538 believes that officeholder endorsements provide The Establishment candidates an extra 14% likelihood of winning the New Hampshire primary. Similarly, this model downgrades Trump’s chances from 57% to 39%.
538 bases this conclusion on the theory that in the nomination process, it is the party and party endorsers who decide. This theory grows out of research about contests from the 1980 through 2004 campaigns.
However what this factor may be missing, and why we firmly believe we can out predict the 538 model, is that choosing not to decide is in and of itself a choice. This year’s party is effectively undecided and that throws cold water on the 538 model.
There are currently 331 Republican Governors, Senators and House Members. Including those supporting themselves (Five of the candidates are current Governors and Senators.) only 118 have endorsed. This means that 64% of all office holders have not endorsed and may not endorse until the voting begins. Of those who did endorse 40 were endorsing their home state candidate [or themselves], an endorsement sure but one which would be more noticeable by its absence than its presence.
When home state endorsements are discounted, the percentage not endorsing rises to 73%. Focusing solely on Governors and Senators, the numbers are even bleaker. Of Senators, only 16 of 54 have made a choice including themselves. This leaves 70% of the Senate without an endorsement. It rises to almost 80% when endorsing yourself or someone from your home state is removed. With Governors it is 80% with no choice including home state and self. When those are removed only 3 of 28 Governors have made a non-home state choice, leaving almost 90% on the sidelines.
Nor are the party endorsements even close to unified. Governor Bush, who still leads the pack, has the most total endorsements with 31 out of the 331 available, a number less than 10%. Excluding his home state nods, he is taking less than 7% of those available. Rubio does a little better on the non-home state score, but even he is rocking only 9%, which is the absolute high. It’s hard to see much traction from such minimal passion.
The trends in endorsement politics have also changed a decent degree since 2004. There are three things to consider. First, we see a striking increase in the value of endorsements outside the traditional officeholders. Some such party heavyweights are supporting Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. For example, Dr. James Dobson, a Cruz supporter and leader of the Christian Right, went toe to toe with President Bush in 2004 at the absolute height of Bush’s power. Dobson endorsed now Senator Pat Toomey against then Senator Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania. Bush narrowly won the day by a margin of 51-49, but Dobson won the war. Specter ultimately had to become a Democrat, and Toomey won the Seat in 2010.
Similarly, talk Radio hosts such as Laura Ingraham and Michelle Malkin galvanized voters against Rep. Eric Cantor, taking down a majority leader in a primary by a sizable margin. Ann Coulter’s support of Donald Trump falls into a similar category.
Second, the old calculation pushing people to endorse with hope of payback when their chosen candidate prevails took a beating after the Obama-Clinton primaries. Even though Obama was successful, in later primaries Bill Clinton’s involvement often helped the Clinton backers to prevail over Obama-backers. So current office holders might think even more than twice before going out on a limb, thinking it’s safest just to stay silent.
Third, recent cycles have seen many Republican primaries in which outsider candidates have either beaten or damaged establishment or incumbent Republicans. So those same Republicans are understandably less likely to endorse because why risk the anger from the grassroots on behalf of someone else. These three factors have led to a party that has simply not decided. That non-decision is a decision and that silence rather than simply counting endorsements should be factored into any prediction model. We can beat 538 with multi-candidate field dynamics, but when you have a choice between 538’s poll only and their Poll-plus nonsense, go with poll only every time.
The Scorecard
The Scorecard is a political strategy and analysis blog. Our hope is to provide information and insight that can be found nowhere else into how and why things are happening in American politics. Unlike many political pundits, we will tell you who we think is going to win as an election approaches; we will tell you why; and we will give you a sense of our level of confidence. Ours is a holistic approach, one that takes in as many numbers as possible but is also willing to look past the numbers if need be. When we turn out to have been wrong, we will let you know. When we are right, we’ll let you know that too.
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About Me
Author Jason Paul is a longtime political operative who got his start as an intern in 2002. He has been a political forecaster for almost as long. He won the 2006 Swing State Project election prediction contest and has won two other local contests. He had the pulse of Obama-Clinton race in 2008 and has been as good as anyone at delegate math in the 2016 race. He looks forwards to providing quality coverage for the remainder of the 2016 race.
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