Tracker Update: Buttigieg Surge Continues

I was starting to think we might be entering a lull in the campaign season this week.  The frenzy of launch season is winding down and there have been few polls and no new endorsements over the last week or two.  Certainly over the next year-plus we can expect an ebb and flow in campaign activities that result in meaningful changes to candidate status.  But then we got an interesting poll from New Hampshire last night, followed by CNN updating their monthly candidate rankings this morning.  Pete Buttigieg was the prime beneficiary in both cases, earning third place with 11% in New Hampshire, and jumping up to fifth in CNN's rankings.  As a result, his trend line still resembles the launch phase of an ICBM:


Buttigieg is now even with O'Rourke and possibly heading for Tier 1 territory (depending on whether you're a lumper or splitter I guess).  Now to be clear, only the New Hampshire poll is what I would consider fresh new information here.  The CNN rankings were last updated in early March, so essentially they're just now catching up to the Buttigieg surge we've been seeing over the last few weeks.  Here's the table:


The only area where Buttigieg is lagging at this point is endorsements, but no one has received new endorsements for more than two weeks now.

Other than Mayor Pete, everyone is pretty much staying the course over the past week or so.  But here's an interesting trend I want to note:  recently there have been state polls in Massachusetts (Warren's home turf), California (Harris' home turf), and New Hampshire (Sander's and Warren's neighborhood).  And guess who is leading all three?  Biden (23% in MA, 26% in CA, 23% in NH).  This suggests a couple of things.  First, Biden appears to have broad appeal to Democrats to go along with his high name recognition.  But second, I'm wondering if this primary will be more nationalized than past elections.  I haven't looked at recent history, so this may have started in 2016 or even before, but traditionally candidates have always performed strongly in their home states and states nearby.  Candidates often built their primary strategies around a strong performance in those states to keep them in the game.  But if a candidate (Biden or any other) achieves a broad national consensus before the voting even begins, this thing may be over quickly.  That's one potential disadvantage of a large candidate slate I guess.

Of course, there's a long way to go before anyone will be declaring victory.  Should be a fun ride...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tracker Update: Biden is the Clear Frontrunner

Image
Just a brief update again today to reflect the latest numbers.  Biden continues to improve in polling since his announcement, and the bettors and pundits are following along. Warren's polling bump continues as well.  Meanwhile Gillibrand isn't getting good numbers from any quarter this week. Scoring Methods Explanation I'm curious if we'll see any of the Herd who've been languishing at one percent or less in polling manage to break out before debate season begins in June.  That is likely the next chance for someone to garner the kind of attention Buttigieg saw in March and April.
Read more

Tracker Update: First Signs of Debate Results

Image
Just a quick update today to show how the Tracker has begun to move immediately after this week's debates.  It is obviously too soon for polling data, which is where some of the model's other inputs are valuable -- the pundit ratings and betting market are already reflecting debate performances.  Here are the numbers: For the most part, the betting market is moving in the direction that seems to be the consensus of pundits on how each candidate performed in the first debates.  Harris leads all gainers in the PredictIt market with a gain of 8, while Biden and Yang are tied with the biggest loss at -5 (as of about 9am ET this morning).  Likewise, the Washington Post moved Harris to the top of their power rankings, while Castro gained two spots to 7th, with Biden, O'Rourke, and Yang all dropping.  We'll start to see the first post-debate poll results early next week, which will be the true test of how the voters are responding.  We're also coming up on...
Read more

Tracker Update: Stage is Set for Debates

Image
Summer is here, and for the 2020 Democratic nomination campaign it's also the end of one season - announcements - and the beginning of the next - debates.  While some pundits believe Stacy Abrams is still contemplating a run, the field appears to be set.  Anyone, including Abrams, who joined the fray after this point faces significant disadvantages in fundraising as well as qualifying for the debates. So where do we stand on the eve of the first debate? Biden's announcement wave has crested, but it leaves him in sole possession of frontrunner status heading into the debates. Behind him are four serious challengers: Sanders, Harris, Warren, and Buttigieg. O'Rourke, Booker, and Klobuchar are in the conversation.  Everyone else is a longshot at this point, and only a stellar, compelling debate performance that leads to a polling surge will keep them alive into the fall.  As Nate Silver noted earlier this week, that's likely to happen for one or two of the remainin...
Read more