The IOTW South Carolina Primary Prediction Thread – IOTW Report

The IOTW South Carolina Primary Prediction Thread

Saturday, 20 February 2016, 13:07 Aurelius Uncategorized 25

The South Carolina primary is tonight. I’ll be making my prediction at the end of my article, after some analysis.
Cruz Trump Thumbs Up
Any prediction that I make is not an endorsement, but rather an educated guess based on polls, as well as past results in South Carolina and this year’s results. Please take a moment and make your own predictions in the comments.

Donald Trump hurt himself last Saturday in the debate, and I think it will show in the polls. More than that, he’s made statements that many conservatives would find disconcerting in the last few days.

In a week’s time, Mr. Trump said that Planned Parenthood “does wonderful things,” then said he would defund them. He said that he “likes” the ObamaCare mandate, then said he would repeal it. He also claimed that George W. Bush knowingly lied about the reason the US went into Iraq and did not keep our nation safe, then said he “didn’t know” if Mr. Bush had lied.

In a normal year, a candidate who said these things would have a drastic decrease in the polls. Mr. Trump has seen some pull-back in the polls, but I think that he’ll still end up on top for a couple reasons. First, it’s very late in the game for people voting in South Carolina, and if you’ve decided on Trump, these statements probably aren’t the reasons why you’re supporting him in the first place.

Second, reports are that the absentee ballots in South Carolina are tremendous. A lot of people voted before Mr. Trump said these things. Many of his votes have been locked in from before his slide; that also means these ballots won’t capture Marco Rubio’s or Ted Cruz’s momentum.

For these reasons, I believe that Donald Trump will come out of South Carolina with a victory. I don’t think we’ll see the 42% or even 38% that polls were saying just a week ago, but I don’t think Trump will collapse into the mid-20s, as a couple of new polls suggest.

With Trump coming in first, the real race is between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio for second and third place. On Rubio’s side, you have momentum and endorsements after a good debate, but also after a terrible showing in New Hampshire. On Cruz’s side, you have an excellent ground game and a better-than-expected showing in New Hampshire, but allegations of being untruthful dogging him.

Like the absentee ballots helping Trump, they’ll help Cruz over Rubio as well. Rubio’s surge in the polls started a week ago; Cruz has gone up a little, but voters were locked in with him for the last couple of weeks following Iowa and New Hampshire.

I think Rubio will win the plurality of votes from people who decided at the last minute. This is because of his momentum and the endorsements that he garnered. However, I think Cruz will be one of the top vote-getters from late-deciders.

So who takes second? I think it’ll be Rubio by a hair. The late-deciding votes will be just a little too big for Cruz to overcome. That said, I think both Cruz and Rubio will out-perform the polls.

Jeb Bush will get a little over 10%. I think we can all agree that he needs to drop out. Kasich might actually beat Bush; if he does, Bush may drop out Saturday night or Sunday morning. Ben Carson will end up way behind in 6th, but will probably inexplicably stay in, as he has done since Iowa.

My prediction:

Trump: 30.2%
Rubio: 22.0%
Cruz: 21.4%
Bush: 10.9%
Kasich: 9.2%
Carson: 6.3%

And for fun, in Nevada:

Sanders: 50.4%
Clinton: 49.6%

25 Comments on The IOTW South Carolina Primary Prediction Thread

  3. Bush: Less than 10% (Lindsey Graham inconsolable)

    Cruz: Edges out the flavor of the month Rubio for 2nd place

    Trump: Doesn’t win by the margin he had hoped for but it’s still a win.

    Rubio: 3rd, but Fox and Fools will claim “momentum!”

    Carson: Edges out Kasich despite the McClatchy rag “The State” newspaper’s tepid endorsement. They always endorse the Democrat, guess no one told them Kasich isn’t.

    Nevada: Sanders wins. Clinton takes all the delegates because it’s “her turn” and for shits and giggles, or is that cackles?

  7. YOU ARE INVITED!

    8 p.m. at Southern Barrel Brewpub off Buckwalter Pkway in Bluffton, SC (Publix)

    SC Trumpsters are meeting to cheer on the returns!

    Y’all come on over!

    I’ll post an IOTW sign.

  9. South Carolina is a much more unpredictable than previous contests. Ends up being a Trump versus Cruz contest.

    Cruz 28%
    Trump 26%
    Rubio 18%
    Kasich 13%
    Jeb 9%
    Carson 8%
    The rest follow.

    Nevada for Fun
    Clinton 35%
    Sanders 65%

  12. I really don’t care who wins on the Republican side. I just want the Republican nominee the one who can win the election. If things go the right way, maybe a third party will finally be possible. On the Democrat side, Bernie will win but Hillary will get all the delegates.

  17. Aurelius, your analysis certainly seems on target. But one of the writers at the New York Post published a column recently that said this election cycle is just too bizarre for any predictions to hold weight.

    I agree. I have fairly clear memories of every Presidential election since 1964. This one is following no rules. For one, I have never seen one party with such a depth of talent and the other party with such a bunch of one-dimensional losers. I also can’t recall hating the Democratic candidates as much as I hate Hitlery and Bernie. Early on, I took these trends to mean the the only predictability in this race would be it’s sheer unpredictability.

  22. If Carson drops out, his speech will include”I’m so overjoyed that you finally put the camera on me. I thought you would never call on me again. Thank you so much for not forgetting that I was still in this race forever and forever.”

  23. I hope you’re wrong but SC is a weird state. They gave us Jim DeMint- a conservative stud but they also continue to elect Lindsay Graham- who is basically a democrat. Regardless, It’ll be interesting. Go Cruz!

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