Politics Season Has Begun

Hello everyone. I am back for what promises to be a great 2016 political season.

Now that all football is over until September with the Denver Broncos defeating the Carolina Panthers in a great Super Bowl if you like defense (I do) it is time to focus, for this person, and the political season.

Last week we saw two very competitive caucuses for both parties as Hillary Clinton edged out Bernie Sanders by less than one percent and in a surprise Donald Trump finished in second just one percent better than Marco Rubio.

We also saw several candidate drop out of the race. Martin O'Malley ended his campaign on the Democratic side. I liked O'Malley he just ran at the wrong time. On the Republican side we had Mike Huckabee (who surprised a lot of people who thought he had already dropped out) and Rand Paul dropped out.

Although I have made my decision who I am voting for come primary time I am not going to discuss it here at this time. I'm just focusing on the start of campaign season.

Today we have the New Hampshire primaries where Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump come into the day both holding double digit leads in the polls. Anyone who pays any kind of attention to the New Hampshire primaries knows that the polls leading into the day of the primary do not mean much. Having said that we will know a lot once the primaries are decided.

If Hillary is able to pull an upset in New Hampshire over Bernie that will be the end of Bernie on the Democratic side and Hillary will be able to sleep walk through the rest of the nominating process. New Hampshire is a state that Bernie should win as it is next door to his home state, so losing here (even close) will show that his meteoric rise is over.

If Donald Trump does not win New Hampshire he is probably done on the Republican side. No Republican has won the nomination without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire, so today's primary is much more important for Trump than he is letting on. If Cruz wins today then he is pretty much a lock for the nomination. Marco Rubio looked to have a head of steam after nearly beating Trump in Iowa and then the last Republican debate happened and more than likely killed any chance that he had of pulling a massive upset. He was very robotic and repetitive in the debate. I believe (and I could be wrong) that any candidate finishing outside of the top three will be done as far as the nominating process is considered. So, while it's important who wins on the Republican side it is just as important who finishes third and worse.

On the Democratic side, if Bernie Sanders does win as expected that does not mean that Hillary is finished. If she makes it competitive (less than double digits) she should actually be fine going forward. However if she loses by more than 20 points her campaign will be in serious trouble.

It will be interesting to see how tonight turns out. I will update as I can throughout the night and offer my opinion of the results as they come in.

Now for a little shameless self promotion. Anyone that was around in 2012 knows that I predicted the outcome of that presidential election perfectly as far as delegate count was concerned. All I did in my predictions is just read the polls for each state going into election day. I completely ignored the national polling that showed a much closer race than it ended up being. We will see how I do this year.

UPDATE 1

I forgot to give my predictions on each side:

Democratic - Sanders will win New Hampshire but it will be much closer than the polls suggest. He will win by between 5-10%

Republican - Trump will also win but I think it will be by less than 4%. The shocker here is that I think John Kasich will be the candidate that comes closest and finishes in second. Ted Cruz will come in a distant third. Marco Rubio will come in fourth. Now I did state anyone finishing outside the top three here are pretty much done for the primary. Rubio will be the only candidate outside the top three that will still be considered mentionable. Which means for Chris Christie, Ben Carson, Carly Fioriani, and yes even Jeb Bush this will be the last time they are seriously considered to be electable on the Republican side.

UPDATE 2

Unfortunately I was unable to update like I wanted to but with the results now fully in I offer my analysis:

Bernie Sanders not only won by a much larger margin than I had predicted but absolutely trounced Hillary Clinton by 60-38. He is the first non sitting candidate since JFK to win by that margin in the state. He won almost every single demographic except for people who earn over $250,000 per year and people 65 and over. He won the women by 55-44 margin. He overwhelmingly won with people with a high school diploma or less (68-30). He won overwhelmingly among people that make under %50,000 a year (65-32). He won self identified Democrats 52-48 and absolutely demolished Hillary among self identified Independents 73-25.

Why do I bring up these specific numbers. As far as women, high school or less, and people who make less than $50,000 these were the core supporters of Hillary in 2008. Obama never made any in roads among this group of voters in 2008. What is important about the Democratic and Independent voters actually comes from the Republican side. In previous primaries in New Hampshire if the candidate won the primary but lost the self described Republicans they eventually lost the nomination. The most recent being in 2000 when John McCain beat George Bush in the primary. He easily carried Independents but lost to Bush for the self described Republicans. IF (and that's a big if) the same follows for the Democrats, Hillary could be in some trouble.

On the Republican side, I missed the prediction as far as how much Trump would win by a substantial amount but I was correct on the top 3. Rubio did much worse than expected finishing 5th. I still believe that the trio of Trump, Kasich, and Cruz are the only viable candidates left but Bush and Rubio did well enough that they can stay in the race longer than expected. Chris Christie and Carly Fioriani have already dropped out of the race. We have not hear anything from the Ben Carson campaign in weeks but he has long not been a viable candidate.

The next contests up for each party are the Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary on February 20.

The latest polling for the Nevada caucus shows Hillary Clinton up 50-27 and with all the polls including have her with an average lead of roughly the same 50.2-27. What is important to note here is the last poll was published in December before the majority of the debates and before both Iowa and New Hampshire.

As far as the Republican side in South Carolina the last polling had Trump in the lead with 36%, followed by Cruz with 20, Rubio at 14, and Bush at 9. Other candidates in the poll saw Carson at 8 and Kasich at 1. The average was Trump in the lead with 36.4, Cruz with 20, Rubio with 13.7, and Bush with 8.7. The person to note is Carson who up to that point had at the point gone from roughly 18% down to 8.3. As with the Democratic polling the last poll was published in January before Iowa and New Hampshire. I would expect the top two in the next poll to be the same with Trump and Cruz, but the next three should be interesting between Rubio, Bush, and Kasich. Yes Kasich is only at 1% but with his strong showing in New Hampshire his numbers should go up.

Polling Update:

The newest polling data is out for both the Democratic Nevada Caucus and Republican South Carolina Primary. Some of the results are pretty shocking.

Nevada: First the newest poll should be taken with a grain of salt for two reasons; the poll was released by a company that up until today had not done any polling in the state so there is nothing to compare to (which typically does not translate well for polling companies, and the company sponsoring the poll is affiliated with the Republican Party.

Having said that the new poll has Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in a dead heat with 45%. Quite the contrast to December when Hillary enjoyed a 50-27% advantage. More polling will need to be done in advance of the caucus before we are able to tell if the tie is a reality or an outlier (remember outlier polls are those that fall out of the range of most polling. We see quite a few of them during the general election, not as many during the primaries. So this will need to be watched. It should also be noted that the poll was taken from the day before the New Hampshire primary through the day after the primary. It was taken before the debate that occurred last night.

South Carolina: It doesn't look like Donald Trump is going anywhere anytime soon as the newest poll out is showing Trump with the exact same 36-20% lead over Ted Cruz that he enjoyed in January. The big mover, or course is John Kasich who went from dead last with 1% support to now in 5th (yes there are only six running) with 9% support. Marco Rubio saw an increase of one percent, Jeb Bush saw an increase of 2%. Dr. Ben Carson was the big loser with a 3% drop. The standings as it stands now are Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Kasich, and Carson. It should be interesting over the next week as more polls are released to see if Kasich continues his upswing. South Carolina is a highly evangelical state, which should bode well for Cruz who overwhelmingly won this group in the Iowa caucus which is also a highly evangelical state.

The next Republican debate will take place on Saturday and be hosted by CBS. All six of the main contenders will be present. Jim Gilmore, who is on the ballot, was not invited to the debate and he has not been included in the last two polls.

Polling Update #2:

The newest round of polling came in on Sunday in South Carolina for both primaries. There were two polls released for each race published by ARG and CBS/YouGov. This is the first poll that ARG has done in South Carolina and it should be noted that as far as polling goes they are rated with a C-, so again like above take their results with a grain of salt. First up the results on the Democratic side:

Democratic: Both polls still show a wide lead for Clinton. ARG has her lead at 65-27% almost a 40 point lead but as noted above this is ARGs first poll in the state and their grade as a pollster is not great. The CBS poll has Hillary leading at 59-40%. Still a substantial amount but far less than the ARG. I look at the combination of polls at pollster.com and what they do, if there are enough polls out is typically take out the outliers in their shading, so while the ARG is on the grid it is not factored into the shading.

Back to the CBS poll, they have had several runs in the state and they have shown a slow decline in Clinton's number and up until the latest poll a steady increase in Bernie's numbers. This primary is still more than a week out, so expect a few more polls to come in before the primary.

Both polls were conducted after New Hampshire and also during and after the Democratic debate.

Republicans: Both of the polls have Trump with a greater than 20% lead over any other candidate in the race, coming in with 35 and 42% respectively. The surprise here is the completely different look of candidates between the polls. In the ARG Kasich comes in 2nd with 15%, Rubio comes in at third at 14%, Cruz comes in at forth with 12%, and Bush comes in fifth with 10%. What is very surprising with the ARG is that it is showing that 10% of those polled are still undecided, something no other poll has showed since early December of last year. Again, this is the first poll that ARG has released in South Carolina and with a C- these results should be taken with a grain of salt. I say this, because;

The CBS poll has second place and on completely different. In this poll Cruz is second with 20%, Rubio is third with 15%, Kasich is forth with 9%, and Bush is pulling up the rear with 6% tied with Dr. Carson. In this poll there are only 1% undecided.

Looking at previous CBS polls in the state Trump has increased his lead with each new poll has been released while the rest jockey for 2nd position.

Both polls, it should be noted, were done before the Republican debate over the weekend. It will be interesting to see if anything changes over the next week, from the debate with the far different tone that Trump took in blaming George W. Bush for the Iraq War, stating that he was against the war from the beginning, and calling Bush a liar over the WMDs. Both of these points got very loud boos from the audience. Also, Trump went directly after Cruz stating on the debate stage that not only was he a liar but that he was contemplating a lawsuit to remove Cruz from the field over his believe that Cruz is not Constitutionally eligible to run.

Also with the death of Supreme Court justice Scalia and the impending fight over appointing a new justice, it will be interesting to see if there is any effect on polling on either side.

I do not expect any polling to be released today since it is Presidents Day, but this political season is far different than any I can remember so we may be surprised. update within an update More polls WERE released yesterday but not much movement was seen. I am still waiting for any polls on the Nevada caucus that takes place this weekend for the Democrats.

Polling Update #3:

Finally a new poll has come out in Nevada for the Democratic caucus and also for the Republican Nevada Caucus that takes place following the South Carolina primary.

Democrats: The poll was releases by CNN and shows Clinton hanging on to a 48-47% lead over Bernie Sanders. The margin of error on this poll is +/-3% so this is a virtual tie with the caucus on Saturday. CNNs last poll in Nevada was in October showed Clinton up 50-34% on Bernie. Vice President Joe Biden came in this poll at 12% though he never announced that he was going to run.

Republicans: Appears to be another run away for Donald Trump. He heads the field at 45-19% over Marco Rubio. This poll also performed by CNN showed Trump with a 38-22% lead over Dr. Ben Carson in October. Nevada could be Trumps first true overwhelming win in the Republican primaries.

The primary reason that I continue listing all the candidates still in the field because even though Trump is leading or winning the primaries by more than 20% he is not winning with a majority of the votes. Unless he can start getting into the 45-50% range in the primaries, the Republicans could be looking at a brokered convention, with Trump leading the field but not gaining enough delegates to win the nomination.

So from second place on we have Marco Rubio with 19%, Cruz at 17%, Carson at 7%, Kasich at 5%, and Bush limping in at 1%.