Category Archives: Hillary Clinton

Judge Garland and the Election

By tmess2 | Published March 18, 2016

Following the example of every other President since George Washington, President Obama has nominated a candidate to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.  The Senate majority, in an unprecedented move, are declining to either schedule hearings (a relatively new part of the nomination process, only dating to the early part of the 20th Century) or allow the nomination to be brought up to the floor for a debate.  While there have been times that the Senate has voted down a nominee or the President has withdrawn a nominee based on objections to that individual that made it likely that the nomination would fail (or that there were not enough votes for cloture).  How this conflict plays out over the next six months depends, in part, on events outside of the control of the Senate and the White House.  In particular, it depends on whether it seems like the vacancy is becoming an election issue and the perceived likely outcome of the election (which is not the same thing as what will ultimately happen in November).

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The Ides of Tuesday, or something like that

By Matt | Published March 15, 2016

This could be a deciding day in the 2016 race:

Update 12:20: Trump wins Northern Marianas, Florida, North Carolina and Illinois. Rubio Out. Kasich wins Ohio. Clinton wins Florida, NC, Ohio and Illinois. Early estimates showing her gaining 90 net delegates on Sanders.

On the Democratic side, if Clinton dominates in FL and NC, and battles to a draw in MO, IL and OH (even if she loses all 3 states), it will be clear to all that she will be the nominee, even if Sanders continues to the last primary, which he is certainly entitled to. If she sweeps all 5 states, Sanders will be under major pressure to lay off Clinton going forward, should he choose to continue in the race. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Bernie Sanders, Delegate Count, Delegates, Primary and Caucus Results | 1 Comment

Iowa-County Conventions

By tmess2 | Published March 14, 2016

Saturday were the county conventions in Iowa.  On the Republican side,  the national convention delegates were allocated by the preference vote in the precinct delegates; so the county convention is merely about who will go to the state and congressional district conventions to choose the actual delegates (which might matter if the Republicans end up with a deadlocked convention).  On the Democratic side, the results of the precinct meetings (as reported to the media) are an estimate of what will happen at the county meeting, and the county meetings can change things.  While there appear to have been some changes at the county level, it appears that the bottom line has not changed.

Last week, I looked at the results of the precinct conventions and identified fourteen counties in which (primarily due to O’Malley and uncommitted delegates), the final delegate count was ambiguous.  Based on the results posted by the Iowa Democratic Party, in addition to these fourteen counties, there appear to have been nine other counties that gave a reminder on Saturday that delegates are technically free to change their preferences between each round of the process.  (By my original estimate, a total of eighteen projected delegates changed hands, but it is possible that my counts of the delegates to the county convention included some mathematical errors.)The most interesting of these nine counties was Mills County.

In Mills County, after the precinct meetings, Clinton had twenty-three delegates to the county convention and Bernie Sanders had twenty-two delegates.   With the county convention electing five delegates to the state convention, the projected split was three Clinton delegates to two Sanders delegates.  However, after the county convention, Clinton emerged with two delegates, Sanders with one, and Martin O’Malley and uncommitted also got one delegate each.  It would be interesting to hear news reports out of Mills County on how this happened.  Given that it takes seven delegates to be viable, it is theoretically possible that the Sanders delegates decided to split up 8-7-7 to “steal” a state convention delegate.  There is also the possibility that in some of the precincts, O’Malley or uncommitted voters “got” a county convention delegate in exchange for joining one of the other candidates when the O’Malley/uncommitted groups were too small to be viable. and reverted to their original preference (but it is hard seeing that many delegates having secret preferences). Continue Reading...

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Delegate Math — Week of March 14

By tmess2 | Published March 12, 2016

Under current Republican rules, March 15 is the first day that a state or territory (other than the first four) can hold a winner-take-all or winner-take-most primary.   Four of the five primaries scheduled for this week have some kind of winner-take component (at least for the state-wide delegates).  This week also features the home states (and perhaps the last stand) of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Governor John Kasich of Ohio.

As discussed Friday night, Illinois is an unusual state — especially on the Republican side.  In all likelihood, the results will resemble a winner-take-most primary with three delegates going to the candidate who finishes first in each of the eighteen congressional districts and fifteen delegates going to the candidate who finishes first state-wide.    However, because in the congressional districts delegates are on the ballot and are directly elected, there is a chance that some delegates might be elected even if their presidential candidate loses the district.  Such an “upset” is most likely to happen in close districts.

Missouri is a pure winner-take-most state.  However, unlike most states, the winner of the congressional districts will get five delegates from each district (rather than the normal three) and the state-wide winner will only get twelve delegates. Continue Reading...

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Saturday Delegate Results

By Matt | Published March 12, 2016

No primaries today, but we’ve got conventions and caucuses:

Update: 10: 15 pm

DC (R) Convention: 19 pledged delegates. Continue Reading...

Also posted in Bernie Sanders, Delegate Count, Delegates, Senate | 2 Comments

Who Won Last Night on the Road to #DNCPHL2016?

By DocJess | Published March 10, 2016

Before we get into my analysis – what’s you’re take?

Off the bat, I thought the biggest loser was Univision. While the young man singing the Star Spangled Banner, their production values flagged after that. The microphones didn’t seem to work well, and the juxtaposition of both English and Spanish made things difficult to understand. It seemed distracting. The interviewers kept interrupting that time was up, which brings up an overall question I have about debates: who’s voice is most important in a debate? If you’ve got two candidates on the stage legitimately engaging in discourse on a topic, do we really want the questioners to move on? I’m not talking about a free-for-all (Little Marco and Big Donald you know who you are) but a legitimate back and forth – I always thought that’s what debates were supposed to be. The moderators do get kudos for pressing for answers on tough questions, and indicating that sometimes their questions were not directly answered, but…. My other overall debate question is that in this time of technology, if moderators at ALL the debates want to enforce time limits, why don’t they just turn off the candidates’ microphones. Okay, I’m done now. onto substance. 

It was obvious that gloves were off in this session. While the candidates still showed basic respect for one another as people, they were all over one another in terms of substance. Sometimes, though, it was off base. Hillary Clinton attacked Bernie Sanders because the Koch brothers put out an ad supporting his stance on the Import-Export Bank. There is not one person who can spell “Koch” who believes that Bernie Sanders is in their pocket. She also cherry picked little pieces of major legislation to knock Sanders’ vote. Most legislation, barring naming post offices in the House, is huge. I remember pouring through the 3,000+ page ACA legislation. There are often good things and bad things in the same bill, and it’s necessary for Senators and Congressmen/women to make an overall judgement on what is best for their constituents even if they must swallow a paragraph they don’t like. It was very disingenuous of her. Continue Reading...

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The Law of Unintended Consequences

By tmess2 | Published March 9, 2016

When the Republicans re-wrote the rules for 2016, they shortened the proportionality window — from a full month to two weeks.  That led to several states with Republican legislatures and Republican governors opting for a March 15 primary date — the first day on which Republican state parties can hold a primary that does not follow the proportionality rules.  In particular, the Florida Republican Party (listening to suggestions from the Bush and Rubio campaigns) opted for a winner-take-all primary.  What looked great in 2014 and early 2015, now looks quite differently after last night’s results.

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Not so much of a yawn….

By DocJess | Published March 9, 2016

Last night, Bernie Sanders won Michigan. As the count goes (which will be updated) he actually fell further behind because Hillary Clinton won more net delegates by winning a larger percentage of the vote in Mississippi.

However, the exit polls showed that the turn in the rust belt to Sanders was due almost entirely to the opinions of the electorate on jobs and trade. And interestingly, the number of both Democrats and Republicans felt that trade hurt American jobs, by 56% and 55%, respectively.

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Just another primary day – yawn

By Matt | Published March 8, 2016

For us election junkies, this is nirvana – the 4th election day in the last 8.

We’ve got primaries in Mississippi (polls close 8 PM EST) and Michigan (8 and 9 PM EST), a GOP-only primary in Idaho (10 and 11 PM EST), and GOP caucuses in Hawaii (1 AM EST).

Will Sanders make it a race in Michigan? Will Kasich? Does Cruz surprise in Mississippi? Continue Reading...

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Clinton-Sanders: Dream Ticket?

By DocJess | Published March 8, 2016

Bernie and HillaryAnother day, another set of primaries. Today, on the Democratic side, the contests will be in Michigan and Mississippi. The Republicans will be in both those states, with caucuses in both Hawaii and Idaho. So what are we thinking about today?

I’ve been getting A LOT of questions lately about whether a Clinton-Sanders ticket would be a viable idea, and whether Hillary Clinton, as president, could just create a special Cabinet position for Bernie Sanders.

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