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Invisible Primary

The Party Can No Longer Decide

If 2012 was the presidential election in which data-driven journalism really came into its own, the 2016 Republican nomination contest has been the one in the conventional wisdom has continually been shattered.

Donald Trump has been the bane of everyone from data geeks like Nate Silver and the New York Times’s Nate Cohn to more old school analysts like Ron Brownstein of National Journal. The former television star’s unorthodox background and brash demeanor has upended the conventional wisdom about how American political parties’ nominations are determined.