If I may step in, I want to share something that I find fascinating

I'm going to post a, well, post that I keep updating in GDP below, but first a few quick words. Awhile back I made a challenge to myself, can I take a fairly decent run at predicting the outcome of state primaries/caucuses by looking at only a single factor. After a lot of thought, including open vs closed primaries, primaries vs caucuses, young vs old etc, I landed on % of a state's population that is black. Not Democratic population or total non-white population, just straight up what % of the state's total is black.

The reason I ultimately chose this factor is because, from the early races on, this demographic had overwhelmingly voted in one direction--it didn't matter if the state was Northern or Southern, primary or caucus or even if Clinton won or lost--black voters, in all cases, went heavily to Hillary.

So, I devised a simple model that predicted whether Hillary would win or not simply by how large the black population is within that state. Basically, were there enough black people in a state to push the result to Clinton.

This may seem simplistic or overly broad, but, well, up to this point the model has worked very well. I first posted it eleven states ago, and it has successfully predicted the outcome of all 11 states. In other words, simply knowing how large the black population is has allowed a model to pick winners with 100% accuracy through 11 contests.

I'd like to think this shows just how vital the black vote is to would-be Democratic representatives and, maybe, in the future all candidates running for national office will take the necessary steps to win over what looks to be the single most influential and powerful demographic group of the 2016 race.

I will be recalibrating the model for May sometime before Indiana votes, which may change predictions for a few of the states. I'll post the revised model here in a few days, if there is interest in seeing it. At any rate, what follows is my original model and predictions:

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Hypothesis: Simply by analyzing the percentage of a state's population that is black, I believe you can fairly accurately predict the "winner" of a state in upcoming primaries and caucuses. There will be misses, I am sure, but I'm bored, so let's see how this works out. I'll bump the thread and fill in actual results (With insightful commentary like, "Boy, that one was wrong!&quot as primaries go on...assuming people are interested in my validation or humiliation, as the case may be.

So let's begin with states that have already voted

Your key for numbers below:
State Rank for Black Pop. State % of Pop. that is Black

All numbers from 2010 Census

Bernie Wins
44 NH 1.22%
33 CO 4.28%
31 MN 4.57%
26 OK 7.96%
49 VT 0.87%
29 KS 6.15%
32 NE 4.50%
47 ME 1.03%
16 MI 14.24%
48 ID 0.95%
43 UT 1.27%

Avg Black Pop 4.28%
At +1 Standard Deviation 8.38%

Hillary Wins
40 IA 2.68%
23 NV 9.00%
5 SC 28.48%
6 AL 26.38%
12 AR 15.76%
3 GA 31.4%
25 MA 8.1%
10 TN 16.78%
18 TX 11.91%
9 VA 19.91%
2 LA 32.4%
1 MS 37.30%
11 FL 15.91%
14 IL 14.88%
19 MO 11.49%
7 NC 21.60%
17 OH 12.04%
35 AZ 4.16%

Avg Black Pop 17.79%
At -1 Standard Deviation 7.80%


Prediction Methodology: If a state's black population is less than Bernie's 1 St Dev number, I predict he wins. If it is more than Hillary's 1 St Dev number, I predict she wins.

So my straight up, no commentary predictions (Note: this isn't a prediction of margin of victory, just who comes out on top as the state's winner. I also do not include territories):

34 AK 4.27% Bernie Correct
38 HI 3.08% Bernie Correct
36 WA 3.74% Bernie Correct
30 WI 6.07% Bernie Correct
42 WY 1.29% Bernie Correct
13 NY 15.18% Hillary Correct
21 CT 10.34% Hillary Correct
8 DE 20.95% Hillary Correct
4 MD 30.1% Hillary Correct
20 PA 10.79% Hillary Correct
27 RI 7.5% Bernie Correct
22 IN 9.07% Hillary
37 WV 3.58% Bernie
24 KY 8.2% Hillary
41 OR 2.01% Bernie
28 CA 6.67% Bernie
50 MT 0.67% Bernie
15 NJ 14.46% Hillary
39 NM 2.97% Bernie
46 ND 1.08% Bernie
45 SD 1.14% Bernie
** DC 50.7% Hillary

Now there will be some misses here, because the two data sets overlap in the 2nd Standard Deviation (Mean+2*StDev vs Mean -2*StDev), so the question will become which states and in which direction. That said, misses should favor Hillary as her Standard Deviation is over twice as wide as Bernie's (Wider standard deviation means more variation in the numbers. In this case, wider Deviation means Clinton has been more successful among a wider variation in black population than Bernie).