut her overall lead from 40 percentage points to 19....

But even if you put aside those metrics, Sanders is running into the problem that other insurgent Democrats have in past election cycles. You can win Iowa relying mostly on white liberals. You can win New Hampshire. But as Gary Hart and Bill Bradley learned, you can’t win a Democratic nomination without substantial support from African-Americans.

Iowa and New Hampshire do not represent the demographics of the Democratic Party and so will not help sanders

[Gothmog]

15. What Happens If Bernie Wins Iowa and New Hampshire?

Here is another good analysis that agrees with Nate Silver http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/11/bernie_sanders_could_win_iowa_and_new_hampshire.html

What would not change, though, is that Clinton would remain the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination.

Even if Hillary staggers out of New Hampshire with her second loss in as many contests, she’ll still have the same massive advantages she enjoys today: the campaign and super PAC cash, the ground game, the endorsements, the pledged superdelegates, and the general support of a party establishment that won’t soon forget that her challenger is not technically even a part of the Democratic Party. An unexpected loss in Iowa and a less surprising one in New Hampshire wouldn’t change that.

She’d also have a chance to get back on her feet—and fast. Consider what comes next: Nevada (Feb. 20) and South Carolina (Feb. 27), two significantly more diverse states than lily-white Iowa and lily-whiter New Hampshire, and two places where Clinton currently enjoys massive leads in the polls. According to the RealClearPolitics rolling average, Clinton holds a 20-point advantage in Nevada and a whopping 40-point lead in South Carolina. March brings better news still for the former secretary of state, starting with a Super Tuesday slate that includes friendly territory in the form of southern states like Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The rest of the month, meanwhile, includes several big, delegate-rich contests that she won eight years ago during her battle with Barack Obama: Michigan, Florida, and Ohio. Yes, Sanders could have the momentum this time next month, but it’ll be on him to to find a way to keep it as he heads into significantly more challenging terrain than Iowa or New Hampshire, which were always going to offer his best chance at pulling off an early upset or two.

None of this is to say that Clinton has the nomination locked up already. She doesn’t. But if Iowa and New Hampshire are must-wins for anyone, it’s Sanders. Hillary can—and likely would—survive a slow start and still be the one standing on stage at the Democratic National Convention when the balloons come down this summer. Bernie, though, has no such margin of error.

Sanders is doing well in states with 90+% white voting populations and these states are not sufficient for Sanders to win the nomination. There are four states where Sanders is polling well in: Utah, Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont. Texas has almost twice the number of delegates of these four states combined

[NurseJackie]

16. Maths. Bernie will not be the nominee.

It's as plain as day.