2008 Woodie Awards
Political science professors' Super Tuesday predictions
By: Reporting by Amy Ledig
Issue date: 2/1/08 Section: News
Adrienne Christiansen
I predict, as I did months ago, McCain for the Republicans... I do not think it's going to be a rout for Hillary, but I think she's going to win more delegates on Super Tuesday. [Obama's] got lots of momentum going, it's exciting, but she's put together a very impressive organization... I predict it's going to be Hillary, but very close. We may come out of Super Tuesday with no definitive front-runner.
Paru Shah
Given the winner-take-all system employed by Republicans, I feel confident that by February 6 we will have a clear Republican candidate. And given the general upsurge in the McCain campaign, this could be his year. On the other hand, I don't expect the battle between Obama and Clinton to be settled before Pennsylvania. So expect a lot more drama!
Patrick Schmidt
For the health of American politics, it's better for it not to be resolved on Tuesday... A wise bettor wouldn't put money on this game. I think it's really difficult to say what's going to happen on [the Democratic] side. On the Republican side, there's such a uniform targeting of Romney. I wonder if to some extent with Romney, when you have a Massachusetts, Northeast guy, and a Mormon, if there are more Republicans willing to hold their nose to what they don't like about McCain…
I predict, as I did months ago, McCain for the Republicans... I do not think it's going to be a rout for Hillary, but I think she's going to win more delegates on Super Tuesday. [Obama's] got lots of momentum going, it's exciting, but she's put together a very impressive organization... I predict it's going to be Hillary, but very close. We may come out of Super Tuesday with no definitive front-runner.
Paru Shah
Given the winner-take-all system employed by Republicans, I feel confident that by February 6 we will have a clear Republican candidate. And given the general upsurge in the McCain campaign, this could be his year. On the other hand, I don't expect the battle between Obama and Clinton to be settled before Pennsylvania. So expect a lot more drama!
Patrick Schmidt
For the health of American politics, it's better for it not to be resolved on Tuesday... A wise bettor wouldn't put money on this game. I think it's really difficult to say what's going to happen on [the Democratic] side. On the Republican side, there's such a uniform targeting of Romney. I wonder if to some extent with Romney, when you have a Massachusetts, Northeast guy, and a Mormon, if there are more Republicans willing to hold their nose to what they don't like about McCain…
Viewing Comments 1 - 8 of 9
Edwin Kennedy
posted 2/03/08 @ 6:19 PM CST
I agree with most of the comments above, although I believe Clinton will put some very healthy breathing room between herself and Barack Obama. Obama still can't put beef on his rhetoric, and that is going to hurt him. (Continued…)
Martin Johnston
posted 2/04/08 @ 7:24 AM CST
I too believe that Clinton will come out leading.
I've done the number-crunching and I'm going to predict that Clinton will get 1,138 delegates and Obama 926 delegates on Super Tuesday. (Continued…)
John C
posted 2/04/08 @ 7:19 PM CST
I'd have to disagree. At least in California, Obama has so much momentum that I can't believe Clinton will hold on. In terms of getting out the vote and interest, Obama is miles ahead right now. (Continued…)
Albert N. Milliron
posted 2/04/08 @ 9:32 PM CST
Due to Space and Time I am going to give only the Results for each state rather than technical analysis on trending, frequency, and poll data.
Alabama
McCain 39, Huckabee 32, Romney 18. (Continued…)
Martin Johnston
posted 2/05/08 @ 5:43 AM CST
John - Obama may have momentum now but half the ballots were cast BEFORE that momentum began.
Even then I have serious doubts that there is momentum - some of the polling is , shall we say, statistically flawed. (Continued…)
Martin Johnston
posted 2/05/08 @ 6:02 AM CST
Albert - my own number-cruching came up with this for the Democratic contest - this includes a bias in-built due to the numbers of early bird voters that I believe will favour Clinton:
Alabama HRC - 47 BHO 49 - BHO by 2
Arizona HRC - 54 BHO 40 - HRC by 14
California HRC - 53 BHO 41 - HRC by 12
Colorado HRC - 52 BHO 48 - HRC by 4
Connecticut HRC - 50 BHO 44 - HRC by 6
Delaware HRC - 49 BHO 45 - HRC by 4
Georgia HRC - 37 BHO 58 - BHO by 21
Illinois HRC - 42 BHO 53 - BHO by 11
Massachusetts HRC - 56 BHO 38 - HRC by 18
Minnesota HRC - 51 BHO 44 - HRC by 7
Missouri HRC - 47 BHO 47 - tie - too close to call
New Jersey HRC - 53 BHO 41 - HRC by 12
New York HRC - 57 BHO 38 - HRC by 19
Oklahoma HRC - 59 BHO 36 - HRC by 23
Tennessee HRC - 54 BHO 40 - HRC by 14
Utah HRC - 59 BHO 35 - HRC by 14
How the votes split could be crucial - If Obama's votes are too spread out he may end up with a lot less delegates than expected, Equally if they are too concetrated the same may happ
Martin Johnston
posted 2/06/08 @ 4:02 AM CST
I'll do a final reporton my analysis once all the results are 100% in. Early indications are that in bigger states with more frequent polling evidence the predictions I made are fairly accurate. (Continued…)
Martin Johnston
posted 2/06/08 @ 5:29 AM CST
With the vast majority of results in I'll review my predictions as I said I would - so here goes.
Prediction
Alabama HRC - 47 BHO 49 - BHO by 2
Result
HRC - 42 BHO 56 - MISS - outside accepted limits - checked the exit polls and the skew of the black vote is even more apparent here than South Carolina - in the high 80s for some age brackets. (Continued…)
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