While waiting for the end of voting and results out of Wisconsin and Alaska, the next state up is Wyoming. Wyoming was originally supposed to be a caucus state (with the caucuses to be held on April 4 with absentee votes included). In light of COVID 19, the Wyoming Democratic Party has cancelled the in-person county caucuses/conventions and will be using a mail-in ballot (transforming the caucus into a party-run primary).
Because a substantial number of votes have already been cast (similar to the situation in Ohio), this primary will only be partially impacted by the decision of Senator Sanders to suspend his campaign. Depending on the results in Wyoming and Ohio (which was already covered in the post on the March 17 primaries), we may or may not have further posts about the May and June states. (if Biden wins Wisconsin, Alaska, Wyoming, and Ohio comfortably, I will probably not be doing any further delegate math posts as the exact count from the remaining states will not have much significance.)
As with Alaska, Wyoming will be using ranked-choice voting. Thus, the final count will only include viable candidates meaning that there is no difference between total votes and qualified votes. The ballots must be received by April 17. The Wyoming delegate selection plan is ambiguous as to whether ranked choice voting is done on the county level (with state convention delegates being used to allocate the national delegates) or on the state level (with the popular vote being used to allocate the national convention delegates). And the Wyoming Democratic Party has not announced a time when they will release the results from the mail-in ballots.
Unlike Alaska, Wyoming is only using two pools — at-large and party leader — having apparently gotten approval from the DNC’s Rules and By-laws Committee for this option. (An earlier plan provided for one pool with a requirement that a set number of delegates be party leaders, but even the revised plan is a deviation from the typical requirement for district-level and at-large delegates.) The party leader pools is two delegates and the at-large pool is twelve delegates.
For the party leader pool, the math is simple (as it was for the same-size pool in Alaska). Each candidate is likely to receive one delegate. Of course, if only one candidate is viable, that candidate would get both delegates.
For the twelve at-large delegates, any viable candidate will get at least two delegates. It will take 20.84% for a candidate to win a third delegate. A candidate will gain a fourth delegate if he reaches 29.17% of the vote. A candidate will be assured of a fifth delegate if he reaches 37.501% of the vote. To get to six delegates, a candidate needs 45.84%. The seventh delegate comes at 54.17%. To get to eight delegates, a candidate must get at least 62.501% of the vote. To get nine delegates, a candidate must receive 70.84%. Finally, to get ten delegates, a candidate needs 79.17%.
Before Senator Sanders opted to suspend his campaign, I thought the question would be whether either candidate could do better than an 8-6 split. Now the question is whether Senator Sanders will keep most of his support and continue to win a significant number of delegates or will Vice-President Biden top 75%. The answer to this question may have some impact on the platform or on the pick for Vice-President.
