Primary Predictions

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com has started putting together predictions about who will win the primaries and has also been tracking endorsements stating that endorsements are often the best predictors of which candidates will succeed and which will fail.

First the primaries.

Iowa Caucases - Republicans

Probability of winning:

Ted Cruz - 51%
Donald Trump - 29%
Marco Rubio - 14%
Ben Carson - 3%
Jeb Bush - 1%

The estimated results are:

Ted Cruz - 26.5%
Donald Trump - 21.2%
Marco Rubio - 16.0%
Ben Carson - 9.1%
Jeb Bush - 6.2%
Chris Christie - 5.0%
Rand Paul - 4.8%
John Kasich - 4.1%
Mike Huckabee - 3.8%
Carly Fiorina - 1.7%
Rick Santorum - 1.4%

Iowa Caucases - Democrats

Probability of winning:

Hillary Clinton - 82%
Bernie Sanders - 18%

The estimated results are:

Hillary Clinton - 51.1%
Bernie Sanders - 39.9%
Martin O'Malley - 7.1%

New Hampshire Primary - Republicans

Probability of winning:

Donald Trump - 39%
Marco Rubio - 21%
Ted Cruz - 13%
John Kasich - 11%
Chris Christie - 7%
Jeb Bush - 6%
Rand Paul - 1%

The estimated results are:

Donald Trump - 22.9%
Marco Rubio - 17.2%
Ted Cruz - 14.0%
John Kasich - 12.5%
Chris Christie - 10.1%
Jeb Bush - 9.4%
Rand Paul - 4.6%
Carly Fiorina - 3.4%
Ben Carson - 3.0%
Mike Huckabee - 1.8%
Rick Santorum - 1.0%

New Hampshire Primary - Democrats

Probability of winning:

Hillary Clinton - 57%
Bernie Sanders - 43%

The estimated results are:

Hillary Clinton - 48.0%
Bernie Sanders - 45.8%
Martin O'Malley - 4.1%

If after New Hampshire, if not after Iowa, Carson, Fiorina, Huckabee and Santorum don't drop out they will be demonstrating they're not interested in what makes the most sense for the nomination process but only in their own egos.

On the Democratic side O'Malley should give it a rest.

The Endorsement Sweepstakes
 FiveThirtyEight.com has also been tracking endorsements. They have been assigning points as follows:

Governors - 10 pts
Senators - 5 pts
Representatives - 1 pt

Republicans
Jeb Bush - 46
Marco Rubio - 43
Chris Christie - 26
Mike Huckabee - 26
John Kasich - 20
Ted Cruz - 15
Rand Paul - 15
Carly Fiorina - 3
Rick Santorum - 1
Donald Trump - 0
Ben Carson - 0

Democrats
Hillary Clinton - 457
Bernie Sanders - 2
Martin O'Malley - 1

Fascinating how the professional politicians have such a different view of the world than us riffraff huh?