Finally, there has been significant movement in the moderate lane of the Democratic nomination. For some time we have been waiting for the dam to break for the moderates — for too long the field of moderates showed excessive fragmentation. The result was that a single candidate had trouble standing out.
Now, just before Super Tuesday, three candidates — Steyer, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar — dropped out. Buttigieg and Klobuchar have backed Biden whereas Steyer has backed Sanders.
The remaining four leading candidates put two left-leaning (Sanders and Warren) verses two moderates (Biden and Bloomberg).
We have been expecting a major move by the moderate wing of the Democrats that would act as a catalyst to coalesce around a single candidate. And, we forecasted such a move to occur before Super Tuesday.
Just a few weeks ago, there were four viable moderate candidates. Bloomberg had surged and many saw him as the potential nominee. Klobuchar had performed well at recent debates and seemingly caught the eye of those looking for a compromise candidate. Buttigieg had well out-performed consensus expectations in both Iowa and New Hampshire. And, Biden, though having fallen from front-runner status, was still in second place in national polls.
In other words, just a few weeks ago, the moderates were just too fragmented.
Today, however, Klobuchar and Buttigieg dropped out of the race. Klobuchar quickly endorsed Biden and, according to news reports, Buttigieg will as well. Steyer, a much weaker candidate according to a variety of metrics, endorsed Sanders.
Additionally, Bloomberg’s star has fallen quite dramatically over the last few weeks due to disappointing debate performances.
Biden all of the sudden looks like the last viable moderate in the race. Fragmentation of the moderates does not appear to be an issue anymore. But, can Biden make a national comeback after such a recent fall? What are some alternative metrics saying?
Social Media Influence (SMI)
We have used SMI to forecast the results of many national and international elections. It often picks up on underlying electoral trends prior to those trends becoming apparent to pundits, betting markets, or polls. In this way, it has acted as a leading indicator for multiple elections.
Currently, even after the recent win of Biden in South Carolina, SMI continues to point to Sanders as the national Democratic front-runner. In fact, Sanders has been the dominating force among Democratic candidates during the last quarter, with the exception of Bloomberg’s surge in early/mid-February when he briefly took the SMI lead.
A clear complicating factor in forecasting the 2020 Democratic nominee is the ‘electability’ mantra that has been almost uniformly hovering in the background during the race. The focus on nominating a candidate who has the best likelihood of defeating Trump in the general election has made the race extremely volatile. Essentially, many Democrats just want to nominate someone who can beat Trump and not the individual they like the most. This creates a rapidly changing environment where the ‘it’ candidate can flip within a short period of time depending on which candidate appears the most likely to defeat Trump.
For Democrats, this focus on electability has mostly played against them. According to SMI, almost every major candidate has been the front-runner at some point either in 2019 or 2020. The main problem is that longer term traction has been lacking. So, you get a situation where a candidate surges, becomes the ‘it’ candidate for weeks or maybe a few months, but then the electorate loses interest.
Sanders has benefited from having firm backing from a relatively large group of enthusiastic supporters. His supporters have shown their loyalty — even during Sanders’ heart attack, his alternative metrics remained strong. This type of backing has helped Sanders to avoid much of the volatile nature of the 2020 race so far.
As documented in various posts, Sanders has dominated the last three debates by almost every major metric, including SMI. And, as previously stated, he continues in the lead even after Biden’s impressive South Carolina performance.
A Biden comeback is a possibility. Certainly, Buttigieg and Klobuchar leaving the race and endorsing Biden is a tremendous boon for him. This is the moment of coalescing we had been forecasting to occur prior to Super Tuesday. Such announcements were a little late but offer the possibility of a rally.
Biden’s SMI has jumped into second place, but Sanders remains firmly in the lead.
One of the issues with Biden is that he is rebounding up from his worst SMI level at any point in 2019 and 2020. In mid-February, Biden hit his SMI low — at that time, many had assumed his political run was near over. Biden is rebounding off that low base, he is not pushing to new highs. There is a rather large difference.
Bloomberg, for his part, had seen his SMI go from a rather mediocre candidate upon his announcement in late 2019 to SMI leadership in mid-February. This was one of the largest turnarounds in our election database. He looked like he could pull off the impossible, but mediocre debate performances in February produced a massive SMI decline, returning him more or less to his pre-surge levels.
As noted many times, the 2020 Democratic election has proven extremely volatile.
Going into Super Tuesday, we have a rather unusual layout.
Sanders is by far the SMI leader with Biden in a distant second place. Bloomberg’s SMI in the last few days looks anemic. These levels clearly put Sanders in a seemingly untouchable position. However, Biden’s SMI is on the increase whereas Sanders is declining, albeit from a high level. So, Biden has some momentum.
In a normal election, we would say it is too little too late for Biden, but this is not a normal election.
Going into Super Tuesday, we give Sanders the advantage but simply cannot rule out a Biden upset in some states.
Other Alternative Indicators
Google trends also shows Sanders in the lead, but with Biden and Bloomberg showing impressive strength. When looking at very short-term data, as in over the last day or even over a few hours, these three look practically tied, with each outperforming depending on the state.
Looking at our own internal interest metrics based on social media and on-line activity, the situation becomes even more complex. Biden and Bloomberg, just over the last few days have moved into the lead showing that the electorate is still researching and wanting to learn more about the candidates within 48 hours of perhaps the single most important voting day in the nomination process.
This late in the nomination to have so many indicators showing such volatility is highly unusual. At this stage, we normally see volatility decreasing and indicators confirming one another, meaning pointing towards a single candidate as the front-runner.
In the current case, we see the opposite. Election surprises could very well abound this week due to conflicting and volatile data.
Outlook For Democrats
SMI trends during 2019 and 2020 have painted a picture of rapidly shifting preferences. These trends make other elections look tame. Even the 2016 Repulbican nomination was relatively docile in comparison. Yes, there were many candidates and it was hard fought, but according to SMI, Trump maintained a strong lead for almost the entire race, which paints a far different picture than what we see for the 2020 Democrats.
Such shifting preferences imply a fickle electorate whose focus is more on electability than on actual support.
Our conclusion is that Democratic turnout could suffer in the general election. This of course could change if Democrats are able to fully get behind a single candidate. However, from what we have seen in alternative indicator trends, it looks like the Democratic electorate could have trouble maintaining enthusiasm for a single candidate.
The situation remains extremely fluid and our forecasts could very well shift post-Super Tuesday — that is, if Democrats appear ready to coalesce around a single candidate. However, current data trends show mixed results and volatility, while painting a picture of a fickle electorate. This combination, if maintained, does not bode well going against a unified Republican party with an incumbent President.
We will of course let the data lead and will modify forecasts accordingly.