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That's fair enough, I guess... the media always loves the candidate on the rise. But maybe the biggest flaw in media coverage of the primaries is the assumption that candidates on the rise in polls tend to continue to rise, when empirically it's much closer to a random walk.
I'd note that outside of Bernie/Pete rising a bit and Biden falling after IA, which is in line with what you'd expect given the results there, none of the polling shifts in this primary have been super predictable.
Like if you predicted more than 1 or 2 of these, more power to you. I certainly didn't, and I don't think there was anything that intrinsically predictable about any of them.
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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Welp this is annoying, but we found an issue with how our model was making state-by-state forecasts. The error is fixed. The topline effect is not very large and mainly helps "no majority" slightly. A few state forecasts have changed more noticeably. 1/

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-f…
Specifically, the demographic regressions we use as a compliment to the polls weren't calculating properly since some code changes we introduced on 2/5 (after IA). As a result, the state forecasts were underdispersed (too conservative) especially in states with little polling. 2/
Without demographics the model basically defaulted to a geographic prior, which tends to underrate Biden/Bloomberg in the South and overrate them (especially Biden) outside the South. It also tended to overrate Sanders in Southern states and underrate him in Western states. 3/
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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Average projected delegates through Super Tuesday:

Sanders 608 (41% of delegates thru March 3)
Bloomberg 273 (18%)
Biden 270 (18%)
Buttigieg 157 (10%)
Warren 127 (8%)
Klobuchar 55 (4%)

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-f…
It is important to note that this this reflects an average of many different scenarios and the ranges are very wide.
What it illustrates, though: We're *not* in a 2-candidate race *right now*. We're in a race that has 1 clear but not overwhelming frontrunner, Sanders, and a lot of candidates chasing him, of whom Bloomberg may or may not be the strongest.
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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
It's a little hard to know the cause and effect here. Clearly Biden would have been in much much better shape with stronger finishes in Iowa and Nevada. Bloomberg's emergence likely has a lot to do with extensive/obsessive media coverage also though.
The ordinary course of events after Iowa and NH *would* involve big problems for Biden. But the candidates who would benefit from that would be Buttigieg, Sanders and maybe a little Klobuchar, not Bloomberg.
To be fair we don't really know what "normal" is in this case since Bloomberg's strategy is new/novel. But the media should recognize that how much time it spends focusing on different candiates, and how it frames them, can itself be a cause of swings & "momentum" in the primary.
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I wonder what kinds of personnel questions would be illuminating, though? You can explore that kind of stuff in a long-form print profile of a candidate, but I don't see how you can make much headway on it on a debate stage.
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