New South Hampshire Carolina

 I have not been posting about the primaries as much this year as the last few cycles for the very sensible reason that we know who both nominees will be.  But I don't want to ignore the news all together, so here is my look back at NH and look forward to SC.

New Hampshire: I Nailed It.

Here are my predictions for the Republican primary with the actual results in parenthesis.

Donald Trump: 54.1%   (54.3%)

Nikki Haley       43.9%   (43.2%)

Binkley                0.5%   (0.1%)

Others:                 1.5%  (2.0%)

I should have lumped Binkley in with "Others", but I wanted to give the guy a fair shot since he was the only declared candidate still in the races of any stature at all. 

Just want to point out that my slight error was to overestimate Nikki Haley's performance. But boy am I less guilty of that than any mainstream pundit.

Here are my predictions for the Democratic primary with the actual results in parenthesis:

Joe Biden: 64.3%  (63.9%)

Dean Phillips: 16.7%  (19.6%)

Marianne Williamson: 8.2%  (4%)

Others: 10% (12.5%)

The key number here was Biden. He was a write-in candidate and those are hard to predict. My only slight mistake was underrating Dean slightly and overrating Marianne Williamson. (I can't help it. She's wonderful, isn't she? So sad that her grift is now dead.)

Giving myself an A on this one. Close to an A+ on Republican and somewhere between A and A- on the Democratic side.  

South Carolina: Not Much Suspense.

South Carolina has been pivotal in the last 3 contested Democratic races. Obama winning in 2008, Bernie losing in 2016 and Biden crushing all of hos opponents in 2016 can largely explain the last four Democratic presidential contests.

The stakes are lower today. But Biden could use a big number. This is his first time on the ballot in this cycle and a crushing might push Dean Phillips back to the back benches of Congress where he belongs for the next 11 months.

So here's the official pick:

Biden 83%

Phillips 13%

Others: 4%

Williamson will get some votes and there will be write-ins. But nothing to move the needle.  Most  likely, Biden will win all 29 delegates.

About November.

Still holding off on my first official general election forecast. But I feel good about things. There has been a stream of good economic news. And it looks like we might just get a substantial ceasefire in Gaza soon.

The Republicans don't have a real contest for the next three weeks. But Haley's polling in SC has cratered. At some point soon she might admit that it's better to withdraw than to lose her home state by 25 or 30 points.

The public is slowly waking up to the reality of a Trump-Biden rematch. Polling for now is still all over the place. But I think that will change over the next six weeks or so. 

My confidence of a Biden win this November is up to about 60%. Details to follow.