Category Archives: Delegates

An Open Letter to Joe Biden

By DocJess | Published March 1, 2020

Dear Uncle Joe –

First, congratulations on winning South Carolina.

Sadly, HOW you won exposes the inherent weakness of your candidacy and how you can lose in November. Then again, knowledge is power and if you pay attention, you may yet be able to win in November, which is all any of us non-cult people care about. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — Super Tuesday (Part 1 — Early States and Territories)

By tmess2 | Published February 29, 2020

Super Tuesday is always a hard day for delegate math.  There are fifteen contests ranging from a territorial caucus in American Samoa (which given the time gaps will actually be taking while it is still Monday in most of the United States) to the massive primary in California in which a final count will not be available for several weeks.  Every candidate still running (and this post is going live while we are still waiting for the results in South Carolina) can point to some contest in which they might win delegates.  Super Tuesday is also the day on which we will see if Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s strategy of skipping the early caucuses and primaries worked.

As with the first four states in the “early” window,  these contests are complicated by the number of candidates running.  While the states differ from each other, in all of them, there is the question of how many candidates will reach the 15% threshold (either state-wide) or in a single district.  In Iowa (with the exception of the Second District in which only three candidates won delegates) every district and the state-wide results had four candidates break 15%.  In New Hampshire, in every district and state-wide, three candidates broke 15%.  In Nevada, one district had three viable candidates but the other districts and the state-wide results had only two viable candidates .  It seems likely that — in at least some districts and states — three or more candidates will reach that 15% threshold.  And multiple candidates reaching 15% will cause weird fractional issues.  Additionally, the possibility of some candidates getting between 10-13% could allow the viable candidates to gain more delegates than the minimum numbers discussed below.

Trying to do things chronologically, the first four contests to end (not necessarily the first four contests to report the results) are American Samoa, North Carolina, Virginia, and Vermont.  All of these contests close by 7:30 p.m. EST.  Part 2 will deal with the contests that close at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. CST,   Part 3 will deal with the states that close after 8 p.m. EST (excluding Texas and California).  Part 4 will deal with Texas and California. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — South Carolina

By tmess2 | Published February 23, 2020

Now that Nevada is over, we have a one-week break until South Carolina.  After South Carolina, the pace increases with multiple states per week holding contests (March 3, March 10, March 14, and March 17).  The next time that we have a break of this length will be between the multi-state contests on March 17 and Georgia on March 24.  In the seventeen days between South Carolina and March 17, over half of the national convention delegates will be allocated.  In short, the pace is about to pick up quickly.  South Carolina is also the last state in which Michael Bloomberg will not be on the ballot.

Additionally, as things stand now, assuming that nobody drops out as a result of Nevada, Vice-President Biden and Tom Steyer have both invested heavily in South Carolina as the state where they make their stand.  Additionally, while Nevada was the first state in which both African-Americans and Latinos each have more than 10% of the likely primary votes, South Carolina is the first primary that is likely to be majority-minority.  At least through New Hampshire, the newer candidates have had trouble getting much support from African-American voters in South Carolina according to the polls. If this does not change, the results in South Carolina may differ dramatically from the results in Iowa and New Hampshire.

One other complicating factor in South Carolina is the fact that the Republicans have cancelled their primary.  South Carolina is an open primary state and voters have the option to choose which party’s primary they wish to vote in.  With no Republican primary, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are free to vote in the Democratic Primary.    When we get the exit polls, we will have a good idea of whether a significant number of Republicans opted to vote in the Democratic Primary.  We may never know whether they opted to participate because they are tired of the would-be-dictator-in-chief and want to find an acceptable alternative or because they belong to the Church of Trump and want to eliminate the candidates most likely to beat Trump. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — Nevada

By tmess2 | Published February 17, 2020

Welcome to the third issue of delegate math for the 2020 delegate selection process.

Nevada is the second caucus state of this cycle.  Like in Iowa, a key part of the caucus process is the opportunity of participants to realign if their initial candidate is not viable.  Generally speaking, in almost all precincts, it will take 15% for a candidate to become viable (except in precincts which elect three or fewer delegates).   Like in Iowa, based on the results in each precinct, each precinct will elect a number of delegates to the county conventions, and it is the count of delegates won (not the raw votes) that will be used to allocate the national convention delegates.

Because of the tourist-heavy nature of the Las Vegas economy, Nevada has two types of precinct caucuses — regular precincts and special “strip caucuses.”  The strip caucuses are held at several casinos for workers who have to work during the regular caucus hours.  The precinct caucuses, on the other hand, basically cover voters living in the individual precinct.  For the precinct caucuses, part of the vote will come from ranked choice-voting by individuals voting at early vote locations.  Like in Iowa, if a presidential contender is viable after the first vote (based on the alignment of in-person voters and the first preference vote of early voters), the supporters of that candidate may not switch to a different candidate prior to the second vote.  During realignment, the supporters of non-viable candidates may switch to a viable candidate or attempt to join with the supporters of other non-viable candidates to reach viability.  As best as I can determine from the rules and guidance published by the Nevada Democratic Party, the first preference of early voters will be considered in determining if a group has become viable — both for the initial alignment and after realignment.  If, after realignment, the first preference of early voters is not viable, those voters will be considered to have realigned to their highest viable preference, but those second preference will not help a non-viable group become viable. Continue Reading...

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Iowa Delegates Final (for now)

By Matt | Published February 9, 2020

The Iowa Democratic Party has released a new set of caucus results, and it seems like they will stand, regardless of any errors that still remain. Here is the breakdown:

BidenButtigiegKlobucharSandersWarrenTotal
CD1220217
CD2020327
CD3130228
CD4121105
At-large130329
PLEO120115
Total614112841

This does not include the 8 Iowa superdelegates who can not vote on the first ballot (unless the nomination is already decided)

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Delegate Math 2020 — New Hampshire

By tmess2 | Published February 7, 2020

With Iowa’s vote earlier this week, the winnowing process has begun.  However, it is still early enough that there is a good chance that more than two candidates will reach the 15% needed to win delegates.  And that will complicate the delegate math with fractional delegates.

(Normally, the early states — starting with Iowa — perform a winnowing function.  Candidates who finish at the bottom of the pack in Iowa tend not to survive for much longer.  And candidates who do well in terms of finishing near the top of the pack tend to survive for several more rounds.  With the delay in reporting results, it is unclear if Iowa will have its usual impact this year.  But even if it does, it would not be unusual to have multiple candidates getting 10% or more of the vote in New Hampshire. Starting in 1976, five of nine primaries have had at least three candidates getting 10% of the vote, and three primaries have had three candidates getting over 15% of the vote.  Since three of the remaining six primaries occurred in races that were perceived — at least heading into Iowa — as only having two candidates who were viable, about half of the races that had more than two “viable” candidates resulted in three candidates winning delegates in New Hampshire.  In short, Iowa only starts the winnowing process.  And this year, that means that more than two candidates have a legitimate shot at winning delegates in New Hampshire.)

Now back to the basic rules that apply to all states.  A candidate needs to get 15% of the vote (either state-wide or in a district) to be eligible to win delegates. If there are enough delegates available, every eligible candidate gets a delegate even if that reduces the number of delegates that another candidate gets.  If there are more eligible candidates than delegates, delegates are awarded in the order of finish.  Generally speaking, the formula for calculating delegates is the share of qualified votes (i.e. only the votes cast for candidates who got 15%) times the number of delegate available.  Since that typically will result in a fraction (say 2.3 delegates for candidate X), you start by giving out the whole numbers and then the remaining delegates are assigned in fractional order (i.e. .7 is ahead of .6 for getting the next delegate).  Technically, the rules say round up and round down initially, but the ranking then comes into play if round up and rounding down results in the wrong number of total delegates. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — Iowa

By tmess2 | Published January 29, 2020

We’re back with that quadrennial feature — delegate math.  As we were reminded by the 2016 election, the United States uses an indirect system for electing president.  Under this system, it’s not the total popular vote that counts.  It’s how that popular vote translates into electoral votes.  Likewise, for the nomination, the task is to turn popular votes into delegates.  Back in 2008, the difference between Secretary Clinton and President Obama was the Obama’s campaign success at figuring out where they could gain an extra delegate here and there.

In a short period of time, voting will start with the Iowa caucuses.  While the number of caucuses have dwindled to almost nothing (Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming being the only real caucus states left), a caucus is different from a normal primary.  In a caucus, rather than showing up, casting a ballot, and then leaving, voters actually have to take part in a meeting in which voting takes place in the middle of the meeting.  The other key feature of a caucus is that voting is public, not secret.  The participants literally go to different parts of the meeting facility depending upon which candidate they are supporting.  Your friends and neighbors get to see who is heading to the Biden corner/room and who is heading to the Gabbard corner/room.    In addition, for the purpose of any later “recount,” participants sign a pledge of support form for their candidate.

For all the states and territories, the first key number is 15%.  Whether in the precinct caucus itself or at the congressional district level or at the state level, a candidate needs to get 15% of the vote to win delegates.  (Some smaller precincts have higher thresholds because they are only selecting two or three delegates, but 15% is still a good general rule of thumb in looking at polling numbers.)  What makes a caucus different than most primaries is that there will be a chance after the initial division of the precinct into the separate candidate areas for voters to realign. Continue Reading...

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Virtual Voting and the 2020 Nomination

By tmess2 | Published August 31, 2019

As Doc Jess noted yesterday, the Rules and By-Laws Committee (the party entity with responsibility for reviewing state party delegate selection plans) has found problems with the virtual caucus proposed by Iowa.  The concerns, however, extend beyond Iowa.  According to news reports, the RBC has also made a similar decision concerning Nevada’s delegate selection rules.

As I noted several weeks ago, there are now seven states left that do not use a state-run primary  with Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming being the last pure caucus states and Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and North Dakota using party-run primaries.  In the revised delegate selection rules, Rule 2.G suggested that the RBC would consider plans that allowed internet voting as a form of absentee voting if the proposed plan included sufficient security assurances.  In its recent decision, the RBC apparently decided that — under current conditions — such assurances are not possible.  It is, however, understandable why Iowa and Nevada put forth proposals that relied on internet voting.  Rule 2.K.8 requires that parties using a party-run process create some alternative means of voting for those who are unable to participate in person on the day established for the caucus/party-run primary.

In light of these two provisions in the national rules, it’s not just Iowa that has included the possibility of electronic voting.  The draft plans in Alaska, Iowa, and Nevada include provisions for electronic voting.  The plans in Hawaii and North Dakota  opted to use mail-in voting instead of electronic voting.  (Alaska’s plan also includes absentee voting, so they might just need to eliminate the electronic voting.)  The plan in Kansas notes absentee/advanced voting as a possibility without further details.  If I am reading their plan correctly, Wyoming permits surrogate voting (which looks to be a proxy vote permitted in limited circumstances).  (I am not sure that proxy voting is allowed by the national rules — although it looks like Wyoming has used it previously from the comments submitted on their plan.  However, Wyoming’s plan has other problems that will probably require them to redraft their plans.) Continue Reading...

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Delegates for convention spread throughout the midwest

By Matt | Published August 26, 2019

No, not really. Just in Wisconsin and nearby Illinois:

Here’s the regional breakdown: Continue Reading...

Also posted in 2020 Convention | 2 Comments

Catching Up with TMess, and a Local Note

By DocJess | Published August 13, 2019

I don’t just blog here, I read, too. And over the past few days, TMess has posted some riveting information, and I learned tons! I agree completely with his take on the House (link), and learned about the upcoming international elections (link) which he keeps up with, and the rest of us really should since we’re part of the world. Oh! Canada! Touch blue, make it true (for those of you who remember the 70’s).

But what really fascinated me was his information on the 2020 delegate selection plans. (Link.) The most compelling tidbit related to the changes in how Iowa will calculate its delegates. Far different from how it was through 2016. It will be a real game changer, although the math will be tricky. Remember, folks, that no matter what the national polls say, “All Politics Is Local” and it’s those primaries and caucuses that will lead to the delegate count.

I do, however, take issue with TMess’ numbers. He says that approximately a third of the delegates will be chosen by Super Tuesday. And that’s been true in the past BUT this year is different, as is my math. There are two ways to calculate delegates: one is off the total number of delegates, meaning both pledged delegates and Super Delegates. That number is 4,532. And if that’s how one counts, then “approximately a third” is okay math – the actual number is 35%. HOWEVER, the Super Delegates are not chosen at primaries nor caucuses. They are already delegates. So when you subtract the 764 Super Delegates, math indicated 3,768 pledged delegates, meaning that the actual amount of chosen delegates by Super Tuesday is 42%. Not that much of a difference, but it’s closer to half than a third. Granted, some of the dates might shift, but having both Texas and California as Super Tuesday states is a big deal in terms of pledged delegates allocated. Together, they hold 17% of the pledged delegates. Continue Reading...

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