More Democrats Want Clinton to Be Their Nominee (Duh)

Responding to a Sanders supporter's tweet that Clinton campaign "strategy" would be to declare victory after the New Jersey primary on June 7, FiveThiryEight.com's Nate Silver tweeted:

Clinton "strategy" is to persuade more "people" to "vote" for her, hence producing a "majority" of "delegates."

NY Times Paul Krugman picked up on Silver's comment in his May 30 piece titled Feel the Math," in which he criticizes his fellow commentators for failing to communicate political facts. At a point in a campaign, Krugman argues, a campaign stops being about "narrative" and "momentum," and becomes "a simple concrete matter of delegate counts."

That's why Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee; she locked it up over a month ago with her big Mid-Atlantic wins, leaving Bernie Sanders no way to overtake her without gigantic implausible landslides....

Krugman continues that to declare this is not a "nefarious plot" to close off the primary prematurely. He also reminds readers that the most reliable way to evaluate polls is to look at averages. Thus the one recent poll showing Clinton and Sanders within two percentage points in California does not by itself suggest that Clinton's lead has "evaporated." As Krugman notes, a different poll over the same period shows Clinton with an 18 point lead.

General election polls and electoral college projections currently show Clinton ahead, as well.

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