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.)

The more immediate issue, however, is the initial step of the process in the states.  The past two weeks have seen states in which there are government-run primaries making the decision to postpone their primaries.  Ohio — which was scheduled for this past Tuesday — cancelled its primary on the day before the primary.  At the present time, Georgia (which was scheduled for this upcoming Tuesday) and Louisiana (which was scheduled for April 4) — as well as some states later on the calendar — have postponed their primaries and a bill to reschedule the Puerto Rico primary (currently set for March 29) is on the governor’s desk and is expected to be signed.

These postponements have created an unexpected break in the nomination process.  Assuming that the Puerto Rico primary is postponed, the next three primaries are party-run primaries in Alaska, Hawaii, and Wyoming (replacing a party-run caucus) on April 4.  And the parties seem to be taking steps to reduce in-person voting with vote-by-mail.  Things could change, but these three primaries seem likely to proceed as vote-by-mail elections.  Wisconsin on April 7 is a government-run primary.  We have not heard anything yet about whether it will be postponed.  Puerto Rico is tentatively scheduled (assuming that the Governor signs the bill rescheduling the primary) for April 26 followed by what’s left of the Mid-Atlantic primary on April 28.  Some of the April 28 states have already decided to postpone their primaries, but the two biggest states on April 28 — New York and Pennsylvania — are still in a wait and see mode.

A lot has happened since the last “break” in the voting.  At that time, Senator Bernie Sanders was in the lead.  Support for the other candidates appeared to be fractured.  As a result, the question for delegate math at that point was whether we would see more states like Nevada — in which the “pack” failed to get to 15% allowing the lead candidate to win a solid majority with 40% of the vote — or like Iowa and New Hampshire — in which three or more candidates won a significant number of delegates and the leader only got a plurality of the delegates.  However, starting with South Carolina, Vice President has won nineteen contests, and Senator Sanders has won six (with results from Democrats Abroad due on Monday).  More significantly, Vice President Biden has had some big wins in several contests (netting over 20 delegates in nine states while Senator Sanders had only netted more than 20 delegates in California).  And all of the remaining candidates have dropped out leaving a two-candidate race in the remaining states.

While there are a lot of different estimates, almost all of the votes have been counted in all of the states but California,  Even in California (based on the current count of outstanding ballots), there is less than 5% of the vote remaining to be counted.  Using the Green Papers current estimate, Vice President Biden has over 1,200 delegates out of 2250 allocated so far.  That gives him a lead of about 300 delegates and only 750 short of the nomination.  So what does that mean for the remaining delegate math?

One way to look at the race is to look back at 2016.  Based on results so far, it appears that some of the vote for Senator Sanders in 2016 was a vote against Secretary Clinton rather than a vote for Senator Sanders.  Senator Sanders has, been unable to better his results from 2016 in the states that have so far voted.  In most of the states, Senator Sanders has significantly underperformed his results from 2016.  (Of course, some of that was the presence of other candidates.).  So, looking at the remaining states, how did Senator Sanders perform in 2016 and what does that mean for his path forward.

Of the remaining contests (and I am including Democrats Abroad as they have not yet announced their results), Senator Sanders had a net gain of delegates in eleven contests (Democrats Abroad, Alaska, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Oregon, Indiana, and Montana).  However, he had a net loss of delegates in fourteen contests (Puerto Rico, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Connecticut, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Virgin Islands, Louisiana, and Kentucky).  Two contests were effectively tied with both candidates receiving equal numbers of delegates (Wyoming and South Dakota).  Just looking at the states in which Senator Sanders gained more delegates than Secretary Clinton, he only gained seventy-five more delegates than Secretary Clinton.  On the other hand, on the states in which he gained fewer delegates than Secretary Clinton, he had over 200 delegates less than Secretary Clinton.

In short, at this point, while it is mathematically possible for Senator Sanders to get the nomination, he is facing an uphill battle.  And given that some of his “good” states were caucus states in 2016, the results in Washington this year are a sobering reminder of what could happen in a more open process.   Senator Sanders needs to do dramatically better for the remainder of this primary season than he did in 2016 which he has not been able to do so far.  And, as prior editions of delegate math have discussed, proportionality means that Sanders not only needs to win states, he needs to win them by decisive margins to make any significant gains in delegates.  He also needs to avoid decisive losses.  Of the remaining states that he lost in 2016, he lost six of them by more than 20 delegates.  His best win from the remaining states was a gain of 13 in Kansas.  To win the majority of the pledged delegates, Senator Sanders will need to have a net gain of approximately 16 delegates per contest in the remaining contests.   While Senator Sanders came close to that number in Colorado, he only bettered that number in California.  And his gains in California were largely due to the large number of delegates available in California.  On a per delegate basis, the net in California would not be enough to close the current gap on Vice President Biden.

Things can change.  And the disaster that has been the federal government’s response to this health crisis may lead people to rethink what we need from the next administration to fix the mess that this administration has made of the public health system.  But the delegate math as it stands today makes it highly likely that Joe Biden will be the democratic nominee.