Who Will Win South Carolina and Nevada? Here Are Seven Credible Predictions

Iowa went to Ted Cruz and (by a razor-thin margin) Hillary Clinton. New Hampshire went to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Now all eyes turn to Saturday's contests, the South Carolina Republican primary and Nevada Democratic caucuses, where candidates are hoping they can establish momentum to build upon for “Super Tuesday”—March 1, when 12 states and territories hold their primaries. After parsing everything from poll aggregations and betting markets to Google search data, a pattern is beginning to emerge.

The research project led by David Rothschild, an economist at Microsoft Research in New York City, successfully predicted the winner in 21 of the first 26 primary contests in 2012. As of Thursday, PredictWise gave Trump a nearly bulletproof 90 percent chance of winning in the Palmetto State. That estimate is way up from less than 40 percent before his solid win in the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary. Despite South Carolina's large evangelical population, Cruz, who has appealed aggressively to religious voters, has just a 5 percent chance of pulling out a victory, according to PredictWise.