There’s every reason to be cynical about the scheduling of the Democratic debates this cycle. First of all, there have been only four of them, compared with six for the GOP. And the previous two Democratic debates were scheduled for a Saturday night.
And now this one’s scheduled for a Sunday — at 9 p.m.?
Actually, that’s a pretty reasonable time to get viewership for a debate. Sunday night is the top night for prime time TV in the United States. And while 9 p.m. might seem late, it’s the busiest hour for TV viewership among Americans ages 15 or older. (And remember — it’s still only 6 p.m. in California.
Certainly, you can nitpick the Democratic National Committee’s choice. For instance, tomorrow is a federal holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day (although it’s not clear how much that would affect TV viewership. Nonetheless, it doesn’t make sense to put a Sunday debate in the same category as one on Saturday, which really is a dead night for TV.
CHARLESTON, SC — The lawn out front of the Gaillard Center in Charleston, S.C., where tonight’s debate is being held, was densely packed with campaign signs today. As far as I could tell, the “Bernie” signs and “Hillary” signs were about equal in number, but there wasn’t a single Martin O’Malley sign. In fact, I spent the entire day walking around Charleston without seeing the name “O’Malley” once. It’s no secret that O’Malley isn’t much of a contender in this race — and he’s been polling at 5 percent or less in South Carolina — but I was still a little shocked to see no evidence of support here whatsoever. That’s gotta sting.
New Hampshire’s A Tossup
The New Hampshire Democratic primary remains too close to call. Bernie Sanders has led in most recent surveys in the state and is forecast to win 71 percent of the time, according to the FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast. A Sanders victory wouldn’t be surprising given that he is from next-door Vermont.
Hillary Clinton, however, has a 57 percent chance of winning in the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus forecast. Her slight advantage here is because of her many endorsements, as well as a projected bump for her in the state if she can hold on to her current lead in Iowa. The polls-plus forecast has been more accurate historically, though not overwhelmingly so.
Overall, the New Hampshire primary could go either way. A strong performance in tonight’s debate could put either candidate over the top.
Sanders Closes In On Clinton In Iowa
Heading into tonight’s debate, Hillary Clinton maintains a small but not insurmountable advantage over Bernie Sanders in the race to win the Iowa caucuses. According to the FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast, which looks only at state polls, Clinton has a 65 percent chance of winning. Sanders has a 35 percent chance. But Clinton’s projected margin of victory, 5.1 percentage points, is less secure than you might think because it is smaller than the 7.0 percent that Martin O’Malley is forecast to win. That’s important because many of O’Malley’s voters will be forced to choosebetween Clinton and Sanders because of caucus rules, and there are some signs that they may be likely to choose Sanders.
Clinton does better in the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus forecast, which takes into account endorsements and national polls. She is expected to win 81 percent of the time in this forecast, thanks to the record amount of endorsements from governors and members of Congress she has piled up. Even in this projection, though, Sanders has a 19 percent chance of winning.
Where Does The Democratic Race Stand?
On some of our long car trips in Iowa last week, the FiveThirtyEight team got into disagreements about the status of the Democratic race. On the one hand, Bernie Sanders had gotten a series of strong-looking polls, in Iowa and nationally, including some surveys that showed Hillary Clinton’s lead in the national race down to single digits. On the other hand, there hadn’t been any major news events precipitating the Sanders surge, which is sometimes a reason to be skeptical of an apparent poll shift. We weren’t quite sure what to make of it.
Subsequent polling data makes it less clear just how much the race has tightened nationally. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, released this morning, has Clinton up by 25 percentage points nationally (actually a slight increase from her 19-point lead in December). We aren’t publishing a FiveThirtyEight national polling average yet, but calculating one using the same method that we use for our state polling averages would show Clinton up by 22 points.
Iowa is a different story, however. Although Clinton probably still leads there, there’s little doubt that the race has tightened considerably.
This all makes a bit more sense. There’s probably been a bit of tightening nationally, if not quite as much as the headlines imply. But there’s not yet a lot of evidence that Sanders is expanding his support into groups — Hispanics, African-Americans, and moderate Democrats — that he’d been struggling with before.
Those groups aren’t very plentiful in Iowa and New Hampshire, however, making them great targets for Sanders, and his strong ground game in the early states (although note: Clinton’s ground game is really good too) may be helping to move some persuadable voters into his column.
In addition to the Iowa and New Hampshire polls, Bernie Sanders has gotten some fuel from the endorsement of liberal advocacy group MoveOn last week. With 340,000 members voting, MoveOn endorsed Sanders after he received a record 78.6 percent of the group’s votes. (Members endorsed Barack Obama after he won 70 percent of their votes in 2008.) This doesn’t change the endorsement primary or other factors in the race, but it shows what may be a weakness on the left of the Democratic base for Hillary Clinton. MoveOn said it would seek to mobilize its 43,000 members in Iowa and 30,000 members in New Hampshire to vote for Sanders.
Welcome
Perhaps the two most memorable moments from the previous Democratic debates were Bernie Sanders letting Hillary Clinton off the hook for using a private email account as secretary of state and Clinton returning the favorafter the Sanders campaign improperly accessed Clinton’s voter data.
But don’t be surprised if the candidates are feeling a bit less generous during tonight’s debate, hosted by NBC: The Democratic presidential campaign is getting interesting.
Bernie Sanders has narrowed Hillary Clinton’s advantage in Iowa, and the polls show him leading in New Hampshire. Not coincidentally, the race — mostly civil so far, almost sedate — has acquired an edge, with Clinton going after Sanders on guns, and Sanders hitting Clinton for taking money from Wall Street.
Sometimes candidates leave the dirty work to their campaigns and surrogates and play nice when face to face during debates, but I’d still expect a few more barbs then we saw in the first three Democratic debates. Also, Martin O’Malley will be there. So, enjoy all of tonight’s festivities here with us; if you have a question or comment, leave it here or tweet us
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