Category Archives: Bernie Sanders

Delegate Math — Week of May 30th

By tmess2 | Published May 26, 2016

The primary campaign enters the home stretch.  Depending upon which count you use, Donald Trump either has or is about to clinch the Republican nomination.  (The counts differ in their estimate of how many of the officially “uncommitted” delegates have pledged to support Trump.  Trump is 139 short by the “bound” delegate count.)  Because there are no Republican contests this week, the only thing that can change between now and the next (and final) Republican contests on June 7 will be additional pledges from uncommitted delegates.

This week the action is all on the Democratic side in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.  Between now and the Virgin Island’s contest, there will be some minor adjustments as results are certified from the April states and as superdelegates announce their support for one of the candidates.  However, barring a large number of superdelegates endorsing Clinton, the delegates up for stake this week should not be enough to clinch the nomination.  At the present time, Clinton is approximately 100 delegates short of clinching the nomination.

The Virgin Islands contest on June 4 is a little bit unusual.  At the territorial mass meeting, attendees from St. Croix will select three delegates.  Attendees from the other islands will select four delegates.  Assuming that both candidates meet the fifteen percent threshold, St. Croix will almost certainly split 2-1.  The other four delegates will either split 3-1 or 2-2.   As a result, the most likely outcomes are either a 5-2 or a 4-3 split (most likely in favor of Clinton).  At this stage of the race, the results in the Virgin Islands will not make much of a difference in the delegate count.  At most the Virgin Islands will play into any “momentum” argument that the Sanders campaign wants to make to the superdelegates.  (That argument is the same reason why Sanders is considering a recount in Kentucky even though such a recount would probably only change one delegate at most.) Continue Reading...

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Stopping Donald Trump

By DocJess | Published May 24, 2016

The most common question I get is “Can Donald Trump win in November?” The answer is yes. This is my fifth rewrite of this post because I don’t seem able to get my head around it myself. Plus, I keep getting sidetracked by why he needs to be stopped. So let’s start with how he can win, and then on to how.

The Donald certainly has a path to victory. First, while this year is a year unlike any other in American electoral history, the stats say that the incumbent party does not hold the White House for a third term. Second, he has amassed more Republican primary votes than any other Republican, and the contests aren’t over yet. The corollary is that Republican turnout is up 64% so far, while Democratic turnout is down 17%.  There are also a lot of troubling signs relative to Trump’s match-ups with the Democrats. And most importantly, there’s the platform on which he’s run. 

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Delegate Math — Weeks of May 16 and May 23

By tmess2 | Published May 12, 2016

As this week’s primaries showed, with Kasich and Cruz out, it’s only a matter of time until Trump gets to 1,237 delegates.  There are still pitfalls ahead for Trump, but those pitfalls are about the convention going rogue on the platform and the vice-presidential pick.  Whether that happens depends upon how much Trump wants to alter the 2012 platform (which is hard to tell given how vague Trump’s actual positions are) and whether Trump can find an acceptable vice-presidential candidate.   Over the next two week’s the Republicans will have primaries in Oregon (May 17) and Washington (May 24).    Oregon allocates its twenty-eight delegates proportionally with no winner-take-all provision; so Cruz and Kasich should get some delegates, but Trump should take twenty or more delegates.  Washington allocates thirty delegates by congressional district and fourteen delegates state-wide.    Given that Washington has a twenty percent threshold for winning delegates, Trump is likely to get all forty-four.   Including the uncommitted delegates who have pledged to support Trump, Washington should put Trump unofficially over the top.

For the Democratic Party, the next two weeks consists of two primaries (Oregon and Kentucky on May 17), the Nebraska county conventions spread out over the two weeks, the Washington Congressional District conventions on May 21, and the Wyoming state convention on May 28.

Continue Reading...

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Super Delegates 2016 — The Arguments

By tmess2 | Published May 9, 2016

The two parties take very different approaches to the election of pledged delegates.  In the Republican Party, the influence of winner-take-all states and winner-take-most states allows a front runner to win the nomination while only getting a plurality of the vote.  In the Democratic Party, the fact that 14% of the delegates (officially unpledged party leader and elected officials, unofficially superdelegates) go to the convention as unpledged delegates and the pledged delegates are allocated proportionately, make it hard for even a clear front-runner with a majority of the votes to win enough pledged delegates unless the other candidates suspend their campaigns.   As a result, for the second competitive cycle in a row, both candidates need the support of at least some of the super delegates to win the nomination.

There are a lot of different arguments for what superdelegates should consider in making their decision.  The problem for Bernie Sanders and his supporters is that almost every argument favors Hillary Clinton.

Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math — Week of May 9

By tmess2 | Published May 4, 2016

With Donald Trump being the last Republican standing, delegate math on the Republican side is almost meaningless.  (Of course with early voting, some segments of votes have already been cast and some segment of voters tend to vote against the presumptive nominee.)  On May 10, the Republicans will have primaries in Nebraska (thirty-six delegates on winner-take-all basis) and West Virginia (thirty-one directly elected delegates — three in each district and twenty-two state-wide.  There are some weird restrictions on the twenty-two state-wide delegates that could distort the results if voters do not understand the rules).  Trump still needs 223 more delegates to clinch the nomination.  As such, he will probably not officially clinch the nomination until June 7, but it would take some very bizarre results between now and June 7 to stop Trump from getting the nomination.  In the upcoming weeks, I am sure there will be several posts on this site on what the nomination of Trump means for this year’s elections and the future of the Republican Party.

On the Democratic side, counting superdelegates, Hillary Clinton is approximately 189 delegates short of clinching the nomination.  The main event this week is the West Virginia Primary on May 10.  The delegate breakdown in West Virginia is seven delegates in both the first and second districts, six delegates for both the third district and the at-large pool, and three pledged party leader delegates.  Given votes in similar states, Bernie Sanders has a shot at getting to five delegates (64.3%) in the first and the second and four delegates in the third and at-large.  With an almost certain 2-1 split for the pledged party leaders, that would give Sanders a 20-9 advantage.

Continue Reading...

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Will Indiana end the primary season for the GOP?

By Matt | Published May 3, 2016

If Trump sweeps all the delegates, it could be over. Final polls close in the state at 7 PM EDT.

7:30: Trump sweeps. It’s over. On to November.

9:30: Sanders wins a small victory; Clinton remains the nominee. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math: Week of May 2

By tmess2 | Published April 29, 2016

As a month, May is mostly about delegate selection rather than delegate allocation.  Even on the Democratic side (where some caucus allocations will be finalized), there will be over twenty delegate selection events in various states but fewer than ten delegate allocation events.

On the Republican side, there is just one delegate allocation event — Indiana.  After a good showing this past Tuesday (Trump even apparently got 31 supporters elected as unpledged district delegates in Pennsylvania), Trump looks to have a shot at getting enough delegates to win on the first ballot.  He still needs to win fifty percent of the remaining delegates though (approximately 250).  Indiana is another winner-take-most state  — three delegates to the winner in each of the nine congressional districts and thirty to the state-wide winner.  Indiana is the last best chance for Cruz to prevent Trump from getting the nomination.   After trying to arrange a deal with Kasich and (shades of Ronald Reagan) announcing his VP candidate, Cruz has few angles left to play.  Trump is up by 6% which would likely give him 45+ delegates.  If Cruz can make a comeback (with the help of Kasich supporters), Trump is probably looking at 15 or fewer delegates.  With only around 450 delegates left after Indiana, a thirty delegate swing is a big deal.

Continue Reading...

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Tuesday Night Primary Results

By Matt | Published April 26, 2016

Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island have their say tonight. All polls close at 8PM EDT. We’ll have the results here.

8:00: Trump wins MD, CT and PA. Clinton wins MD.

9:15. Trump sweeps. Clinton wins MD, PA and DE. Sanders takes RI. CT close. Clinton will pick up a lot of net delegates tonight. Continue Reading...

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Primary End Game — Democrats

By tmess2 | Published April 25, 2016

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.

Also posted in Delegate Count, Delegates, Hillary Clinton, Philadelphia, PHLDNC2016, Primary and Caucus Results, Superdelegates | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Soda Tax

By DocJess | Published April 24, 2016

If you live in the Philadelphia media market, you’ve heard or seen the ads. Pretty ubiquitous. The ads talk about a “grocery tax”, which is not actually correct, in an effort to drum up support against the proposed Philadelphia soda tax of 3 cents per ounce. All sugar sweetened beverages would be assessed the tax if they are bought in the city of Philadelphia. A few numbers:

  • Liter bottle of soda – costs perhaps 99 cents on sale. The tax would add $ 1.01.
  • 6-pack of 12 ounce cans – tax of $2.16 (I have no idea what the raw product costs)

It’s a lot of money if you live on limited funds. The idea is health. From that slippery slope of ever increasing cigarette taxes, to alcohol taxes…the “sin” taxes. They are regressive taxes as they hurt the poor the most as a percentage of income. And yeah, sugar is bad for you. BUT…

Personally, I’m not a soda drinker, but when I throw parties, I buy several liter bottles of soda. From my perspective, if the cost doubled, it wouldn’t be that big a deal because the soda part of the full cost of the food and beverages is minimal. But there are a lot of people who like a soda. Perhaps they prefer it to an adult beverage, or want to use it as a mixer — that one drink to celebrate the end of the work week when they worked two jobs, have one day off and it all starts again. Likely, those people don’t have cars to drive out to the ‘burbs to spend less, and don’t have the time even if they had the car. If they’re making minimum wage (which is nowhere near $15/hour but I digress) that extra buck is a lot of money proportionally to their income. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Economy, Hillary Clinton | 2 Comments