Super Tuesday Morning Line

The election railbirds have picked a narrative, and that narrative is Joementum. Because South Carolina’s late-deciding voters broke decisively for Biden, he vastly outperformed the final opinion polls. That’s what the political press means by momentum, so Joe has it.

That could all change by Wednesday, because Super Tuesday looks to belong to Bernie Sanders. Over at 270towin.com they estimated how many delegates each candidate stands to win based on an average of the latest polls in each state. I added up the numbers so you don’t have to, but if you want to double-check the math, I got the numbers here. I think some are suspect, but you can dig into the state-by-state numbers at the link.

All of these polls were taken before Buttigieg dropped out. While he didn’t reach the 15% threshold in any state, he had high single-digit or low double-digit numbers in most, and it’s uncertain where his supporters will go. In previous polls their second choices were mixed, but as Nate Silver suggests, it will most help candidates near the 15% line, particularly Bloomberg and Warren.

Some states have been polled more extensively than others, and none have been polled at the district level, where some of the delegates are selected based on their performance in the district, meaning that if a candidate doesn’t get 15% statewide but does in a district, she wins that district’s delegate. With no data at hand, the site merely apportioned those delegates according to the statewide percentages.

The tl;dr version: These are slippery numbers. IMO they serve as a marker for expectations, so a candidate who outperforms these numbers can attribute it to “momentum.”