Note: The stuff in square brackets below are sourcing and long-winded math proofs. You are free to render the graphs and put them on your show. I put them in square brackets because they are highly technical and not something that is easily explained to an audience.
Click on images to see them in high definition.
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I watched The Young Turks coverage yesterday and, after losing a big state like New York, the mood in the studio was very depressed.
Before I brighten your mood, I'll give you a primer on where I am on this spectrum of hope.
During primaries, I use math to get a sense of what a candidate has to do to win. Usually the pattern you would expect from a candidate not doing so well is an odds curve that sinks faster and faster until it hits zero, indicating mathematical impossibility.
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For example, if a candidate has 400 points to go, but another candidate has 600 points to go, and they keep winning 50/50 until the end, then the equation to represent that timeline is something like this:
y = (400-(x/2.0))/(1000-x)
You can graph it on https://www.desmos.com/calculator .
Go to settings and set x-axis to 0 to 1000 and y-axis to 0 to 1.
And as expected, it becomes mathematically impossible to win when there's 200 points remaining, at which point the other candidate mathematically clinches the nomination.
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Right after Ohio, I checked the odds and I determined that Bernie would need roughly 60% (well, more precisely 57.8%) of the votes going forward to tie Hillary.
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Source:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
sum of remaining delegates between Ohio and New York:
75+23+33+16+25+101+86+14+247 = 620
sum of remaining delegates after New York:
95+55+21+189+24+83+7+29+55+61+7+60+20+34+18+126+21+475+20 = 1400
total sum of remaining delegates after Ohio: 620 + 1400 = 2020
difference between Hillary and Sanders at the time
in delegates: 1171-857 = 314
To find out the remainder needed for each candidate to tie:
Hillary: (2020-314)/2.0/2020 = 42.2%
Bernie: (2020+314)/2.0/2020 = 57.8%
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Given that he was polling at 40.9% nationally at the time (well, this number is from looking at huffingtonpost graphs today), I gave his odds about 0.3%, informed by a combination of math and my gut.
- HOPE -
So, where do we stand today?
First off, since Ohio, Bernie has won many more delegates than Hillary (294 to Hillary's 257).
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Source:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
Bernie: 33+18+27+13+17+25+48+7+106 = 294
Hillary: 42+5+6+3+8+9+38+7+139 = 257
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Looking at national polling, as is always the pattern with him, he has gotten even more popular, that same graph from before showing him now at 44.7%, a 3.8% rise since Ohio.
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Source:
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary
This is a nice graph to show! It always brightens my mood.
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Redoing the math I did post-Ohio, yeah it's worse, but barely! Now being past nearly a third of the post-Ohio delegates, he needs to strive for 59.9% of the remaining delegates instead of 57.8%. That's just a difference of about 2%. He gained in the polls 3.8% in that time!
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Source:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
sum of remaining delegates after New York:
95+55+21+189+24+83+7+29+55+61+7+60+20+34+18+126+21+475+20 = 1400
difference between Hillary and Sanders right now in delegates:
1428-1151 = 277
To find out the remainder needed for each candidate to tie:
Hillary: (1400-277)/2.0/1400 = 40.1%
Bernie: (1400+277)/2.0/1400 = 59.9%
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So after the tragic loss in New York, where do I put the odds?
0.3%.
In other words, I didn't move it!
If I thought it was 10% then, I would have kept it at roughly 10% now.
And whatever odds you had in your own mental math post-Ohio, I would recommend not to move it much!
So remember: Don't freak out!
