A brokered convention is more likely than Elizabeth Warren winning the nomination, FiveThirtyEight forecasts

Elizabeth Warren.
(Image credit: Kena Betancur/Getty Images)

The Democratic nominee is starting to take shape in FiveThirtyEight's 2020 vision.

The data-driven news site gives former Vice President Joe Biden the best chance of locking down the 2020 Democratic nomination in its primary forecast that debuted Thursday. But things get more complicated beyond the top two candidates, with FiveThirtyEight predicting the Democratic National Committee could arrive at its convention without a nominee.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

But the next most likely outcome isn't that prominent candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) or former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg win the nomination. It's that no one gets a majority of delegates at all, FiveThirtyEight predicts. The chances of ending up with a contested convention are one in seven, FiveThirtyEight forecasts. Warren meanwhile gets a one in eight chance of locking up the nomination, Buttigieg gets 1 in 10, and all the other Democrats out there get a collective one in 40.

Find more of FiveThirtyEight's primary predictions here.

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.