The 2016 election highlighted how difficult it is to predict political outcomes with any degree of certainty. All of the most renowned political prognosticators (538’s Nate Silver, NY Times’ Nate Cohn, UVA’s Larry Sabato, Princeton Election Consortium) predicted a convincing victory for Hillary Clinton, some with certainty levels above 90%. Primaries and caucuses are even more challenging to predict given the fewer number of voters, less polling, and changing dynamics. Still, we thought we would go on record to highlight what we see as the most likely outcomes for the Democratic nominating process.
Scenario 1: Sanders Surges. We believe that Bernie Sanders is the favorite to win the nomination. We see a fairly straightforward scenario for him to win the nomination which begins with a victory in Iowa. In 2016, Sanders won 49.6% of the Iowa caucus vote against Clinton, competitive in every county in the state. He is currently second in the polls behind Buttigieg, but has the most impressive ground game in Iowa and unmatched supporter enthusiasm, both of which are crucial in a caucus state. After winning Iowa, Sanders would gain further momentum going into New Hampshire, a state he won in 2016 with 60% of the vote. After winning both Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders will be very difficult to stop in the Nevada caucuses or Super Tuesday, particularly when Warren and Yang drop out and endorse him. Democratic moderates will try to coalesce around Biden, Buttigieg or Bloomberg but it will be too late and on Super Tuesday, Sanders will score further victories in states such as California. Sanders will then clinch the nomination in April. We give this about a 40% probability which rises to about 45% if you simply run the same scenario with Warren as the progressive choice rather than Sanders. Call it the Progressive Candidate Surge scenario.
Scenario 2: Biden Prevails. Scenario two is that Biden outperforms in Iowa, finishing first or second, and follows up with a solid showing in New Hampshire. Other candidates drop out and the race goes to South Carolina and Super Tuesday with a clear choice between Biden and one of the progressives, either Sanders or Warren. The party recognizes that Biden has a better chance of winning in the general election, Biden is buoyed by his support among the black community in South Carolina, Biden does reasonably well on Super Tuesday and ultimately prevails over the progressive candidate after a long, hard fought campaign reminiscent of 2016 Hillary Clinton’s win. The pivotal moment will be when Obama endorses Biden pushing him over the finish line. We give this a 30% probability.
Scenario 3: A New Face Emerges. One of the new faces (Buttigieg or Klobuchar) wins Iowa and gains momentum as the fresh, hopeful candidate that can win against Trump. Support for Biden evaporates as all of his support migrates to Buttigieg or Klobuchar. Progressives attack the fresh face, but voters want a positive change and favor the new face who will unite the country and offer a message of hope and change, akin to Barack Obama. The progressives are not enthused by the candidate, but ultimately fall in line with the choice to defeat Trump and gain total control over the party platform. We view this as a relatively low probability (15%).
That leaves us another 10% for a whole range of other possibilities. Maybe we get a brokered convention, the dream of all political scientists. Maybe Bloomberg emerges as the alternative to Sanders and ends up winning the nomination outright. Maybe Corey Booker drops out after Iowa and endorses Yang. We could go on dreaming up potential scenarios, but our strong bet is that one of the three scenarios above will come to pass. We will be watching attentively to see what actually occurs!
NewEnglandPolitics.com 