Rank the Mar 15 states from worst to best chance for a Bernie upset
So the 5 states voting on Tuesday are, to varying degrees, expected to be Clinton wins (Expectations in the sense of polls, predictive analyses, etc). Now, instead of doing a normal vote percentage prediction like usual, I figured it might be better to just rank the states by best chance for Bernie to get a win.
So, for me, they are as below (Most favorable to least favorable):
Ohio
Missouri
Illinois
North Carolina
Florida
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Demographically-speaking, each of the states of the Deep South are more reflective of the overall Democratic electorate than each of the states Sanders has won (with the exception of Michigan). As I wrote following the Michigan primary, Michigan represents the first diverse, populous "blue" state primary of this campaign. Some are claiming that Michigan proves Clinton can't win outside of the Deep South, but the sample size is way too small. And it's important to not conflate the Democratic electorate of the Deep South with the overall electorate of the Deep South. Time will tell how much Clinton struggles outside of the Deep South. Just as time will tell how successful Sanders can be outside of New England and small caucus states that lack diversity. For now, we have one -- ONE -- data point (Michigan) where the candidates were separated by a mere 18,400 votes (out of more than 1.1 million ballots), so we can't make any determinations one way or another (especially given that it was an open primary, which - unfortunately - is ripe for manipulation). We aren't going to learn much from Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, etc. But March 15 (Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Florida and North Carolina) and Arizona on the 22nd will offer more data points. In April, there's New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Those are the states that will determine which narrative is true (Clinton can't win outside of the Deep South vs. Sanders can't win delegate-rich states that are relatively diverse).
It's worth noting that most of the remaining primaries/caucuses are closed, and Clinton won 57-41 among registered Democrats in Michigan.
I would like to think most folks understand the obvious flaw in simply tallying the number of states won, yet numerous posters seem to think that's a perfectly valid form of comparison. Likewise, suggesting that Sanders being likely to win a majority of the remaining 29 states (a prediction that I think has merit) equates to him being likely to win the nomination is rather foolish. I shouldn't even have to point out that some states have *way* more people/delegates than other states--so, no, not all states are equal. Sanders could win 16 or 17 of the remaining 29 states and still get crushed.
Lastly, I want to address the simplistic electoral map I've seen posted more than once. I don't think simplistic, black and white thinking is something to promote or aspire to. I vividly recall a map that was quite popular among Bush supporters following the 2000 election. It showed a map of the US in which each *county* was red or blue depending on which candidate (Bush or Gore) had won a majority (or plurality) of that county's votes. The map, of course, was overwhelmingly red. Hopefully you all can immediately understand the enormous flaw with this perspective. Counties with more cows than people are given the same weight as every other county, including Los Angeles County and Cook County (the 2 most populous counties in the US). Also, it treats a 0.1% margin of victory the same as a 40% margin of victory. This is why there are a variety of cartograms. Wikipedia defines a cartogram as "a map in which some thematic mapping variable – such as travel time, population, or Gross National Product – is substituted for land area or distance. The geometry or space of the map is distorted in order to convey the information of this alternate variable." In the case of the 2016 Democratic primaries, some states that have voted so far would be made much smaller and others would be made much bigger. And instead of showing a state in a single solid color, it would show the state in various shades/mixes of the 2 candidate colors. You can view some examples below. The map in the lower right is likely the most accurate representation of the 2004 presidential election results, but I suspect many are put off by the unfamiliarity of it. "The US doesn't look like that," one might say. Politically, yes it does.
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