Category Archives: Delegates

Meet the #DNCC Delegates: Rachel Gonzalez

By DocJess | Published July 13, 2016

Rachel GonzalezRachel Gonzalez is a 17 year old high school student from Independence, MO, the home of Harry Truman. Rachel is an elected delegate for Hillary Clinton. She lives with her parents and two dogs. She has older siblings who live with their spouses and children.

DocJess: I was told that you are the youngest delegate attending the convention.

Rachel Gonzalez: I know that I’m Hillary Clinton’s youngest delegate, but I don’t know if there are any younger delegates. You need to turn 18 by Election Day to be a delegate, and my birthday is in October, so I don’t know that there will be anyone younger. Continue Reading...

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Meet the #DNCC Delegates: Anna Payne

By DocJess | Published July 12, 2016

Anna PayneAnna Payne is an elected delegate for Bernie Sanders from the 8th CD. She works for a credit union. Anna lives in Middletown Township, Bucks County with her mom and stepdad, a dog and a cat.

DocJess: When did you decide you wanted to be a delegate?

Anna Payne: Back in 2012, I watched the DNC in Charlotte, and thought it was very interesting and cool, and I was curious about the people on the floor and the roles they played. I thought that to get there, you’d have to know someone. I was in college majoring in Political Science, and one of my courses had a class about delegates, what they do and what the different processes were in various states to become a delegate. I learned that most of the delegates are pledged to a candidate. I started doing research on how the process works here in Pennsylvania. It’s a long process, but I knew I was up to the challenge! Continue Reading...

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Meet the #DNC Delegates: Chuck Pennacchio

By DocJess | Published July 7, 2016

CHUCK PENNACCHIOIn the interest of full disclosure, Chuck and I have worked on a number of issues together over the past decade, and met through Healthcare4AllPA.

Chuck Pennacchio is an elected delegate for Bernie Sanders from the 8th CD, having received the most votes in the April 26 primary. He is a lifelong political activist, educator, and filmmaker. He lives in Plumsteadville, Bucks County, with his wife and two children.

DocJess: When did you decide to support Bernie? Continue Reading...

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Meet the #DNC Delegates: Stephanie Markstein

By DocJess | Published July 6, 2016

Stephanie MarksteinIn the interest of full disclosure, Stephanie and I have worked on a number of campaigns together over the past decade.

Stephanie Markstein is an At-Large Delegate representing Bernie Sanders. She is chairwoman of the West Chester Democratic Committee, an elected position. Stephanie is also a singer-songwriter and a yoga teacher/personal trainer.

DocJess: So, Stephanie, is this your first time as a delegate? Continue Reading...

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Meet the #DNC Delegates: Sabrina Fedrigo

By DocJess | Published July 5, 2016

sabrinaIn the interest of full disclosure, I have known Sabrina since she was a child.

Sabrina Fedrigo is a Bernie Sanders delegate from CD 6. She is a college student and part-time nanny. She lives in Collegeville with her boyfriend, their 2 dogs, 3 cats and a chinchilla.

DocJess: When did you first decide to support Bernie Sanders? Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math — Week of June 13

By tmess2 | Published June 11, 2016

The end is finally here.

On the Republican side, the voting is over and the only delegate selection still to come is the South Dakota state convention starting on June 24.  Depending upon which count you use, Trump has slightly over 1,440 delegates who are bound to him by current Republican Party rules (and another 80 who are officially uncommitted who have pledged to support him).  Of course, every time Trump opens his mouth, some senior figure in the party begins longingly considering the power of the Rules Committee and the Convention to change those rules.  Whether Trump has enough loyal delegates to survive himself is unclear (and it is unlikely that the Republicans would take this extreme step), but Trump is the exact type of candidate who would justify throwing the rules out the window to save the party.

The Democratic side still has a little more work to do.  With the caveat that the count in California is not yet final, Secretary Clinton currently has around 2,180 pledged delegates to 1,797 delegates for Senator Sanders — a clear majority of pledged delegates (even if Sanders wins every delegate still theoretically up for grabs, he would still be approximately 300 delegates behind Secretary Clinton). Continue Reading...

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AP declares Clinton presumptive nominee

By Matt | Published June 6, 2016

We expected this Tuesday evening, but it’s finally here, tonight:

Hillary Clinton has earned enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic nominee, making her the first woman ever to win a major party nomination, the Associated Press reported on Monday night.

A combination of pledged and superdelegates put Clinton over the mark in her contest against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to the AP count. The news agency spent the day surveying superdelegates and updated its figures with those who said they were “unequivocally” for Clinton, according to AP Political Editor David Scott.

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Delegate Math Week of June 6 — Part 2 (California)

By tmess2 | Published June 5, 2016

As discussed in part 1, the math in both parties has been relentless.  After last night’s results in the U. S. Virgin Islands, the Greenpapers has Clinton only 85 votes short of clinching the nomination in its “soft” count.  Barring a large number of superdelegates endorsing Clinton over the next forty-eight hours, today’s primary in Puerto Rico does not have enough delegates at stake (60 total) to put Clinton over the top, but the states discussed in Part 1 (New Jersey, South Dakota, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Montana) have more than enough delegates to put Clinton over the top.  Sanders is urging the media to remember that superdelegates can change their minds and depart from past practice by not declaring Clinton the nominee unless she wins enough pledged delegates to put her over the top (almost impossible).

With so few contests left, it is all but certain that Clinton will win the pledged delegate count.   Even the attempt to win additional delegates in the later stages of caucus states is not going well.  While the Washington Democratic Party has only posted the names of the delegates elected by the Congressional Districts (not the candidates that they are supporting), they have announced the allocation for the state-wide delegates (which is based on the breakdown of the Congressional District delegates).  Based on that allocation, Clinton won between 17 and 19 delegates at the Congressional District level (post-precinct caucus estimates had her winning 18).    In the other states that have already held first-tier caucuses, there are only 48 delegates still at stake (with Sanders having a 28-20 advantage).    (6-2 in Idaho, 7-8 in Iowa, and 15-10 in Nebraska).  Gaining more than five delegates from these states is unlikely, and adding it to the potential gain of 1 in Washington, Clinton would still have a 261 delegate lead heading into Puerto Rico.  Since for reasons discussed previously, Sanders is probably going to have a net loss of delegates between Puerto Rico and the other states on Tuesday, Sander’s outside hope of significantly closing that gap come down to California.

Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math Week of June 6 (Part 1)

By tmess2 | Published June 1, 2016

The week of June 6 marks the end of the Republican primary season and is the next to last week of primaries for the Democrats.  Given the sheer size of California, I will leave that state for its own post.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump is likely to go over 1,237 bound delegates this week.  (He is currently ninety-eight bound delegates short of that number.  Depending upon the site doing the count, he either currently has enough verbal commitments from unbound delegates or is just short of enough to reach that 1,237 number.  There was a time in early April when there appeared to be  a chance to keep Trump short of that number, but his opponents were never able to unite in a coherent strategy (and John Kasich never had enough funding) to target districts and states were Cruz or Kasich could win delegates.

Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math — Week of May 30th

By tmess2 | Published May 26, 2016

The primary campaign enters the home stretch.  Depending upon which count you use, Donald Trump either has or is about to clinch the Republican nomination.  (The counts differ in their estimate of how many of the officially “uncommitted” delegates have pledged to support Trump.  Trump is 139 short by the “bound” delegate count.)  Because there are no Republican contests this week, the only thing that can change between now and the next (and final) Republican contests on June 7 will be additional pledges from uncommitted delegates.

This week the action is all on the Democratic side in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.  Between now and the Virgin Island’s contest, there will be some minor adjustments as results are certified from the April states and as superdelegates announce their support for one of the candidates.  However, barring a large number of superdelegates endorsing Clinton, the delegates up for stake this week should not be enough to clinch the nomination.  At the present time, Clinton is approximately 100 delegates short of clinching the nomination.

The Virgin Islands contest on June 4 is a little bit unusual.  At the territorial mass meeting, attendees from St. Croix will select three delegates.  Attendees from the other islands will select four delegates.  Assuming that both candidates meet the fifteen percent threshold, St. Croix will almost certainly split 2-1.  The other four delegates will either split 3-1 or 2-2.   As a result, the most likely outcomes are either a 5-2 or a 4-3 split (most likely in favor of Clinton).  At this stage of the race, the results in the Virgin Islands will not make much of a difference in the delegate count.  At most the Virgin Islands will play into any “momentum” argument that the Sanders campaign wants to make to the superdelegates.  (That argument is the same reason why Sanders is considering a recount in Kentucky even though such a recount would probably only change one delegate at most.) Continue Reading...

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