Results from Alabama and Mississippi

The polls were all wrong in the Deep South, so neither Nate Silver or I did very well, turning in our worst performances since Iowa, the other huge upset win for Sick Rantorum. That said, in this contest our algorithms are competing against each other, and I pulled off two low scoring wins.  Here are the results.

Mississippi
------------
Santorum 32.9% (I gain 0.6%)
Gingrich 31.3% (I gain 1.1%)
Romney 32.9% (I lose 0.8%)
Paul 4.4% (I gain 0.3%)
None of the Above 1.1% (break even)
Hubbard 85.0%, 83.8%

Alabama
------------
Santorum 34.5% (I gain 0.4%) 
Gingrich 29.3% (I gain 1%)
Romney 29.0% (I gain 1%)
Paul 5.0% (I lose 1.3%)
None of the Above 2.2% (I gain 0.3%)
Hubbard 85.6%, Silver 84.2%

Simply put, we overrated everybody in the field except Senator Rick.  We also underrated None Of The Above.

The news will be about these two victories and ignore the fact that R-Money picked up more delegates last night than the other candidates by winning big in Hawaii and American Samoa.

Delegates won on 3/13

R-Money 40

Rantorum 35

Old Cheerful 25

Dr. Ron 0

 

The boa constrictor continues to squeeze. Newt has said many times he won't quit, but even a guy as cheerful as he is has to be getting a little glum by now. This next week has a non-binding caucus in Missouri, a winner take all caucus in Puerto Rico and a direct election next Tuesday in Illinois.  I expect the polling companies to give a lot of data in Illinois and next to none in the other two contests. If that's the case, I'll be back to report on the prognostications a week from now.

More fun with the tracking poll.

Gallup tracking poll - Beginning of January through middle of March

The Gallup tracking poll produces almost no information that will tell us who will be the Republican nominee, but because it is updated nearly every day, it gives a great snapshot of the mood of the GOP voters and trends over time.  Let's look at the patterns.

R-Money (green): He rose, he fell, he rose again and fell again, and we have seen his third rise, which may be now entering his third fall.  Even so, he has been the leader in the tracking poll for about 70% of the time and has never been worse than second. Notice that the highest grid line any candidate has passed this year is 35% and R-Money has done it at least once in every month.  It has been really tough for anyone to stay over that level of support for even as long as a week at a stretch.

Sick Rantorum (greyish brown): In the beginning of January, he was a sad joke.  By the beginning of February, he has become R-Money's main competition, even taking the lead for about a week in mid-February.  It's too early to tell, but his numbers are currently rising as Mitt's are falling, so we may see a fifth lead change within a few days. The only thing that might prevent it is two third place finishes tonight in the Southern primaries, which is the general prediction from the polls but close enough that there might be a surprise.

Cheerful Old Newt (grey): December isn't shown on this, when Newt went from being a prohibitive favorite to second place. He peaked again in late January, but since then he has faded to a steady and unimpressive third place. Who knows if GOP votes nationwide will give him a boost based on what should be strong finishes this evening in Alabama and Mississippi.

Dr. Ron Paul (GOLD!): Very steady and consistently in the 10% to 15% bracket, with one small dip in early February. Can't gain traction, won't die out.

None of the above (black): At the beginning of the year, NOTA was up around 25%, but over time it has shrunk and for the past month it has been hovering around 15%. The GOP voter may not be in love, but they are becoming accustomed to the idea that one of these guys is getting the nomination and no white knight is coming to the rescue.

You will see updates of this graph in the future, because it's my blog and I love numbers.

Predictions for March 13:Primaries in Mississippi and Alabama

There are four contests today, primaries in Alabama and Mississippi and caucuses in Hawaii and American Samoa.  Polling companies only showed interest in the primaries and once again, my model for prediction goes head to head with Nate Silver's, this time in the two Southern states.  Here are the numbers, with my predicted percentage first and Silver's in parentheses second.

Mississippi
------------
Romney 34.5% (33.7%)
Gingrich 32.0% (33.2%)
Santorum 26.5% (25.9%)
Paul 7.0% (7.3%)
None of the Above 0.0% (-0.1%)

Alabama
------------
Gingrich 31.5% (32.2%)
Romney 31.0% (31.3%)
Santorum 28.5% (27.9%)
Paul 8.0% (7.3%)
None of the Above 1.0% (1.3%)

 

We agree on the basics, predicting victory for R-Money is Mississippi and Cheerful Old Newt in Alabama, Sick Rantorum in third in both races and Dr. Ron Paul a distant fourth in both.  As the numbers shake out, I'm bullish on Mitt and Rick in Ole Miss with the advantage that None of the Above can't be negative - it's like have a tiebreaker in pocket, while in Alabama, my model is bullish on Santorum and Paul.  Both of us are predicting close battles for first place based on the polling data, and it would not be truly startling if Gingrich or R-Money swept the South tonight.

 

I'll be back tomorrow with the results.  Currently, Silver and I are tied at 5-5 in the ten contests where we both made predictions. If we take the average of our ten predictions so far, Nate is ahead 89.6% to 89.3%.

So how is the election really going, Matty Boy?

Well, hypothetical question asker, here's the long and short of it. 

Mitt R-Money will be the Republican nominee on the first ballot, barring some stunning disaster.

After Super Tuesday, pundits were saying it wasn't impressive and he can't seal the deal because he didn't run the board.

That's just silly.

So far in essentially a four person race since things really started to matter, R-Money has garnered 40.5% of the popular vote and much more importantly, 55% of the delegates. He needs about 700 of 1500 remaining delegates to get the nomination, way less than half. Sick Rantorum would have to get on a massive hot streak and win 1,000 of the remaining delegates to pull out the upset, which means two out of every three from now on.

Ain't gonna happen.

And Cheerful Old Newt and Dr. Ron Paul have a combined chance of... wait, let me check the numbers... epsilon to win.

For non-mathematicians, epsilon means a number ridiculously close to zero that can't be said to be exactly zero.  All they need is toe tags, because both of them are dead meat.

Ron Paul doesn't quit because this is a crusade for him, not an election.

(photo by Vincent Yu/AP)

Newt doesn't quit beacuse of this odd looking grease weasel, billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson. Maybe it's just because I've grown up online reading Princess Sparkle Pony, but being a billionaire should mean getting better skin and hair care than this.

Adelson is Newt's Super PAC sugar daddy, so getting ads on the air is no problem. But R-Money has a Super PAC, too, and those ads effectively killed Cheerful Old Newt's chances of bouncing back. (Some observers say the moon base was Newt's true undoing, and that is certainly a major contributing factor.) For whatever reason, Adelson has taken a disliking to Sick Rantorum and promises to throw his support behind R-Money once Cheerful Old is out of the picture. In other words, instead of a knockout punch, the R-Money campaign is more like a boa constrictor, slowly squeezing the air out of its victims.

When it comes to the general election, this primary season hasn't been much help to R-Money's chances, but without a third party right wing candidate I think Mitt has a chance, though not even money at present. For exact numerical stuff, this is way too far away from November to give numbers that have any meaning at all.  Heck, I'm not confident about the predicting the primaries next Tuesday yet. But checking all the background information, from Gallup tracking down to Rush Limbaugh's woes - he has been a serious foe of Mitt's candidacy - R-Money is the Republican standard bearer whether they like him or not. Right now, he has to prove he's a better candidate than Michael Dukakis, let alone President Obama.

It's going to be a long year and I don't just mean 366 days.

Results of Super Tuesday: Predictions in Ohio, Georgia and Tennessee.

The final numbers are in for all ten races from last night, but there were only three states where there was enough data for both my model and Nate Silver's to predict the results candidate by candidate.  Without further ado, here are the numbers.

Ohio
------------
Romney 38.0% (both low, Silver gains 1.1%)
Santorum 37.1% (both low, I gain 0.2%)
Paul 9.2% (both high, Silver gains 1.2%)
Gingrich 14.6% (both high, Silver gains 0.4%)
NOTA 1.1% (I'm low, Nate's high, he gains 0.5%)
Final: Silver 91.6%, Hubbard 88.6%

Tennessee
------------Romney 28.1% (both high, I gain 1.1%)
Santorum 37.2% (both low, I gain 2.4%)
Paul 9.0% (I'm low, Silver's high, Silver 0.4% closer)
Gingrich 23.9% (I'm low, Silver's high, I'm 0.5% closer)
NOTA 1.7% (I'm high, Silver's low, I gain 0.5%)
Final: Hubbard 91.8%, Silver 87.4%

Georgia
------------Romney 25.9% (both low, Silver gains 1.0%)
Santorum 19.6% (both low, I gain 0.3%)
Paul 6.6% (both high, I gain 0.7%)
Gingrich 47.2% (both low, I gain 0.6%)
NOTA 0.7% (both high, Silver gains 0.8%) 

Final: Silver 94.8%, Hubbard 94.6%

Long story short: His model whipped mine but good in Ohio, mine whipped his in Tennessee and he beats me by the narrowest possible margin in Georgia.  (The tenths place is always even, because any tenth of a percent a prediction is too high for one candidate must be balanced by a tenth of a percent low someplace else.)  This brings the overall prediction battle record to five wins and five losses for each, a flat-footed tie.

No day from now on is going to have ten contests again and I don't know how avid the polling companies will be about covering the next contests. There are four contests this Saturday and four more next Tuesday and so far I have seen zero polls concerning any of them.  There might be some polling in Mississippi and Alabama, possibly in Kansas - though it's a Saturday caucus, which is kind of a double whammy - but I don't expect much data from the far-flung contests in Guam, Northern Marianas, Virgin Islands, American Samoa or even in Hawaii.

I will let you know the next time both Nate and I put up predictions head to head.

Predictions on Super Tuesday: Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee

The crystal ball is back and we have three key races where lots of polling companies gave us lots of data, much of it on this last weekend before the primaries.  There is enough data in Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee for my prediction model to go head to head with Nate Silver's in those states. The seven other races - Alaska, Oklahoma, Virginia, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota and Idaho - either had no polling or too little for my tastes.

Here are the predictions in the three states, my number given first and Nate Silver's in parentheses.

Ohio
------------
Romney 35.5% (36.6%)
Santorum 34.5% (34.3%)Gingrich 17.0% (16.6%)
Paul 12.5% (11.3%)
NOTA 0.5% (1.2%) 

Silver and I do not disagree on position of the four candidates in any state. We also agree that Ohio is relatively close, but late polling makes R-Money a slim favorite over Sick Rantorum. Nate's position makes him bullish on Mitt and None of the Above, and there are large gaps in our predictions of Mitt and Ron Paul.

Tennessee
------------ 

Santorum 35.0% (32.6%)
Romney 30.0% (31.1%)  
Gingrich 22.0% (26.5%)
Paul 10.0% (9.7%)
NOTA 3.0% (0.1%) 

Another close race, but Silver's model makes it even closer than mine does. We have large disagreements on everybody but Ron Paul, so the result of this one is likely to be a landslide one way or the other in terms of prediction numbers.

Georgia
------------ 
Gingrich 46.5% (45.9%)
Romney 24.5% (25.5%)
Santorum 19.0% (18.7%)
Paul 8.0% (8.7%)
NOTA 2.0% (1.2%)

Again, my prediction model and Nate Silver's agree on the basic order of things and there are big gaps between the candidates, so any change to Newt > Mitt > Rick > Ron will be a big surprise.  I'm bullish on Cheerful Old Newt, Sick Rantorum and None of the Above.  The gaps in our predictions are relatively small, so this could be a close race between Nate and me, though it should be a landslide for Gingrich in the state he used to call home.

I'll be back tomorrow to report on results.  After seven matches, I lead 4-3.

No prediction based on a single poll.

Quick update: I didn't publish a prediction in Washington state and neither did Nate Silver. Had I used my model with only the PPP poll, I would have been about 77.1% correct, a grade of C instead of the B+ to A- grades I expect when more data is available.  The PPP poll had Sick Rantorum beating Dr. Ron Paul - the only candidate with a key to the TARDIS - handily. Instead, it was Paul barely out-polling Sen. Rick and Gingrich completely out of the running, his usual outcome.

There will be enough data for some predictions before Super Tuesday.

No forecast in Washington caucuses

Washington state has a Republican caucus today, but I am making no prediction, and neither is Nate Silver.  Only PPP did any polling there, one poll this week and one two weeks ago.  They disagree radically, the early poll at the height of Santorum's national popularity showed he was ahead while the poll this week said Romney was the leader.

It's not that I don't trust PPP, but more that I don't trust a single fresh poll, especially when it concerns a caucus with a miniscule turn-out. Wyoming had a caucus on Wednesday, February 29, but I didn't see a single poll published anywhere. There are ten contests this Tuesday but several are still with no polling data whatsoever. North Dakota, for example, has a non-binding caucus.  There is no reason to keep track of what they do at all.

I am not yet sure of how many of Tuesday's contests will have enough data for me to make a prediction.  It all depends on how many polls get published in each state between now and Tuesday morning. The two big prizes are proportional primaries in Georgia and Ohio.  Recent polls show Gingrich comfortably ahead in the state he used to represent and Santorum is ahead in all the recent polls out of Ohio. The next biggest contest is Tennessee, which has only one poll so far this week.

Let me set a threshold of data for my system.  I need at least three polls from three companies in the last week and at least one of those has to be from the last three days before the election.  That means for Tuesday contests, I want a poll that finished up on Saturday, Sunday or Monday and at least two more polls that concluded Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. There are ten contests on Tuesday.  I'll be surprised if I have a prediction in more than five.

Stay tuned.

A last look at February

Gallup national tracking for February

 

It's March now and winter is starting in the Bay Area.  Across the country, Republicans are still not completely sure who they want as their standard bearer.  As of the 29th, R-Money is now at the 35% mark while Sick Rantorum is under 25%. You can see that as Senator Rick has fallen since the middle of the month, the one who has benefited most  Governor Mitt.

There's a passel of primaries and caucuses on Tuesday, but the next really interesting thing will be Newt or Rick throwing in the towel. I expect R-Money will fall behind once it becomes a two and a half person race, but I also expect him to come back.

It's still a crazy crap shoot.

Results for Prognostications #8 and #9: The Michigan and Arizona primaries

While Mitt R-Money won both races last night, Nate Silver and I split in terms of closeness of prognostication.  I lost in Michigan by over-rating Ron Paul by a bunch, while Nate lost Arizona by predicting the None of the Above vote would be non-existent.  Here are the numbers.

Michigan

Romney 41.1%(Both of us low, Silver gains by 1.0%)

 Santorum 37.9%(I'm low by 0.4%, Silver is 0.2% high. Silver picks up 0.2%) 

Paul 11.6%(Both of us too high. Silver picks up a whopping 1.8%)

Gingrich 6.5%(Again, both of us high. I beat Silver by 0.4%)

None of the above 2.9%(Both of us low. I'm 0.2% closer)

 

Final prognostication score: Silver 91.6%, Hubbard 89.2%

 

Arizona 

Romney 47.3%(Both of us low, Silver gains by 0.4%)

  Santorum 26.6%(Both of us high. Silver picks up 0.2%)

Gingrich 16.2%(Again, both of us high. I beat Silver by 0.7%)  

Paul 8.4%(Both of us too high. I gain 0.2%)

None of the above 1.5%(Both of us low. I'm 1.1% closer)

 

Final prognostication score: Silver 89.0%, Hubbard 90.4%

 

If I made a mistake, it was discounting the polls with a lot of undecided in Michigan too much, which made my Ron Paul prediction there stand out like a sore thumb.  After seven match-ups, I'm ahead of Nate Silver 4-3.

So next week is Super Tuesday, with primaries in seven states (Georgia, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia) and caucuses in four (Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming).  There is also a caucus in Washington state on Saturday.  I am going to make an arbitrary cut-off point of at least three polls in a state reporting after Friday and not all three polls by the same company for me to put up a prediction.  I don't know Silver's threshold for enough data. I expect some of the caucus states are not going to have many polling companies interested in hunting down those tiny numbers of caucus goers, but there's a good chance Silver and I will be going head to head in at least six contests next week.  The only change to my model will be to up the standard None of the Above vote to 1.5%.

Mmmm... fresh data!  So very fresh. Mmmmmm.

Prognostications #8 and #9: The primaries in Michigan and Arizona

After three weeks of waiting, the crystal ball is back.  The voters in Michigan and Arizona go to the polls and there have been plenty of polls to give us an idea of an idea of how things are going, so I'm making a prediction of the final numbers and so is Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com and The New York Times. There has been more data published about Michigan than Arizona, including two polls in the last twelve hours, but both have been well covered, so here are the numbers, with my prediction first and Silver's in parentheses.

Michigan
------------
Romney 38.0% (39.0%)
Santorum 37.5% (38.1%)
Paul 14.0% (12.2%)
Gingrich 9.5% (9.9%)
None of the Above 1.0% (0.8%)

Arizona
------------
Romney 43.0% (43.4%)
Santorum 27.5% (27.3%)
Paul 10.0% (10.2%)
Gingrich 18.5% (19.2%)
None of the Above 1.0% (-0.1%)

We have no disagreements about the order. Both of our models say Michigan will be very close and Arizona will not. 

In Michigan, our big difference is about Ron Paul.  There were some polls that had Paul comfortably in third place and others that said he and Gingrich were neck and neck.  Most of the latter had much larger Undecided votes than made sense this late in the game, so I did not favor those polls, regardless of freshness.

In Arizona, the big disagreement is about None of the Above.  If it's anywhere near 1%, this will give my model a big advantage. If it is under 0.5%, Silver will be in better shape.

In the real world, this is really about delegates, though there is also value in getting good press by winning or making a good showing. Michigan's race is multiple contests, two delegates per each congressional district and two more for the overall winner in the state. Silver has some polling information that one district might be won by Dr. Ron Paul - the candidate the Daleks hate most - while the rest are battles between the front runners. Arizona is winner take all and R-Money's lead looks insurmountable there. Expect the news coverage to focus on the closeness of Michigan and ignore that Mitt's lead in delegates will increase.

I'll have a new post tomorrow giving the results. So far in the five races where each of us has predicted an outcome, I'm ahead 3-2.

A little more information about polls than you probably wanted.

When looking at two polls, there are some mathematically solid methods that help you distinguish the more reliable one.

Who did they ask?  The most reliable polls ask likely voters.  The next most reliable ask registered voters. The least reliable ask adults. (I guess the very least reliable ask unregistered teenage zombies, but I've seen very few polls who will admit that is their sample set.)

When did they ask?  If everything else is equal between two polls, the most recent gives the best information.

Almost all polls at the state level ask likely voters, and as for freshness of a poll, in this crazy season a poll one week old is next to no good at all.

The next most important question that has a true mathematical foundation is How many people did they survey?  A larger survey gives you a smaller margin of error.

But for me, when I decide on what polls to pay attention to for my prognostications, I pay attention to something else instead of sample size.  When the election is truly close at hand, I ask How large is the Undecided vote?  Technically, it shouldn't matter but experience has shown me that polls with large None of the Above content a day or two before the election are probably not doing a very good job. In the Michigan polling, a local company named Mitchell Research steadily shows more undecided voters than anyone else, so I have discounted their results regardless of sample size.

 

Enter We Ask America, a polling company that is nationwide but relatively new.  I don't remember them when I was gathering polling data in the 2008 election and their online archives only go back to 2010.  Regardless, they are busy little bees and almost produce as many polls as the two big dogs on the block nowadays, PPP and Rasmussen.

The thing is, We Ask America always has awful amounts of Undecided, even close to election day. For example, their last poll before the South Carolina contest had 15% undecided at a time when other polls were showing 4% or 5%.

And so we have the two contests tomorrow in Michigan and Arizona.  A week ago, We Ask America found 13% undecided in Arizona and 20% in Michigan, suspiciously high numbers compared to most other companies.  But miracle of miracles, it all turned around this weekend.  In both states, the number of undecided in their polls was -1%.  In other words, because of rounding error, the sum of the four candidates was 101%.

For both of these polls to be so unnaturally tidy is just as suspect as ones where they have twice as much undecided as everyone else.  These kinds of miracles do not come from improved polling techniques.  They come from upper management saying, "Bring down the undecided numbers or it's your ass!"

I'd like to see We Ask America change their name to the more accurate We Make Shit Up.

p.s.  I'll have my predictions and Nate Silver's up by tomorrow morning.  PPP is promising one more poll released and I love to get the freshest data possible.

This is how it always starts...

Gallup National Tracking numbers Feb. 1 through Feb. 23

 

The early weeks of February were great for Sick Rantorum as he climbed from third to first in national tracking numbers as well as winning caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota. But as has been the case in for several months now, getting to 35% support and staying there just isn't in the cards.  Gingrich started December above 35% but plummeted, only to make a comeback in January that saw him over 30% but under 35%.  R-Money was the only candidate to break the magical 35% barrier in January, and both he and Rantorum have been above that level in February, but neither could maintain it for more than a few days.

National numbers are little more than background noise in terms of delegates.  Sadly for Senator Rick, his numbers are also slipping in Arizona and Michigan, the two states holding primaries this Tuesday.  R-Money has had the lead in every Arizona poll so far, but Rantorum looked to be gaining until this last debate.  We will see if the trend continues in the polls over the weekend.  If it does, expect Nate Silver and me to project Mitt as the victor in both.  In a normal election year I'd be a lot more confident of the general trend on a Friday before a Tuesday polling date, but this primary season is still as insanely volatile as this February has been insanely warm here in Northern California.

Eventually, Newt or Senator Rick will throw in the towel.  In a two and a half person race, someone will have to climb over the 40% support level.  My guess is the Last NonRomney Standing will take the lead and then be pulled back earthward both by his weaknesses and by attacks from R-Money and the super PACs that back him.

As for the talk about a brokered convention, right now that is just silliness, like trying to predict the Oscars that will be handed out a year from now.  The fundamentals of this race still favor R-Money to get the nomination and face an uphill battle to unseat Obama.  In some ways I'd like to see the Tea Party get who they want for a candidate and have that candidate drubbed soundly. If Mitt loses in November, I expect the crazier voices in the Republican echo chamber will just get louder and more strident. In any case, it's not going to be pretty.

I'll be back with my predictions for Tuesday races on Tuesday morning.

A story more complex than the media likes it.

 It's been about a week since any vote was cast in the Republican presidential primaries, and even those votes are now in doubt.  The official count was that R-Money beat Paul in Maine, but the results may change.  Like in the Iowa caucus, Mitt yet may be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

We are still a week and a half until another meaningful vote with primaries in Michigan and Arizona.  There has been a crazy amount of polling in Michigan and all the data says about the same thing.  Senator Rick, he of the last name that shall not be mentioned, has a big lead in Michigan, which is something of an embarrassment for R-Money, who was born there and whose father was governor about a half century ago. R-Money made a TV ad showing off his Michigan roots and as usual, he sucks at the whole positive message thing.  The car he was driving is a Chrysler made in Canada, and a picture of his dad and young R-Money visiting the Detroit Auto Show was actually a picture of them at the 1964 World's Fair in New York.

Ooopsie.

So Senator Rick is now the front runner.  All the media says so.

Not so fast.

Two polls taken in the past few days in Arizona tell us R-Money still has a lead of about 8% there, trimmed significantly from the beginning of the month when Newt was the presumed NotRomney. The big difference between the two contests is Michigan splits its 30 delegates proportionally and Arizona has 29 delegates, winner take all. In Michigan, a candidate has to pass the 15% threshold, which should be easy for the front runners and a challenge for Gingrich and Paul.

I'm not exactly sure what to make of all this data pointing in different directions.  Maybe each of the candidates other than Dr. Paul (Vote Ron Paul! Give up hope! You'll be fine with gold and dope!) is a regional candidate, Gingrich in the south, Senator Rick in the Midwest, R-Money in the eastern seaboard and the Mormon west.  One thing that is clear is Senator Rick is at a massive money disadvantage. His recent successes have not changed the fact he was a third-tier candidate for over six months, getting the kind of donations you expect from a no-hoper without a rabid base.  The next time the campaign budget numbers are updated, maybe he'll be doing better, but when the guy you are trying to beat has 30 times as much money in the bank as you do, the question is can he close the gap enough to make a difference.

There isn't enough data to make things clear right now.  I don't expect things will be clearer after the primaries on the 28th or even the Super Tuesday contests a week later. Part of the media's favorite message right now does ring true.  R-Money hasn't sealed the deal yet, and it's hard to say if all his cash can make him a more attractive candidate when all is said and done.

The second dawn for Senator Rick

The Gallup tracking poll for early February, 2/1 to 2/12

For this post and all posts and tweets after this I am going to call Rick Santorum Senator Rick. We no longer have to worry about confusion with Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, so Senator Rick (or just Rick) is his official name here. Anyone who has Google knows why I am squeamish about his last name.

Newt Gingrich did great in South Carolina, but it's been downhill ever since, getting a truly pathetic 6% in the Maine caucuses and barely crossing the 10% threshold in Colorado and Minnesota. Last week Senator Rick was anointed the True NotRomney, the candidate from the right who can stand in contrast to Romney's pragmatism, which in his case smells an awful lot like wishy-washiness. 

No one can call Senator Rick wishy-washy or pragmatic. He holds the hard line position on every hot button right wing issue I can think of.  Most notably, he spent much of his Senate career railing against abortion and gays. He shows no sign of moderating his views EVER, so if he gets the nomination, this truly will be The Tea Party vs. Obama.

Right now, national polls show Rick trailing Obama by about the same numbers that R-Money is trailing Obama, which punches a big hole in Mitt's electability argument. The thing we haven't seen yet is how Senator Rick will survive the full-on Super PAC assault. I expect he will pass R-Money this week, but I have no idea what the situation will look like on February 28, the date for the next two big primaries in Arizona and Michigan. It's kind of silly predicting anything more than a few days ahead. The Republican field is still more changeable than the weather. But if there are some trends that look obvious now, it's the end for Gingrich and Paul's best days are behind him. Paul believes in his crusade more than Newt believes in his, so Paul could hang on to the bitter end.  

I'm going to agree with Senator Rick and say it's a two-man race now.  In most American political races, especially intra-party, it makes sense to give the nod to the guy with the most money. That would mean R-Money will be the nominee, but not before this race rips the party apart.

Results from Prognostications #6 and #7: The non-binding caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota

There was only one company who tried to poll in Colorado and Minnesota prior to yesterday's caucuses, and given that lack of data Nate Silver declined to make a prediction.  While I consider myself a better mathematician than Silver is, I am not so foolish as to think there is nothing I can learn from him.  My prediction accuracy was stunningly bad, worse by far than anything I had done before.  There are several factors at play, but having so little data is certainly a major factor.  Without more fresh polling data, I will not make a prediction in future contests.

Let us first see the gory results. My updated predictions are better than my earlier stuff with less data, but none of them are even close to good. The actual numbers are first, my guess is second, the difference between them is in parentheses.

Colorado caucuses

Santorum 40.2% 28% (off by 12.2%)

Romney 34.9% 36% (off by 1.1%)

Gingrich 12.8% 22.5% (off by 9.7%)

Paul11.7% 13.5% (off 1.8%)
75.2% accurate, a C on the standard grading scale

===========

Minnesota caucuses

Santorum 45.0% 34% (off by 11%)

Romney 16.9% 23.5% (off by 6.6%)

Gingrich 10.8% 22%(off by 11.2%)

Paul 27.1% 20.5%(off by 6.6%)
64.6% accurate, a D on the standard grading scale

As Charles Barkley might say, I was turrrribull last night.  Let me list some of the reasons I sucked so bad.

1.  Not enough data.  I brought this up already.
2. Caucuses! We hates 'em!  There are so few voters at caucuses, they are hard to find by the methods pollsters use and all other things being equal, polls do a better job of estimating the votes in a primary, where the percentage of people casting votes is dramatically greater.
3. The elusive Santorum caucus voter.  In the caucuses in Iowa, where there was a ree-donkulous amount of fresh data, no poll told us Santorum was a front runner. Even the polls that put him in second put him a distant second. When all the votes were counted, he beat Romney in a photo finish. In two caucuses last night, again Santorum over-achieved spectacularly over the polls' guesses.  Maybe people who vote for Santorum don't answer phones.  They must be at prayer meetings or something.

And so we have a caucus in Maine that ends this weekend, but so far nobody has any poll data. I won't make a prediction without three different companies giving their best guesses by this Friday.  if that doesn't come to pass, the next contests that count are February 28 in Arizona and Michigan.  I'm certain there will be boatloads of polls in those two states, so my next prognostication against Nate Silver will probably have to wait until then. I can boldly predict that I have no clue right now what will happen then.  Former British P.M. Harold Wilson said a week is a long time in politics, and he was not subjected to the 24 hour cable news cycle.  Three weeks might as well be an eternity now.

Prognostications #6 and #7: The caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota - UPDATED WITH NEW DATA

February is slim pickings for primaries and caucuses that actually count.  Today, there are contests in Colorado and Minnesota, both caucus style, but no delegates go directly to the nomination.  Instead, a candidate who does well gets delegate to the state convention and the state convention makes decisions in the old-fashioned smoke-filled rooms. This differs from a place like Missouri, where the primary is strictly a beauty contest, not unlike the Iowa Straw Poll held in the fall, the one Michele Bachmann won.

My predictions are using three days of polling in both Colorado and Minnesota conducted by PPP. I give the more recent polling more weight than the older polling.  I remove the "None of the Above" votes from the sample and distribute the votes so that the sum of all the candidates is 100%.  In Nevada, I assumed the None Of The Above would be 0.5% and it was actually 0.3% of caucus goers opted not to vote. Since I don't know the in and outs of the caucus rules in these states, I'm going to assume it's difficult to vote for anyone but the four remaining guys.

Here are my numbers.  Nate Silver hasn't posted a prediction about either. Most of his tweets since the Super Bowl have been sports related.  No matter.  If he puts up predictions today, I'll update this post. If not, this was me keeping in practice.

Colorado caucuses

Romney 36% (was 41.5%)

Santorum 28% (was 27%)

Gingrich 22.5% (was 19%)

Paul 13.5% (was 12.5%)
(New data says Romney is being dragged closer to the pack, but still leads comfortably.)

===========

Minnesota caucuses

Santorum 34% (was 30%)

Romney 23.5% (was 28%)

Gingrich 22%(was 22.5%)

Paul 20.5%(was 19.5%)

(Santorum steals from Romney and Paul steals from Gingrich, more or less.)

If the polling data is even close, this should be a big news cycle win for Santorum.  The race for second place in Minnesota could produce yet another narrative.

When the final results are posted, I'll come back with a recap of how I did.

The results for Prognostication #5: The Nevada Caucuses

The Republicans finally finished tallying the results of the caucus they had on Saturday.  They tweeted the final results at 2:00 am Monday morning, about 27 hours after the last precinct closed up. (Most precincts had everything done by 7:00 pm Saturday, but some in Las Vegas finished at 11:00.)

27 hours to count about 33,000 votes.  This does not scream "competence" or "honest elections". Just to make matters worse, only about 1.3% of Nevadans were involved in this democratic process. By comparison, Sharron Angle, the ridiculous Tea Party candidate for Senate in 2010, got over 70,000 votes in the Republican primary.

As a person who has worked at a polling station and usually votes by absentee ballot, I can say without fear of contradiction that caucuses suck.

In any case, the final numbers are in and there are no big surprises. Mitt Romney won handily, Newt Gingrich was a distant second, Dr. Ron Paul (the only candidate who can save us from the Daleks) finished third and Rick Santorum was a distant fourth. The only drama was what the margins would be. Here are the final results.

Romney 50.0%(Both of us high, but I beat Silver by 0.8%)

 Gingrich 21.1%(Again, both of us high. Silver beats me by 0.4%)

Paul 18.7%(Both of us too low. Silver picks up 1.5%)

Santorum 9.9%(Both of us too low. I pick up 1.4%)

No vote 0.3%(Silver said 0%, I said 0.5%, I'm 0.1% closer)

Once again, my simpler method wins the prediction contest, 88.8% to 88.4%. This brings my record to 3-2.

There are two non-binding state caucuses held tomorrow in Colorado and Minnesota. Right now, the only fresh data is from PPP in both cases, so unless another company releases a poll between now and tomorrow morning, both Silver and I will be dealing with a single set of data in each case. If you follow this link, you'll see that Rick Santorum appears to be Romney's main challenger in both cases.  I'll publish my predictions and Silver's Tuesday morning and give the results on Wednesday, assuming people in Colorado and Minnesota are more competent at running elections than people in Nevada.

Prognostication #5: The Nevada Caucuses

Tomorrow, the Republicans of Nevada will have their caucuses. Compared to earlier contests, the amount of polling is woefully small. There are some other primaries and caucuses on Saturday and Tuesday, but this is the only one will any fresh polling data at all, so this is the only one where my system will make a prediction so far.

Nate Silver is happy to use data I do not use in most cases, polls I consider too old to be useful.  He tries to predict into the future using this stale data, a method I do not use or endorse.  But this time, we are using the exact same data, one poll from the Las Vegas Journal-Review taken in the last few days of January and another from PPP taken yesterday and the day before.  In some ways, this is the cleanest test of our different methodologies.  May the best algorithm win.

Here are the two prediction set. As always, my numbers come first and Silver's are second in parentheses.

Romney 50.5%(51.3%)

Gingrich 26.0%(25.6%)

Paul 13.5%(15.0%)

Santorum 9.5%(8.1%)

Other 0.5% (0%) 

I made my prediction without seeing Silver's. I expect he barely knows I exist.  This time, Silver is bullish on Romney and Paul, while my system expects better results from Gingrich, Santorum and Other. I decided to give Other half a percent instead of none because even in the Iowa caucuses with several more choices, the number of people expressing a preference not in the main group was closer to half a percent than to zero.

Because Nevada is farther west than any other contest so far, the polls will close later and the results may not be complete until Sunday morning.  In any case, when 100% of precincts report, I will publish the results and pick over the bones.

For me, this is a lot more fun than reading the tabloids and trying to figure out if some female celebrity really is pregnant or not.  It's a hobby that better suits my talents.

An interesting number from a meaningless race.

Public Policy Polling is a Democratic company and they work cheap, relying on robo-polls.  For all that, their track record for accuracy is good.  Late last month, they published a poll about next Tuesday's Missouri primary, a "beauty contest" that produces no delegates. Newt Gingrich's name does not appear on the ballot, so he wasn't a choice in the poll PPP conducted. In that sampling, Santorum beat Romney 45% to 34%. Ron Paul was at 13%, about what he gets in most polls in a four way race.

Eventually, Santorum or Gingrich will drop out, and right now it's much more likely to be Santorum, given the beatings he took in both South Carolina and Florida. When it gets down to Romney, NotRomney and Dr. Paul (the only one who can save us from the Daleks), Romney will be in second place for a while.  In the long run, I still think Romney wins the nomination just because Republicans will finally be resigned to the fact that Santorum or Gingrich will be crushed by Obama.

Back to PPP for a second.  They published their results for the Nevada caucuses this morning, so unless there is another poll no one has mentioned yet, I have my numbers ready for the Nevada race, which is held tomorrow. Nate Silver hasn't factored PPP in yet, so I'll wait until he does and publish our predictions together. We both have the same data and there is so little to use, I doubt we will disagree by much. 

Maine has a caucus as well, but no polls have been produced so I have no way to predict anything and I'm going to take a pass.

Playing around with numbers!  So much fun for a nerd like Matty Boy.