Yesterday, I took a look at the role of uncommitted delegates and the selection of delegates (particularly those pledged to withdrawn candidates) could influence the end game of the Republican nomination process — particularly in how many pledged delegates Donald Trump will need to win to have a shot at getting nominated. Today, I take a look at similar issues for the end game of the Democratic nomination. Because the Democratic party uniformly gives candidates a significant role in delegate selection, the issue for the Democratic party is uncommitted delegates (barring an upset in the remaining primaries, entirely automatic delegates) and the later stages of some caucus states. Again, the starting point will be the Green Papers count of hard versus soft delegates.
Unlike the Republican Party, there is a difference between the hard count and the soft pledged count. This difference reflects different rules in different caucus states. In the Republican Party, if a state had a preference vote at the precinct level meeting, that vote had to be used to allocate national convention delegates. The Democratic Party does not have a similar rule. In some states, the precinct level vote is used to allocate all of the delegates (e.g., Minnesota). Other states use a hybrid rule (e.g., Nevada). Finally, some states do not allocate delegates until the delegate selection event (e.g., Iowa). For the Green Papers, the “soft pledged” count estimates delegates based on the latest result in those states, but only includes those delegates in the hard count if they are actually allocated. While significant changes are unlikely, the potential for gaining a delegate here and there still exists.
The soft “unpledged” count reflects the announced support of the uncommitted/automatic delegates. The unpledged reflects that such delegates are free to change their minds later. (Of course, even the pledged delegates are theoretically free to change their minds, but given the candidate role in the selection of these delegates the likelihood of any significant defections barring some major event is very, very slim.) There are a lot of arguments put forth about the proper role of these automatic delegates — 1) to follow the results in their state; 2) to follow the national results (either delegate count or popular vote count); 3) the most electable candidate/candidate most likely to help or least likely to hurt the down ballot races; and 4) the personal preference of the delegate. In six contested cycles, the automatic delegates have never actually swung the nomination away from the leader in the pledged delegate count. So far 521 automatic delegates have announced their tentative vote (or at least made statements that the Green Papers count as a solid indication of support) leaving 193 automatic delegates still unofficially uncommitted. While the other 521 remain free to change their votes, there is no reason yet to believe that any change is likely.
Part of the Sanders problem heading into May is that the hard count is even more favorable to Clinton than the soft pledged count. Clinton has 1,362 hard delegates to Sanders’s 1,052 hard delegates. Comparing those numbers to the soft pledged count, Clinton only has 84 tentative delegates in the caucus states compared to 153 tentative delegates for Sanders. Over May and June, those tentative delegates will slowly become hard delegates. The issue is whether Sanders can move some of those tentative delegates away from Clinton.
Looking at the remaining levels in caucus states, the calendar for April through June is as follows:
April 30 — Iowa — congressional district conventions — will allocate and select district-level delegates. Clinton leads 15-14. It would take a significant swing in most of the districts to change the delegate allocation (the closest would take a swing of 7 out of 354).
May 1 — Washington — county conventions — no delegates allocated or selected for national convention. Will elect the delegates to later conventions in the smaller counties. In the larger counties, those delegates were already elected in legislative district conventions.
May 6-7 — Maine — state convention — will allocate and select national convention delegates, both district-level and state-level. Sanders leads 16-9. Barring a major swing, the state-level delegates seem pretty set, but the last district level delegate in both districts was close (currently a 1-1 split, so either candidate could easily gain one delegate).
May 7 — Guam — territorial convention (as Guam convention is first step, no soft count yet)
May 14-15 — Alaska — state convention — will allocate and select national convention delegates, both district-level and state-level. Sanders leads 13-3. Clinton was barely above 15% (18.1%) at initial meeting, so it is not outside realm of possibility that Sanders could pick up three delegates.
May 14-15 — Nevada — state convention with district meetings — will allocate state-level delegates and select both district-level and state-level delegates. District-level delegates are allocated on basis of precinct-level results. The initial state-level count had Clinton leading 7-5, but the county level results flipped that to a 7-5 Sanders lead. If Sanders picked up an additional swing of a similar amount at the state convention, that might put him close to picking up an additional delegate. So currently a two delegate gain over the soft count, and an outside shot at a third delegate.
May 19-26 — Nebraska — county conventions — will select delegates to state convention. Rules provide that the delegates to the county conventions are bound by their declared preference at the precinct level.
May 21 — Washington — congressional district conventions — will select congressional district delegates, ambiguous as to whether delegates have already been allocated. The Green Papers shows these delegates as being allocated based on the precinct level results, but the rules provide that these delegates are allocated based on the preferences of the delegates to the congressional district. In any case, the Green Papers do not have a solid district-by-district breakdown from the precinct caucuses as the results were reported on the county level and the current estimate attempts to estimate the breakdown of delegates in multi-district counties. The current estimate has Sanders with a 59-18 lead. Not knowing what has happened at the legislative district meetings (and with the county meetings still to come), any precise guess is hard to make. Based on the initial estimate, Sanders seems to be looking at 58-61 delegates (a potential gain of two or a loss of one) with Clinton getting 16-19 delegates.
May 28 — Wyoming — state convention — will allocate state-level delegates and select all delegates. The current estimate of the state-level split is 3-3. Sanders could win one additional delegate if he has 62.5% of the delegates at the state convention (he received 55% of the vote at the county level).
June 4 — Virgin Islands territorial convention (as first step, no estimate yet)
June 7 — North Dakota Legislative District (as first step, no estimate yet)
June 18 — Idaho — state convention with congressional district meetings — will allocate state-level delegates and select both state and district level delegates. Similar to Nevada in that district-level delegates are allocated based on results of local caucuses. Sanders currently leads the state-level count 8-2. Sanders could possibly pick up one.
June 18 — Iowa — state convention — will allocate and select state-level delegates. Based on results of county conventions, Clinton currently has an 8-7 lead. Barring a major swing, only one delegate is within reach for Sanders.
June 18 — Nebraska — state convention with district meetings to allocate and select state-level delegates. As noted above, the state party rules theoretically bind delegates to the preferences from the county conventions. Sanders currently is projected with a 15-10 lead after the local caucuses. It will be difficult for Sanders to change any delegates in his favor (for four of the five selection categories, Sanders currently is the one rounding up on delegates),
June 18 — North Dakota — state convention — formal election of district-level delegates based on June 7 vote, state-wide delegates allocated and selected based on proportion of district-level delegates.
June 19 — Washington — state convention — Like North Dakota, state-level delegates are allocated based on proportion of district-level delegates. Current estimate has Sanders leading 25-9. Looking at most favorable results for each candidate at district conventions, This estimate appears to be off (using raw vote instead of district-level delegates). Sanders seems to be looking at eight 26 or 27 state-level delegates based on results in congressional districts.
The problem for Sanders is that, barring a miracle, he is only looking at improving the soft pledged count by a maximum of seventeen delegates. Clinton would still have a lead of over 207 pledged delegates. As noted earlier, Clinton is likely to gain a net of around 60 delegates this week giving her a lead of around 260 delegates with around 1,000 delegates left in states that have not yet started (even giving Sanders the benefit of the doubt in the second and third tier caucuses). More importantly, for the end-game, the current soft count (pledged plus unpledged) would put Clinton about 240 short of the count needed to win the nomination.
With 190 automatic delegates who still have not yet pledged support for either candidate, Sanders biggest challenge is to keep those delegates from effectively transforming Clinton from being the likely nominee to the apparent nominee. After Tuesday, Clinton will probably only need 50-60 pledged delegates to come within the range where the automatic delegates can bring the process to an end. With 119 delegates at stake between May 3 and May 10, there is a theoretical chance that the race could be over by May 10. With another 116 up for grabs on May 17, even assuming strong showings by Sanders in May, Clinton should be within 160-70 of the nomination after May 17. It is likely that if Clinton does not get enough endorsements by May 17 to become the apparent nominee, the Clinton campaign will spend the eighteen-day gap between Oregon and the Virgin Islands drumming up enough endorsements from automatic delegates to either put her over the top before June 7 or put her over the top shortly after the polls have closed in South Dakota and New Mexico (7 p.m. MDT, 9 p.m. EDT).
For the Sanders campaign, the goal is to keep the 193 unpledged delegates on the side-line as long as possible and convince some of those who have endorsed Clinton to walk their pledges back. Even with strong showings, Sanders is likely to be 185 or so delegates down in the soft pledged count on June 1 with 770 delegates yet to be selected. That would require Sanders to get 63% of the remaining pledged delegates just to get even in the pledged delegate count and then convince 130 automatic delegates to rescind their prior support for Clinton to keep Clinton under 50% of the total delegates.
To use the chess metaphor from which the concept of an end-game comes, the end-game on the Republican side features a board in which the anti-Trump candidates have good odds of a draw if they make the correct moves. On the Democratic side, the end game strongly favors Clinton, and Sanders needs a significant game-changing event.
Iowa — Congressional District results (http://iowademocrats.org/2016-iowa-district-convention-results/). Some no shows for both candidates (net total of eighteen and one state convention delegate apparently flipped from Sanders to Clinton in the second district). However, the no-shows did not impact the delegates. Both candidates left the Iowa Congressional District caucus with the same number estimated on caucus night — 15 for Clinton and 14 for Sanders. Still 15 delegates in play at state convention (Clinton currently projected to get 8 delegates — 3 party leader and 5 at -large to Sanders 7 delegates — 3 party leader and 4 at-large — at the state convention.