Category Archives: Delegates

Tentative Delegate Counts

By tmess2 | Published February 23, 2016

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

By tmess2 | Published February 21, 2016

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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Democratic Delegate Count

By Matt | Published February 20, 2016
Pledged DelegatesSuperdelegatesTotal
ClintonSandersClintonSandersClintonSanders
Iowa232162921
New Hampshire915611516
Nevada2015712716
South Carolina391454414
Georgia7329118429
Vermont1646422
Virginia6233127433
Alabama4496509
Arkansas221052710
American Samoa424183
Massachusetts46452016646
Oklahoma1721111822
Tennessee442375123
Texas147752116875
Colorado254193441
Minnesota31461134249
Kansas102311123
Louisiana371464314
Nebraska1015311316
Maine817411218
Mississippi31532347
Michigan6367127567
Northern Marianas42592
Florida1417324216575
Illinois797724110378
Missouri3635114735
North Carolina6047826849
Ohio81621619763
Democrats Abroad4921610
Arizona4233524735
Idaho51812620
Utah62722829
Alaska31311414
Washington2774103774
Hawaii817431220
Wisconsin3848814649
Wyoming774117
New York13910838177108
Connecticut2827154327
Delaware12911239
Maryland60351717736
Pennsylvania106832112783
Rhode Island111392013
Indiana394474644
Guam43593
West Virginia1118621720
Kentucky282723027
Oregon2536733239
Virgin Islands613091
Puerto Rico362464224
California26920664333206
Montana101111012
North Dakota51311614
New Jersey79471229149
New Mexico181682616
South Dakota101021210
District of Columbia164242406
Total221818335474827651881

2383 to Win. Updated 6/16

GOP numbers can be found here.

 

Also posted in Bernie Sanders, Delegate Count, Hillary Clinton, Superdelegates | 12 Comments

Delegate Math — Week of February 15

By tmess2 | Published February 15, 2016

This week is a weird week in the presidential primary process.  For almost all primary states, both parties hold their primaries on the same date because the date is set by the state legislature.  Even in caucus states, there is a tendency that both parties will choose the same date.  In South Carolina, however, the parties choose the primary date for their party.  So this week, the Republicans have their primary in South Carolina, and the Democrats have their caucus in Nevada.  Next week, the two parties will flip with the Republicans going in Nevada, and the Democrats going in South Carolina.

On the Republican side, the four states in the pre-March 1 window are exempt from the proportionality rule.  South Carolina has chosen to go with a winner-take-most system.  The candidate who finishes first in each of the seven congressional district will win the three delegates for that district.  The candidate who finishes first state-wide gets the twenty-six at-large delegates and the three automatic delegates.   At least according to the polls, Trump seems to be safely in the lead for the twenty-nine state-wide candidates.  If one of the establishment candidates has a chance at winning one of the congressional districts, it is most likely to be the 1st district or the 6th district.  Ted Cruz’s best chance of winning a congressional district will be the 3rd, 4th, and 5th districts.

On the Democratic side, Nevada has some weird rules.  State law designates how many delegates each precinct gets to the county convention and how many delegates each county gets to the congressional and state district conventions.  The counties get one delegate to the state convention for each 150 registered democrats in the county.  The formula for the precinct is more complicated.  In counties with fewer than 400 democrats, each precinct gets 1 delegate to the county convention for each 5 registered democrats.  This ratio gradually changes so that in the largest counties (those with more than 4,000 democrats), each precinct gets 1 delegate to the county convention for each 50 registered democrats.    Because this formula simply makes the county conventions larger and does not alter representation at the conventions that actually choose delegates, it should not have an actual impact on who gets Nevada’s delegates to the national convention.  While Nevada will report raw vote totals, the key in Nevada (as in Iowa and other caucus states) is figuring out how many delegates each campaign will have at each of the county conventions and what that means for delegates at the state convention where delegates will actually be allocated. Continue Reading...

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Let’s Talk Super Delegates

By DocJess | Published February 11, 2016

Back in 2008, DCW published everything daily we could find on the Super Delegates. This year, it’s a little different since Hillary Clinton received many commitments prior to the voting beginning. It’s important to remember that “Super Delegate” is a media term, it refers to party regulars who are allowed a vote at the convention. The full list of 712 people include:

  • President and Vice President (if they are Democrats)
  • Democratic House and Senate members
  • Democratic governors
  • Former Democratic presidents and vice presidents
  • Former Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate
  • Former Democratic speakers of the House and Democratic minority leaders
  • Former chairs of the Democratic National Committee
  • Certain State Democratic leaders

The remaining 4,051 delegates are selected either through the caucus process, or directly elected via primaries. 2,382 delegate votes are required to turn a candidate into the party’s nominee. Already, over 400 delegates have committed to Hillary Clinton. It’s expected that today the Congressional Black Caucus will endorse her also. There is a split in the Progressive Caucus with most endorsing Clinton. Remember, though, as we at DCW learned in 2008, the pledges and endorsements can change over the course of the campaign.

So when you see numbers of delegates coming out of primaries and caucuses, they often include the number of Supers. For example, in New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders won 15 delegates in the voting, Hillary won 9. However, she has six committed Super Delegates, and there are two uncommitted at this writing. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Bernie Sanders, DNC, Hillary Clinton, Superdelegates | 2 Comments