Sunday, February 23, 2020

so, again - they seemed to let the clark county results through first, which has redistorted the results. i'd expect them to balance back out again as the results finish up.

it appears as though biden will be viable in 2 out of 17 counties, whereas buttigieg will be viable in 15 out of 17, and there is precisely no overlap. so, my projection was actually correct.

the exact results in clark county were pretty dramatic, though. 25% isn't exactly a barnstorming result, but it is better than his polling, and that's a first this cycle, if it holds (and there's still reasons to think it will weaken). and, if buttigieg was going to miss viability in just one out of 17 counties, the one with 70% of the population is the worst one for it to happen in. he could still sneak over 15%, but this seems to contradict his kind of steady-eddy results. he really does about the same across most demographics.

is it possible that biden stuffed some ballots? well, clark county is one of the counties that people cheat in rather frequently, so it might be the answer to the shape of the data, and it might be the difference in the outcome. i'd be surprised if he didn't try a few times. but, the truth is that you probably want to criticize buttigieg for not cheating, when sanders and biden knew you had to. that's a lack of experience, maybe. it's not the red flag we saw in new hampshire, and i'm not willing to point any fingers. but, understand that this is a county that establishment democrats tend to stuff ballots in, so the burden of proof is probably the other way. and, i didn't really think that through carefully enough, either.

so, i'm standing by my analysis, but i'm conceding that i didn't extrapolate deeply enough.

sanders is running about where i suggested, buttigieg is viable almost everywhere and biden only made the cut in two counties. it's just that the population skews in such a way that the outcome is a little different than such an analysis might naively project, even if the spread between biden & buttigieg does shrink a little in the end.

sanders clearly did very well with latin-speaking voters, and that's not a surprising outcome. but, did biden manage to finally get over 20% in one county because of the "diversity" in it? i think that you might find a correlation, but that's probably not the cause.

rather, i suspect that an analysis of the data will show that biden did well with what you might call the rank and file, and that the fact that they showed up this time is really what the difference is. the rank and file would include certain types of unionized workers, seniors and other people that exist within the nuts and bolts of the democratic party machinery. again - 25% and a distant second place is hardly a show of force. but, that's what has made vegas a little different, the actual party machinery.

if buttigieg can't get to 15% in vegas in the end, he should be disappointed by it. this is vegas, specifically, literally. the ready-made excuses aren't going to work, here.

i'm a little surprised, but we could still see the numbers normalize.

i believe that 13 delegates will be awarded statewide, and they will mostly go to sanders. of the rest of the delegates, i believe that only 6 of them will be awarded to candidates that are viable in las vegas. the rest will be distributed to candidates that did will in the other districts. i think there's actually 18 of 36 delegates to award in the three districts that biden failed to reach viability in, and buttigieg succeeded to do so in.

that means that buttigieg will probably still get more delegates.