Category Archives: Primary Elections

Delegate Math 2020 — The COVID 19 Break

By tmess2 | Published March 22, 2020

Barring a statutory change at the federal level, federal law requires that states choose electors for President on the First Tuesday after the First Monday in November.  While there are other provisions governing the possibility that states are unable to choose electors on that day and the states are free to change the way that they select the electors, it is unlikely that those laws will change — either at the state or federal level.  Likewise, federal law requires that elections for the House and Senate will take place on the First Tuesday after the First Monday in November.    And the Constitution and federal law makes clear when the existing terms of office expire.

There are a lot of questions about what would happen if for some reason elections are postponed in some states.  Do the governors get to appoint temporary Senators in the states for which the term has expired until the elections can be held?  Are the elections merely postponed or must the governor’s call for special elections?  However, for President, what happens is governed by the Presidential Successor Act until somebody is chosen to fill the remainder of the term.  Of course as the Presidential Successor Act would put the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate into the White House, the question is whether the House and Senate will be able to convene as normal in early January to choose the people who will be in those positions if such a vacancy occurs.  If they can’t, do the old officers continue over until the House and Senate can convene (allowing one of them to become President)?

In short, while things still need to be worked out, it is more likely than not that some way will be found to hold elections this fall.  In the states that currently rely heavily on voting-by-mail, it is almost certain that the elections will proceed as planned.  And some of the remaining states may try to transition to a vote-by-mail system.  And if there is going to be an election for President, both parties need to continue with the process for choosing a nominee.  As others have noted for this site, there are questions about how the national convention will be restructured to deal with the current crisis and how the states will alter the delegate selection process in light of the current goal to minimize person-to-person crisis.  (I know that, in my state, the delegate selection process has been postponed by almost eight weeks.) Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — March 17

By tmess2 | Published March 15, 2020

After the sprint of twenty-four contests in fifteen days, this week’s four primaries represents a slowing of the pace.  After the March 17 contests, there will be only seven contests over the next three weeks concluding with the Wisconsin primary before there is a three-week break between Wisconsin and the Mid-Atlantic primary on April 28.  (EDIT:  Now six contests, with Georgia’s primary being postponed until May.)

In the last two weeks, in the states that vote by mail, we have seen the early results showing significant number of votes for candidates that are no longer in the race.  As counting has continued, however, the later arriving ballots have swung away from the candidates who have suspended their campaigns and toward Senator Sanders and Vice-President Biden.  There will have been some early voting in the states that are voting on March 17.  As such, the initial release of numbers will probably include some votes for these candidates, but that number should decline over the evening as election day returns are added in.

With the narrowing of the field, delegate math is now a state-by-state struggle.  And this state-by-state battle is different for the Democratic primaries than it is on the Republican side.  The media likes to focus on who wins a state.  And, in the general election (and in many states on the Republican side), the winner-take-all rule makes winning a state very important.  On the Democratic side, the proportional allocation of delegates means that it matters more whether somebody wins a state by a large margin than who wins the state.  As we have seen over the past seven days, a narrow in by Vice-President Biden is currently netting him around seven delegates in a large state, but his big win in Mississippi (less than half the size of Washington) is netting him over thirty delegates. Continue Reading...

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2020 Delegate Math — Northern Marianas

By tmess2 | Published March 12, 2020

While most states hold elections on Tuesdays, Saturdays have also been a traditional election date as we have already seen this year with the Nevada Caucuses and South Carolina primary.  In past years, the first two Saturdays after the windows open have been somewhat busy.  In 2016, three states held primaries or caucuses on the first Saturday in March (with one contest being held on the first Sunday in March and one contest being held on the second Saturday in March).  While the first Saturday in March was not an available date in 2012, the Republicans had four caucuses on the second Saturday in March.  On the first available weekend in February 2008, four caucuses and one primary took place.

This year, the weekend after Super Tuesday had no contests, and only one contest is scheduled for the second weekend in March.  That contest is the Northern Marianas which will hold its convention on March 14.  The Northern Marianas is an “unincorporated territory” consisting of the islands in the Marianas Archipelego (excluding Guam).  The contest in the Northern Marianas is a territory-wide convention.  In 2016, less than 200 people attended the convention.

This is only the second time that the people in Northern Marianas will be electing delegates to the national convention.  My hunch is that, even though every delegate counts, the major candidates are unlikely to put much effort into this contest, and the vote will be based on what news media and social media coverage Democrats in that territory have seen.  In other words, name recognition and success in the earlier contests will count for a lot. Continue Reading...

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2020 Delegate Math — March 10

By tmess2 | Published March 6, 2020

There is just a little bit of room between Super Tuesday and March 10 for everyone to catch their breath.  Over the past seven days, over half of the candidates have dropped out, and we are left with three candidates (Joe Biden, Tulsi Gabbard, and Bernie Sanders.)

While we are down to three candidates, one word of warning is appropriate.  As we saw on Super Tuesday, some states have no excuse early voting or mail-in ballots.  On Super Tuesday, we saw some significant differences between the early vote count and the “election day” count.  Simply put, people who voted early may have voted for a candidate who was no longer actively running.  It is unclear if any of these candidates will ultimately win a delegate, but some of these candidates did get a significant number of votes in some states.  The extra seven days should lessen this effect, but there could be — depending on the state — a significant number of voters who voted before February 28th, and some of these voters went with one of the five candidates who are no longer running.

There are seven contests which will conclude on March 10.  (I use the term conclude because one of them — Democrats Abroad — is a party-run primary in which the polls are open for almost one week and others allow early voting.)  Besides Democrats Abroad, the other six contests are Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Washington.  While nominally styled as a caucus, North Dakota is a party-run primary.  Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, and Washington are state-run primaries.  (Washington like California relies heavily on mail-in ballots which can cause a delay in getting final results.)  Under the rules of the Democratic Party, all of these contests are binding and delegates will be allocated based on the votes cast for each candidate. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — Super Tuesday (Part 4 — California and Texas)

By tmess2 | Published March 3, 2020

Texas and California as the two largest states in the country are the big prizes on Super Tuesday.  They also have several unusual features that will impact the process.

For Texas, early voting is a significant percentage of the vote.    By definition, people who vote early are locked in regardless of developments that occur between when they vote and the election.  In Nevada, we saw a solid majority of the vote coming from people who voted before the Nevada debate.  In Texas, we could easily have a majority of the vote coming from people who voted before the South Carolina debate (or the results from South Carolina).  The other big thing that makes Texas different is how it splits the district-level delegates.  The national rules only require that states with multiple congressional districts elect delegates from the individual congressional district or some smaller district.  For over thirty years, Texas has used its state senate districts rather than congressional districts in its delegate selection process.  Texas has 31 state senate districts.  Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Texas had fewer than 31 seats in Congress.  Since 2000, Texas has had more than 31 representatives in Congress.  Even though state senate districts are now larger than congressional districts, Texas still uses state senate districts to allocate district-level delegates.

What makes California somewhat unique (some other Pacific Coast states have similar rules) is its liberal rules on voting by mail.  A mail ballot can be dropped off at a ballot drop-off location up until the time that polls close.  In addition, a mail ballot counts if it is mailed on or before election day and received within three days of the election.  Approximately two-thirds of the vote in California is by mail-in or other early vote.  Counting the mail-in vote typically takes several weeks.  Often there is a significant difference between in-person votes on election day and mail-in ballots.  Given how little it takes to change the delegate count in California, any initial estimate of the delegates won in California are just an estimate and the final results could see a change of a delegate in a congressional district or three or four state-wide delegates. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math 2020 — Super Tuesday (Part 2 — Early Prime Time States)

By tmess2 | Published March 1, 2020

On any election day, 8:00 p.m. EST/7:00 p.m. CST, is a key time when polls close in a significant number of states in the Eastern and Central time zones.  (For the general election, the polls close in seventeen states at that time, the largest single batch of states.)  On Super Tuesday, six states will close their polls at that time:  Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.  As with the states closing earlier that evening, poll closing is not an exact end to the voting.  Instead, all voters still in line at a precinct still get to vote.  Additionally, election workers have to get the ballots from the precinct to a centralized vote counting location.  So there is a lag between the polls closing and the results being reported.  However, this time is when the news media can release exit polls and make projections and counties can report the totals from early votes.

Before going much further into the details, one significant change from earlier reports.  Maine law currently allow parties to opt to use ranked-choice voting for their primaries.  Early drafts of the Maine delegate selection plan indicated that the Maine Democrats would use ranked-choice voting.  Ultimately, the party decided against using ranked-choice voting.  (Apparently, Maine’s law required a party using ranked-choice to continue the process until one candidate got a majority of the vote and did not give the option of using it to determine who met a party’s threshold for delegates).

While Tom Steyer has ended his campaign, we still have five candidates in the race who have won delegates in at least one state.  We also have Michael Bloomberg who has put a lot of money into these states.  So far, we have not had any district (or state-wide) result in which more than four candidates reached 15%, but every one of these six candidates has at least one state or district in which they expect to be viable.  How many are viable in each district will impact the math for the distribution.  (And with early voting/absentee ballots and his ad spending, Tom Steyer could still get a significant number of votes in some locations even if he is not viable.) Continue Reading...

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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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Contested Convention? — February 2020 Edition

By tmess2 | Published February 20, 2020

The eleven days between New Hampshire and Nevada is the third longest “break” of the primary process.  So with a little time to spare before the pace picks up (and March is the busiest month in the primary cycle), time to turn to one of the perennial topics of discussion in the primary process.  (Whether there is a second edition this year will depend on how things look at the next major break — the three weeks between Wisconsin and the Mid-Atlantic states.   Every four years, there is speculation about the possibility that the race will not be decided until the convention.  And every four years, by mid-April, it’s pretty clear that the race is over.  So why has this speculation been wrong in the past and why might it be true this year (or why will the speculation go bust again this year).

Before getting to the issue of a contested convention, there is a question of terminology.  Many people talk about the possibility of a “brokered” convention.  Prior to 1968, state party leaders had solid control over the delegate selection process.  Most states used a caucus system with little if any role for presidential preference in the election of delegates.  The delegates elected tended to be loyal to state party leaders not to any particular presidential candidate.  And even if an individual delegate might want to go rogue, there were tools like the unit rule mandating that a state vote as a block (i.e. as the majority of the delegation decided) to prevent it.   So, even if the convention only went one ballot, most conventions for 130 years were brokered conventions in the sense that the party leaders talked with each other and reached an agreement as to who should be the nominee (sometimes on the first ballot and sometimes after many, many ballots).

Since 1968, the two parties have enacted mechanisms in which presidential preference in the primary/caucus controls the vote on the first ballot.  The Republican rules give a little less power to the presidential candidate, but the typical Democratic delegate is more loyal to the candidate than to the state party leadership.  Even that loyalty is loyalty to a movement and, not necessarily, to the personal success of the candidate.  In other words, it is unclear that — in the case of a contested convention — presidential candidates could deliver their delegates. Continue Reading...

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