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[sluissa]

There were also a small number of delegates that were ostensibly ”state politicians and party leaders” and would be divided up according to the distribution of other state delegate equivalents but because of the number of delegates and the fact you can't split a delegate in half, one extra went to buttigieg. The math (I think) checks out based on the current numbers. But if it didn't go to buttigieg, it's possible it would have gone to Warren instead. Weird things happen when you make up complicated math rules that also have to fit arcane political rules and then have 3+ way split of the vote with 2 of them being so damned close

[McTraveller]

Spoiler: how does the same vote count and same percentage result in one candidate getting an extra delegate? (click to show/hide)

What is this a single precinct? There are only about 2000 votes in total. Or are those "thousands"?  If it's in thousands, there's your answer; Pete may have had 563000+ something, and Bernie might have had 563000-something, both rounding to 563k.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

They're State Delegate Equivalents - an insane and meaningless metric. Bernie won both rounds of voting, that's not in question even with the recount. It's just...this that has caused the Iowa Madness. After recanvass Buttigieg is something like 0.03 SDEs ahead here. I expect recount to shift this, and 0-2 of the actual delegates.

[Naturegirl1999]

Spoiler: how does the same vote count and same percentage result in one candidate getting an extra delegate? (click to show/hide)

What is this a single precinct? There are only about 2000 votes in total. Or are those "thousands"?  If it's in thousands, there's your answer; Pete may have had 563000+ something, and Bernie might have had 563000-something, both rounding to 563k.

i looked up Iowa caucus results

[Stench Guzman]

Also, I have some uh...news on the Biden Cognition Watch. I'm no doctor, but fuck does that look bad. It might be the worst yet, and I think it could qualify as the "time travel" wierd said to look out for last time we discussed this. I also went back and watched some older Biden interviews, and it is a sharp division compared to today.

There's more where that came from

[Iduno]

I had some time to spend waiting today, so I watched a local news thing (I knew better, but I did it anyway). I learned that the Republicans are upset with Sanders' popularity because that's what Trump won on, and the DNC is discussing what they are going to do to stop him.

It reminds me a bit of the Some More News bit about the media reporting "Sanders doesn't exist. And if he does exist, he isn't popular. And if he is popular, he's a populist like Trump. And..."

[TamerVirus]

"vote for the other Biden"?
The clones are ready

[Iduno]

"vote for the other Biden"?
The clones are ready

Where is that from?

[Dunamisdeos]

"vote for the other Biden"?
The clones are ready

Where is that from?

The same place that cloned Hillary from styrofoam packing material and raw veal, I'd expect.

[TamerVirus]

Either the warm goo vats of Area 51 or the spawning pits hidden in a cave beneath Capitol Hill

[PTTG??]

I am losing faith in polling very rapidly. I took the Trump victory as just MSN/Fox manipulation; 538 gave him a 30%, and winning with those odds is pretty much possible.

But looking at the vast disparity between the environment I see and the forecasts before and after the early primaries, I don't understand how anyone thought Biden had a chance, nor how he can have one going forward. But the polls are saying that the massive front-runner with a huge base and an energized support network has a less than 50% chance of winning, about the same odds as a contested convention.

This is bizarre. Why didn't Biden face a contested convention when he was the "front runner?" The next few contests are going to prove it. If these forecasts keep being so far off the mark so regularly, I don't see how political forecasting can claim to be any kind of science.

[Dunamisdeos]

No no, see, the point is to shout the loudest about the candidate who paid you to the most to do it. The hope is to create a bandwagon effect and get more people to vote based on sheer audible volume. Your reaction is supposed to be "wow these certified professionals must know something I don't, my opinion is swayed". It doesn't matter what the polls say, or if any polls were taken at all.

It's still political science, just not actually polling, per se. Also, it doesn't work anymore. It took like, one election for the current generation of voters to realize what that was about and ignore it. I don't even check the mainstream news for info on candidates. It's basically just a 24/7 paid political ad service at this point.

[Enemy post]

I am losing faith in polling very rapidly. I took the Trump victory as just MSN/Fox manipulation; 538 gave him a 30%, and winning with those odds is pretty much possible.

But looking at the vast disparity between the environment I see and the forecasts before and after the early primaries, I don't understand how anyone thought Biden had a chance, nor how he can have one going forward. But the polls are saying that the massive front-runner with a huge base and an energized support network has a less than 50% chance of winning, about the same odds as a contested convention.

This is bizarre. Why didn't Biden face a contested convention when he was the "front runner?" The next few contests are going to prove it. If these forecasts keep being so far off the mark so regularly, I don't see how political forecasting can claim to be any kind of science.

Those forecasts are based on who's winning at the moment. That can change rapidly as a result of such things as debate results, ad campaigns, or even more unpredictable things like the time Hillary collapsed or Trump's bus tape. It's impossible to predict the exact odds of a candidate winning from only the available data, since the real world is prone to unexpected changes. For example, maybe Bernie Sanders will suddenly die of natural causes before the primaries are over. Or Trump could die, and the Republican primary suddenly becomes a real contest. Those are both relatively unlikely, but they're both actual possibilities.

Basically, Biden had a much better chance of winning before the primaries began, before the debates and the first three actual elections. However, now that they have, Biden's chances have plummeted.

As for the contested convention, it was relatively unlikely when Biden was a clear frontrunner. However, now he isn't, the race is a lot more chaotic, and there's a decent chance that, if nothing changes, Bernie could win the primaries without getting more than half of the available delegates, since he lost too many elections to enough candidates that no single one has more than him.

It should be remembered though, it's really unlikely that nothing will change.

[Trekkin]

But the polls are saying that the massive front-runner with a huge base and an energized support network has a less than 50% chance of winning, about the same odds as a contested convention.

Technically, that's not what the polls are saying. The polls themselves can only aggregate opinions. That is what an analysis of the polls is indicating -- or rather, an analysis of those analyses and so on ad infinitum, which might go some way to answering your question. As we poll more, more of the electorate takes those polls into account when responding and voting -- this is in some sense what drives "momentum." With knowledge of that effect, then, people can choose to respond in a way that they perceive as maximizing the odds of their desired outcome, and people aren't generally rational enough to do that optimally so the noise goes through the roof even before you consider unequal polling rates.

At some point, between correcting for polling bias by pollster and accounting for the effects of polls when reporting the results, the system breaks down when used for entertainment. That doesn't mean the polls themselves don't tell you anything, though.

To answer your actual question, it probably has a lot to do with who the electorate is going to end up being. Biden polls well with those centrist Democrats he has not yet called ferret-elbowed capybara haberdashers and/or asked for their vote for Prom King, so while he was in front it was assumed the standard electorate was coalescing around him and candidates might well follow suit. Sanders is pulling in voters that aren't as likely to switch (or have been previously Democratic), so there's more uncertainty who's actually voting -- which, combined with his perceived radicalism, means more candidates are likely to persuade themselves to stay in the race for longer. The more options voters have, the less likely half of them will all go for the same one. Thus the contested convention.

[Lord Shonus]

That's the key - there are currently a ton of candidates remaining, each of which thinks they have enough of a chance of victory to keep going. This alone helps keep their polling alive, because they'd never stay in unless they have a chance. Once we get a few more dropouts and see how the support from said dropouts settles on the remaining candidates, we'll have a lot firmer numbers on everybody else.