Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton

Delegate Math — Week of March 7

As votes are being counted this evening (with each party having one contest scheduled for Sunday), time to look at the week ahead.  As with the previous week, all of the contests in both parties use proportional allocation of delegates (except the Republicans in Wyoming).  However, for the Republicans, each state gets to pick their own threshold (including potentially setting a threshold for winner-take-all) and decide whether to allocate all of the delegates based on the statewide result or allocate some delegates by congressional district.  For the Democrats, the key issue is how many delegates in each pool of delegate (district-by-district, at-large, and pledged party leader).  This upcoming week, there will be fewer contests — 4 for the Democrats and five and a half for the Republicans.

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Iowa Round Two

The Iowa Caucuses were over a month ago and the media attention has now moved to other states and other contests.  However, the caucuses themselves were only the first step in a four-step process.   Next Saturday is the second step — the county conventions.  While waiting for result from the state’s that start today, let’s take a minute to look at what is at the county conventions next week.

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Super Tuesday Aftermath

As always, Super Tuesday — the first Tuesday after the end of the pre-primary window — has done a lot to at least outline the shape of the race for the White House.  Because at this point, the race becomes all about the delegates (and not about exceeding expectations), there are clear tasks for the candidates over the next two weeks.

On the Democratic side, through 16 contests, Hillary Clinton has exceeded her 2008 performance in 11 states.  More significantly, in several states — Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia from last night and South Carolina from Saturday, Secretary Clinton has far exceeded her 2008 performance turning losses into big wins.  In each of these five states, the swing in favor of Secretary Clinton was in excess of 30 delegates.  In the five states that swung away from Secretary Clinton to Bernie Sanders, the biggest swing was 16 votes (in Massachusetts which was much closer this time than in 2008).    The overall net change from 2008 so far is a swing of approximately 300 delegates.  Considering that Secretary Clinton only lost by 104 delegates in 2008, Senator Sanders needs to find some state to alter these numbers soon.

Over the next two weeks, three states are key to whether Senator Sanders can make it a competitive race or whether he will become a gadfly who stays in the race long after its over.  These three states are Michigan (March 8), Illinois (March 15), and Florida (March 15).  Michigan and Florida are key because of their size and because of the weird role that they played in 2008 that led to Secretary Clinton winning those states by large margins (18 and 26 delegates respectively).  If Senator Sanders is to win the race, needs to gain significant delegates in the large states that went to Secretary Clinton in 2008.  If he can’t put a dent in Secretary Clinton’s numbers in these two states, it is hard to figure out where he makes progress.  Additionally, at some point, Senator Sanders has to win some of the large states.  So far, the largest state that Senator Sanders has won in Minnesota with Secretary Clinton winning the four largest states. Continue Reading...

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Democrat Delegate Math-Week of February 29

Now that South Carolina is over, we can turn our attention to Super Tuesday and its immediate aftermath.  When compared to the Republican Party, the Democratic math is both simpler and more complex.  The simpler side is that the thresholds for qualifying for delegates is the same in every state and district — 15%.  Similarly, the only way for the winner to take all of the delegates is to keep the opponent beneath 15%.  There are two complexities on the Democratic side.  First, even in the same state, the number of delegates elected from each district is different.  Second, rather than pooling all state-wide delegates together, the Democrats have two pools (except in the territories) — 1) pledged party leaders and 2) at-large delegates.

There will be eleven states and one territory voting on Tuesday, followed by three states on Saturday, and one state on Sunday.  Democrats Abroad begin voting on Tuesday, but do not finish up until next week.  The easy way to gain delegates on an opponent is simply to win districts in which there are an odd-number of delegates.  A one-vote margin in those districts gives you that extra delegate (whether a 2-1, 3-3, 4-3, or 5-4 or larger split).  Beyond that original margin, getting an even larger split or avoiding an even split in delegates in the districts with even margins requires a somewhat large margin (with how large depending on the number of delegates at issue.  It can be done, as shown by the last three states, but it is not easy.  This part of the delegate math is what makes it difficult for candidates who fall behind early to catch-up later.   Now onto the state-by-state splits:

Continue Reading...

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Tentative Delegate Counts

Reporters like a good story.  In theory, they like a good story based on facts.  When an event happens, they like to be able to say what it means.  The rules of the nomination process, however, are inconsistent with the way  that reporters normally operate.  Particularly in caucus states, the event that reporters want to treat as the election is merely the first step in the process.  So the reporters make estimates and report those estimates as if they are fact.  In some cases, these estimates are good.  In others, the problem is readily apparent up front.

The problem used to be worse.  In previous cycles, while Republican caucuses reported a presidential preference poll, that preference poll was just a beauty contest and what really mattered was the unstated preferences of the individuals elected as delegates to the next round of the process.  So when the media treated those preference polls as an estimate of the delegates from the state that estimate had nothing to do with reality.  The Republicans have changed the rules for this cycle.  If a state has a preference poll, that poll binds the delegates (with three major exceptions — Pennsylvania, Illinois, and West Virginia — which elect, at least, congressional district delegates directly).   For the three states that directly elect delegates, the reporters are likely to get the story right and look at the pledges of the delegate candidates in Illinois and West Virginia.  They might screw up Pennsylvania in which none of the delegates are technically bound to any candidate (but might do the legwork to find out who the delegates actually support).   (On the Democrat side, the delegates are bound based on the presidential preference vote.)

Some states, however, are not having a preference poll which will make things harder for reporters.  In Colorado (March 1), Wyoming (March 1), Guam (March 12), American Samoa (March 22), North Dakota (April 1), there are no preference polls.   In Colorado and Wyoming, if a delegate candidate declares a preference, that delegate is bound by that preference if elected.   In American Samoa, the convention will choose whether to bind the delegation by resolution.  In North Dakota, the convention can decide on an apportionment formula. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math — Week of February 22

This week, the pace of the primary campaign begins to pick up.  The Republican caucuses in Nevada will take place on Tuesday, giving voters very little time to digest the impact of yesterday’s results in South Carolina.  (Does Marco Rubio narrowly taking second place over Ted Cruz give Senator Rubio much of a bump or cause much Damage to Senator Cruz?  Where do the Jeb Bush supporters go?)  Democrats in South Carolina — voting on Saturday — have a little bit more time to consider the not-yet-final results from Nevada.

By taking all 50 delegates in South Carolina, Donald Trump — for now — has won over 50% of the delegates at stake in the first three contests.  However, Nevada returns the Republicans to the same system used in Iowa and New Hampshire — proportional allocation by state-wide vote.  The win in South Carolina assures that entering Super Tuesday, Trump will be in the lead and will exit Nevada with more than half of the delegates at stake in February.  (Currently, Trump is at 67 delegates out of 103 delegates in the first three states.  Nevada has 30 delegates.  Thus even if Trump got 0 delegates, he would still have 67 delegates out of 133, enough for a slight majority).

The rules of the Nevada Republican Party provide that, for the most part, fractional delegates are awarded based on the highest remainders.  With 30 delegates at stake, a whole delegate equals 3.3333__% of the vote.  However, to get any delegates, a candidate must get at least one whole delegate (3.33333__% of the vote).  Based on the current Real Clear Politics average (which should be taken with a grain of salt, given the difficulty of modeling the Nevada caucus vote and the question of where Jeb Bush’s vote and the undecided vote will go).  Donald Trump would get 13.40 delegates (which would translate to 14 delegates); Ted Cruz would get 6.38 delegates (which would translate to 6 delegates); Marco Rubio would get 6.06 delegates (which would translate to 6 delegates); John Kasich would get 2.23 delegates (which would translate to 2 delegates).  and Ben Carson would get 1.91 delegates (which would translate to 2 delegates). Continue Reading...

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2008 vs. 2016 — The Delegate Numbers

Unlike in some other countries, the United States does not directly elect its head of state.  Instead, both for the primary and the general election, the U.S. has an indirect system in which the voter technically elects other people (delegates in the primary and electors for the general election) who actually cast the votes.  For the most part, for both parties, the overwhelming majority of delegates are either legally or morally bound to follow the directives of the voters in their respective state or district and the system for choosing electors has mostly resulted in electors following the directives of the voter.  Thus, at the end of the day, in figuring out who is leading or who has won a nomination battle, we look to the pledged delegate counts.  For the general election, we look to the number of electors won.

For multiple reasons, nomination fights rarely go to the end of the process.  Candidates who are hopelessly behind drop out leaving the path clear for the leading candidate to win the nomination.  In 2008,  however, the Democratic race was so close that it went down to the last primary.  Especially as one of the two finalists is running again, that allows us to use the 2008 numbers as a base going forward to measure who is doing what they have to do to win the election.

There are, of course, differences from 2008.  First, is that, in 2008, John Edwards did well enough in the first six states to get delegates in four of those states.   Additionally, due to Michigan going early, Barack Obama and John Edwards were not on the ballot in Michigan and their supporters had to vote for a slate pledges as uncommitted.  So there were 55 “pledged” uncommitted delegates from Michigan and a total of 32 Edwards delegates from Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida.  For comparison purposes, that leaves two measures for these five states and nationally — President Obama vs. Hillary Clinton (a national net of +17 for President Obama), and the “field” vs. Secretary Clinton (a national gap of 104 delegates).  In this year’s race, Martin O’Malley did not pick up any delegates; so it will just be Bernie Sanders vs. Secretary Clinton.  Given that both candidates need to win the uncommitted/Edwards delegates, my own opinion is that the “field” comparison is more useful. Continue Reading...

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Post-New Hampshire: Where Do They Go from Here

In the typical presidential campaign cycle, the calendar year before the primaries is spent doing two things — raising money and campaigning in the early states (almost entirely in Iowa and New Hampshire).  The reasons for this focus are simple.  There is not enough time after Iowa and New Hampshire for a campaign to raise the type of funds needed to “go national.”  Additionally, several major states come early in March; so the campaign has to start working in these states even before the first votes are counted.  Both parties have a history of candidates with surprisingly good results in Iowa and New Hampshire who did not have the resources on hand to turn those early results into a successful national campaign.  On the other hand, as several candidates in this year’s campaign have already shown, failure in Iowa and New Hampshire mean the end of the campaign.  For the eight candidates still running, the question after New Hampshire is simply what’s next.

On the Democratic side, with only two candidates, this question is simple.  As 2008 showed, in a two-candidate race (especially with proportional representation), candidates need to run everywhere.   The last South Carolina polls were in January, before either the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary, and the newest Nevada polls are even older.   The demographics in South Carolina and Nevada are significantly different than the demographics in Iowa and New Hampshire.   In the long run, whether this race will be close will depend upon if Sanders can convince minority voters and poor whites in rural areas to support him.  While — in European terms — Sanders is a “pink” at most, his characterization of himself as a “Democratic Socialist” might become an insurmountable barrier to gaining these votes in areas in which he is less known as socialist is a “dirty word” to a lot of voters who do not understand the significant distinctions between various progressive political philosophies.  While there are some potentially favorable states on March 1 (Vermont, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and maybe Colorado), Sanders needs to keep things close in Nevada, South Carolina, and the remaining March 1 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia).

The Republican side gives candidates more choices on how to play.  The New Hampshire results have scrambled the field.  If Marco Rubio had been able to follow-up on Iowa with a strong finish in New Hampshire, he would have become the favorite to win the nomination.  His weak showing has given both Jeb Bush and John Kasich a degree of hope to become the consensus candidate.  At this point, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz need to run everywhere.  In the pre-March 15 states, while each state has slightly different rules, a general rule of thumb is that 20% state-wide and top two in each congressional district equals delegates.  While Kasich, Bush, and Rubio continue to split the moderately conservative vote, the path is clear for Trump and Cruz to pad their delegate totals — making it harder for the candidate who survives between the other three to get the nomination. Continue Reading...

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New Hampshire Math

For a couple more weeks, the primaries are still in the one or two states per week mode.  With one or two states, it is possible to do a detailed discussion of the rules for delegate allocation and to clarify the “math” of winning delegates.  Once March 1 hits, with double digit contests on both sides, the battle for delegates will become a multi-front war in which even the campaigns will be trying to figure out where the battlegrounds are.

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Iowa Post-mortem: The Good, the Bad, and the Gone

While the parties did not have much choice about including Iowa and New Hampshire in the window of early states, the theory behind the early states is that all four are small enough and different enough to help narrow the field.   While winning is nice, the real goals of the campaigns are:  1) to seem viable enough that supporters (both voters and donors) don’t go looking elsewhere; and 2) to meet targets for delegates.  Candidates who are unable to show signs of life quickly find that their campaigns have no life.

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