"Why Warren’s Big Crowds Are a Big Deal
The data gurus say her long selfie lines with supporters don’t mean anything. They’re wrong.
After Elizabeth Warren was said to draw a crowd of more than 20,000 people to New York City’s Washington Square Park last week, top political number crunchers were quick to scoff. CNN’s poll analyst Harry Enten vented on Twitter, “Are we really doing this thing on crowd sizes?” HuffPost polling editor Ariel Edwards-Levy did the same: “Good morning, crowd size still is not predictive of electoral results, thank you.” FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver said on MSNBC that “crowd sizes are one of the last things I’d look at” when assessing a candidate’s level of support.
Warren has a lot more than crowds going for her these days. She is having her best week of 2020 primary polling yet, seizing the top spot in Monmouth University’s New Hampshire poll on Tuesday and in the Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa poll this weekend. But the crowds did come first, and despite the scoffing, they weren’t irrelevant to her rise."
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/24/elizabeth-warren-campaign-crowds-228172
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