STATE OF THE PRIMARY - February 23, 2016

[font color="blue"]Delegate Count
Total Delegates (AP): Clinton 503, Sanders 70 (Clinton +433)
Pledged Delegates: Clinton 52, Sanders 51 (Clinton +1).
Versus Targets (Cook): Clinton +11, Sanders -11

Latest Results
Nevada Caucuses: Clinton 20, Sanders 15 (Clinton +5).
Versus 2/12 Targets: Clinton +4, Sanders -4.

Next Primary
South Carolina, February 27 (53 pledged delegates).
Targets (Cook): Clinton 28, Sanders 25.
Median projection (538): Clinton +11.[/font]


[font color="darkblue"] Latest Polls
North Carolina (SurveyUSA): Clinton 51, Sanders 36 (Clinton +15).
Illinois (The Simon Poll/SIU): Clinton 51, Sanders 32 (Clinton +19).
West Virginia (MetroNews): Sanders 57, Clinton 29 (Sanders +28).
Texas (UT/Texas Tribune): Clinton 54, Sanders 44 (Clinton +10).
Ohio (Quinnipiac): Clinton 55, Sanders 40 (Clinton +15).

Current Polls-Plus Projections (538)
South Carolina: Clinton 65.0, Sanders 31.2.
Arkansas: Clinton 64.7, Sanders 31.8.
Georgia: Clinton 76.9, Sanders 19.8.
Massachusetts: Clinton 49.5, Sanders 47.4.
Oklahoma: Clinton 52.6, Sanders 43.9.
Tennessee: Clinton 65.4, Sanders 31.4.
Texas: Clinton 63.8, Sanders 33.2.
Virginia: Clinton 62.4, Sanders 34.5.
Michigan: Clinton 61.4, Sanders 35.8.
North Carolina: Clinton 60.7, Sanders 35.8.

Current Endorsement Score (538)
Clinton 468, Sanders 3.[/font]


[font color="brown"]Quick Glance at the GOP
Pledged Delegates: Trump 67, Cruz 11, Rubio 10.
538 Nevada Projection: Trump 64, Rubio 25, Cruz 10.
Endorsement Score: Rubio 137, Cruz 22, Kasich 20.[/font]


Comments
One week from Super Tuesday!

That new Texas poll, which shows Hillary ahead only 10 points, is from YouGov, which has a decent-ish reputation, and the methodology behind it looks sound to this layman. Much as I'd like to dispute it, I can't. However, it has not yet been factored into FiveThirtyEight's projection for Texas. (Neither has that West Virginia poll, whose pollster has little, no, or negative reputation.)

If this does cause the numbers in Texas to narrow, and I think it will, this gives some much-needed good news for Bernie fans. They are assuming, based solely on Nevada entrance polls, that Bernie somehow managed to acquire the Latino vote, and can therefore make very large inroads in states like Texas, Florida, and California.

However, looking at objective data, Hillary won the more Latino parts of the state -- most notably Clark County by 10 points, and the at-large caucuses in Las Vegas, which were very heavily Latino. A good article from Vox considers this discrepancy:

The only explanation for the entrance polls would be that Clinton consistently won the parts of Nevada where the most Latinos happen to be — by overwhelmingly winning the non-Latino vote there, while Sanders won the Latino vote.

That is extremely unlikely. It is more likely that Hillary Clinton won the most Latino parts of Nevada because Hillary Clinton won Nevada's Latinos.

The article goes on to explain why entrance and exit polls aren't good for tracking Latino behavior. So if Bernie is counting on Latinos to be his own "firewall," he's going to get -- forgive me, I cannot resist -- berned down to the ground.

So why has the Texas race narrowed? Maybe it's an outlier. Or maybe Bernie has more of a ground game in the Lone Star state than we thought -- which in itself would be great news for him. Either way, though, it's not Latinos. And to date, nobody has shown me a path from Bernie to the nomination that doesn't include Latinos.

Meanwhile, on the evil side, looking at the endorsements it seems clear that the GOP establishment is flocking to Rubio -- if you look at his endorsement score timeline, it now resembles a hockey stick. No surprise there. And more importantly, he's making some real inroads in states like Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. It might just be enough to dump Trump.


How This Works
The delegate counts, pledged and total, are taken from AP. The total delegate count includes both pledged delegates, based on their margins in the states which have voted, and superdelegates, who have declared their intention to vote for one of the candidates (but may change their mind before the convention).

The targets are taken from the Cook Political Report's model, based on superdelegate endorsement and demographic conditions favorable to each candidate, and represent the number of delegates each candidate must win in each state in order to stay on track to tie for the nomination. The targets are current as of February 12. The projections and endorsement scores are maintained by FiveThirtyEight; the numbers indicate the population mean of the candidates' vote shares. Italic font denotes that the 80% confidence intervals of the candidates overlap, meaning there's a reasonable chance that the person with the higher vote share will not win that state.

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[font color="purple"]Pun of the Day
Until the metric system is established, a ruler will always be afoot![/font]

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