Author: Adrian Beaumont

Biden increases lead over Trump

Trump’s ratings fall back as the US is engulfed by protests over George Floyd’s murder. The UK Conservatives also slide. Guest post by Adrian Beaumont.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

In the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, Donald Trump’s ratings with all polls are 42.7% approve, 53.6% disapprove (net -10.9%). With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 42.7% approve, 53.8% disapprove (net -11.1%). Since my article three weeks ago, Trump has lost about three points on net approval. His disapproval rating is at its highest since the early stages of the Ukraine scandal last November.

In the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Joe Biden’s lead over Trump has widened to 7.8%, up from 4.5% three weeks ago. That is Biden’s biggest lead since December 2019.

In the key states that will decide the Electoral College and hence the presidency, it is less clear. National and state polls by Change Research gave Biden a seven-point lead nationally, but just a three-point lead in Florida, a two-point lead in Michigan and a one-point lead in North Carolina. In Wisconsin, Trump and Biden were tied, while Trump led by one in Arizona and four in Pennsylvania.

This relatively rosy state polling picture for Trump is contradicted by three Fox News polls. In these polls, Biden leads by nine points in Wisconsin, four points in Arizona and two points in Ohio. Trump won Ohio by eight points in 2016, and it was not thought to be in play.

Ironically, Change Research is a Democrat-associated pollster, while Fox News is very pro-Trump. Fieldwork for all these state polls was collected since May 29, when the George Floyd protests began. A Texas poll from Quinnipiac University had Trump leading by just one point. Trump won Texas by nine points in 2016.

US daily coronavirus cases and deaths are down from their peak, and stock markets anticipate a strong economic recovery. But it is likely that a greater amount of economic activity will allow the virus to resurge. A strong recovery from coronavirus would assist Trump, but unemployment is a lagging indicator that recovers more slowly than the overall economy. The May US jobs report will be released Friday night in Australia.

Concerning the protests over the murder of George Floyd, in an Ipsos poll for Reuters conducted Monday and Tuesday, 64% said they sympathised with the protesters, while 27% did not. 55% disapproved of Trump’s handling of the protests, while just 33% approved. That’s well below Trump’s overall approval of 39% in that poll.

UK Conservatives slump after Dominic Cummings scandal

In late May, it was revealed that PM Boris Johnson’s advisor, Dominic Cummings, had breached quarantine rules during the coronavirus lockdown in March. However, Cummings did not resign and Johnson refused to sack him.

An Opinium poll for The Observer gave the Conservatives just a 43-39 lead over Labour, down from a 12-point lead the previous week. It is the lowest Conservative lead in that poll since Johnson became PM. Johnson’s net approval was down from +6 to -5. 68% thought Cummings should resign, and 66% thought Johnson should sack him if he did not resign.

However, a YouGov poll for The Times gave the Conservatives a ten-point lead, up from six points previously, implying that public anger may be short-lived. In general, the poll trend over the last two months has been towards Labour, as the UK’s coronavirus death toll has risen to be the second highest behind the US.

Another NZ poll has Labour in the high 50s

A Roy Morgan New Zealand poll gave Labour a 56.5% to 26.5% lead over National, concurring with two polls published in May. The poll was taken April 27 to May 24, so it does not account for the May 22 change in National leadership. New Zealand has just one active coronavirus case remaining, and has recorded no new cases since May 22. It increasingly appears they have succeeded in eliminating coronavirus.

New Zealand Labour surges into high 50s in polls

Four months before the September 19 election, Labour takes a huge lead over National owing to Jacinda Ardern’s coronavirus response.  Guest post by Adrian Beaumont.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

New Zealand has relatively few polls compared to other countries. Before this week, the last polls had been conducted in January to early February, well before the coronavirus crisis began. Those polls had the governing Labour party one to five points behind the opposition National.

What a difference the handling of the coronavirus crisis has made! In two polls conducted in early to mid-May, Labour had 56.5% in a Reid Research poll and 59% in a Colmar Brunton poll, while National was respectively at 30.6% and 29%. Since the previous iterations of these polls, Labour is up 18 points in Colmar Brunton and up 14 in Reid Research, while National is down 17 and down 13.

While other countries have struggled with coronavirus, New Zealand is close to eliminating it. The strict lockdown imposed on March 26 appears to have worked, with very few cases recorded since the end of April. There are currently 1,504 total cases, 21 deaths and 1,455 recoveries in New Zealand. Subtracting deaths and recoveries from total cases gives just 28 active cases. Australia has also been successful, but has 516 active cases on just over five times New Zealand’s population.

As a result of New Zealand’s success in handling coronavirus, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s net approval has rocketed to +76 from +33 in October 2019 in the Colmar Brunton poll.  86% approve and just 10% disapprove, figures comparable to Western Australian and Tasmanian Premiers Mark McGowan and Peter Gutwein in the recent premiers’ Newspoll.  Opposition Leader Simon Bridges slumped to a net -40 net approval from -22 last October.

Bridges is no longer the opposition leader. After these dire poll results, he was rolled in a party room spill on Friday, and replaced as National leader by Todd Muller. Numbers in the spill have not been released.

While Labour has a huge lead now, there are four months to go until the September 19 election. Elections are not decided by gratitude, as Winston Churchill can attest to after being thumped in the 1945 UK election. However, there are likely to be reminders from other countries regarding the dire effects of coronavirus. In addition, if the virus is indeed eliminated in New Zealand, the economy should start doing much better than the economies of coronavirus-hit countries.

Under New Zealand’s Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system, parties qualify for the proportional allocation of seats if they either win at least 5% of the overall vote, or win a single-member seat. Since 2017, Labour has governed with the support of the Greens and the populist NZ First. NZ First is below 5% in the polls and the Greens are at about 5%. It’s plausible that neither party re-enters parliament, and that almost all seats go to either Labour or National.

Trump’s ratings recover from crisis lows

Joe Biden’s national lead over Trump narrows even as a terrible jobs report is released. Guest post by Adrian Beaumont.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

In the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, Donald Trump’s ratings with all polls are 43.6% approve, 51.9% disapprove (net -8.3%). With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 44.3% approve, 51.9% disapprove (net -7.6%). Since his lowest point of the coronavirus crisis, Trump has recovered about two points on net approval.

In the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Biden’s lead over Trump has fallen to 4.5%, down from 5.9% three weeks ago. In the one recent poll of a key swing state, Biden leads Trump by three points in a Wisconsin Marquette poll. The previous Marquette poll, in March, also had Biden leading by three.

On Tuesday, by-elections occurred in two federal House seats. While the Republicans won by 57-43 in Wisconsin’s Seventh, this was positive for Democrats as Trump won this district by over 20 points in 2016. The Republicans’ win by a big 56-44 in California’s 25th is much worse for Democrats as the district voted for Hillary Clinton by almost seven points. This was the first gain of a Californian seat for Republicans since 1998. The 2016 presidential figures are from a Daily Kos downloadable spreadsheet.

During the 2016 campaign, whichever candidate drew the most attention would generally suffer in the polls. Clinton’s lead widened after Trump’s “grab em by the pussy”, but narrowed after her own “deplorables”, and when the FBI reopened its investigation into her emails.

Until recently, Trump was conducting daily coronavirus briefings. The media focus on these briefings may have contributed to his ratings slide. Recent media attention on Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation against Biden from 1993 could have damaged him.

In the 2016 exit poll, those who disliked both Clinton and Trump voted for Trump by 17 points. CNN analyst Harry Enten says that in 2020, Biden is crushing with “double haters”, but Trump is crushing with those who do not dislike either candidate. In 2016, double haters were a larger portion of the electorate than now, while those who dislike neither candidate has grown.

There has been a recent decline in US coronavirus cases and deaths. If much of the economy can be reopened without a renewed surge in cases, that would be good news for Trump, enabling him to brag about a strong recovery before the November election. I cannot see Trump winning if the current terrible economic situation continues until the election.

A terrible US jobs report

The April jobs report was released on May 8. 20.5 million jobs were lost and the unemployment rate jumped 10.3% to 14.7%. That is the highest unemployment rate and the biggest one-month change in the history of this series. This data goes back to January 1948, so it does not include the Great Depression. The previous highs for unemployment were 10.8% in November 1982, and 10.0% in October 2009.

The employment population ratio – the percentage of eligible Americans that are employed – crashed 8.7% in April to just 51.3%, far lower than in the global financial crisis, during which the lowest employment ratio was 58.2% in June 2011. As the unemployment rate excludes those not participating in the workforce, I prefer the employment ratio as a summary statistic. In Australia’s April jobs report, the employment ratio was 59.6%, much higher than the US.

In January, before the current crisis, the US employment ratio was at 61.2%, the highest since November 2008.

The one positive in this jobs report was that hourly wages rose $US 1.34 to $US 30.01. But this was the result of so many low-income jobs being shed. The aggregate weekly payrolls (weekly wages times number employed) fell 10.9% in April.

Trump’s ratings slide back to pre-crisis levels

Joe Biden has clear leads over Trump in key states as the coronavirus death toll and economic damage rise. Guest post by Adrian Beaumont,

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

In the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, Donald Trump’s ratings with all polls are 43.4% approve, 52.6% disapprove (net -9.2%). With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 43.8% approve, 52.5% disapprove (net -8.7%). Since my article three weeks ago, Trump has lost five points on net approval, returning his ratings to about their early March levels, before the coronavirus crisis began.

As the US coronavirus death toll increases to over 50,000, there has been far more criticism of Trump’s early response, and this appears to have punctured the “rally round the flag” effect.

Furthermore, there has been a massive economic impact from the virus and related shutdowns: in the last five weeks, over 26 million filed for unemployment benefits. In the latest week, over 4.4 million filed. While this is a slowdown, it is far ahead of the previous record of 695,000 weekly jobless claims. The April jobs report, to be released in early May, will be grim.

The RealClearPolitics average of national polls gives Biden a 5.9% lead over Trump, little changed from 6.1% three weeks ago. However, most of the polls in the average were taken in early April, when Trump’s ratings were better.

As we know from 2016, the US does not use the popular vote to elect presidents; instead, each state is allocated Electoral Votes (EVs). A state’s EVs are its House seats (population dependent) and senators (always two). There are 538 total EVs, so it takes 270 to win. With two minor exceptions, states award their EVs winner-takes-all.

In 2016, Trump won 306 EVs to Hillary Clinton’s 232, ignoring “faithless” electors, despite losing the popular vote by 2.1%. Trump won Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan by 1.2% or less.

The three most recent Florida polls give Biden an average two-point lead. In Michigan, he has an eight-point lead in the only April poll. In Pennsylvania, Biden averages a seven-point lead in two April polls. In Arizona, which has trended Democratic at recent elections, Biden leads Trump by 9% in an April poll.

Despite noisy protests in Michigan and other states advocating an end to social distancing, polls show the vast majority of Americans want social distancing to continue. In an AP-NORC poll, just 12% thought distancing measures went too far, 26% said they didn’t go far enough and 61% said they are about right.

To have a realistic chance of winning the next election, Trump needs the US economy to be perceived as improving by November. While his base is loyal, lower-educated voters in general want a good economy, and Trump needs their support to offset losses among higher educated voters owing to his behaviour.

Despite the continued economic and coronavirus woe, the Dow Jones has rebounded from a low below 18,600 on March 23 to be currently above 23,500. Stock traders anticipate a V-shaped recovery, which would assist Trump. But since March 31, there have been 25,000 to 35,000 new US coronavirus cases every day. I am sceptical that the US can reduce the caseload to a point where economic activity can safely resume anytime soon.

Israel and South Korea election updates

In my previous article, I said that right-wing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc won 58 of the 120 Knesset seats at the March 2 election. Owing to coronavirus, Blue & White leader Benny Gantz would attempt to form a national unity government with Netanyahu. On April 20, the Netanyahu/Gantz agreement was sealed, with Netanyahu remaining PM for at least the next 18 months. After three elections within a year, this is a big win for Netanyahu, giving him his fifth successive term as PM.

Despite the coronavirus, parliamentary elections were held in South Korea on April 15, with precautions to stop the virus spreading. The left-wing Demcratic party of the incumbent president was rewarded for South Korea’s strong performance on coronavirus. They won 180 of the 300 seats (up 57 since 2016), to 103 for conservative parties (down 19). 253 seats were elected by first past the post, and 47 proportionally. The Democrats won the FPTP seats by 163 to 84 on vote shares of 49.9% to 41.5%.

Is Trump’s ratings improvement sustainable?

Trump’s ratings have improved to near-record highs, but his improvement is far less than other leaders. Guest post by Adrian Beaumont.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate, Donald Trump’s current ratings with all polls are 45.8% approve, 49.7% disapprove (net -3.9%). With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 46.3% approve, 50.3% disapprove (net -4.0%). Trump’s ratings have improved 5-6 points in the last two weeks, and are the highest they have been since early in his term.

Despite the rise in Trump’s approval, the RealClearPolitics average of national polls gave virtually certain Democratic nominee Joe Biden a 6.1% lead over Trump, down only a little from 8.5% last fortnight.

A recent Fox News national poll gave Trump a 51-48 disapproval rating. However, 53% thought a quicker response from the federal government could have slowed the spread of coronavirus, while 34% said it was so contagious nothing could stop it spreading. Despite the higher rating for Trump, the same poll gave Biden a 49-40 lead.

Major crises tend to produce a “rally round the flag” effect for incumbents. Trump’s gains so far are dwarfed by George W. Bush’s gains in approval of over 30 points after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Other current leaders and governing parties have had far bigger bounces in their ratings than Trump. In Britain, two recent polls gave the Conservatives 54%, up from the mid to high 40s. In Germany, the conservative Union parties are currently in the mid-30s, up from the mid-20s before the crisis. The latest French poll gave President Emmanuel Macron a -8 net approval, up 26 points.

Even in the US, Trump’s bounce is far less than the bounce for New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo’s net favourable rating improved from -6 to +48 in a New York Siena College poll. New York has the most US coronavirus cases so far.

An example of a major crisis that produced an initial rally round the flag effect, but nothing else, is the December 2010 to January 2011 Queensland floods, during which over three-quarters of the state was affected.

I obtained old Newspoll data on request from Kevin Bonham. In October to December 2010, the Labor state government was trailing the opposition LNP by a landslide 59-41 margin. In January to March 2011, Labor surged ahead by 52-48, but then fell immediately back to a 60-40 deficit in April to June 2011. Labor never recovered, and was reduced to just seven of 89 seats at the March 2012 state election.

The Queensland polling indicates that, if the coronavirus crisis is resolved relatively quickly, people will be more focussed on other factors by the November election. In that case, how much damage the economy takes and whether it is clearly recovering are likely to be key factors in the election.

The more likely scenario is that coronavirus will damage the US both economically and in health terms for a long time. The US already has far more cases than any other country. I do not believe Trump’s ratings gains will be sustained if the US falls into a massive health and economic crisis.

The crisis has already had an economic impact: in the week ending March 21, almost 3.3 million new jobless claims were submitted, far exceeding the previous record of 695,000. Weekly jobless claims are published every Thursday, and this Friday we get the March US jobs report.

Israel and Ireland election updates

At the March 2 Israeli election, Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc won 58 of the 120 Knesset seats, while more left-wing parties won 55 seats. Yisrael Beiteinu, which had failed to work with either side at the previous two elections, won the remaining seven seats. Owing to the coronavirus crisis, Blue & White leader Benny Gantz has opted to attempt to form a national unity government with Netanyahu.

At the February 8 Irish election, the two traditional conservative parties – Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael – combined won 73 of the 160 seats, eight short of a majority, with the far-left Sinn Féin winning 37 seats. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are attempting to form a coalition government, which would require either another party or independents.

US presidential election: Biden vs Trump

With Biden certain to be the Democratic nominee, will coronavirus damage Trump’s re-election prospects? Guest post by Adrian Beaumont.

1:30pm Thursday Biden now leads Sanders by 1,199 to 902 in The Green Papers’ delegate count.

2:30pm The delegate count at The Green Papers has Biden leading Sanders by 1,178 to 884.  Biden is well on his way to the magic 1,990 delegates required, but several primaries have been postponed until June, so he’ll have to wait longer.  Overall popular votes are currently 40.7% Biden, 30.6% Sanders.

2:13pm Arizona casts most of its votes by post.  With most counties reporting their early postal votes, Biden leads by 42.8-30.0, and it has been CALLED for him.

1:42pm In late counting updates, Biden has won Washington State by 1.4% with few votes left.  This should have been a strong state for Sanders.  In California, Sanders leads Biden by 35.2-28.0, with still over 700,000 votes left.  Sanders’ lead has lifted from 6.6% a week ago.

1:30pm Some good news for left-wing Democrats!  With 72% reporting, progressive challenger Marie Newman leads conservative Democrat incumbent Dan Lipinski by a 47-44 margin in the Democratic primary for Illinois’ third Congressional District.   Dave Wasserman has CALLED it for Newman.

12:40pm With 38% reporting in Illinois, Biden is winning by 59-37.

11:30am Biden wins the Illinois primary, where he leads by 65-29 with 2% reporting.

11:12am Wednesday Biden has won the Florida primary, where he currently leads Sanders by 61-23 with 73% reporting.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

This is an updated version of an article I had published at The Conversation on Monday.

Four states were scheduled to hold Democratic primaries on Wednesday in Australia: Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Arizona. These states will award 14.5% of all pledged delegates, taking us to 61.5% of total delegates. However, Ohio dramatically postponed its primary owing to coronavirus concerns. Polls close between 10am and 1pm AEDT.

Given Joe Biden’s crushing victories over Bernie Sanders last Tuesday, the Democratic contest is effectively over, and Biden will be the nominee. So the question now is how Biden will fare against Donald Trump in the general election this November.

Trump has alienated many highly educated voters with his general behaviour; these voters assisted Biden against Sanders in suburban counties. But most lower-educated voters did not care about Trump’s behaviour so long as the US economy was going well. And until recently the economy was going very well.

According to the official February jobs report, there were 273,000 jobs created that month, and an unemployment rate of just 3.5%. Inflation-adjusted weekly wages were up 0.5% in February, lifting the annual rate from zero to 0.7%. The Dow Jones index was above 29,000 points on February 20.

The coronavirus outbreak has heavily impacted global stock markets, with the Dow now just over 20,000. It has not yet affected the US jobs situation, with weekly jobless claims at 211,000 on March 7, about where they have been for most of the last year. The US Labor Department releases these reports every Thursday.

However, the health and economic impact of coronavirus will almost certainly worsen. There are now almost 3,500 officially confirmed US coronavirus cases, and this is likely to be a major undercount owing to lack of testing. Measures attempting to halt the spread of the virus, such as by closing restaurants, schools, sport and tourist attractions, will have an economic impact.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health System Tracker, the US health care system is worse than in comparable countries. About 49% of Americans have private health insurance paid for by their employer; if they lose their jobs in an economic downturn, they also lose their health insurance.

In 2010, Barack Obama and Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to assist the uninsured. In 2017, Trump and the then-Republican controlled Congress came close to repealing Obamacare. If there is a coronavirus-driven recession and health crisis, Democrats will use the 2017 votes to attack Republicans.

In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate, Trump’s ratings with all polls are currently 42.7% approve, 53.1% disapprove (net -10.4%). With polls of registered or likely voters, his ratings are 43.9% approve, 52.4% disapprove (net -8.5%). His ratings have slid since their mid-February peak.

In general, the beginning of a major crisis helps incumbent governments. FiveThirtyEight has charts of previous presidents’ ratings, and George W. Bush’s ratings surged over 30 points to 83% approval immediately after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

At this stage, there is not yet a recession or a health crisis in the US. But Trump is vulnerable if either occurs. The economy has been Trump’s great asset. In my opinion, it’s the only reason he has a realistic chance of re-election. On health care, Trump’s ratings were close to their record lows near the July 2017 attempt to repeal Obamacare. Coronavirus poses a clear danger to Trump’s re-election.

In the RealClearPolitics average of national Democratic polls, Biden leads Sanders by a 55-34 margin, showing the contest is over. In general election polls, Biden leads Trump by 6.4%. Furthermore, in the four polls taken after March 3 Super Tuesday, when Biden took a strong grip on the Democratic nomination, he led Trump by an average 8.5%.

Israel: Gantz to attempt to form government

At the March 2 Israeli election, PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc won 58 of the 120 Knesset seats, to 55 combined for Blue & White (B&W), the Joint Arab List and Labor. Yisrael Beiteinu, which was once part of the right bloc, won seven seats. On Sunday, B&W leader Benny Gantz won the support of 61 Knesset members. He now has six weeks to form a majority government, which would require both the Joint List and Yisrael Beiteinu.

Six states’ Democratic primaries: live commentary

Joe Biden is very likely to win the Democratic nomination, with Sanders needing big breaks in today’s primaries. Guest post by Adrian Beaumont

11:50am Nate Silver on Washington’s count

11:40am In Mississippi, Sanders has 14.8% with all precincts in.  Mississippi has a large provisional vote, so Sanders may exceed the 15% threshold for statewide delegates once those votes are tallied.  Biden won every single county in the three M states.

11:32am However, there’s bad news for Sanders in Washington State.  The latest votes put Biden ahead by 34.8% to 33.5%, reversing a 0.2% Sanders lead in yesterday’s counting.  Dave Wasserman has called Washington for Biden.  Washington appeared demographically friendly to Sanders, and he may not be able to win another state-run primary.  There are few delegates to be decided by party-run primaries and caucuses.

11:24am Thursday In good news for Sanders, he’s the winner in North Dakota by a 53-40 margin.  ND was a party-run primary, not state-run.  There were only 14 polling places for the whole state, and just 14,400 votes total.  Left-wing activists are more likely to make up a greater share of turnout in such low-turnout affairs.

4:00pm Idaho CALLED for Biden.  He currently leads by 48-42 with 74% in.

3:53pm If Sanders stays in, next Tuesday is likely to be brutal for him.  Four big states vote: Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Arizona.  Given Biden’s dominance everywhere in Michigan, he is likely to crush Sanders.  14.5% of delegates will be awarded next Tuesday, taking us to 61.5% of all pledged delegates.

3:49pm In the delegate count at The Green Papers, Biden now leads Sanders by 845 to 706.  Overall popular votes are 37.6% Biden, 30.1% Sanders.

3:44pm With 68% reporting in Idaho, Biden leads by 47-42.  The bottom line, no matter what happens in Washington’s late counting, Idaho or North Dakota, is that Biden is dominating with black voters and both higher-educated and lower-educated whites.  Biden will clearly be the Democratic nominee to face Trump in November.

3:30pm With 22% reporting in North Dakota, Sanders leads Biden by 45-34.  But there are only 14 delegates in this small, strongly Republican state.

3:18pm With 50% reporting in Idaho, Biden leads Sanders by 47-41.

2:57pm Biden has won every county in Mississippi and Missouri, and is barely losing two counties in Michigan.  In the 2016 contest against Hillary Clinton, Sanders dominated in rural areas where there were many lower-educated whites.  Not against Biden.

2:50pm In Mississippi, Sanders’ vote has dropped to 14.9% with 97% in.  If his vote stays at that level, he will miss the 15% delegate threshold for statewide delegates.

2:48pm With all counties reporting initial postal votes in Washington, Sanders leads by just 0.2%, 32.7-32.5.  Many of these votes were cast when other candidates were still in.  I don’t think we will get the remaining votes today; we’ll have to wait a week or two for them to come in.

2:16pm In the first results from Idaho, Biden leads by 43-33.

2:14pm Washington uses an all-postal ballot.  Votes that arrive before election day are tallied as soon as polls close.  With an estimated 64% reporting, Sanders and Biden are tied at 32.8% each.

1:52pm Meanwhile in California, Sanders’ lead has dropped to 6.7% today from 7.0% yesterday and 9% on election night last week.

1:38pm Some good news for Sanders: the North Dakota postal vote has him winning by 40-26 over Biden, but Biden is likely to gain when election day votes report.  Meanwhile, Biden leads by 53-39 in Michigan (55% in), 59-34 in Missouri (66% in) and 81-15 in Mississippi (77% in).  If Sanders does not reach 15% in Mississippi, he will not qualify for statewide delegates.

12:17pm Biden is leading by 54-28 in Missouri with 6% reporting.  There’s a large vote for candidates who have dropped out, which should drop as more election day votes are counted.

12:06pm With all polls now closed in Michigan, and Biden 12 points up without much from Detroit (Wayne county), Michigan has been CALLED for Biden.

11:50am With 3% reporting in Mississippi, Biden has an 83-13 lead.  Most of what’s been counted is likely postal votes, which skew to Biden, but that’s a massive margin.

11:46am CNN analyst Harry Enten

11:43am Biden still leading by ten points in Michigan with 10% reporting.  Twitter commentary suggests Sanders is losing white lower-educated precincts that he won against Clinton in 2016.

11:27am Biden leads by 54.4-41.4 in Michigan with 4% reporting.

11:20am Biden leads by 85-11 in the first Mississippi results.

11:13am Remember that Democratic delegates are awarded proportionally with a 15% threshold.  So margins of victory matter, not just winning a state.  A massive win for Biden in Mississippi will earn him many delegates.

11:07am Based on exit polls, Mississippi and Missouri have been CALLED for Biden.

10:42am Wednesday Polls close at 11am AEDT in Missouri, Mississippi and North Dakota.  Michigan has two time zones, with the majority closing at 11am, while the western bit closes at 12pm.  Idaho and Washington close at 2pm.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

Democratic primaries will be held today in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington State. The result will determine 352 of the 3,979 total pledged delegates (9% of the total). Michigan (125 delegates) and Washington (89) are the two biggest states voting. Polls close Wednesday between 11am and 2pm AEDT.

Last Tuesday, Joe Biden won ten states to four for Bernie Sanders. In the next two days, the two remaining contenders, Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren, withdrew, leaving a two-candidate contest for the remaining delegates. Biden dominated the south, but also had surprise wins in Minnesota, Massachusetts and Maine.

The delegate count at The Green Papers gives Biden a 681 to 608 lead over Sanders, but this understates Biden’s advantage. Sanders has an advantage with left-wing Democrats and Latinos, but most of the southwestern states, where Latinos have a relatively high share of the population, have now voted.

In 2016, Sanders benefited from lower-educated white voters aversion to Hillary Clinton, something Donald Trump exploited in the general election. However, the Minnesota county results show that Biden performed well in rural regions, helping him to a nine-point statewide win. This implies that Biden has a greater appeal than Clinton to lower-educated whites.

Biden is winning black voters by massive margins, and he is winning both higher-educated and lower-educated whites. There are few states with a significant Latino population left. An exception is Florida, which votes with three other large states next Tuesday. However, Florida’s Latinos are far more conservative than Latinos in the southwest owing to the Cuban Americans. Florida is also demographically elderly. Florida polls have Biden crushing Sanders.

Biden leads Sanders by 51-35 in the RealClearPolitics national average in polls conducted since last Tuesday. Biden leads Sanders by 22 points in Michigan, and has a small lead in Washington, which should be Sanders’ strongest of the six states. In 2016, Sanders defeated Clinton in Michigan after a massive polling error, but he was performing much better then with lower-educated whites.

There’s also bad news for Sanders from California’s late counting, where his lead over Biden has been reduced from nine points on election night to seven. Late counting in California usually skews left, but many moderates did not vote early, withholding their vote until they knew Biden was the moderate candidate.

Super Tuesday Democratic primaries: live commentary

Live commentary on the Super Tuesday primaries that occur tomorrow in Australia. Guest post by Adrian Beaumont.

2:35pm Friday Warren has dropped out, leaving a two-candidate race between Sanders and Biden.  The delegate count at The Green Papers currently gives Biden a 671-599 lead over Sanders, from popular votes of 35.1% Biden, 28.7% Sanders. In California, Sanders has an 8.4% lead over Biden with over 3 million votes remaining, but some of these will be Republican primary votes.  Late counting in California skews more left the longer it goes.

2:19pm Thursday Last night, Bloomberg withdrew from the contest and endorsed Biden.  No decision has yet been made by Warren.  In California, Sanders leads by 8.7% with all election day precincts reporting.  We should know approximately how many outstanding votes are left tomorrow.

9:53pm Conversation article up.  Biden is likely to win ten states to four for Sanders, and has a 102-delegate lead in The Green Papers count.  In 2016, Clinton had little appeal to lower-educated whites, and that’s likely why Sanders was competitive.  But Biden has more appeal to the lower-educated than Clinton.  Once moderate rivals withdrew, he consolidated the moderate vote.

8:37pm With 79% of election day precincts counted in California, Sanders leads Biden by 31.8% to 22.8%.  California takes FOUR weeks to count all its votes, so there’s lots of late counting to look forward to!

7:32pm With almost all votes counted in the Israeli election, the right bloc lost a seat, so Netanyahu will be three seats short of a majority.  It’s right 58 out of 120, left 55, Yisrael Beiteinu seven.

7:27pm The California Secretary of State now has 64% of precincts reporting, and Sanders is almost 10% ahead of Biden.

6:00pm Texas CALLED for Biden.

4:15pm Biden up to a 1.8% lead in Texas, and the Needle now gives him a 70% chance to win.

4:06pm Biden overtakes Sanders in Texas.  He’s 0.4% ahead with 60% of election day precincts in.  The Needle gives Biden a 56% chance to win Texas.

4:05pm The NY Times shows 23% of California’s Election Day precincts have already reported, but the California Secretary of State (the official results service) says only 4%.

3:47pm With 54% of election day votes reporting in Texas, Sanders leads by 1.2%.  The Needle still sees this as 50-50 between Sanders and Biden.

3:21pm Dave Wasserman has called Texas for Biden, but the NY Times Needle says it’s 50-50 with 34% reporting.  Sanders has a 3.6% lead.

3:18pm Massachusetts officially CALLED for Biden.  With 65% reporting, he has 33.4%, Sanders 26.7% and Warren 22.1%.

3:10pm With 93% of election day votes in in North Carolina, Biden’s lead is now almost 19 points, up from seven before election day votes.

3:03pm California not called for Sanders, but it looks good for hime in exit polls.  Biden likely the only other candidate who breaks the 15% delegate threshold statewide.

2:47pm Minnesota CALLED for Biden.  He leads by eight points with 57% reporting.  Sanders was supposed to win here.

2:45pm With 43% reporting in Alabama, Sanders is at 16.2%, close to the 15% delegate threshold.  Falling below 15% would be a disaster for Sanders.

2:34pm Sanders has won Utah, a stronghold for Republicans where the small Democratic electorate is progressive.

2:30pm In Texas, Sanders leads Biden by 5.6% with 23% of election day precincts in.  The NY Times needle has Biden very slightly ahead.

2:25pm Dave Wasserman projects Elizabeth Warren will finish third in her home state of Massachusetts, behind Biden (first) and Sanders (second).

2:15pm While I was out for lunch, Biden was CALLED the winner in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee, giving him six state wins.  Sanders won Colorado, mainly due a split early vote.  Early voting dominates in that state.  Biden currently leads in Minnesota and Massachusetts, which Sanders was supposed to win.

1:01pm The NY Times needle gives Biden a 68% chance of winning Texas although Sanders currently leads by 6.6%.

12:58pm As the Election Day vote comes through in North Carolina, Biden increases his lead.  He’s now leading in NC by 11% with 29% in.

12:45pm In Virginia, where the election day vote was virtually all voters, Biden leads Sanders by 54-23 with 96% reporting.

12:34pm Maybe early voting will stop Biden from routing Sanders.  Biden is only up by seven points over Sanders in North Carolina with 12% of Election Day precincts reporting.  Biden not doing so well in votes cast before South Carolina and the withdrawals.

12:18pm With 66% reporting in Virginia, Biden is crushing Sanders by 30 points.

12:15pm Polls in Arkansas close at 12:30pm, then it’s Colorado and Minnesota at 1pm, Utah at 2pm and finally California at 3pm.

12:10pm As regards Texas, a small part of the state is in the Mountain Time zone and doesn’t close til 1pm AEDT.  Exit polls will be released then.

12:06pm Alabama CALLED for Biden, while the other 12pm states are uncalled.  In Massachusetts, it’s a close three-way race between Biden, Sanders and Warren (it’s Warren’s home state).

11:57am Biden is over 20% in the first Vermont results.  If he stays above 15% there, he gets delegates, which Hillary Clinton was unable to do in 2016.

11:49am Biden has a 55-23 lead over Sanders in Virginia with 32% in.

11:40am Count in Virginia is already up to 22%, and it’s Biden by a crushing 54-24 over Sanders with nobody else close to clearing 15%.

11:34am CNN CALLS North Carolina for Biden based on a large exit poll lead.  This is looking better and better for Biden.

11:27am With 1% reporting in Virginia, Biden leads Sanders by 51-25.  Everyone else is well below the 15% delegate threshold.

11:24am The next polls to close are North Carolina at 11:30am AEDT, then Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas at 12pm.

11:08am Sanders CALLED the winner in his home state of Vermont, but the exit polls suggest Biden will beat the 15% threshold there, restricting Sanders’ delegate advantage.

11:01am Biden CALLED the winner in Virginia by CNN based on exit polls.  He has a 63-18 lead over Sanders with black voters (27% of the electorate) and a 43-26 lead with whites (63% of electorate).

10:20am Wednesday With 94% counted in the Israeli election, right-wing parties have 59 seats (up four since the September 2019 election) and left-wing parties 54 (down three).  Likud is the biggest party with a 36-32 lead over Blue & White, reversing the 33-32 deficit last September.  It appears that Netanyahu’s coalition will be two seats short of a majority.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

Fourteen states vote in the Super Tuesday Democratic primaries tomorrow, in which 1,357 of the 3,979 total pledged delegates are awarded (34% of all delegates). Delegates are awarded proportionally to vote share, but with a high 15% threshold that applies to both statewide delegates and Congressional District (CD) delegates. The more Democratic-leaning a CD is, the more delegates it receives. Polls close between 11am and 3pm AEDT.

A few days ago, it appeared likely that Bernie Sanders would come out of Super Tuesday with a large delegate lead over his nearest rival. Even if Sanders did not win a majority of Super Tuesday pledged delegates, such an outcome would have put him on course for a large plurality of all pledged delegates at the July Democratic convention. In those circumstances, Sanders would probably be the nominee.

However, Joe Biden had a crushing 28-point win over Sanders at Saturday’s South Carolina primary. In the next two days, moderate rivals Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar withdrew from the contest and endorsed Biden. There has not been enough time for polls to catch up with these developments, but they are very likely to assist Biden.

The FiveThirtyEight forecast has the chance nobody wins a pledged delegate majority surging to 63%. This does not necessarily mean a contested convention, as it includes cases where one candidate wins a strong plurality, and a deal is worked out before the convention. No delegate majority chances have surged because Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren are still in, and will be assisted in getting to 15% by the withdrawals.

Sanders now has just a 52% chance of winning more delegates than any other candidate, down from over 70% at his peak, while Biden’s chances have rocketed to 48%. The Democratic contest is now effectively a race between two men in their late 70s, and the winner will confront Donald Trump, who is a mere 73.

I recommend The Green Papers for delegate and popular vote counts. The next contests are next Tuesday, when six states vote that account for 9% of pledged delegates.

Netanyahu could win Israeli election outright

With 81% counted in Monday’s Israeli election, right-wing PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc of parties had 60 of the 120 seats, to 53 for the opposition left bloc. If the right bloc wins one more seat, Netanyahu would have outright victory after April and September 2019 elections resulted in no government being formed. Yisrael Beiteinu, with seven seats, was unable to cooperate with either the Arab Joint List or the religious right parties before. This result comes despite Netanyahu’s November indictment on bribery and fraud charges.

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