Super Tuesday will surely be remembered as Biden’s comeback, as it should. He owned the day and defied the pundits.
From our perspective, however, the day was mixed.
Certainly Biden performed well, especially in southern states. We had expected Super Tuesday to be more regional in terms of voting preferences and forecasted Biden doing better than expected in the south. Having said that, Biden outperformed overall, even winning Minnesota and Massachusetts.
On social media, we did not see such outperformance. In fact, Biden remains solidly in 2nd place behind Sanders according to our preferred social media influence (SMI) which has successfully forecast some of the most difficult national and international elections.
This divergence of Biden doing extremely well in votes and not as well via social media is a reason for concern for Democrats.
Enthusiasm vs Electability
Democrats appear to be divided at this point between two extremes — and they are not progressive vs moderate!
Sanders and his campaign clearly have the most excitement and enthusiasm, which is reflected by superior social media indicators.
Biden and his campaign have very recently (as in during the last week) assumed the ‘electability’ title, which is an extremely hard-to-define metric, but one that is ever present for the Democrats in 2020.
So, on one hand we have Sanders who currently generates substantial excitement and enthusiasm (which traditionally have been predictors of electoral success in a variety of elections) but has been deemed low on the ‘electability’ scale.
And, on the other hand, we have Biden who has not been able to surpass Sanders in terms of excitement and enthusiasm (according to our social media based indicators) but is seen as ‘electable’.
Why Not Focus on Electability
A counter-argument is that electability is the most important variable isn’t it? Why not just focus on that and forget about social media indicators or really any other data?
First, nobody has been able to actually define or measure electability. It is a nebulous metric that the media discuss in earnest and assume everyone is talking about the same thing. What they really seem to be discussing is ‘who we (the media) believe has the best chance of beating Trump using the sentiments of today’ based on opinions, news events, and mostly qualitative information.
Second, electability apparently shifts extremely quickly. An individual who is declared as highly electable can be equally declared as unelectable soon afterwards.
Recall that Biden was seen as the most electable candidate near the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020. Then, by late-January his electability began to be questioned and soon it entered a free fall. Poor performances by Biden in early voting states (Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada) made his electability seem almost non-existent. Then an extremely strong performance in South Carolina all of the sudden made him electable again. And, now of course, after a strong Super Tuesday, he again is deemed as extremely electable.
Electability seems reflexive of what is currently happening and not indicative of underlying trends. In other words, it would not be advisable to try to use electability to make forecasts.
Social media, in contrast, tells us what is being discussed, how it is being discussed, how influential certain accounts or topics are, and even infers levels of interest, excitement, and enthusiasm. All of these in turn can be used to determine support for candidates and even expected turnout.
New Issues Post Super Tuesday
Betting markets and most pundits seem to believe that issues regarding the Democratic 2020 nomination have been mostly resolved and that Biden will next square off against Trump in the general election. Betting markets today put Biden’s chances of winning the nomination at 79%, after hitting a low of 7% less than a month ago. But we see this race as continuing and new issues having been created.
Super Tuesday has raised issues and concerns:
Data Divergence
The cleanest scenario for Democrats would have been Biden taking the lead from Sanders across a multitude of indicators.
Biden took the lead, in a rather dramatic fashion, from Sanders in betting markets, polls, and even Google Trends in just the last few days. However, other metrics, especially our key SMI, still have Sanders as front-runner.
As during other periods of the 2020 Democratic nomination, divergences between important indicators normally are followed by further volatility.
Outlook
We do not believe this race is over yet, even though betting markets and many pundits would lead you to this observation.
In fact, Sanders will most likely remain in the race until the very end. Recall that in 2016, he stayed through the last primary (DC’s) held on June 14, 2016. This primary, interestingly, took place after Clinton had declared victory on June 7, 2016 after hitting the required minimum level of delegates.
Then, Sanders did not officially endorse Clinton until July 12, 2016. If the same pattern maintains, the current race could still hold four months.
Long story short, Sanders was in no rush to concede in 2016 and it is highly unlikely he will do so in 2020. Expect this race to drag out.
As for key upcoming events:
Assuming that Sanders intends to stay in the race until the end, as he did in 2016, we do not expect any of these to knock him out. We also expect many of his followers to remain as intense supporters until the end of his campaign.
Biden, even assuming his electoral performance goes well, needs to improve his debate performance (according to our alternative metrics). His debate performances to date in the 2020 nomination process have been rather mediocre. To stand a chance against Trump, these metrics will need to improve.
Also, in general, his social media based indicators need to improve.
As already stated, Biden’s performance in Super Tuesday was exceptional which makes his 2nd place SMI worrisome. Data divergences normally do not end well. If Biden cannot improve these indicators, he will have trouble cleanly defeating Sanders and in facing Trump in the general election.