well, first let us point out that the media has been horrible. sure. but, let us also point out that sanders is still drawing gigantic, multi-racial crowds. it is clear that you have an establishment buckling against a populist movement. that's clear as day to anybody that gets their news from a good source. there's consequently a conflict developing on the ground...
how can it be quantified? well, that's what the polls are for, right. now, i'm supposed to know how to read these things. but, what i've learned over the last few months is that the american polling firms do strange things with the data, and it's very difficult to know how to read into them as a result. i'm also not certain that they're honest, or that the results on the ground are fair [in fact, i'm pretty sure that some of the states were rigged]. so, instead of trying to make predictions in such a messy climate, i'm instead going to draw some attention to some possible points of error.
first, let's understand what the polls say. in most circumstances, i'll argue against taking a straight polling average. but, the race in new york is the rare circumstance where this actually works out. the reason is that it's a closed primary, and i'll come back to that. so, it kind of does approximate market research. and, rather than try and figure out which way the masses are careening, you want to balance the data out. so, yes - you'll get a few polls that are around a 10% spread +/- 4-5. then you'll get a few that suggest it's more like 15%. it balances out to around 12%. and, this is the right way to read it: the polling, right now, suggests that the race is stable and the spread is over 10%. that would imply a comfortable clinton win.
where could it go wrong? well, i've drawn heavy attention to the idea of racist modeling. when these polling companies put their numbers out, it's not a straight tally. it's adjusted to fit census results. if they bake a bias into their polling, it could come out in their projections. i've hinted at the idea that there's a strong reason to suspect this is happening. if so, the polling could be exaggerating clinton's lead with minority groups, and thereby exaggerating her lead altogether. so, there may be reason to expect a surprise.
except, not really, because it's a closed primary. now, closed primaries are not closed by some accident - they're designed to exclude the unwashed masses. which means they have a class bias baked into them. after you cancel everything out, the closed primary is actually likely to maintain clinton's lead with minorities - because it's likely to exclude less wealthy minorities, who didn't register in time. nobody will deny that clinton has a substantial lead with wealthy minorities, many of whom would probably vote republican if the party was more pluralist (because they are wealthy). we're careening towards a reality where you have a conservative party for whites (the republicans) and a conservative party for browns and blacks (the democrats). clinton is arguably an even better spokesperson for this group than obama. but, that is really about class, even if it is a consequence of racialized politics in the republican party. the rules in new york are designed so that these wealthy and usually very educated minorities get a say, because they knew to register ahead of time, while the poor minorities don't - because they didn't.
so, we need to ask the question: how many of the people at these impressively sized multi-racial rallies are going to be able to actually vote? and, i think the answer is going to be disappointingly few.
i suspect sanders may win an open primary, and that the correlations by race would break down in an open primary. but, it isn't an open primary.
and i again need to request that you stay safe on tuesday if you live in new york. there's going to be a lot of people that want to vote - for sanders - and can't. they're going to be understandably frustrated.
so, i again need to point out that the real story is the question of why new york has a closed primary. hopefully, that issue gets addressed.
clinton may not really win, or at least she might not win an open tally of the popular vote. but, you should expect her to win the official vote totals. and, probably convincingly.